Making the Wait Worthwhile: Mental Accounting and the Effect of Waiting in Line on Consumption

We find that long lines increase consumption and identify mental accounting of sunk costs as the underlying mechanism, while simultaneously dismissing alternative explanations. This mechanism leads to an unexpected implication, improving consumers’ waiting experience increases satisfaction, but decreases consumption, because the wait is perceived as less of a temporal investment.



Citation:

Chris Hydock, Sezer Ulku, and Shiliang Cui (2018) ,"Making the Wait Worthwhile: Mental Accounting and the Effect of Waiting in Line on Consumption", in NA - Advances in Consumer Research Volume 46, eds. Andrew Gershoff, Robert Kozinets, and Tiffany White, Duluth, MN : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 604-605.

Authors

Chris Hydock, Georgetown University, USA
Sezer Ulku, Georgetown University, USA
Shiliang Cui, Georgetown University, USA



Volume

NA - Advances in Consumer Research Volume 46 | 2018



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