it’s too pretty to use! when and how enhanced product ...gavan/bio/gjf_articles/...testing the...

22
It’s Too Pretty to Use! When and How Enhanced Product Aesthetics Discourage Usage and Lower Consumption Enjoyment FREEMAN WU ADRIANA SAMPER ANDREA C. MORALES GAVAN J. FITZSIMONS Marketers invest a lot of resources in product aesthetics and design, but does this strat- egy always lead to favorable consumer outcomes? While prior research suggests en- hanced aesthetics should have a uniformly positive influence on pre-usage evaluations and choice, the present research examines the downstream effects of nondurable product aesthetics on consumption behavior and post-consumption affect. First, we document an inhibiting effect of aesthetics on actual consumption. We find that highly aesthetic products elicit greater perceptions of effort in their creation, and that con- sumers have an intrinsic appreciation for such effort. Because the consumption pro- cess indirectly destroys the effort invested to make the product beautiful, people re- duce consumption of such products because usage would entail destroying something they naturally appreciate. Second, we show that in cases where individuals do con- sume a beautiful product, they exhibit lower consumption enjoyment and increased negative affect. These negative post-consumption outcomes are mediated in parallel by concerns over having actually destroyed the effort that made the product beautiful as well as the decrements in beauty that become visible when aesthetic products are made less attractive through consumption. Across a series of studies, we challenge the common assumption that enhanced aesthetics always lead to positive consumer outcomes. Keywords: aesthetics, effort, product usage, consumption enjoyment, predicted vs. experienced utility, implicit self-theories F rom intricately decorated pastries to beautiful statio- nery to attractive disposable tableware, marketers in- vest a lot of resources in product aesthetics and design. These efforts are not unfounded—the design and aesthetics of products and services are often considered important predictors of marketing and sales success (Bloch 1995) and are relied upon to evaluate the myriad of product offerings in the marketplace. Echoing this sentiment, a recent review of hedonic consumption suggests companies can further enhance customer enjoyment by endorsing their products’ aesthetic qualities (Alba and Williams 2013). However, once purchased, can a product ever be too aes- thetically appealing to use? Or, if one must use a beautiful product, can aesthetics hurt the consumption experience? Despite the excitement initially elicited by the purchase of highly aesthetic products, we argue that after purchase, Freeman Wu ([email protected]) is a doctoral candidate in marketing at the W. P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287. Adriana Samper ([email protected]) is assistant professor of marketing and Andrea C. Morales ([email protected]) is the Lonnie L. Ostrom chair in busi- ness and professor of marketing at the W. P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287. Gavan J. Fitzsimons ([email protected]) is the R. David Thomas professor of marketing and psychology at Fuqua School of Business, Duke University, Durham NC 27708. This article is based on a portion of the first author’s doctoral dissertation, co-chaired by the second and third au- thors, with the fourth author serving on the committee. The authors are grateful to Jim Bettman, Yann Cornil, Joel Huber, and Nathan Martin for their helpful feed- back on previous versions of the manuscript, and to Pure Barre Scottsdale and the W. P. Carey School of Business Marketing Department Behavioral Lab for their assistance with data collection. Finally, the authors would like to thank the editor, the associate editor, and the three anonymous reviewers for their guidance and support throughout the review process. Supplementary materials can be found in the web appendix accompanying the online-only version of the article. Eileen Fischer served as editor and Valerie Folkes served as associate ed- itor for this article. Advance Access publication March 30, 2017 V C The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Journal of Consumer Research, Inc. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: [email protected] Vol. 0 2017 DOI: 10.1093/jcr/ucx057 1

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Page 1: It’s Too Pretty to Use! When and How Enhanced Product ...gavan/bio/GJF_articles/...testing the prediction that aesthetic products can elicit greater perceptions of effort. In line

Itrsquos Too Pretty to Use When and HowEnhanced Product Aesthetics DiscourageUsage and Lower Consumption Enjoyment

FREEMAN WUADRIANA SAMPERANDREA C MORALESGAVAN J FITZSIMONS

Marketers invest a lot of resources in product aesthetics and design but does this strat-egy always lead to favorable consumer outcomes While prior research suggests en-hanced aesthetics should have a uniformly positive influence on pre-usage evaluationsand choice the present research examines the downstream effects of nondurableproduct aesthetics on consumption behavior and post-consumption affect First wedocument an inhibiting effect of aesthetics on actual consumption We find that highlyaesthetic products elicit greater perceptions of effort in their creation and that con-sumers have an intrinsic appreciation for such effort Because the consumption pro-cess indirectly destroys the effort invested to make the product beautiful people re-duce consumption of such products because usage would entail destroying somethingthey naturally appreciate Second we show that in cases where individuals do con-sume a beautiful product they exhibit lower consumption enjoyment and increasednegative affect These negative post-consumption outcomes are mediated in parallelby concerns over having actually destroyed the effort that made the product beautifulas well as the decrements in beauty that become visible when aesthetic products are madeless attractive through consumption Across a series of studies we challenge the commonassumption that enhanced aesthetics always lead to positive consumer outcomes

Keywords aesthetics effort product usage consumption enjoyment predicted

vs experienced utility implicit self-theories

From intricately decorated pastries to beautiful statio-nery to attractive disposable tableware marketers in-

vest a lot of resources in product aesthetics and designThese efforts are not unfoundedmdashthe design and aestheticsof products and services are often considered importantpredictors of marketing and sales success (Bloch 1995) andare relied upon to evaluate the myriad of product offeringsin the marketplace Echoing this sentiment a recent reviewof hedonic consumption suggests companies can furtherenhance customer enjoyment by endorsing their productsrsquoaesthetic qualities (Alba and Williams 2013)

However once purchased can a product ever be too aes-thetically appealing to use Or if one must use a beautifulproduct can aesthetics hurt the consumption experienceDespite the excitement initially elicited by the purchase ofhighly aesthetic products we argue that after purchase

Freeman Wu (freemanwasuedu) is a doctoral candidate in marketing at the

W P Carey School of Business Arizona State University Tempe AZ 85287

Adriana Samper (asamperasuedu) is assistant professor of marketing and

Andrea C Morales (acmoralesasuedu) is the Lonnie L Ostrom chair in busi-

ness and professor of marketing at the W P Carey School of Business Arizona

State University Tempe AZ 85287 Gavan J Fitzsimons (gavandukeedu) is

the R David Thomas professor of marketing and psychology at Fuqua School of

Business Duke University Durham NC 27708 This article is based on a portion

of the first authorrsquos doctoral dissertation co-chaired by the second and third au-

thors with the fourth author serving on the committee The authors are grateful to

Jim Bettman Yann Cornil Joel Huber and Nathan Martin for their helpful feed-

back on previous versions of the manuscript and to Pure Barre Scottsdale and the

W P Carey School of Business Marketing Department Behavioral Lab for their

assistance with data collection Finally the authors would like to thank the editor

the associate editor and the three anonymous reviewers for their guidance and

support throughout the review process Supplementary materials can be found in

the web appendix accompanying the online-only version of the article

Eileen Fischer served as editor and Valerie Folkes served as associate ed-

itor for this article

Advance Access publication March 30 2017

VC The Author 2017 Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Journal of Consumer Research Inc

All rights reserved For permissions please e-mail journalspermissionsoupcom Vol 0 2017

DOI 101093jcrucx057

1

consumers exhibit both decreased consumption of suchproducts and reduced enjoyment if consumption does oc-cur precisely because of their beauty We propose thathigher aesthetics can carry negative consequences andidentify conditions under which a greater focus on aes-thetics reduces usage and decreases enjoyment after con-sumption In elucidating these effects we introduce aframework that examines how the aesthetic qualities of aproduct shape both (1) the likelihood of consuming thatproduct (eg eating an intricately decorated cupcake us-ing a beautiful napkin) and (2) the emotional conse-quences of such consumption or how one feels onceconsumption has taken place

Importantly we demonstrate that there are two distinctmechanisms underlying these effects First we find thatpeople link higher aesthetics to higher effort so that priorto consumption they are less likely to consume aestheticproducts due to concerns over the destruction of such ef-fort After consumption however once a beautiful producthas been inherently damaged through use consumers expe-rience more negative affect due to the decrements inbeauty that become visible when an aesthetic product ismade less attractive through consumption in addition totheir concerns over having actually destroyed effort

In identifying the inhibiting effect of product aestheticson consumption and the emotional consequences of aes-thetic product usage we contribute to the literature in sev-eral ways First while prior work shows that consumersrespond positively to both highly aesthetic and effort-ladenproducts to our knowledge we are the first to empiricallytest and link consumersrsquo associations between these twoconstructs Second although existing work suggests thatproduct aesthetics should have a uniformly positive influ-ence on pre-usage evaluations and choice (Reimann et al2010) across a variety of perishable and disposable (ienondurable) consumption contexts we demonstrate thatthe appreciation for effort that people attribute to highlyaesthetic products can have the unintended consequence ofdiscouraging consumption Third while research in im-plicit self-theories reveals that incremental and entity theo-rists carry different beliefs about the value of their owneffort (Dweck 2000) in our exploration of effort as our un-derlying mechanism we also show that these beliefs ex-tend to consumersrsquo appreciation of othersrsquo effort in thecreation of highly aesthetic products

Moreover contrary to the notion that product aestheticsshould always enhance consumer enjoyment we demon-strate that the consumption of highly aesthetic products canactually increase negative affect associated with the con-sumption experience by not only eliciting concerns thatone has destroyed effort but also by physicallycompromising the beauty of such products While priorwork has shown that aesthetic products are intrinsically re-warding and provide greater pleasure (Reber Schwarz andWinkielman 2004) ours is the first to show that the

consumption of such products can result in greater lossesof aesthetic appeal and that such beauty decrements inturn drive the relationship between aesthetic product usageand negative emotional outcomes Finally and morebroadly we add to the growing body of research that ex-plores when and why the drivers of predicted and experi-enced utility diverge (Lee and Tsai 2014 ThompsonHamilton and Rust 2005)

Notably as opposed to prior research that describes howenhanced aesthetics motivate choice and purchase (Raghubirand Greenleaf 2006 Reimann et al 2010) we investigatethe impact of aesthetics after purchase Thus our goal is notto compare pre- and post-purchase evaluations but rather tobetter understand the various nuances that shape the effectof aesthetics on consumption likelihood and the emotionalconsequences of such consumption Furthermore while ourresearch centers on the notion that highly aesthetic productselicit greater perceptions of effort we acknowledge thathigher aesthetics do not in every case lead to higher effort in-ferences For instance some products may be aestheticallypleasing precisely because of their simplistic designs suchas Scandinavian furniture Thus we are not suggesting thathigher aesthetics always imply higher effort but rather thatwhen they do they will lead to lower usage and more nega-tive consumption and post-consumption experiences

CONCEPTUAL BACKGROUND

Product Aesthetics

The pervasive role that aesthetics play in shaping con-sumer preferences is well documented (Bloch 1995 BlochBrunel and Arnold 2003 Hagtvedt and Patrick 2008Veryzer and Hutchinson 1998) Whether knowingly or notconsumers often rely on product aesthetics to inform theirpurchase decisions even in situations where design is ex-pected to have minimal influence (Raghubir and Greenleaf2006 Yang and Raghubir 2005) such as in financial(Townsend and Shu 2010) or industrial (Yamamoto andLambert 1994) product domains Further visually appeal-ing products elicit positive consumer responses at an affec-tive cognitive or even neural level (Hagtvedt and Patrick2008 Page and Herr 2002 Reimann et al 2010) Put sim-ply consumer bias toward beautiful products can overridemore rational and normative judgment and decision-making processes (for an exception see Hoegg Alba andDahl 2010)

Given the powerful influence of aesthetics marketershave also changed their strategies to capitalize on their al-lure Supermarket chains from around the world (egMarks amp Spencer Monoprix Whole Foods) have started todisplay their consumable products from eggs to tea inbeautifully designed packages (Heller 2015) Even brandsselling traditionally utilitarian products such as Dixiehave begun to promote special celebrity collections of

2 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

disposable paper plates napkins bowls and plastic cupsfeaturing highly attractive and stylish designs (2015)

In sum extant research shows that consumers gravitatetoward beautiful products at the choice and pre-consumption stages of the decision process (Raghubir andGreenleaf 2006 Reimann et al 2010) However despitethe positive role that enhanced aesthetics play in motivat-ing choice we predict that there are also negative conse-quences of acquiring such products that can emerge duringand after consumption Next we discuss the pivotal rolethat effort inferences play in our conceptualization

The Role of Effort in Inhibiting Usage

Equally ubiquitous as consumersrsquo admiration for aes-thetics is their appreciation for effort Research in social psy-chology and consumer behavior has shown that the degreeof effort expendedmdashwhether in time physical labor pain ormoneymdashis directly associated with how positively peopleevaluate the outcome of that effort (Belk 1988 Bem 1972Festinger 1957 Moreau Bonney and Herd 2011 NortonMochon and Ariely 2012) Notably this appreciation for ef-fort is not limited to effort exerted by oneself The ldquoeffortheuristicrdquo (Kruger et al 2004) describes how increases in theperceived production time and effort of a given item enhanceratings of quality and liking Furthermore consumers rewardfirms that expend extra effort in creating or displaying theirproducts even when the quality of the products is not im-proved by the effort (Morales 2005)

While aesthetics and effort have traditionally been studiedin isolation we examine these two constructs in tandem bytesting the prediction that aesthetic products can elicitgreater perceptions of effort In line with attribution theorywhich posits that people seek out causes of particular events(Kelley 1967) we propose that the aesthetic appeal of aproduct naturally leads consumers to engage in attributionalsearch to identify what made the product so beautiful Thissearch then leads to the inference that more effort was in-vested in the productrsquos creation whether the effort was ex-pended during product design physical production orduring both processes Importantly the association betweenaesthetics and effort is likely one that consumers intuit at animplicit level Specifically we believe these inferences oc-cur fairly automatically similar to the spontaneously gener-ated consumer inferences documented in prior work(Broniarczyk and Alba 1994) For instance Kirmani Leeand Yoon (2004) showed that consumers spontaneously in-fer that higher advertising expenditures imply higher prod-uct quality and similarly Raghunathan Naylor and Hoyer(2006) found that the ldquounhealthy frac14 tastyrdquo intuition operatesat an implicit level In the same vein we posit that con-sumers are not actively deliberating about the positive asso-ciations between aesthetics and effort but instead intuit thisrelationship in a relatively spontaneous manner upon expo-sure to an aesthetic product

Though the association between aesthetics and effort hasnot been systematically explored in the consumer behaviorliterature support for this relationship does exist in relatedareas of research such as organizational behaviorldquoAesthetic laborrdquo refers to the notion that the process ofmaking oneself look attractive for frontline work often re-quires effort and hard labor (Witz Warhurst and Nickson2003) suggesting a positive association between aestheticappeal and perceived effort Still to provide further supportfor this assertion we conducted a pretest to examine the re-lationship between these two constructs across a variety ofproducts These products included the higher aesthetic stim-uli utilized in our focal studies such as toilet paper cup-cakes and paper napkins (see appendix A for images) aswell as higher aesthetic items used in prior research such ascalculators and coffee makers (Townsend and Sood 2012)Participants (n frac14 138) were shown a series of seven prod-ucts and asked to indicate for each one the degree of effortthey thought it took to (1) create the design of the productand (2) produce the product (1 frac14 hardly any effort 7 frac14 a lotof effort) Next they rated the degree to which the productwas beautiful artistic pretty and aesthetically appealingwhich formed our aesthetic appeal index (1 frac14 not at all7 frac14 very much for each of the seven products a 83)Correlations between aesthetic appeal and the two types ofeffort revealed that the more aesthetically appealing a prod-uct was rated the higher the perceived degree of design (r 35 p lt 001) and production effort (r 24 p lt 005) as-cribed to the productrsquos creation a pattern that held for eachof the seven products including machine-manufactured nap-kins and toilet paper (see table 1)

These findings suggest that consumers associate aes-thetics with effort regardless of whether the effort was at-tributed to product design or physical production Of noteto ensure comparability the stimuli in all of our studiesconsist of higher and lower aesthetic products within agiven product category (eg a higher vs lower aestheticcupcake) rather than across product categories (eg a cup-cake which tends to be more aesthetic vs a bagel whichtends to be less aesthetic)

TABLE 1

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN AESTHETICS AND PERCEIVEDEFFORT

Correlation betweenaesthetic appealand design effort

Correlation betweenaesthetic appeal and

production effort

Toilet paper r frac14 46 p lt 001 r frac14 54 p lt 001Cupcake r frac14 38 p lt 001 r frac14 44 p lt 001Napkin (floral) r frac14 58 p lt 001 r frac14 48 p lt 001Napkin (solid color) r frac14 38 p lt 001 r frac14 31 p lt 001Napkin (decorative) r frac14 52 p lt 001 r frac14 48 p lt 001Calculator r frac14 35 p lt 001 r frac14 24 p lt 005Coffee maker r frac14 36 p lt 001 r frac14 33 p lt 001

WU ET AL 3

In the current research we argue that particularly fornondurable aesthetic products the effort inferences as-cribed to their creation ironically curb actual usageSpecifically because people intuit that higher aestheticssignify higher effort as we established in our pretest andrecognize that effort is a controllable and volitional behav-ior (Morales 2005 Weiner 2000) they appreciate and re-ward the extra effort expended to make the product sobeautiful Indeed consumers often rely on perceived effortto ascertain the value and quality of an ad product or ser-vice (Kirmani 1990 Kruger et al 2004 Morales 2005) Inthe case of nondurable goods the consumption of an aes-thetically appealing product involves damaging its productdesign and by extension destroying the effort originallyinvested in making the product beautiful Based on thisperspective we posit that people refrain from using prod-ucts imbued with effort as this indirectly entails destroyingsomething they reward and appreciate Thus to the extentthat enhanced aesthetics evoke higher perceptions of de-sign andor production effort we predict that people shouldbe less likely to consume a product that has higher (vslower) aesthetic appeal More formally

H1 Consumers will be less likely to useconsume a nondura-

ble product that has higher (vs lower) aesthetic appeal

H2 The drop in consumption likelihood for nondurable prod-

ucts with higher (vs lower) aesthetic appeal will be me-

diated in serial by design andor production effort infer-

ences and concerns about the destruction of such effort

Importantly based on our conceptualization we wouldnot expect the same reduced consumption for beautiful prod-ucts that do not elicit high effort inferences or for individualswho do not recognize and appreciate effort For instancewhile consumers may be less likely to eat an intricately deco-rated cupcake because they do not want to destroy the effortthat presumably went into making it so beautiful this de-crease in consumption should be attenuated if they are madeto believe the cupcake required little effort to make in thefirst place or if they do not readily appreciate effort In study4 we manipulate effort inferences directly to show how thisreduced consumption is mitigated when beautiful productsare not associated with such inferences and in study 5 wediscuss an individual difference that makes some consumerseven more (vs less) likely to appreciate effort

Understanding Post-Consumption Affect

Beyond examining the factors that drive lower usage like-lihood of beautiful products we also investigate how con-sumers feel once consumption has occurred While wecontend that people will be less likely to use highly aestheticproducts due to concerns over the destruction of effort incases where they do we believe such concerns will continueto shape the emotional consequences of consumption giventhat their actions have resulted in the actual destruction of

effort Put another way if the mere thought of having to par-ticipate in the ruining of effort is sufficient to restrain con-sumption engaging in the actual destruction of effortthrough the consumption of a highly aesthetic nondurableproduct should similarly have a negative impact on subse-quent enjoyment of the experience Critically in addition toevoking concerns about effort destruction because consump-tion inherently compromises the beauty of a highly aestheticproduct by transforming it into something less attractive wepropose that witnessing such negative perceptual changesshould also play a role in impacting enjoyment and affect

According to the work of philosopher George Santayana(18961955) aesthetics are inextricably linked with pleasureand enjoyment a notion that has received widespread empir-ical support in work on hedonic consumption (Alba andWilliams 2013) Put simply people gravitate toward aesthet-ically appealing objects because of the immediate experien-tial pleasure that beauty in itself provides a process that isautomatic and does not require intervening cognitive reason-ing (Dutton 2009 Maritain 1966 Reber et al 2004) Thisnotion is further supported by neuroimaging studies showingthat the reward system in the brain plays an important rolein the processing of aesthetic stimuli (Aharon et al 2001Kampe et al 2001) For instance Reimann and colleagues(2010) demonstrated that exposure to aesthetic package de-signs resulted in increased activation in the nucleus accum-bens and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex key areas of thebrain that are known to process pleasure and reward

In the context of nondurable goods where consumptioninherently entails damaging the productrsquos appearance weargue that consumption of highly aesthetic products willlead to larger losses of beauty relative to the consumptionof less aesthetic products where the shifts in aesthetic ap-peal through usage will be less dramatic given lower ini-tial levels of attractiveness Thus if beautiful productsindeed afford greater pleasure and reward while they are inpristine condition it follows that the larger decrements inbeauty stemming from their consumption would result in aless pleasurable experience Since consumers are more sen-sitive to changes from a reference point rather than abso-lute levels (Kahneman and Tversky 1979) we predict thatthe steeper drops in beauty experienced in response to theconsumption of a higher aesthetic product will lead tomore negative responses than smaller changes in aestheticappeal from a lower starting point with the consumption ofa less aesthetic product More specifically we contend thatbecause consuming a highly aesthetic product inherentlyturns something beautiful which is pleasurable into some-thing unattractive which is unpleasant the accompanyingreductions in beauty will lead to reduced consumption en-joyment and greater negative affect

In sum we argue that while the effort inferences madebefore consumption will continue to mediate emotionaloutcomes given that consumption involves the actual de-struction of effort we predict that a second process will

4 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

also emerge one based on the decrements in beauty thathighly aesthetic products undergo when their aestheticqualities are compromised through consumption We pro-pose that these two processes will operate in tandem toshape the affective responses associated with the consump-tion of aesthetic products Formally

H3 Consumption of a higher (vs lower) aesthetic nondura-

ble product will negatively affect emotional outcomes

(enjoyment and affect)

H4a The effect of consuming a higher (vs lower) aesthetic

nondurable product on emotional outcomes will be

mediated in serial by design andor production effort

inferences and concerns over having destroyed such

effort as a result of consumption

H4b The effect of consuming a higher (vs lower) aesthetic

nondurable product on emotional outcomes will be

mediated by changes in beauty occurring as a result of

consumption

SUMMARY AND OVERVIEW OF STUDIES

In sum our conceptual model posits that different pro-cesses underlie consumer responses to highly aesthetic prod-ucts depending on whether or not consumption has takenplace Before consumption we expect higher effort infer-ences attributed to the creation of aesthetic products to elicitstronger concerns that such effort would be destroyed byconsumption lowering consumption likelihood After con-sumption in addition to these effort destruction concernsconsumers will also be confronted with the reality that theaesthetic appeal of the product has been visibly compromisedthrough usage Because beautiful products are inherentlypleasurable and rewarding the greater losses of beauty asso-ciated with aesthetic product usage will drive negative affectand reduce consumption enjoyment Importantly given thatnondurable products are designed for immediate consump-tion we do not expect anticipated shifts in aesthetic appealalone or concerns over what the product will look like post-consumption to play a significant role in stopping consumersfrom using them in the first place These decrements inbeauty are not evident before consumption when the highlyaesthetic product is still in pristine beautiful condition butinstead are salient only post-consumption

We test our predictions in field and laboratory studiesacross multiple consumption contexts summarized intable 2 Study 1 a field experiment provides an initialdemonstration of the inhibiting effect of product aestheticson usage behavior for real consumers Study 2 conceptu-ally replicates this effect in the lab using a different prod-uct and measure of consumption and provides preliminaryevidence that consumption of an aesthetic product can neg-atively impact product enjoyment Studies 3 4 and 5 pro-vide convergent support for effort inferences as a keydriver of reduced aesthetic product usage through

mediation (study 3) moderation by an effort intervention(study 4) and the theoretically relevant individual differ-ence of implicit self-theories (study 5) Of note effort in-ferences broadly speaking encompass both the inferencesabout the amount of effort required to make a productbeautiful as well as the inferences about the destruction ofsuch effort In our final two studies we hold usage constantto focus on the downstream consequences of aestheticproduct usage and shed light on the processes underlyingpost-consumption affect Study 6A establishes that the con-sumption of a higher (vs lower) aesthetic product resultsin larger losses of beauty and that such beauty decrementsnegatively impact post-consumption emotions while study6B tests the full conceptual model by integrating changesin beauty and effort inferences into emotional reactionslinked to the consumption experience The table inappendix B summarizes the results of a pretest showingthat all of the higher (vs lower) aesthetic stimuli utilized inour studies have greater aesthetic appeal Thus aestheticsmanipulation checks are not discussed in specific studies

STUDY 1 ESTABLISHING THEINHIBITING EFFECT OF ENHANCED

AESTHETICS ON USAGE IN THE FIELD

The goal of study 1 is to provide initial evidence that en-hanced product aesthetics can have an inhibiting effect onusage behavior in a real-world context We worked with afitness studio to conduct a field experiment that involvedmonitoring client toilet paper use over two weeks We an-ticipated that clients would use less toilet paper when itwas more (vs less) aesthetically appealing Importantlywe used the exact same brand and type of toilet paper inboth conditions which allowed us to vary its aestheticswhile holding constant all other unrelated factors such asquality texture and absorbency

Method

Participants and Procedure We manipulated whetherthe individual bathroom at a fitness studio located in thesouthwestern United States was stocked with plain whitetoilet paper (lower aesthetic condition) or white toilet paperfeaturing festive holiday motifs (higher aesthetic conditionsee appendix A row 1 for images) which was appropriateat the time of data collection as the study took place twoweeks before Christmas1 Of note in addition to the pretestassessing different levels of aesthetic appeal between thetwo different types of toilet paper another between-subjects

1 In coordinating the field study we originally made plans to run attwo locations to counterbalance the order of presentation of the toiletpaper (lower aesthetic first vs higher aesthetic first) Unfortunatelythe second studio encountered plumbing issues during the course ofthe study invalidating the data thereby yielding results from only onestudio

WU ET AL 5

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hetic

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low

er

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een)

2(a

est

hetic

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ent

befo

revs

after

usagew

ithin

)

bullE

motio

ns

bullC

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inaesth

etic

judg-

mentacro

ss

tim

e

bullP

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co

nsu

mp

tio

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ces

Usage

ofaesth

etics

incre

ased

negative

affect(3

05

vs24

6plt

001)

and

decre

ments

inbeauty

acro

ss

tim

e(plt

001)

bullP

ost-

co

nsu

mp

tio

np

rocess

by

med

iati

on

A

esth

etics

decre

ments

inbeauty

em

otio

ns

(95

CIfrac14

[042

9])

6B

Sim

ula

tion

Paper

napkin

bull2

(aest

hetic

shig

her

vs

low

er)

bullE

motio

ns

bullC

hanges

inaesth

etic

judgm

ent

bullE

ffort

infe

rences

bullC

oncern

sth

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had

been

destr

oyed

bullP

ost-

co

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ces

Usage

ofaesth

etics

incre

ased

negative

affect(3

13

vs28

3plt

05)

decre

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ents

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(26

3vs

17

7plt

001)

perc

eptions

of

effort

(34

9vs

28

7plt

001)

and

concern

sth

ateffort

had

been

destr

oyed

(26

2vs20

0plt

001)

bullP

ost-

co

nsu

mp

tio

np

rocess

by

para

llelm

ed

iati

on

1A

esth

etics

decre

ments

inbeauty

em

otio

ns

(95

CIfrac14

[235

4])

2A

esth

etics

effort

infe

rences

concern

sth

atef-

fort

had

been

destr

oyed

em

otions

(95

CIfrac14

[06

23])

6 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

pretest (n frac14 100) revealed that people liked the higher (vslower) aesthetic toilet paper and its design more (Mhigher

aesthetic frac14 457 vs Mlower aesthetic frac14 400 t(98) frac14 ndash195pfrac14 05 rfrac14 88)

The studio owner provided us with the number of peoplewho attended classes each week and employees who re-mained blind to our research hypotheses replenished thetoilet paper as needed A total of 772 clients visited the stu-dio over the course of the studymdash387 in the lower aestheticcondition (week 1) and 385 in the higher aesthetic condi-tion (week 2) Clients were unaware that a study was beingconducted

Results and Discussion

As predicted clients used less of the more aestheticallyappealing toilet paper 2578 total sheets of the lower aes-thetic toilet paper were used while only 1425 sheets of thehigher aesthetic toilet paper were used Because we wereprovided with the number of class attendees we were alsoable to calculate average usage per client each client in thelower aesthetic condition used an average of 666 sheetswhile each client in the higher aesthetic condition used an av-erage of 370 sheets (v2 (1)frac14 32616 (n frac14 772) p lt 001)

Discussion We find preliminary evidence that en-hanced product aesthetics can reduce usage behaviorswhile controlling for differences in paper quality and thetotal number of clients Having provided a demonstrationof this phenomenon in an ecologically valid setting the re-maining studies replicate and generalize this finding andidentify its underlying mechanism in a more controlledenvironment

STUDY 2 THE IMPACT OF AESTHETICSON FOOD CONSUMPTION AND

ENJOYMENT

The purpose of study 2 was to conceptually replicatestudy 1 in a product category in which aesthetics play amajor role food A growing body of research has docu-mented the profound influence that food presentation hason how we evaluate what we eat (Hurling and Shepherd2003 Wada et al 2010) We chose cupcakes as our focalstimuli because they are a highly familiar dessert that canbe made more aesthetically appealing (ie higher aes-thetics with frosting in the shape of a rose) or more plain(ie lower aesthetics with smooth frosting) while holdingconstant aesthetically unrelated factors such as flavor andtaste (see appendix A row 2 for images) Consistent withthe extant aesthetics literature a pretest of the cupcakesused in study 2 revealed that people were more likely tochoose to purchase the higher (vs lower) aesthetic cupcakefor consumption in the future providing an even strongertest of our predictions about higher aesthetics lowering

consumption Details of this pretest are available in theweb appendix

Importantly given the inherent nature of food we arecognizant of baseline individual differences that could af-fect the amount consumed (Lisjak et al 2015) We ran thisstudy throughout the day (from 10 am to 5 pm) acrossmultiple days so we accounted for individual differencesin hunger and measured state hunger at the start of thestudy We expect that the inhibiting effect of aesthetics onconsumption will be greatest among hungry participantsas the need to exhibit restraint should be observed onlyamong those motivated to engage in consumption in thefirst place We do not expect differences in consumptionamong satiated participants as they should have a low de-sire to eat regardless of aesthetics

Notably an alternative explanation is that people feel in-hibited from consuming highly aesthetic products becausethey tend to cost more and not because of concerns overdestroying effort Thus we also aim to replicate study 1rsquosfindings while controlling for perceived expense

Finally we seek to provide initial evidence that the con-sumption of a highly aesthetic product will negatively af-fect how much participants enjoy the consumptionexperience a notion we explore in depth in study 6 In linewith our predictions for consumption amount we expectthe negative influence of food aesthetics on post-consumption affect to be greatest among hungry individ-uals as hunger leads people to not only eat more but toalso enjoy their food more (Berridge 2009 Cabanac 19711979 1985) Thus changes in the ability to derive enjoy-ment should be observed only among those motivated toengage in consumption in the first place

Method

Participants and Procedure One hundred eighty-threeundergraduate students from a southwestern university par-ticipated in a 2 (aesthetics higher vs lower) continuous(hunger) between-subjects study in exchange for partialcourse credit Five participants were excluded from theanalysis four had missing data on the dependent measuresand one had missing data on hunger This left a sample of178 participants (52 female [one did not report gender]median age frac14 21 ages 18ndash48)

Participants first indicated their current level of hunger(1 frac14 not at all hungry 7 frac14 very hungry) They were thentold that the goal of the study was to explore which foodsgo best with different videos and that they would be eatingvanilla cupcakes Participants were randomly assigned toeither the higher or lower aesthetic condition To ensurethey did not discount the overall consumption experiencebecause they lacked freedom of choice (Brehm 1966)within each aesthetic condition they chose either a pink orcream-colored cupcake to eat Experimenters preweighedeach cupcake before the start of each session

WU ET AL 7

Next participants were told to watch a 90 second videofeaturing scenes from around the world while they ate theircupcake and that they were free to eat as much or as littleof the cupcake as they liked After finishing the video theremains of the cupcake were collected and weighed in aseparate room Participants then rated how much they en-joyed the cupcake (1 frac14 not at all 7 frac14 very much so) andcompleted filler measures that assessed how interesting thevideo was and how much they liked cupcakes in generalFinally they rated how expensive they thought the cupcakewas (1 frac14 not at all expensive 7 frac14 very expensive)

Results and Discussion

We predicted that for consumers who were motivated toconsume (ie hungry individuals) higher aesthetics wouldcurb consumption quantity and reduce consumption enjoy-ment effects that were expected to hold even when wecontrolled for perceived expense

Consumption Amount We first log-transformed the de-pendent variable to normalize the distribution (Cleveland1984) Next we performed a 2 (aesthetics condition) continuous (hunger) multiple regression analysis on thelogged consumption amount Regressing this loggedamount on the aesthetics manipulation mean-centered lev-els of hunger and their interaction revealed a directionalsimple effect of aesthetics at the mean level of hunger(b frac14 ndash10 t(174) frac14 ndash126 p frac14 21) such that participantsin the higher aesthetic condition consumed less of the cup-cake Most importantly the interaction was also significant(b frac14 ndash10 t(174) frac14 ndash213 p frac14 03) Decomposing the inter-action in the lower aesthetic (smooth frosting) condition we

found a significant effect of hunger (b frac14 15 t(174) frac14446 p lt 001) such that hungry (vs satiated) individualsconsumed more of the cupcake However attesting to the in-hibitory nature of beautiful products in the higher aesthetic(rose frosting) condition the effect of hunger was not signifi-cant (b frac14 05 t(174) frac14 129 p frac14 20) Because self-reportedhunger was measured on a 1 to 7 scale (M frac14 425 SDfrac14 168median frac14 4) we ran a floodlight analysis using the Johnson-Neyman (1936) technique to identify the range of hunger forwhich the simple effect of aesthetics was significant (figure 1see also Spiller et al 2013) This analysis revealed a signifi-cant reduction in consumption of the higher (vs lower) aes-thetic cupcake for any value of hunger above 492 (at p lt05) Thus despite a higher baseline desire to eat hungry indi-viduals actively refrained from consumption when the cup-cake was more aesthetically appealing Consistent with ourpredictions such effects were not observed among satiated in-dividuals who displayed low motivation to eat regardless ofthe cupcakersquos appearance

Enjoyment of the Cupcake A 2 continuous regres-sion on cupcake enjoyment revealed only a significant in-teraction (b frac14 ndash41 t(174) frac14 ndash256 p frac14 01 see figure 2)In the lower aesthetic condition (b frac14 45 t(174) frac14 405p lt 001) hungry (vs satiated) individuals enjoyed thecupcake more There was no effect of hunger in the higheraesthetic condition (bfrac14 04 t(174) lt 1 ns) Floodlightanalysis revealed that for all values of hunger above 466participants in the higher aesthetic condition enjoyed thecupcake significantly less (p lt 05)

Perceived Expense A 2 continuous regression onperceived expense of the cupcake revealed only a signifi-cant simple effect of aesthetics at the mean level of hunger

FIGURE 1

AESTHETICS HUNGER ON CONSUMPTION AMOUNT (STUDY 2)

8 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

(p lt 001) such that the higher aesthetic cupcake was seenas more expensive Most importantly when we controlledfor expense the 2 continuous interactions and focal ef-fects continue to hold for consumption amount (p lt 04)and cupcake enjoyment (p lt 01) Finally a moderatedmediation analysis (model 8 Hayes 2013) revealed thatperceived expense did not mediate either amount con-sumed (b frac14 ndash01 95 CI [ndash08 05]) or degree of enjoy-ment (b frac14 12 95 CI [ndash05 35]) among hungryindividuals revealing that inferred monetary value was notdriving our effects

Discussion Though our pretest showed that consumerswere more likely to choose the higher aesthetic cupcake avery different pattern of results emerged with consumptionamount and consumption enjoyment Hungry participantsactively inhibited their consumption and ate less in thehigher aesthetic rose frosting condition In addition to eat-ing less these individuals experienced lower consumptionenjoyment when the cupcake was highly aesthetic By con-ceptually replicating the previous studyrsquos results with anew product we increase the generalizability of our find-ings to food a domain for which visual presentation playsa fundamental role We also provide initial evidence thatconsumption of highly aesthetic products can carry nega-tive implications for the consumption experience a notionwe explore in greater depth in studies 6A and 6B These ef-fects continued to hold even when we controlled for per-ceived expense thus rendering such an alternative accountless likely

Having reliably demonstrated the inhibiting effect ofaesthetics on consumption across two product categorieswe next elucidate the underlying process through three

different approaches First we provide evidence for ourproposed mechanism via mediation (study 3) Second wedirectly manipulate effort inferences to show process bymoderation (study 4) and third we identify a theoreticallygrounded individual difference moderator (study 5)

STUDY 3 THE MEDIATING ROLE OFEFFORT INFERENCES AND EFFORT

DESTRUCTION

The goal of study 3 is to replicate our focal effect in anew product domain paper napkins and to shed light onthe mechanism underlying consumption likelihood by test-ing the driving role of effort inferences and effort destruc-tion Consistent with our theorizing we predict that thehigher inferences of effort elicited by highly aestheticproducts will lead to stronger concerns that such effortwould be destroyed in the consumption process resultingin lower usage likelihood Notably this is a conservativecontext in which to assess effort inferences given that pa-per napkins are machine-manufactured and so differencesin perceived effort are quite subtle Further by shifting out-side of the food domain to even subtler stimuli we canmore confidently ensure that our findings are not merelyartifacts of the stimuli we have chosen (although handmadehighly aesthetic foods such as the cupcakes used in study2 are ubiquitous in the marketplace)

Method

Participants and Procedure Two hundred sixty partic-ipants were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk toparticipate in a two-cell (aesthetics higher vs lower)

FIGURE 2

AESTHETICS HUNGER ON CUPCAKE ENJOYMENT (STUDY 2)

WU ET AL 9

between-subjects study in exchange for payment Two in-dividuals participated in this study twice and six had miss-ing data on the dependent measures and were excludedfrom the analysis yielding a final sample of 252 partici-pants (44 female [five did not report gender] medianage frac14 31 ages 19ndash69)

Participants were presented with a guided visualizationscenario in which they imagined they were at a local bak-ery getting breakfast and doing work As they were work-ing they accidentally spilled coffee all over theirdocuments prompting them to look toward the counter tosee how they could clean up the spill We presented a situa-tion in which the destruction of the product paper napkinswas imminent to assess how such an outcome shapes pref-erences to consume aesthetically appealing productsParticipants were randomly assigned to either the higher orlower aesthetic condition Those in the higher aestheticcondition saw a stack of floral napkins at the counter toclean up the spill while those in the lower aesthetic condi-tion saw a stack of plain white napkins (see appendix Arow 3 for images) Additional details of the procedure areavailable in the web appendix Subsequently participantsindicated to what extent they would use the (floral orwhite) napkins to clean up the spill (1 frac14 definitely no 7 frac14definitely yes) how likely they would be to use the napkinsto clean up the spill (1 frac14 very unlikely 7 frac14 very likely)and how many napkins they would use to clean up the spill(1 frac14 none at all 7 frac14 very many) which formed our usagelikelihood index (afrac14 81) Next to examine effort infer-ences we asked participants how much effort they thoughtwent into making the napkins (1 frac14 none at all 7 frac14 quite abit) To examine concerns about effort destruction weasked participants to rate their agreement with the state-ment ldquoI felt like I was destroying someonersquos effort by usingthe napkinsrdquo (1 frac14 strongly disagree 7 frac14 stronglyagree) Finally to again show that inferred monetary valueis not driving our effects participants indicated how muchthey would be willing to pay for a pack of the napkins inthe scenario (ie dollar value)

Results and Discussion

We predicted that participants would be less likely touse the higher aesthetic napkins and that this effect wouldbe mediated in serial by effort inferences and concernsover destroying such effort

Usage Likelihood A one-way ANOVA on the usagelikelihood index indicated that participants were less likelyto use the higher aesthetic floral napkins to clean up thespill (Mhigher aesthetic frac14 581 vs Mlower aesthetic frac14 628 F(1250) frac14 1592 p lt 001) an effect that continues to holdeven when we controlled for willingness to pay for thenapkins (p lt 001)

Effort Inferences A one-way ANOVA on effort infer-ences indicated that participants ascribed greater effort to thehigher aesthetic napkins (Mhigher frac14 380 vs Mlower frac14 319F(1 250) frac14 753 p lt 01) even when we controlled for will-ingness to pay (p lt 02)

Effort Destruction A one-way ANOVA on concernsabout effort destruction indicated that participants hadstronger concerns effort would be destroyed in the higheraesthetic condition (Mhigher frac14 254 vs Mlower frac14 195 F(1250) frac14 837 p lt 01) Again this effect holds even whenwe controlled for willingness to pay (p lt 02)

Mediation We conducted a serial multiple mediatormodel (model 6 Hayes 2013) testing our proposed media-tion path where effort inferences and concerns about ef-fort destruction served as serial mediators productaesthetics effort inferences concerns about the de-struction of effort usage likelihood Consistent withour predictions the indirect effect of aesthetics on usagelikelihood through effort inferences and concerns abouteffort destruction was significant (b frac14 ndash03 95 CI [ndash09 ndash01]) In addition the indirect effect of aesthetics onusage likelihood through effort destruction alone was sig-nificant (b frac14 ndash04 95 CI [ndash14 ndash003]) suggesting thismediator works serially but also individually Consistentwith study 2 willingness to pay did not mediate usagelikelihood (b frac14 01 95 CI [ndash03 06]) providing fur-ther evidence that inferred monetary value was not drivingour effects In sum product aesthetics affected usage like-lihood through effort inferences and concerns that onewould be destroying this effort

Discussion In study 3 using a new subtler contextwe show that the greater perceptions of effort ascribed tothe creation of higher aesthetic napkins led to stronger con-cerns that such effort would inevitably be destroyed in theconsumption process which ultimately discouraged usageFurther we once again demonstrate that inferred monetaryvalue does not account for our results Next we manipulateeffort inferences directly to show that shifting the per-ceived effort required to make an aesthetic product willmitigate our focal effect

STUDY 4 THE MODERATING ROLE OFEFFORT INFERENCES

Given the underlying role of effort in inhibiting the con-sumption of highly aesthetic products it follows that this re-duced consumption should be attenuated if the beautifulproduct does not trigger such effort inferences in the firstplace Thus in study 4 we manipulated information aboutthe products to directly influence effort inferences comple-menting study 3 by providing process evidence through mod-eration (Spencer Zanna and Fong 2005) Notably unlikeother studies in the current article study 4 utilizes a

10 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

comparative design in which participants are presented withboth higher and lower aesthetic products at once and areasked to make a choice between them This design allowsus to extend the generalizability of our findings to contextswhere consumers are faced with products of differing levelsof aesthetic appeal and have to choose one to immediatelyconsume Moreover study 4 replaces floral napkins withturquoise napkins in the higher aesthetic condition therebyusing especially subtle aesthetic stimuli to reveal that evenin the absence of product design changes in aesthetic ap-peal through other means (eg color) can shape consump-tion decisions in the same manner

Finally study 4 helps us test the alternative explanationthat concerns over how the product will look after usageor anticipated decrements in the productrsquos beauty aloneare driving lower consumption likelihood independent ofeffort inferences If this is the case the likelihood of usingaesthetically appealing products should not differ as afunction of expended effort since consumers should al-ways be less likely to use a beautiful product irrespectiveof the effort involved in its creation However if consump-tion likelihood is indeed affected by inferred effort thenchanges in inferred effort should systematically impactconsumption likelihood a relationship we examine directlyin study 4

Method

Participants and Procedure Two hundred forty-sixparticipants were recruited from Amazon MechanicalTurk to participate in a two-cell (intervention conditionno information control vs higher aesthetics frac14 lower ef-fort) between-subjects study in exchange for paymentSeven people participated in this study twice and wereexcluded yielding a final sample of 239 participants (48female [six did not report gender] median age frac14 31 ages18ndash69)

Study 4 used the same guided visualization scenario asstudy 3 where participants imagined visiting their localbakery and accidentally spilling coffee while they wereworking However this time they saw two separatestacks of napkins they could use to clean up the spillThe napkins were turquoise (higher aesthetic option) orplain white (lower aesthetic option see appendix A row4 for images) and both napkin images were presented atonce Additional details are available in the webappendix

At this point participants in the control condition pro-ceeded directly to a choice task in which they indicated whichtype of napkin they would use to clean up the spill On theother hand participants in the higher aestheticsfrac14 lower effortcondition were first told that as they looked at the napkinsthey recalled that a friend who used to work for this bakeryhad told them that it actually takes less effort and time forcompanies to manufacture the blue napkins than it does to

make and bleach the white ones2 Next participants in thislower effort condition completed the choice task After theirchoice all participants indicated how much they thought thenapkins cost (1 frac14 very little 7 frac14 quite a lot)

Results and Discussion

Conceptually replicating prior studies in the controlcondition where no effort inferences were made salientparticipants were less likely to choose the higher aestheticblue napkins to clean up the spill (1983 blue vs8017white) However this lower usage likelihood was re-versed when the higher aesthetic blue napkins elicitedlower perceptions of effort (6356blue vs 3644white v2

(1) frac14 4707 (n frac14 239) p lt 001) Importantly the choiceeffects continue to hold when we control for perceived cost(p lt 001)

Discussion Study 4 offers convergent support for theproposed underlying process by showing that the reducedconsumption of highly aesthetic products is reversed whenthese products elicit lower effort inferences As revealedby the pretest (see footnote 2) in the control conditionwhere no effort information was made salient participantsascribed greater effort to the higher aesthetic blue napkinand were less likely to use it but when this blue napkinwas thought to require less effort to produce participantsbecame more likely to use it Notably unlike our priorstudies study 4 employed a comparative design in whichparticipants saw higher and lower aesthetic options at thesame time mirroring real life where consumers encountermultiple product offerings with differing aesthetic appealand have to choose one to use

These results also suggest that anticipated decrements inbeauty alone or concerns over what the aesthetic productwill look like after consumption are unlikely to inhibitconsumption Such projected losses of beauty are not evi-dent before consumption has occurred when the highlyaesthetic product is still in pristine beautiful condition Ifexpected drops in the aesthetic appeal of the product alonehad been responsible for driving reduced consumption in-dividuals would have been equally inhibited from using thehigher aesthetic napkin irrespective of effort inferencesSuch an alternative is inconsistent with the reversal in us-age likelihood we observed in the higher aesthetics frac14lower effort condition since the aesthetic appeal of the

2 A pretest confirmed the validity of study 4rsquos effort manipulationParticipants (n frac14 201) completed a 2 (aesthetics) 2 (effort interven-tion) between-subjects study where they read the same scenario butwere randomly assigned a napkin choice and asked to make effortinferences about the napkin Results revealed a significant interaction(p lt 001) Whereas in the control condition the higher aesthetic nap-kin elicited higher perceptions of effort (Mcontrol higher aesthetic frac14 391vs Mcontrol lower aesthetic frac14 335 p lt 04) this pattern reversed in thelow effort condition (Mlow effort higher aesthetic frac14 302 vs Mlow effort lower

aesthetic frac14 431 p lt 001) Procedural details and full results are avail-able in the web appendix

WU ET AL 11

napkins remained constant only the perceived effort hadchanged Thus we provide further evidence for the prem-ise that consumers strongly link aesthetics and effort andshow that for consumption to be reduced the highly aes-thetic product must signal higher effort in addition to itsaesthetic qualities

Notably while our results support the notion that antici-pated drops in beauty alone are insufficient to lead to a re-duction in consumption likelihood it is also worthmentioning that because effort and beauty are inextricablylinked constructs concerns over destroying effort mayshare to some extent overlapping variance with concernsover the imminent losses of beauty This suggests that inother contexts anticipated decrements in beauty may alsoplay a role in driving usage potentially for products of ex-treme aesthetic appeal that are more defined by theirbeauty as opposed to the colored napkins used hereNonetheless in the current context the results demonstratethat shifting perceptions about the amount of effort neededto create a higher aesthetic product is sufficient to over-come any inhibition to consume it

We next provide additional evidence for our conceptual-ization by investigating a theoretically driven individualdifference that affects the degree to which effort is inher-ently appreciated and by extension should influence deci-sions to use highly aesthetic products

STUDY 5 THE ROLE OF IMPLICIT SELF-THEORIES IN SHAPING USAGE

Based on our theory because the higher effort as-cribed to beautiful products underlies their lower likeli-hood of usage such a reduction should be moderated bythe degree to which effort is intrinsically valued or peo-plersquos implicit self-theories According to research on im-plicit self-theories entity theorists view their personalqualities as stable and unable to be enhanced by self-improvement while incremental theorists view thesequalities as flexible and able to be cultivated through la-bor and effort (Dweck 2000) Similarly entity theoriststend to view effort as ineffective and pointless while in-cremental theorists are more optimistic that their effortscarry intrinsic value and will eventually bear fruit(Dweck and Leggett 1988)

We propose that beyond the recognition of personal ef-fort implicit self-theories affect the extent to which con-sumers appreciate othersrsquo effort and by extension theeffort that goes into the creation of highly aesthetic prod-ucts To test this prediction we conducted a correlationalstudy examining the relationship between implicit self-theories and the propensity to appreciate effort-laden prod-ucts Participants (n frac14 134) first completed the implicitself-theories scale (Levy Stroessner and Dweck 1998)where higher (lower) scores indicate greater endorsement

of incremental (entity) self-theory Next they indicatedtheir agreement with five items reflecting appreciation forothersrsquo effort (eg I notice when people work really hardto create something3 all anchored at 1 frac14 strongly disagree7 frac14 strongly agree a frac14 91) We found a significant posi-tive correlation (r frac14 23 p lt 01) such that incrementallyoriented individuals were more likely to appreciate thingsthat reflect a great deal of effort

Thus based on this appreciation for othersrsquo effort in study5 we predict that incremental theorists will be less likely toconsume products that are highly aesthetic and by extensionladen with effort By contrast because entity theorists havelower intrinsic appreciation for effort they will be equallylikely to use a product regardless of its aesthetic appeal

Method

Participants and Procedure One hundred eighty-seven undergraduate students from a southwesternuniversity participated in a 2 (aesthetics higher vs lower) continuous (implicit self-theories) between-subjectsstudy in exchange for partial course credit Two partici-pants reported having a gluten allergy that prevented themfrom consuming the goldfish crackers accompanying thenapkins An additional 11 participants were excluded fromthe analysismdashone respondent participated in this studytwice and 10 had missing data on implicit self-theorieswhich we had measured in a separate presurvey severalweeks prior to the focal study Thus the final sample com-prised 174 participants (52 female [four did not reportgender] median age frac14 21 ages 18ndash41)

Study 5 employed the same cover story about pairingfoods with videos used in study 2 but this time usingPepperidge Farm goldfish crackers We chose these crack-ers because they are slightly messy to eatmdashpeople wouldwant to use a napkin but did not necessarily have to creat-ing an ideal context within which to test our hypothesesParticipants received an individual pack of goldfish crack-ers along with a paper napkin which was either decorativewith a white background (higher aesthetic condition) orplain white (lower aesthetic condition) (both 61=2 inchessquare see appendix A row 5 for images) Importantlythe experimenter gave no explicit instructions on what to dowith this napkin Of note in addition to the pretest assessingdifferent levels of aesthetic appeal between the two napkinsanother between-subjects pretest (n frac14 81) showed that partic-ipants liked the higher (vs lower) aesthetic napkin and its de-sign more (Mhigher aesthetic frac14 516 vs Mlower aesthetic frac14 365t(79) frac14 ndash516 p lt 001 r frac14 87) but both napkins were

3 The other items were (2) I really appreciate it when somebodytakes the time and effort to make something (3) I treasure somethingmore when I know a lot of effort has gone into creating it (4) I havean appreciation for products that reflect a great deal of effort on themakerrsquos part and (5) I value something more when I know it took alot of time and energy to produce

12 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

rated as equally versatile in their usage (Mhigher aesthetic frac14 580vs Mlower aesthetic frac14 591 t(79) frac14 47 p gt 60 a frac14 91)Additional pretest details are available in the web appendix

Participants were told to watch a 35 minute video onwildlife animals while they ate the crackers and that theywere free to eat as much or as little as they liked Once par-ticipants finished the video the experimenter collected thenapkin and any leftover crackers and recorded whether thenapkin had been used or not (0 frac14 no 1 frac14 yes) in anotherroom A napkin was coded as ldquousedrdquo if it showed any signsof usage (ie had any food stains on it looked crumpled orhad been used to spit out gum) and was coded as ldquounusedrdquoonly if it appeared untouched and in pristine condition mak-ing it a highly conservative test of our hypotheses To againensure that perceived cost was not influencing our focal ef-fects we asked participants how much they would be will-ing to pay for a pack of napkins (ie dollar value) Finallyparticipants completed a series of filler measures that as-sessed how interesting the video was and how much theyliked eating goldfish crackers in general

Results and Discussion

A 2 (aesthetics condition) continuous (implicit self-theories) logistic regression on napkin usage behavior(used yes no) was performed Regressing usage behavioron the aesthetics manipulation mean-centered levels ofimplicit self-theories and their interaction revealed a sig-nificant simple effect of aesthetics at the mean of implicitself-theories (b frac14 ndash37 Wald v2 frac14 460 p frac14 03) suchthat a smaller percentage of people used the napkin in the

higher aesthetic condition across all participants conceptu-ally replicating prior studies Importantly the interactionwas also significant (b frac14 ndash30 Wald v2 frac14 419 p frac14 04see figure 3) Notably this interaction continued to holdeven when we controlled for willingness to pay (p lt 04)We used the Johnson-Neyman technique to identify therange of implicit self-theories for which the simple effectof the aesthetics manipulation was significant where lowervalues imply an entity-oriented mindset while higher val-ues imply an incrementally oriented mindset We found asignificant reduction in usage of the higher aesthetic deco-rative (vs lower aesthetic white) paper napkin for anyvalue of implicit self-theories above 406 (at p lt 05) butnot for any value less than 406 In other words incremen-tal theorists were less likely to use a higher (vs lower) aes-thetic napkin whereas entity theorists were equally likelyto use a napkin regardless of its appearance

Discussion In study 5 we provide further evidence forour proposed mechanism by showing that implicit self-theories or consumersrsquo chronic appreciation for investedeffort shapes decisions to use an aesthetically pleasingproduct Incremental theorists who are more appreciativeof effort were less likely to use a higher aesthetic decora-tive napkin than a lower aesthetic plain white napkin butsuch effects were not observed among entity theorists whohave lower intrinsic appreciation for effort We have nowreliably established the inhibiting effect of product aes-thetics on consumption across multiple products and con-sumption contexts and provided convergent support for theunderlying mechanism In our final two studies we

FIGURE 3

AESTHETICS IMPLICIT SELF-THEORIES ON NAPKIN USAGE (STUDY 5)

WU ET AL 13

elucidate the drivers of post-consumption emotions whileholding usage constant thereby allowing us to hone in onpost-consumption consequences in a more controlledfashion since people are inherently less likely to usehigher aesthetic products which could potentially result inself-selection issues

STUDY 6A DECREMENTS IN BEAUTYAND POST-CONSUMPTION AFFECT

Recall in study 2 that when the cupcake was highly aes-thetic consumption enjoyment was lower among individ-uals most motivated to engage in consumption (ie hungryindividuals) an effect we propose is determined by twoprocesses working in tandem First we expect that the ef-fort inferences made prior to consumption will continue todrive emotional outcomes given the consumption processinvolves the actual destruction of effort Second and onlyevident post-consumption are the decrements in beautythat aesthetic products undergo when their aesthetic quali-ties are visibly compromised through usage Because beau-tiful products are inherently pleasurable (Reber et al 2004Reimann et al 2010) we predict that individuals will expe-rience less pleasure and more negative affect when theywitness highly aesthetic products undergo steeper drops inbeauty as a result of consumption Consistent with prospecttheoryrsquos value function (Kahneman and Tversky 1979)initial changesmdashhere the larger losses of beauty associatedwith the usage of a higher (vs lower) aesthetic productmdashshould be particularly jarring and lead to more negative af-fect (Frederick and Loewenstein 1999)

Importantly unlike in study 2 where we measured theamount consumed as well as post-consumption enjoymentin study 6A we hold usage constant in the higher andlower aesthetic conditions and hone in on the changes inbeauty with a longitudinal study design Specifically theobjective of study 6A is to extend prior work on the rela-tionship between beauty and pleasure by establishing itscorollarymdashthat the consumption of a higher (vs lower)aesthetic product will lead to greater perceived losses ofbeauty and that such decrements in beauty will in turnhave a negative influence on post-consumption affect Wemeasure this decrement by capturing aesthetic judgmentsimmediately before and after usage

Method

Participants and Procedure Four hundred sixteen par-ticipants were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk toparticipate in a 2 (aesthetics higher vs lower between) 2(aesthetic judgment before vs after usage within) mixed-design study in exchange for payment Six individuals par-ticipated in this study twice and four had missing data onthe focal dependent measures and were excluded from theanalysis yielding a final sample of 406 participants (54

female [11 did not report gender] median age frac14 30 ages18ndash76)

The procedure was similar to that of study 3 featuringthe same bakery scenario and stimuli but with several mod-ifications After participants were initially presented witheither the higher or lower aesthetic napkins following thespill they immediately completed two semantic differen-tial items of aesthetic evaluations for these unused napkinson seven-point scales ldquonot at all prettyvery prettyrdquo andldquonot at all uglyvery uglyrdquo (reverse-coded) which havebeen shown in prior work to capture aesthetic judgments(Reber Winkielman and Schwarz 1998 r frac14 47) Aftercompleting these baseline aesthetic judgment measuresparticipants proceeded with the scenario They were toldthey realized they would need to grab at least 10 napkins tocome close to cleaning up the spill and were subsequentlyshown a stack of unused napkins The scenario ended withan image of a bundle of napkins now drenched with cof-fee that were used to clean up the spill Additional detailsof the procedure are available in the web appendix

Immediately after reading the scenario participantscompleted the same set of aesthetic judgment items a sec-ond time this time rating the coffee-drenched napkinswhich served as a measure of post-usage aesthetic judg-ments Participants then indicated to what extent they ex-perienced each of the following negative emotions whilethey were using the napkins to clean up the spill stressedregretful bad afraid fearful sad sorry and guilty whichwe combined into an index of post-consumption negativeaffect (1 frac14 not at all 7 frac14 very much so afrac14 91)

Results and Discussion

We predicted that participants would experience greaternegative affect after using the higher (vs lower) aestheticnapkins an effect that would be driven by the larger decre-ments in beauty that stem from the consumption of higheraesthetic products

Emotions A one-way ANOVA on negative emotionsexperienced after consumption revealed that participantswho used the higher aesthetic floral napkins to clean up thespill felt more negative affect than those who used thelower aesthetic white napkins (Mhigher aesthetic frac14 305 vsMlower aesthetic frac14 246 F(1 404) frac14 1686 p lt 001)

Decrements in Beauty (Longitudinal) A 2 (aestheticshigher vs lower) 2 (timing before usage vs after usage)mixed ANOVA on aesthetic judgments yielded main ef-fects of both aesthetics (F(1 404) frac14 10652 p lt 001) andtiming (F(1 404) frac14 125629 p lt 001) which were quali-fied by a significant aesthetics timing interaction (F(1404) frac14 5302 p lt 001) Planned contrasts revealed thatwhereas the higher aesthetic napkins elicited more favor-able aesthetic judgments than the lower aesthetic napkinsbefore usage (Mhigher frac14 594 vs Mlower frac14 447 F(1 404)

14 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

frac14 15269 p lt 001) this difference was substantiallyreduced after usage (Mhigher frac14 237 vs Mlower frac14 211F(1 404) frac14 484 p frac14 03) Importantly and arguably mostcentral to our research the decrement in aesthetic ratingsthrough usage was significantly larger in the higher aes-thetic conditionmdashin fact 151 largermdashthan that observedin the lower aesthetic condition (ie a drop of 357 unitsvs a drop of 236 units)

Mediation Finally we are interested in whether decre-ments in aesthetic judgment emanating from product usageunderlie post-consumption affect Consistent with predic-tions mediation analysis (model 4 Hayes 2013) revealedthat the indirect effect of aesthetics on negative affectthrough changes in aesthetic judgment was significant (b frac1415 95 CI [04 29]) suggesting that product aestheticsaffected the experience of negative emotions through thelarger losses of beauty resulting from the consumption ofhigher aesthetic products

Discussion While past work has shown that aestheticsare inextricably linked with pleasure (Reber et al 2004Reimann et al 2010) study 6A extends this body of re-search by revealing that in the context of nondurable prod-ucts where consumption entails damaging product designnot only does the usage of higher (vs lower) aestheticproducts result in larger decrements in beauty but suchlosses also drive greater negative affect after consumptionNotably while we asked participants to assess the aestheticqualities of the napkins before and immediately after usageto more precisely capture the changes in beauty we ob-served we recognize that this design may have caused theaesthetic appeal of the napkins to be more salient prior toconsumption making its decrement therefore more pro-nounced after consumption Thus having established thatbeauty decrements resulting from aesthetic product usageunderlie post-consumption affect in study 6B we measurethis change in a less invasive manner after consumptionWe also integrate changes in beauty and effort inferencesinto emotional reactions linked to consumption

STUDY 6B TESTING THE FULLCONCEPTUAL MODEL FOR POST-

CONSUMPTION AFFECT

The goal of study 6B is to elucidate the drivers of post-consumption emotions while continuing to hold usage con-stant in both conditions thereby allowing us to test the fullconceptual model in a more controlled fashion As alludedto in study 6A the inherently lower consumption likeli-hood of higher aesthetic products could potentially resultin self-selection issues In study 6B we predict that partici-pants will experience more negative affect after using ahigher (vs lower) aesthetic product an effect driven in tan-dem by effort inferences as well as changes in beauty

Further we try to better understand consumersrsquo emotionalreactions after aesthetic product usage by not highlightingthe productrsquos aesthetic qualities beforehand Finally wemeasure implicit self-theories to examine whether onersquos in-herent degree of effort appreciation moderates post-consumption negative affect

Method

Participants and Procedure Four hundred participantswere recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk to partici-pate in a two-cell (aesthetics higher vs lower) between-subjects study in exchange for payment Ten individualsparticipated in this study twice and 17 had missing data onthe focal dependent measures and were excluded from theanalysis yielding a final sample of 373 participants (55female [two did not report gender] median age frac14 32 ages18ndash76)

The study design of study 6B was almost identical tothat of study 6A aside from several modifications Firstparticipants completed the same negative emotion indexfrom study 6A (afrac14 91) immediately after reading the sce-nario instead of after aesthetics judgment measures (whichwere not included in this study) Second instead of assess-ing aesthetic ratings at two separate points in time we uti-lized a new single cross-sectional measure to capturedecrements in beauty post-consumption ldquoBy using thenapkins it felt like I was turning something that was oncebeautiful into something uglyrdquo (1 frac14 strongly disagree 7 frac14strongly agree) Next to examine effort inferences as a par-allel driver of negative affect after consumption partici-pants completed the same effort inferences and effortdestruction measures from study 3 although these mea-sures are distinct from study 3 in that they were assessedafter usage had already taken place Finally participantscompleted the implicit self-theories scale

Results and Discussion

Emotions Replicating study 6A a one-way ANOVAon negative emotions revealed that participants who usedthe higher aesthetic floral napkins to clean up the spill feltmore negative affect than those who used the lower aestheticwhite napkins (Mhigher aesthetic frac14 313 vs Mlower aesthetic frac14283 F(1 371) frac14 394 p lt 05) Of note this main effectdid not interact with implicit self-theories (p gt 30) sug-gesting that both incremental and entity theorists experi-enced more negative affect after using the higher (vslower) aesthetic napkins to clean up the spill a finding werevisit in the discussion section

Decrements in Beauty (Cross-Sectional) A one-wayANOVA on changes in beauty indicated that the higheraesthetic napkin underwent greater decrements in beautythrough consumption (Mhigher frac14 263 vs Mlower frac14 177F(1 371) frac14 2671 p lt 001)

WU ET AL 15

Effort Inferences A one-way ANOVA on effort infer-ences indicated that participants ascribed greater effort tothe higher aesthetic napkins (Mhigher frac14 349 vs Mlower frac14287 F(1 371) frac14 1359 p lt 001)

Effort Destruction A one-way ANOVA on concernsabout effort destruction indicated that participants hadstronger concerns that effort had been destroyed in thehigher aesthetic condition (Mhigher frac14 262 vs Mlower frac14200 F(1 371) frac14 1355 p lt 001)

Mediation Finally we conducted two separate media-tion analyses one testing the path of product aesthetics decrements in beauty negative affect (model 4 Hayes2013) and the other testing the serial path of product aes-thetics effort inferences concerns about effort de-struction negative affect (model 6) Results from thefirst analysis revealed that the indirect effect of aestheticson negative affect through changes in beauty was signifi-cant (b frac14 37 95 CI [23 54]) suggesting that productaesthetics affected the experience of negative emotionsthrough larger decrements in beauty in the higher aestheticcondition Second the indirect effect of aesthetics on nega-tive affect through effort inferences and concerns about ef-fort destruction (in serial) was also significant (b frac14 1295 CI [06 23]) as was the indirect effect of aestheticson negative affect through effort destruction alone (b frac1411 95 CI [01 23])

Finally we also included beauty decrements effort in-ferences and effort destruction into the model as parallelmediators to gain greater understanding of the relativestrength of these drivers This analysis revealed that whenall three mediators were in the model the indirect effectthrough decrements in beauty remained significant (b frac1422 95 CI [11 36]) as did the indirect effect througheffort destruction (b frac14 15 95 CI [06 27]) Taken to-gether these results suggest that while concerns about ef-fort destruction continue to play a role in driving theemotional outcomes of aesthetic product usage the decre-ments in beauty that become evident only after an aestheticproduct has been visibly compromised through consump-tion also lead to negative affect

Discussion Study 6B which allowed us to examinethe entire post-consumption conceptual model revealedthat people who used higher (vs lower) aesthetic napkinssubsequently experienced greater negative affect an effectdriven by two processes operating in parallel concernsabout the destruction of effort and decrements in beauty Inother words the consumption experience was associatedwith more negative affect because the consumption processnot only involved the actual destruction of effort but italso took a beautiful product that was typified by pleasureand transformed it into something marked by displeasure

We should also note that we replicated the post-consumption findings with actual paper napkins in a lab

context In a separate study using study 5rsquos procedure par-ticipants watched a video and received a snack to eat alongwith a higher versus lower aesthetic napkin and then indi-cated how they felt about the consumption experienceParticipants who chose to use their higher aesthetic napkinreported feeling more negative affect relative to whosewho chose to use their lower aesthetic napkin (p frac14 04)and relative to those who did not use their higher aestheticnapkin (p lt 01) Thus aesthetic product usage increasednegative affect even when consumers could choose to ei-ther use the aesthetic product or not and when the aestheticproduct (the napkin) was tangential to the affect measurescollected which specifically pertained to the video-watching and snack-eating task Additional details areavailable in the web appendix

Though we provide evidence that effort inferences con-tinued to partially drive consumer responses to beautifulproducts after usage it is interesting to note that post-consumption affect was not moderated by the degree towhich effort is intrinsically appreciated (ie implicit self-theories) While unexpected we speculate that this may oc-cur because post-consumption enjoyment is not exclusivelydriven by effort inferences Since losses of beauty alsoplay a substantial role in shaping emotional outcomes afterconsumption the beauty decrements associated with aes-thetic product usage may have brought entity theorists to asimilar emotional state as incremental theorists resultingin everybody feeling worse off after consumption irrespec-tive of individual differences in effort appreciation Morebroadly since post-consumption affect appears to be multi-ply determined it is difficult to completely disentangle thenegative affect stemming from the destruction of effortfrom the negative affect stemming from decrements inbeauty Study 6B offers a distinct test of this conjecturesince it made usage (and hence losses of beauty) salientthrough images of visibly used napkins

GENERAL DISCUSSION

Across a series of laboratory and field studies using avariety of nondurable product categories and consumptionsituations we reveal the negative impact of enhanced prod-uct aesthetics on usage and post-consumption conse-quences First we document an inhibiting effect of productaesthetics on consumption behaviors for disposable andperishable products in both real-world (study 1) and lab(study 2) settings Next we shed light on the drivers of us-age likelihood using mediation (study 3) a context-basedboundary condition (study 4) and a theoretically derivedindividual difference moderator (study 5) thereby provid-ing convergent support for an underlying process based oneffort Finally in studies 6A and 6B we hold product us-age constant to elucidate the drivers of post-consumptionaffect and show that the decrements in beauty that

16 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

aesthetic products inherently undergo as a result of con-sumption combined with concerns that one has actuallydestroyed effort underlie these effects

Theoretical Contributions Our work makes severaltheoretical contributions First while prior research hasshown that consumers respond favorably to both productaesthetics and effort we believe we are the first to establisha causal relationship between these constructs We findthat highly aesthetic products can elicit greater perceptionsof effort regardless of whether this effort was exerted dur-ing product design physical production or both processesWe further reveal that these effort inferences are not lim-ited to handmade products such as perishable foods butalso apply to mass-produced products such as consumerpackaged disposable goods

Second while existing literature suggests that consumerpreferences should increase as a function of a productrsquos aes-thetic appeal the prevailing ways of assessing the impact ofaesthetics on consumer preference have been limited to pur-chase intentions product evaluations and choice (Hagtvedtand Patrick 2008 Raghubir and Greenleaf 2006 Reimannet al 2010 Townsend and Shu 2010) Surprisingly the role ofaesthetics after choice has received little empirical attention todate Despite the stimulating effect that enhanced product aes-thetics have on choice and pre-usage evaluations our resultssuggest that once beautiful products are acquired consumersmay be less likely to consume them because the higher infer-ences of effort attributed to their creation elicit stronger con-cerns that such effort would be destroyed during consumption

This research also shows that the impact of implicit self-theories on consumer behavior may be more pervasivethan previously thought While prior research in psychol-ogy has shown that incremental and entity theorists carrydissimilar beliefs about the value of their own effort(Dweck 2000) we provide support for the novel predictionthat beyond the recognition of personal effort implicitself-theories affect the extent to which consumers appreci-ate the effort that goes into the creation of aestheticallyappealing products

Finally contrary to the notion that enhanced product aes-thetics are always beneficial to consumption enjoyment ourwork reveals that usage of highly aesthetic disposable prod-ucts can actually lower overall enjoyment of the consumptionexperience through two separate pathways (1) by elicitingconcerns that one has actually destroyed effort and (2) bycompromising the beauty that typically characterizes aestheticproducts Thus we add to the literature on aesthetics andpleasure by showing how the consumption of highly aestheticproducts can result in larger losses of beauty and that suchdecrements in turn drive the relationship between aestheticproduct consumption and negative affect

More generally these findings speak to researchthat explores when and why the drivers of predicted andexperienced utility might diverge For instance

Thompson et al (2005) found that consumersrsquo initial desirefor product capability before purchase leads them to chooseproducts packed with features but their growing desire forproduct usability after usage leads them to ultimately prefersimpler products Similarly Lee and Tsai (2014) showedthat price promotions can stimulate sales but lower atten-tion during consumption which in turn reduces consump-tion enjoyment In the same vein despite the delightinitially elicited by the choice of beautiful products wedemonstrate that enhanced aesthetics have the ability tolater discourage usage and lower consumption enjoyment

Substantive Implications Our findings carry importantpractical implications as they pose an interesting dilemmato managers While conventional wisdom suggests that mar-keters should strive to invest the highest degree of effort intomaking their products look aesthetically pleasing at least tothe extent that company resources will allow our researchreveals that the story is not so simple Enhancing productaesthetics might positively affect initial attention interestand choice but should be considered with caution given thatsuch increased appeal could inhibit usage and reduce enjoy-ment relative to less aesthetically appealing productsRelatedly people likely consume highly aesthetic disposableproducts more slowly which could affect interpurchasetime Thus the pursuit of product aesthetics and improvedshort-term sales must be constantly balanced against theneed to encourage consumption ensure customer satisfac-tion and maintain long-term profitability Still certain prod-ucts such as beautiful candles and soaps may serve adecorative purpose in addition to their basic utilitarian func-tion and consequently may also carry intrinsic aestheticvalue Our recommendations are admittedly less straightfor-ward under such circumstances as consumers are able toderive utility from the productsrsquo enhanced aesthetics simplyby displaying them

Our results also have clear implications for managersand policy makers interested in promoting conservationand sustainable business practices A growing number ofretail and service establishments have been switching tounbleached paper products as the traditional bleachingprocess that removes imperfections and gives paper itswhite appearance also produces hazardous chemicals (egchlorine and dioxins) that are harmful to the environment(Evans 2010) While the transition to unbleached paperproducts has benefited the environment the results fromour investigation suggest the growing popularity of thistrend may be a double-edged sword To the extent thatunbleached paper products are considered less aestheticallyappealing consumers may show less restraint in usingthem leading to backfiring effects for conservation effortsPut another way the positive environmental impact of pro-ducing unbleached paper products could potentially be off-set by consumersrsquo reduced inhibition in consuming theseproducts Thus increasing the aesthetic appeal of products

WU ET AL 17

may actually be an effective way for companies to promoteenvironmentally sustainable behaviors even after incorpo-rating the increased cost of implementing such practices

Finally given that rising obesity rates are a major publichealth concern traced to increased consumption (Chandonand Wansink 2007) there has been burgeoning interest inthe various factors that shape consumer food choices (Corniland Chandon 2016 McFerran et al 2010 Scott et al 2008)The results of study 2 suggest that one way to curb overeat-ing might be to enhance the aesthetic presentation of foodproducts especially hedonic foods Of course additionalresearch is needed to better explore the impact of aestheticsin this important area given the counteracting effects thatfood aesthetics exert on consumption versus enjoyment

Limitations and Future Research While the current setof studies was designed to elucidate perceived effort as anunderlying mechanism of lower usage of aestheticallyappealing products we recognize that this phenomenonlike many is likely driven by multiple processes (FuchsSchreier and van Osselaer 2015) Indeed as evident in ourresearch consumption likelihood and consumption enjoy-ment each have distinct sets of drivers For instance whilewe accounted for cost across multiple studies and demon-strated that our effects held even after we controlled for theperceived price of the product we believe that cost maycertainly play a role in certain situations For example cer-tain highly aesthetic products elicit perceptions of luxury(Hagtvedt and Patrick 2008) and may consequently reduceconsumption because they appear ldquotoo expensive to userdquoand cost may even interact with aesthetics under certaincircumstances to impact consumption such that the infer-ences of effort typically ascribed to aesthetically appealingproducts could be mitigated if people are told that theywere extremely inexpensive

In addition classic research by Loewenstein (1987)showed that people often prefer to delay consumption ofenjoyable experiences It may be that people are averse toimmediately consuming a highly aesthetic product becausethey are able to derive more utility by savoring the experi-ence and postponing consumption Further as alluded to instudy 4 it is possible that anticipated decrements in beautymay play a larger role in shaping usage in other consump-tion contexts Thus while we focus on the role of effortinferences in driving lower usage of highly aesthetic prod-ucts we are cognizant of the fact that other mechanismslikely exist which would provide intriguing avenues forfurther investigation

It would also be interesting to examine whether the neg-ative influence of enhanced aesthetics would hold acrossdifferent consumption contexts That is are there situationswhere the present phenomenon would not emerge Indeedone could argue that service establishments such as upscalerestaurants and luxury resorts which regularly pampertheir guests with beautifully plated entrees and folded

towel animals would eventually be driven out of businessif the consumption of highly aesthetic products alwaysresulted in lower enjoyment We believe that whether theusage of highly aesthetic products is accompanied bydecreased consumption and increased negative affect willhinge on the nature of the consumption environment Priorresearch indicates that our surroundings are capable ofautomatically eliciting normative behaviors when situa-tional norms are well established (Aarts and Dijksterhuis2003) Extending this perspective it is possible that theeffects observed in this article may be relatively weakenedwhen consumption occurs in environments characterizedby strong expectations to engage in indulgent consumptionsuch as in a fancy restaurant or luxurious hotel

Relatedly it would be interesting to examine whethercalling attention to fact that the aesthetic product if leftunconsumed will face inevitable destruction could enhanceconsumption likelihood and enjoyment to some extent par-ticularly for perishable products such as food4 Indeedrecent research has shown that consumers display a strongaversion to waste and unused utility (Bolton and Alba2012) Thus future studies should examine whether theeffects documented in this article could be attenuated ifthe inevitable destruction of effort is made salient to con-sumers (eg the product will go bad be thrown away orsomebody else will consume the product even if they donot) In summary future work should explore situationswhere enhanced aesthetics might carry more weight in theutility function for the overall consumption experienceand subsequently increase consumption and boostenjoyment

Another area for future research would be to examinewhether the destruction of product aesthetics is an ldquoall ornothingrdquo event such that any amount of consumption (evena single bite of a cupcake) would be viewed as destroyingthe productrsquos overall beauty While our experimentaldesigns did not allow us to examine whether destruction is acontinuous versus discrete function of consumption it isworth nothing that we did document lower usage acrossvarying degrees of consumption (eg consumption was con-tinuous in study 2 but discrete in study 5) and we did findthat different levels of consumption still led to reducedenjoyment Nevertheless we believe this is an importantempirical question worth investigating in the future

Finally while we have limited our analysis to nondura-bles (perishable and disposable products specifically) anintriguing path would be to investigate the potential moder-ating role of product durability on usage likelihood andsubsequent enjoyment of highly aesthetic products It maybe that the relative durability of the aesthetic product couldaffect individualsrsquo ability or motivation to anticipate decre-ments in beauty before consumption has occurred whichwould have implications for usage likelihood For instance

4 We thank one of the anonymous reviewers for this suggestion

18 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

with big-ticket high-involvement purchases such as sleekfurniture (eg a beautiful new white sectional sofa) con-sumers may more readily anticipate losses of beauty sincethey will have to live with and encounter the product on adaily basis even after its original beauty has faded or beentarnished through repeated use This may explain why cov-ering new furniture with plastic was at one time a verycommon practice (DiSalvo 2009)

On the other hand for nondurable lower-involvementproducts such as those used in the current research perhapspeople do not have the motivation or ability to considershifts in aesthetic appeal before consumption Furtherproducts often vary in their degree of durabilitymdasha delicateembroidered blanket while by no means nondurable or dis-posable may begin to show visible signs of wear and tearsooner than a fleece blanket Although the present researchspecifically focused on perishable and single-use productsit would be worth examining when and how the degree ofdurability or even perceptions of fragility might shapedecisions to use beautiful products

In conclusion our research documents an inhibitingeffect of enhanced product aesthetics on consumption par-ticularly for disposable and consumable nondurable prod-ucts Although beautiful products have the ability topromote positive pre-usage evaluations and stimulatechoice our work indicates that consumers are subsequentlyless likely to use them and those who do use them ulti-mately experience higher negative affect and lower enjoy-ment In addition different processes underlie consumerresponses to highly aesthetic products depending onwhether or not consumption has taken place Thus we con-clude that while products may never be too pretty tochoose they can in fact be too pretty to use

DATA COLLECTION INFORMATION

All studies were designed and analyzed by the first authorunder the guidance of the other authors The data for study 1was collected at the Scottsdale Pure Barre studio in fall2015 by research assistants and employees under the super-vision of the first author Research assistants collected thedata for studies 2 and 5 under the supervision of the firstauthor at the W P Carey School of Business MarketingDepartment Behavioral Lab in spring 2015 The data for theconceptual replication (reported in the discussion of study6B) was collected by research assistants under the supervi-sion of the first author at the W P Carey School ofBusiness Marketing Department Behavioral Lab in summer2015 The data for study 4 (both the effort manipulation pre-test and the main study) and the correlational study examin-ing the relationship between implicit self-theories andappreciation for othersrsquo effort were collected by the firstauthor using Amazon Mechanical Turk in spring 2016 Thefirst author collected the data for the aesthetic appeal pretest

(described in appendix B) studies 3 6A and 6B usingAmazon Mechanical Turk in summer 2016 Lastly researchassistants collected the data for the correlational study exam-ining the relationship between aesthetics and perceivedeffort (described in the table in ldquoThe Role of Effort inInhibiting Usagerdquo) under the supervision of the first authorat the W P Carey School of Business MarketingDepartment Behavioral Lab in fall 2016

APPENDIX A

STUDY STIMULI

WU ET AL 19

REFERENCES

Aarts Henk and Ap Dijksterhuis (2003) ldquoThe Silence of theLibrary Environment Situational Norm and SocialBehaviorrdquo Journal of Personality and Social Psychology84 (1) 18ndash28

Aharon Itzhak Nancy Etcoff Dan Ariely Christopher F ChabrisEthan OrsquoConnor and Hans C Breiter (2001) ldquoBeautifulFaces Have Variable Reward Value fMRI and BehavioralEvidencerdquo Neuron 32 (3) 537ndash51

Alba Joseph W and Elanor F Williams (2013) ldquoPleasurePrinciples A Review of Research on HedonicConsumptionrdquo Journal of Consumer Psychology 23 (1)2ndash18

Belk Russell W (1988) ldquoPossessions and the Extended SelfrdquoJournal of Consumer Research 15 (2) 139ndash67

Bem Daryl J (1972) Self-Perception Theory Stanford CAStanford University Press

Berridge Kent C (2009) ldquolsquoLikingrsquo and lsquoWantingrsquo Food RewardsBrain Substrates and Roles in Eating Disordersrdquo Physiologyamp Behavior 97 (5) 537ndash50

Bloch Peter H (1995) ldquoSeeking the Ideal Form Product Designand Consumer Responserdquo Journal of Marketing 59 (July)16ndash29

Bloch Peter H Frederic F Brunel and Todd J Arnold (2003)ldquoIndividual Differences in the Centrality of Visual ProductAesthetics Concept and Measurementrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 29 (4) 551ndash65

Bolton Lisa E and Joseph W Alba (2012) ldquoWhen Less Is MoreConsumer Aversion to Unused Utilityrdquo Journal of ConsumerPsychology 22 (3) 369ndash83

Brehm Jack W (1966) A Theory of Psychological ReactanceNew York Academic Press

Broniarczyk Susan M and Joseph W Alba (1994) ldquoThe Role ofConsumersrsquo Intuitions in Inference Makingrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 21 (3) 393ndash407

Cabanac Michel (1971) ldquoPhysiological Role of PleasurerdquoScience 173 (4002) 1103ndash7

mdashmdashmdash (1979) ldquoSensory Pleasurerdquo Quarterly Review of Biology54 (1) 1ndash29

mdashmdashmdash (1985) ldquoPreferring for Pleasurerdquo American Journal ofClinical Nutrition 42 (5) 1151ndash5

Chandon Pierre and Brian Wansink (2007) ldquoThe Biasing HealthHalos of Fast Food Restaurant Health Claims Lower CalorieEstimates and Higher Side-Dish Consumption IntentionsrdquoJournal of Consumer Research 34 (3) 301ndash14

Cornil Yann and Pierre Chandon (2016) ldquoPleasure as a Substitutefor Size How Multisensory Imagery Can Make PeopleHappier with Smaller Food Portionsrdquo Journal of MarketingResearch 53 (5) 847ndash64

Cleveland William S (1984) ldquoGraphical Methods for DataPresentation Full Scale Breaks Dot Charts and MultibasedLoggingrdquo The American Statistician 38 (4) 270ndash80

DiSalvo David (2009) ldquoThe Psychology of Plastic CouchCoversrdquo httpsneuronarrativewordpresscom20090119the-psychology-of-plastic-couch-covers

Dixie Products (2015) ldquoDixie Ultra Moments Ultimate Hostrdquohttpswwwyoutubecomwatchvfrac14wsBBq9PsgVI

Dutton Denis (2009) The Art Instinct Beauty Pleasure ampHuman Evolution New York Oxford University Press

Dweck Carol S (2000) Self-Theories Their Role in MotivationPersonality and Development Philadelphia Psychology Press

Dweck Carol S and Ellen L Leggett (1988) ldquoA Social-CognitiveApproach to Motivation and Personalityrdquo PsychologicalReview 95 (2) 256ndash73

Evans Lindsay (2010) ldquoWhy Buy Unbleached Paperrdquo httpwwwbrighthubcomenvironmentgreen-livingarticles16299aspx

Festinger Leon (1957) A Theory of Cognitive DissonanceStanford CA Stanford University Press

Frederick Shane and George Loewenstein (1999) ldquoHedonicAdaptationrdquo in Scientific Perspectives on EnjoymentSuffering and Well-Being ed Daniel Kahneman Ed Dienerand Norbert Schwartz New York Russell Sage Foundation302ndash29

Fuchs Christoph Martin Schreier and Stijn MJ van Osselaer(2015) ldquoThe Handmade Effect Whatrsquos Love Got to Do withItrdquo Journal of Marketing 79 (2) 98ndash110

Hagtvedt Henrik and Vanessa M Patrick (2008) ldquoArt InfusionThe Influence of Visual Art on the Perception and Evaluationof Consumer Productsrdquo Journal of Marketing Research 45(3) 379ndash89

AESTHETIC APPEAL PRETEST FOR ALL STIMULI USED IN STUDIES

Higher aesthetic Lower aesthetic Comparison a

Toilet paper (study 1) 377 (146) 253 (155) t(128) frac14 ndash469 p lt 001 a frac14 94Cupcake (study 2) 556 (106) 305 (146) t(128) frac14 ndash1120 p lt 001 a frac14 96Napkin (studies 3 and 6) 465 (153) 230 (144) t(128) frac14 ndash903 p lt 001 a frac14 97Napkin (study 4) 332 (145) 262 (154) t(128) frac14 ndash266 p lt 01 a frac14 92Napkin (study 5) 458 (159) 234 (151) t(128) frac14 ndash823 p lt 001 a frac14 97

NOTEmdashStandard deviations are in parentheses

In a between-subjects pretest participants were asked to rate each product along the following dimensions beautiful pretty artistic and aesthetically pleasing

(1 frac14 not at all 7 frac14 very much) which formed our aesthetic appeal index

APPENDIX B

20 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

Hayes Andrew F (2013) ldquoPROCESS A VersatileComputational Tool for Observed Variable MediationModeration and Conditional Process Modelingrdquo workingpaper School of Communication and Department ofPsychology Ohio State University Columbus OH 43210

Heller Steve (2015) ldquoA Grocery Store Illusion Is Getting You toSpend More Moneyrdquo httpwwwbusinessinsidercoma-grocery-store-illusion-is-getting-you-to-spend-more-money-2015-8ixzz3ifsOLBfG

Hurling Robert and Richard Shepherd (2003) ldquoEating with YourEyes Effect of Appearance on Expectations of LikingrdquoAppetite 41 (2) 167ndash74

Hoegg JoAndrea Joseph W Alba and Darren W Dahl (2010)ldquoThe Good the Bad and the Ugly Influence of Aesthetics onProduct Feature Judgmentsrdquo Journal of ConsumerPsychology 20 (4) 419ndash30

Johnson Palmer O and Jerzy Neyman (1936) ldquoTests of CertainLinear Hypotheses and Their Applications to SomeEducational Problemsrdquo Statistical Research Memoirs 157ndash93

Kahneman Daniel and Amos Tversky (1979) ldquoProspect TheoryAn Analysis of Decision under Riskrdquo Econometrica 47 (2)263ndash91

Kampe Knut K W Chris D Frith Raymond J Dolan and UtaFrith (2001) ldquoPsychology Reward Value of Attractivenessand Gazerdquo Nature 413 (6856) 589

Kelley Harold H (1967) ldquoAttribution Theory in SocialPsychologyrdquo in Nebraska Symposium of Motivation Vol 15ed D Levine Lincoln University of Nebraska Press192ndash238

Kirmani Amna (1990) ldquoThe Effect of Perceived AdvertisingCosts on Brand Perceptionsrdquo Journal of Consumer Research17 (2) 160ndash71

Kirmani Amna Michelle P Lee and Carolyn Yoon (2004)ldquoProcedural Priming Effects on Spontaneous InferenceFormationrdquo Journal of Economic Psychology 25 (6)859ndash75

Kruger Justin Derrick Wirtz Leaf Van Boven and T WilliamAltermatt (2004) ldquoThe Effort Heuristicrdquo Journal ofExperimental Social Psychology 40 (1) 91ndash8

Lee Leonard and Claire I Tsai (2014) ldquoHow Price PromotionsInfluence Postpurchase Consumption Experience overTimerdquo Journal of Consumer Research 40 (5) 943ndash59

Levy Sheri R Steven J Stroessner and Carol S Dweck (1998)ldquoStereotype Formation and Endorsement The Role ofImplicit Theoriesrdquo Journal of Personality and SocialPsychology 74 (6) 1421ndash36

Lisjak Monika Andrea Bonezzi Soo Kim and Derek D Rucker(2015) ldquoPerils of Compensatory Consumption Within-Domain Compensation Undermines Subsequent Self-Regulationrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 41 (5)1186ndash203

Loewenstein George (1987) ldquoAnticipation and the Valuation ofDelayed Consumptionrdquo Economic Journal 97 (September)666ndash84

Maritain Jacques (1966) ldquoBeauty and Imitationrdquo in A ModernBook of Esthetics ed Melvin Rader New York HoltRinehart amp Winston 27ndash34

McFerran Brent Darren W Dahl Gavan J Fitzsimons andAndrea C Morales (2010) ldquoIrsquoll Have What Shersquos HavingEffects of Social Influence and Body Type on the FoodChoices of Othersrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 36 (6)915ndash29

Morales Andrea C (2005) ldquoGiving Firms an lsquoErsquo for EffortConsumer Responses to High-Effort Firmsrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 31 (4) 806ndash12

Moreau C Page Leff Bonney and Kelly B Herd (2011) ldquoItrsquos theThought (and the Effort) That Counts How Customizing forOthers Differs from Customizing for Oneselfrdquo Journal ofMarketing 75 (5) 120ndash33

Norton Michael I Daniel Mochon and Dan Ariely (2012) ldquoThelsquoIkearsquo Effect When Labor Leads to Loverdquo Journal ofConsumer Psychology 22 (July) 453ndash60

Page Christine and Paul M Herr (2002) ldquoAn Investigation ofthe Processes by Which Product Design and Brand StrengthInteract to Determine Initial Affect and QualityJudgmentsrdquo Journal of Consumer Psychology 12 (2)133ndash47

Raghubir Priya and Eric A Greenleaf (2006) ldquoRatios inProportion What Should the Shape of the Package BerdquoJournal of Marketing 70 (2) 95ndash107

Raghunathan Rajagopal Rebecca Walker Naylor and Wayne DHoyer (2006) ldquoThe Unhealthy frac14 Tasty Intuition and ItsEffects on Taste Inferences Enjoyment and Choice of FoodProductsrdquo Journal of Marketing 70 (4) 170ndash84

Reber Rolf Norbert Schwarz and Piotr Winkielman (2004)ldquoProcessing Fluency and Aesthetic Pleasure Is Beauty in thePerceiverrsquos Processing Experiencerdquo Personality and SocialPsychology Review 8 (4) 364ndash82

Reber Rolf Piotr Winkielman and Norbert Schwarz (1998)ldquoEffects of Perceptual Fluency on Affective JudgmentsrdquoPsychological Science 9 (1) 45ndash48

Reimann Martin Judith Zaichkowksy Carolin Neuhaus ThomasBender and Bernd Weber (2010) ldquoAesthetic PackageDesign A Behavioral Neural and PsychologicalInvestigationrdquo Journal of Consumer Psychology 20 (4)431ndash41

Santayana George (18961955) The Sense of Beauty New YorkDover

Scott Maura L Stephen M Nowlis Naomi Mandel and AndreaC Morales (2008) ldquoThe Effects of Reduced Food Size andPackage Size on the Consumption Behavior of Restrainedand Unrestrained Eatersrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 35(3) 391ndash405

Spencer Steven J Mark P Zanna and Geoffrey T Fong (2005)ldquoEstablishing a Causal Chain Why Experiments Are OftenMore Effective than Mediational Analyses in ExaminingPsychological Processesrdquo Journal of Personality and SocialPsychology 89 (6) 845ndash51

Spiller Stephen A Gavan J Fitzsimons John G Lynch Jr andGary H McClelland (2013) ldquoSpotlights Floodlights andthe Magic Number Zero Simple Effects Tests inModerated Regressionrdquo Journal of Marketing Research 50(2) 277ndash88

Thompson Debora V Rebecca W Hamilton and Roland T Rust(2005) ldquoFeature Fatigue When Product CapabilitiesBecome Too Much of a Good Thingrdquo Journal of MarketingResearch 42 (November) 431ndash42

Townsend Claudia and Suzanne B Shu (2010) ldquoWhen and HowAesthetics Influences Financial Decisionsrdquo Journal ofConsumer Psychology 20 (4) 452ndash58

Townsend Claudia and Sanjay Sood (2012) ldquoSelf-Affirmationthrough the Choice of Highly Aesthetic Productsrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 39 (2) 415ndash28

Veryzer Robert W and J Wesley Hutchinson (1998) ldquoTheInfluence of Unity and Prototypicality on Aesthetic

WU ET AL 21

Responses to New Product Designsrdquo Journal of ConsumerResearch 24 (4) 374ndash94

Wada Yuji Carlos Arce-Lopera Tomohiro Masuda AtsushiKimura Ippeita Dan Sho-ichi Goto Daisuke Tsuzuki andKatsunori Okajima (2010) ldquoInfluence of LuminanceDistribution on the Appetizingly Fresh Appearance ofCabbagerdquo Appetite 54 (2) 363ndash68

Weiner Bernard (2000) ldquoAttributional Thoughts and ConsumerBehaviorrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 27 (December)382ndash87

Witz Anne Chris Warhurst and Dennis Nickson (2003) ldquoTheLabour of Aesthetics and The Aesthetics of OrganizationrdquoOrganization 10 (1) 33ndash54

Yamamoto Mel and David R Lambert (1994) ldquoThe Impact ofProduct Aesthetics on the Evaluation of Industrial ProductsrdquoJournal of Product Innovation Management 11 (4) 309ndash24

Yang Sha and Priya Raghubir (2005) ldquoCan Bottles SpeakVolumes The Effect of Package Shape on How Much toBuyrdquo Journal of Retailing 81 (4) 269ndash82

22 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

  • ucx057-FN1
  • ucx057-FN2
  • ucx057-FN3
  • ucx057-FN4
  • app1
  • app2
  • ucx057-TF1
  • ucx057-TF2
Page 2: It’s Too Pretty to Use! When and How Enhanced Product ...gavan/bio/GJF_articles/...testing the prediction that aesthetic products can elicit greater perceptions of effort. In line

consumers exhibit both decreased consumption of suchproducts and reduced enjoyment if consumption does oc-cur precisely because of their beauty We propose thathigher aesthetics can carry negative consequences andidentify conditions under which a greater focus on aes-thetics reduces usage and decreases enjoyment after con-sumption In elucidating these effects we introduce aframework that examines how the aesthetic qualities of aproduct shape both (1) the likelihood of consuming thatproduct (eg eating an intricately decorated cupcake us-ing a beautiful napkin) and (2) the emotional conse-quences of such consumption or how one feels onceconsumption has taken place

Importantly we demonstrate that there are two distinctmechanisms underlying these effects First we find thatpeople link higher aesthetics to higher effort so that priorto consumption they are less likely to consume aestheticproducts due to concerns over the destruction of such ef-fort After consumption however once a beautiful producthas been inherently damaged through use consumers expe-rience more negative affect due to the decrements inbeauty that become visible when an aesthetic product ismade less attractive through consumption in addition totheir concerns over having actually destroyed effort

In identifying the inhibiting effect of product aestheticson consumption and the emotional consequences of aes-thetic product usage we contribute to the literature in sev-eral ways First while prior work shows that consumersrespond positively to both highly aesthetic and effort-ladenproducts to our knowledge we are the first to empiricallytest and link consumersrsquo associations between these twoconstructs Second although existing work suggests thatproduct aesthetics should have a uniformly positive influ-ence on pre-usage evaluations and choice (Reimann et al2010) across a variety of perishable and disposable (ienondurable) consumption contexts we demonstrate thatthe appreciation for effort that people attribute to highlyaesthetic products can have the unintended consequence ofdiscouraging consumption Third while research in im-plicit self-theories reveals that incremental and entity theo-rists carry different beliefs about the value of their owneffort (Dweck 2000) in our exploration of effort as our un-derlying mechanism we also show that these beliefs ex-tend to consumersrsquo appreciation of othersrsquo effort in thecreation of highly aesthetic products

Moreover contrary to the notion that product aestheticsshould always enhance consumer enjoyment we demon-strate that the consumption of highly aesthetic products canactually increase negative affect associated with the con-sumption experience by not only eliciting concerns thatone has destroyed effort but also by physicallycompromising the beauty of such products While priorwork has shown that aesthetic products are intrinsically re-warding and provide greater pleasure (Reber Schwarz andWinkielman 2004) ours is the first to show that the

consumption of such products can result in greater lossesof aesthetic appeal and that such beauty decrements inturn drive the relationship between aesthetic product usageand negative emotional outcomes Finally and morebroadly we add to the growing body of research that ex-plores when and why the drivers of predicted and experi-enced utility diverge (Lee and Tsai 2014 ThompsonHamilton and Rust 2005)

Notably as opposed to prior research that describes howenhanced aesthetics motivate choice and purchase (Raghubirand Greenleaf 2006 Reimann et al 2010) we investigatethe impact of aesthetics after purchase Thus our goal is notto compare pre- and post-purchase evaluations but rather tobetter understand the various nuances that shape the effectof aesthetics on consumption likelihood and the emotionalconsequences of such consumption Furthermore while ourresearch centers on the notion that highly aesthetic productselicit greater perceptions of effort we acknowledge thathigher aesthetics do not in every case lead to higher effort in-ferences For instance some products may be aestheticallypleasing precisely because of their simplistic designs suchas Scandinavian furniture Thus we are not suggesting thathigher aesthetics always imply higher effort but rather thatwhen they do they will lead to lower usage and more nega-tive consumption and post-consumption experiences

CONCEPTUAL BACKGROUND

Product Aesthetics

The pervasive role that aesthetics play in shaping con-sumer preferences is well documented (Bloch 1995 BlochBrunel and Arnold 2003 Hagtvedt and Patrick 2008Veryzer and Hutchinson 1998) Whether knowingly or notconsumers often rely on product aesthetics to inform theirpurchase decisions even in situations where design is ex-pected to have minimal influence (Raghubir and Greenleaf2006 Yang and Raghubir 2005) such as in financial(Townsend and Shu 2010) or industrial (Yamamoto andLambert 1994) product domains Further visually appeal-ing products elicit positive consumer responses at an affec-tive cognitive or even neural level (Hagtvedt and Patrick2008 Page and Herr 2002 Reimann et al 2010) Put sim-ply consumer bias toward beautiful products can overridemore rational and normative judgment and decision-making processes (for an exception see Hoegg Alba andDahl 2010)

Given the powerful influence of aesthetics marketershave also changed their strategies to capitalize on their al-lure Supermarket chains from around the world (egMarks amp Spencer Monoprix Whole Foods) have started todisplay their consumable products from eggs to tea inbeautifully designed packages (Heller 2015) Even brandsselling traditionally utilitarian products such as Dixiehave begun to promote special celebrity collections of

2 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

disposable paper plates napkins bowls and plastic cupsfeaturing highly attractive and stylish designs (2015)

In sum extant research shows that consumers gravitatetoward beautiful products at the choice and pre-consumption stages of the decision process (Raghubir andGreenleaf 2006 Reimann et al 2010) However despitethe positive role that enhanced aesthetics play in motivat-ing choice we predict that there are also negative conse-quences of acquiring such products that can emerge duringand after consumption Next we discuss the pivotal rolethat effort inferences play in our conceptualization

The Role of Effort in Inhibiting Usage

Equally ubiquitous as consumersrsquo admiration for aes-thetics is their appreciation for effort Research in social psy-chology and consumer behavior has shown that the degreeof effort expendedmdashwhether in time physical labor pain ormoneymdashis directly associated with how positively peopleevaluate the outcome of that effort (Belk 1988 Bem 1972Festinger 1957 Moreau Bonney and Herd 2011 NortonMochon and Ariely 2012) Notably this appreciation for ef-fort is not limited to effort exerted by oneself The ldquoeffortheuristicrdquo (Kruger et al 2004) describes how increases in theperceived production time and effort of a given item enhanceratings of quality and liking Furthermore consumers rewardfirms that expend extra effort in creating or displaying theirproducts even when the quality of the products is not im-proved by the effort (Morales 2005)

While aesthetics and effort have traditionally been studiedin isolation we examine these two constructs in tandem bytesting the prediction that aesthetic products can elicitgreater perceptions of effort In line with attribution theorywhich posits that people seek out causes of particular events(Kelley 1967) we propose that the aesthetic appeal of aproduct naturally leads consumers to engage in attributionalsearch to identify what made the product so beautiful Thissearch then leads to the inference that more effort was in-vested in the productrsquos creation whether the effort was ex-pended during product design physical production orduring both processes Importantly the association betweenaesthetics and effort is likely one that consumers intuit at animplicit level Specifically we believe these inferences oc-cur fairly automatically similar to the spontaneously gener-ated consumer inferences documented in prior work(Broniarczyk and Alba 1994) For instance Kirmani Leeand Yoon (2004) showed that consumers spontaneously in-fer that higher advertising expenditures imply higher prod-uct quality and similarly Raghunathan Naylor and Hoyer(2006) found that the ldquounhealthy frac14 tastyrdquo intuition operatesat an implicit level In the same vein we posit that con-sumers are not actively deliberating about the positive asso-ciations between aesthetics and effort but instead intuit thisrelationship in a relatively spontaneous manner upon expo-sure to an aesthetic product

Though the association between aesthetics and effort hasnot been systematically explored in the consumer behaviorliterature support for this relationship does exist in relatedareas of research such as organizational behaviorldquoAesthetic laborrdquo refers to the notion that the process ofmaking oneself look attractive for frontline work often re-quires effort and hard labor (Witz Warhurst and Nickson2003) suggesting a positive association between aestheticappeal and perceived effort Still to provide further supportfor this assertion we conducted a pretest to examine the re-lationship between these two constructs across a variety ofproducts These products included the higher aesthetic stim-uli utilized in our focal studies such as toilet paper cup-cakes and paper napkins (see appendix A for images) aswell as higher aesthetic items used in prior research such ascalculators and coffee makers (Townsend and Sood 2012)Participants (n frac14 138) were shown a series of seven prod-ucts and asked to indicate for each one the degree of effortthey thought it took to (1) create the design of the productand (2) produce the product (1 frac14 hardly any effort 7 frac14 a lotof effort) Next they rated the degree to which the productwas beautiful artistic pretty and aesthetically appealingwhich formed our aesthetic appeal index (1 frac14 not at all7 frac14 very much for each of the seven products a 83)Correlations between aesthetic appeal and the two types ofeffort revealed that the more aesthetically appealing a prod-uct was rated the higher the perceived degree of design (r 35 p lt 001) and production effort (r 24 p lt 005) as-cribed to the productrsquos creation a pattern that held for eachof the seven products including machine-manufactured nap-kins and toilet paper (see table 1)

These findings suggest that consumers associate aes-thetics with effort regardless of whether the effort was at-tributed to product design or physical production Of noteto ensure comparability the stimuli in all of our studiesconsist of higher and lower aesthetic products within agiven product category (eg a higher vs lower aestheticcupcake) rather than across product categories (eg a cup-cake which tends to be more aesthetic vs a bagel whichtends to be less aesthetic)

TABLE 1

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN AESTHETICS AND PERCEIVEDEFFORT

Correlation betweenaesthetic appealand design effort

Correlation betweenaesthetic appeal and

production effort

Toilet paper r frac14 46 p lt 001 r frac14 54 p lt 001Cupcake r frac14 38 p lt 001 r frac14 44 p lt 001Napkin (floral) r frac14 58 p lt 001 r frac14 48 p lt 001Napkin (solid color) r frac14 38 p lt 001 r frac14 31 p lt 001Napkin (decorative) r frac14 52 p lt 001 r frac14 48 p lt 001Calculator r frac14 35 p lt 001 r frac14 24 p lt 005Coffee maker r frac14 36 p lt 001 r frac14 33 p lt 001

WU ET AL 3

In the current research we argue that particularly fornondurable aesthetic products the effort inferences as-cribed to their creation ironically curb actual usageSpecifically because people intuit that higher aestheticssignify higher effort as we established in our pretest andrecognize that effort is a controllable and volitional behav-ior (Morales 2005 Weiner 2000) they appreciate and re-ward the extra effort expended to make the product sobeautiful Indeed consumers often rely on perceived effortto ascertain the value and quality of an ad product or ser-vice (Kirmani 1990 Kruger et al 2004 Morales 2005) Inthe case of nondurable goods the consumption of an aes-thetically appealing product involves damaging its productdesign and by extension destroying the effort originallyinvested in making the product beautiful Based on thisperspective we posit that people refrain from using prod-ucts imbued with effort as this indirectly entails destroyingsomething they reward and appreciate Thus to the extentthat enhanced aesthetics evoke higher perceptions of de-sign andor production effort we predict that people shouldbe less likely to consume a product that has higher (vslower) aesthetic appeal More formally

H1 Consumers will be less likely to useconsume a nondura-

ble product that has higher (vs lower) aesthetic appeal

H2 The drop in consumption likelihood for nondurable prod-

ucts with higher (vs lower) aesthetic appeal will be me-

diated in serial by design andor production effort infer-

ences and concerns about the destruction of such effort

Importantly based on our conceptualization we wouldnot expect the same reduced consumption for beautiful prod-ucts that do not elicit high effort inferences or for individualswho do not recognize and appreciate effort For instancewhile consumers may be less likely to eat an intricately deco-rated cupcake because they do not want to destroy the effortthat presumably went into making it so beautiful this de-crease in consumption should be attenuated if they are madeto believe the cupcake required little effort to make in thefirst place or if they do not readily appreciate effort In study4 we manipulate effort inferences directly to show how thisreduced consumption is mitigated when beautiful productsare not associated with such inferences and in study 5 wediscuss an individual difference that makes some consumerseven more (vs less) likely to appreciate effort

Understanding Post-Consumption Affect

Beyond examining the factors that drive lower usage like-lihood of beautiful products we also investigate how con-sumers feel once consumption has occurred While wecontend that people will be less likely to use highly aestheticproducts due to concerns over the destruction of effort incases where they do we believe such concerns will continueto shape the emotional consequences of consumption giventhat their actions have resulted in the actual destruction of

effort Put another way if the mere thought of having to par-ticipate in the ruining of effort is sufficient to restrain con-sumption engaging in the actual destruction of effortthrough the consumption of a highly aesthetic nondurableproduct should similarly have a negative impact on subse-quent enjoyment of the experience Critically in addition toevoking concerns about effort destruction because consump-tion inherently compromises the beauty of a highly aestheticproduct by transforming it into something less attractive wepropose that witnessing such negative perceptual changesshould also play a role in impacting enjoyment and affect

According to the work of philosopher George Santayana(18961955) aesthetics are inextricably linked with pleasureand enjoyment a notion that has received widespread empir-ical support in work on hedonic consumption (Alba andWilliams 2013) Put simply people gravitate toward aesthet-ically appealing objects because of the immediate experien-tial pleasure that beauty in itself provides a process that isautomatic and does not require intervening cognitive reason-ing (Dutton 2009 Maritain 1966 Reber et al 2004) Thisnotion is further supported by neuroimaging studies showingthat the reward system in the brain plays an important rolein the processing of aesthetic stimuli (Aharon et al 2001Kampe et al 2001) For instance Reimann and colleagues(2010) demonstrated that exposure to aesthetic package de-signs resulted in increased activation in the nucleus accum-bens and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex key areas of thebrain that are known to process pleasure and reward

In the context of nondurable goods where consumptioninherently entails damaging the productrsquos appearance weargue that consumption of highly aesthetic products willlead to larger losses of beauty relative to the consumptionof less aesthetic products where the shifts in aesthetic ap-peal through usage will be less dramatic given lower ini-tial levels of attractiveness Thus if beautiful productsindeed afford greater pleasure and reward while they are inpristine condition it follows that the larger decrements inbeauty stemming from their consumption would result in aless pleasurable experience Since consumers are more sen-sitive to changes from a reference point rather than abso-lute levels (Kahneman and Tversky 1979) we predict thatthe steeper drops in beauty experienced in response to theconsumption of a higher aesthetic product will lead tomore negative responses than smaller changes in aestheticappeal from a lower starting point with the consumption ofa less aesthetic product More specifically we contend thatbecause consuming a highly aesthetic product inherentlyturns something beautiful which is pleasurable into some-thing unattractive which is unpleasant the accompanyingreductions in beauty will lead to reduced consumption en-joyment and greater negative affect

In sum we argue that while the effort inferences madebefore consumption will continue to mediate emotionaloutcomes given that consumption involves the actual de-struction of effort we predict that a second process will

4 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

also emerge one based on the decrements in beauty thathighly aesthetic products undergo when their aestheticqualities are compromised through consumption We pro-pose that these two processes will operate in tandem toshape the affective responses associated with the consump-tion of aesthetic products Formally

H3 Consumption of a higher (vs lower) aesthetic nondura-

ble product will negatively affect emotional outcomes

(enjoyment and affect)

H4a The effect of consuming a higher (vs lower) aesthetic

nondurable product on emotional outcomes will be

mediated in serial by design andor production effort

inferences and concerns over having destroyed such

effort as a result of consumption

H4b The effect of consuming a higher (vs lower) aesthetic

nondurable product on emotional outcomes will be

mediated by changes in beauty occurring as a result of

consumption

SUMMARY AND OVERVIEW OF STUDIES

In sum our conceptual model posits that different pro-cesses underlie consumer responses to highly aesthetic prod-ucts depending on whether or not consumption has takenplace Before consumption we expect higher effort infer-ences attributed to the creation of aesthetic products to elicitstronger concerns that such effort would be destroyed byconsumption lowering consumption likelihood After con-sumption in addition to these effort destruction concernsconsumers will also be confronted with the reality that theaesthetic appeal of the product has been visibly compromisedthrough usage Because beautiful products are inherentlypleasurable and rewarding the greater losses of beauty asso-ciated with aesthetic product usage will drive negative affectand reduce consumption enjoyment Importantly given thatnondurable products are designed for immediate consump-tion we do not expect anticipated shifts in aesthetic appealalone or concerns over what the product will look like post-consumption to play a significant role in stopping consumersfrom using them in the first place These decrements inbeauty are not evident before consumption when the highlyaesthetic product is still in pristine beautiful condition butinstead are salient only post-consumption

We test our predictions in field and laboratory studiesacross multiple consumption contexts summarized intable 2 Study 1 a field experiment provides an initialdemonstration of the inhibiting effect of product aestheticson usage behavior for real consumers Study 2 conceptu-ally replicates this effect in the lab using a different prod-uct and measure of consumption and provides preliminaryevidence that consumption of an aesthetic product can neg-atively impact product enjoyment Studies 3 4 and 5 pro-vide convergent support for effort inferences as a keydriver of reduced aesthetic product usage through

mediation (study 3) moderation by an effort intervention(study 4) and the theoretically relevant individual differ-ence of implicit self-theories (study 5) Of note effort in-ferences broadly speaking encompass both the inferencesabout the amount of effort required to make a productbeautiful as well as the inferences about the destruction ofsuch effort In our final two studies we hold usage constantto focus on the downstream consequences of aestheticproduct usage and shed light on the processes underlyingpost-consumption affect Study 6A establishes that the con-sumption of a higher (vs lower) aesthetic product resultsin larger losses of beauty and that such beauty decrementsnegatively impact post-consumption emotions while study6B tests the full conceptual model by integrating changesin beauty and effort inferences into emotional reactionslinked to the consumption experience The table inappendix B summarizes the results of a pretest showingthat all of the higher (vs lower) aesthetic stimuli utilized inour studies have greater aesthetic appeal Thus aestheticsmanipulation checks are not discussed in specific studies

STUDY 1 ESTABLISHING THEINHIBITING EFFECT OF ENHANCED

AESTHETICS ON USAGE IN THE FIELD

The goal of study 1 is to provide initial evidence that en-hanced product aesthetics can have an inhibiting effect onusage behavior in a real-world context We worked with afitness studio to conduct a field experiment that involvedmonitoring client toilet paper use over two weeks We an-ticipated that clients would use less toilet paper when itwas more (vs less) aesthetically appealing Importantlywe used the exact same brand and type of toilet paper inboth conditions which allowed us to vary its aestheticswhile holding constant all other unrelated factors such asquality texture and absorbency

Method

Participants and Procedure We manipulated whetherthe individual bathroom at a fitness studio located in thesouthwestern United States was stocked with plain whitetoilet paper (lower aesthetic condition) or white toilet paperfeaturing festive holiday motifs (higher aesthetic conditionsee appendix A row 1 for images) which was appropriateat the time of data collection as the study took place twoweeks before Christmas1 Of note in addition to the pretestassessing different levels of aesthetic appeal between thetwo different types of toilet paper another between-subjects

1 In coordinating the field study we originally made plans to run attwo locations to counterbalance the order of presentation of the toiletpaper (lower aesthetic first vs higher aesthetic first) Unfortunatelythe second studio encountered plumbing issues during the course ofthe study invalidating the data thereby yielding results from only onestudio

WU ET AL 5

TA

BL

E2

ST

UD

YO

VE

RV

IEW

Stu

dy

Conte

xt

Pro

duct

Desig

nD

ependentvariable

(s)

Sta

tisticalc

ontr

ols

Fin

din

gs

1F

ield

Toile

tpaper

bull2

(aest

hetic

shig

her

vs

low

er)

bullN

um

ber

ofsheets

used

bullB

asic

eff

ect

Aesth

etics

reduced

the

avera

ge

num

ber

of

sheets

used

(37

0vs

66

6plt

001)

2Lab

Cupcake

bull2

(aest

hetic

shig

her

vs

low

er)

hunger

(continuous)

bullC

onsum

ption

am

ount

bullC

onsum

ption

enjo

ym

ent

bullP

erc

eiv

ed

expense

bullM

od

era

tio

no

fb

asic

eff

ect

Aesth

etics

hunger

inte

rac-

tion

(pfrac14

03)

aesth

etics

reduce

dconsum

ption

ofth

ecup-

cake

prim

arily

am

ong

hungry

indiv

iduals

bullP

ost-

co

nsu

mp

tio

nco

nseq

uen

ces

Aesth

etics

hunger

inte

raction

(pfrac14

01)

aesth

etic

sre

duce

denjo

ymentofth

ecupcake

prim

arily

am

ong

hungry

indiv

iduals

3S

imula

tion

Paper

napkin

bull2

(aest

hetic

shig

her

vs

low

er)

bullU

sage

likelih

ood

bullE

ffort

infe

rences

bullC

oncern

sabouteffort

destr

uctio

n

bullW

illin

gness

topay

bullB

asic

eff

ect

Aesth

etics

reduced

usage

likelih

ood

(58

1vs62

8plt

001)

incr

eased

perc

eptions

ofeffort

(38

0vs31

9plt

01)

and

incre

ased

concern

sabouteffort

de-

str

uction

(25

4vs19

5plt

01)

bullP

re-c

on

su

mp

tio

np

rocess

by

med

iati

on

A

esth

etics

effort

infe

rences

concern

sabouteffort

destr

uctio

n

usage

likelih

ood

(95

CIfrac14

[ndash0

9ndash0

1])

4S

imula

tion

Paper

napkin

bull2

(napki

nin

form

atio

nnone

vs

hig

her

aest

hetics

re-

quired

low

er

pro

duction

effort

)

bullC

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touse

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her

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wer

aest

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bullP

erc

eiv

ed

cost

bullB

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eff

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Inth

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touse

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001)

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er)

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bullW

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Aesth

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dera

tor

Aesth

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heories

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raction

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04)

aesth

etics

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nusageprim

arily

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ong

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menta

ltheorists

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Sim

ula

tion

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(aest

hetic

shig

her

vs

low

er

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een)

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ent

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after

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ithin

)

bullE

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bullC

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Usage

ofaesth

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incre

ased

negative

affect(3

05

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6plt

001)

and

decre

ments

inbeauty

acro

ss

tim

e(plt

001)

bullP

ost-

co

nsu

mp

tio

np

rocess

by

med

iati

on

A

esth

etics

decre

ments

inbeauty

em

otio

ns

(95

CIfrac14

[042

9])

6B

Sim

ula

tion

Paper

napkin

bull2

(aest

hetic

shig

her

vs

low

er)

bullE

motio

ns

bullC

hanges

inaesth

etic

judgm

ent

bullE

ffort

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rences

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oncern

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been

destr

oyed

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ased

negative

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ents

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001)

perc

eptions

of

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(34

9vs

28

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001)

and

concern

sth

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had

been

destr

oyed

(26

2vs20

0plt

001)

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nsu

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rocess

by

para

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ed

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on

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ments

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(95

CIfrac14

[235

4])

2A

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etics

effort

infe

rences

concern

sth

atef-

fort

had

been

destr

oyed

em

otions

(95

CIfrac14

[06

23])

6 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

pretest (n frac14 100) revealed that people liked the higher (vslower) aesthetic toilet paper and its design more (Mhigher

aesthetic frac14 457 vs Mlower aesthetic frac14 400 t(98) frac14 ndash195pfrac14 05 rfrac14 88)

The studio owner provided us with the number of peoplewho attended classes each week and employees who re-mained blind to our research hypotheses replenished thetoilet paper as needed A total of 772 clients visited the stu-dio over the course of the studymdash387 in the lower aestheticcondition (week 1) and 385 in the higher aesthetic condi-tion (week 2) Clients were unaware that a study was beingconducted

Results and Discussion

As predicted clients used less of the more aestheticallyappealing toilet paper 2578 total sheets of the lower aes-thetic toilet paper were used while only 1425 sheets of thehigher aesthetic toilet paper were used Because we wereprovided with the number of class attendees we were alsoable to calculate average usage per client each client in thelower aesthetic condition used an average of 666 sheetswhile each client in the higher aesthetic condition used an av-erage of 370 sheets (v2 (1)frac14 32616 (n frac14 772) p lt 001)

Discussion We find preliminary evidence that en-hanced product aesthetics can reduce usage behaviorswhile controlling for differences in paper quality and thetotal number of clients Having provided a demonstrationof this phenomenon in an ecologically valid setting the re-maining studies replicate and generalize this finding andidentify its underlying mechanism in a more controlledenvironment

STUDY 2 THE IMPACT OF AESTHETICSON FOOD CONSUMPTION AND

ENJOYMENT

The purpose of study 2 was to conceptually replicatestudy 1 in a product category in which aesthetics play amajor role food A growing body of research has docu-mented the profound influence that food presentation hason how we evaluate what we eat (Hurling and Shepherd2003 Wada et al 2010) We chose cupcakes as our focalstimuli because they are a highly familiar dessert that canbe made more aesthetically appealing (ie higher aes-thetics with frosting in the shape of a rose) or more plain(ie lower aesthetics with smooth frosting) while holdingconstant aesthetically unrelated factors such as flavor andtaste (see appendix A row 2 for images) Consistent withthe extant aesthetics literature a pretest of the cupcakesused in study 2 revealed that people were more likely tochoose to purchase the higher (vs lower) aesthetic cupcakefor consumption in the future providing an even strongertest of our predictions about higher aesthetics lowering

consumption Details of this pretest are available in theweb appendix

Importantly given the inherent nature of food we arecognizant of baseline individual differences that could af-fect the amount consumed (Lisjak et al 2015) We ran thisstudy throughout the day (from 10 am to 5 pm) acrossmultiple days so we accounted for individual differencesin hunger and measured state hunger at the start of thestudy We expect that the inhibiting effect of aesthetics onconsumption will be greatest among hungry participantsas the need to exhibit restraint should be observed onlyamong those motivated to engage in consumption in thefirst place We do not expect differences in consumptionamong satiated participants as they should have a low de-sire to eat regardless of aesthetics

Notably an alternative explanation is that people feel in-hibited from consuming highly aesthetic products becausethey tend to cost more and not because of concerns overdestroying effort Thus we also aim to replicate study 1rsquosfindings while controlling for perceived expense

Finally we seek to provide initial evidence that the con-sumption of a highly aesthetic product will negatively af-fect how much participants enjoy the consumptionexperience a notion we explore in depth in study 6 In linewith our predictions for consumption amount we expectthe negative influence of food aesthetics on post-consumption affect to be greatest among hungry individ-uals as hunger leads people to not only eat more but toalso enjoy their food more (Berridge 2009 Cabanac 19711979 1985) Thus changes in the ability to derive enjoy-ment should be observed only among those motivated toengage in consumption in the first place

Method

Participants and Procedure One hundred eighty-threeundergraduate students from a southwestern university par-ticipated in a 2 (aesthetics higher vs lower) continuous(hunger) between-subjects study in exchange for partialcourse credit Five participants were excluded from theanalysis four had missing data on the dependent measuresand one had missing data on hunger This left a sample of178 participants (52 female [one did not report gender]median age frac14 21 ages 18ndash48)

Participants first indicated their current level of hunger(1 frac14 not at all hungry 7 frac14 very hungry) They were thentold that the goal of the study was to explore which foodsgo best with different videos and that they would be eatingvanilla cupcakes Participants were randomly assigned toeither the higher or lower aesthetic condition To ensurethey did not discount the overall consumption experiencebecause they lacked freedom of choice (Brehm 1966)within each aesthetic condition they chose either a pink orcream-colored cupcake to eat Experimenters preweighedeach cupcake before the start of each session

WU ET AL 7

Next participants were told to watch a 90 second videofeaturing scenes from around the world while they ate theircupcake and that they were free to eat as much or as littleof the cupcake as they liked After finishing the video theremains of the cupcake were collected and weighed in aseparate room Participants then rated how much they en-joyed the cupcake (1 frac14 not at all 7 frac14 very much so) andcompleted filler measures that assessed how interesting thevideo was and how much they liked cupcakes in generalFinally they rated how expensive they thought the cupcakewas (1 frac14 not at all expensive 7 frac14 very expensive)

Results and Discussion

We predicted that for consumers who were motivated toconsume (ie hungry individuals) higher aesthetics wouldcurb consumption quantity and reduce consumption enjoy-ment effects that were expected to hold even when wecontrolled for perceived expense

Consumption Amount We first log-transformed the de-pendent variable to normalize the distribution (Cleveland1984) Next we performed a 2 (aesthetics condition) continuous (hunger) multiple regression analysis on thelogged consumption amount Regressing this loggedamount on the aesthetics manipulation mean-centered lev-els of hunger and their interaction revealed a directionalsimple effect of aesthetics at the mean level of hunger(b frac14 ndash10 t(174) frac14 ndash126 p frac14 21) such that participantsin the higher aesthetic condition consumed less of the cup-cake Most importantly the interaction was also significant(b frac14 ndash10 t(174) frac14 ndash213 p frac14 03) Decomposing the inter-action in the lower aesthetic (smooth frosting) condition we

found a significant effect of hunger (b frac14 15 t(174) frac14446 p lt 001) such that hungry (vs satiated) individualsconsumed more of the cupcake However attesting to the in-hibitory nature of beautiful products in the higher aesthetic(rose frosting) condition the effect of hunger was not signifi-cant (b frac14 05 t(174) frac14 129 p frac14 20) Because self-reportedhunger was measured on a 1 to 7 scale (M frac14 425 SDfrac14 168median frac14 4) we ran a floodlight analysis using the Johnson-Neyman (1936) technique to identify the range of hunger forwhich the simple effect of aesthetics was significant (figure 1see also Spiller et al 2013) This analysis revealed a signifi-cant reduction in consumption of the higher (vs lower) aes-thetic cupcake for any value of hunger above 492 (at p lt05) Thus despite a higher baseline desire to eat hungry indi-viduals actively refrained from consumption when the cup-cake was more aesthetically appealing Consistent with ourpredictions such effects were not observed among satiated in-dividuals who displayed low motivation to eat regardless ofthe cupcakersquos appearance

Enjoyment of the Cupcake A 2 continuous regres-sion on cupcake enjoyment revealed only a significant in-teraction (b frac14 ndash41 t(174) frac14 ndash256 p frac14 01 see figure 2)In the lower aesthetic condition (b frac14 45 t(174) frac14 405p lt 001) hungry (vs satiated) individuals enjoyed thecupcake more There was no effect of hunger in the higheraesthetic condition (bfrac14 04 t(174) lt 1 ns) Floodlightanalysis revealed that for all values of hunger above 466participants in the higher aesthetic condition enjoyed thecupcake significantly less (p lt 05)

Perceived Expense A 2 continuous regression onperceived expense of the cupcake revealed only a signifi-cant simple effect of aesthetics at the mean level of hunger

FIGURE 1

AESTHETICS HUNGER ON CONSUMPTION AMOUNT (STUDY 2)

8 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

(p lt 001) such that the higher aesthetic cupcake was seenas more expensive Most importantly when we controlledfor expense the 2 continuous interactions and focal ef-fects continue to hold for consumption amount (p lt 04)and cupcake enjoyment (p lt 01) Finally a moderatedmediation analysis (model 8 Hayes 2013) revealed thatperceived expense did not mediate either amount con-sumed (b frac14 ndash01 95 CI [ndash08 05]) or degree of enjoy-ment (b frac14 12 95 CI [ndash05 35]) among hungryindividuals revealing that inferred monetary value was notdriving our effects

Discussion Though our pretest showed that consumerswere more likely to choose the higher aesthetic cupcake avery different pattern of results emerged with consumptionamount and consumption enjoyment Hungry participantsactively inhibited their consumption and ate less in thehigher aesthetic rose frosting condition In addition to eat-ing less these individuals experienced lower consumptionenjoyment when the cupcake was highly aesthetic By con-ceptually replicating the previous studyrsquos results with anew product we increase the generalizability of our find-ings to food a domain for which visual presentation playsa fundamental role We also provide initial evidence thatconsumption of highly aesthetic products can carry nega-tive implications for the consumption experience a notionwe explore in greater depth in studies 6A and 6B These ef-fects continued to hold even when we controlled for per-ceived expense thus rendering such an alternative accountless likely

Having reliably demonstrated the inhibiting effect ofaesthetics on consumption across two product categorieswe next elucidate the underlying process through three

different approaches First we provide evidence for ourproposed mechanism via mediation (study 3) Second wedirectly manipulate effort inferences to show process bymoderation (study 4) and third we identify a theoreticallygrounded individual difference moderator (study 5)

STUDY 3 THE MEDIATING ROLE OFEFFORT INFERENCES AND EFFORT

DESTRUCTION

The goal of study 3 is to replicate our focal effect in anew product domain paper napkins and to shed light onthe mechanism underlying consumption likelihood by test-ing the driving role of effort inferences and effort destruc-tion Consistent with our theorizing we predict that thehigher inferences of effort elicited by highly aestheticproducts will lead to stronger concerns that such effortwould be destroyed in the consumption process resultingin lower usage likelihood Notably this is a conservativecontext in which to assess effort inferences given that pa-per napkins are machine-manufactured and so differencesin perceived effort are quite subtle Further by shifting out-side of the food domain to even subtler stimuli we canmore confidently ensure that our findings are not merelyartifacts of the stimuli we have chosen (although handmadehighly aesthetic foods such as the cupcakes used in study2 are ubiquitous in the marketplace)

Method

Participants and Procedure Two hundred sixty partic-ipants were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk toparticipate in a two-cell (aesthetics higher vs lower)

FIGURE 2

AESTHETICS HUNGER ON CUPCAKE ENJOYMENT (STUDY 2)

WU ET AL 9

between-subjects study in exchange for payment Two in-dividuals participated in this study twice and six had miss-ing data on the dependent measures and were excludedfrom the analysis yielding a final sample of 252 partici-pants (44 female [five did not report gender] medianage frac14 31 ages 19ndash69)

Participants were presented with a guided visualizationscenario in which they imagined they were at a local bak-ery getting breakfast and doing work As they were work-ing they accidentally spilled coffee all over theirdocuments prompting them to look toward the counter tosee how they could clean up the spill We presented a situa-tion in which the destruction of the product paper napkinswas imminent to assess how such an outcome shapes pref-erences to consume aesthetically appealing productsParticipants were randomly assigned to either the higher orlower aesthetic condition Those in the higher aestheticcondition saw a stack of floral napkins at the counter toclean up the spill while those in the lower aesthetic condi-tion saw a stack of plain white napkins (see appendix Arow 3 for images) Additional details of the procedure areavailable in the web appendix Subsequently participantsindicated to what extent they would use the (floral orwhite) napkins to clean up the spill (1 frac14 definitely no 7 frac14definitely yes) how likely they would be to use the napkinsto clean up the spill (1 frac14 very unlikely 7 frac14 very likely)and how many napkins they would use to clean up the spill(1 frac14 none at all 7 frac14 very many) which formed our usagelikelihood index (afrac14 81) Next to examine effort infer-ences we asked participants how much effort they thoughtwent into making the napkins (1 frac14 none at all 7 frac14 quite abit) To examine concerns about effort destruction weasked participants to rate their agreement with the state-ment ldquoI felt like I was destroying someonersquos effort by usingthe napkinsrdquo (1 frac14 strongly disagree 7 frac14 stronglyagree) Finally to again show that inferred monetary valueis not driving our effects participants indicated how muchthey would be willing to pay for a pack of the napkins inthe scenario (ie dollar value)

Results and Discussion

We predicted that participants would be less likely touse the higher aesthetic napkins and that this effect wouldbe mediated in serial by effort inferences and concernsover destroying such effort

Usage Likelihood A one-way ANOVA on the usagelikelihood index indicated that participants were less likelyto use the higher aesthetic floral napkins to clean up thespill (Mhigher aesthetic frac14 581 vs Mlower aesthetic frac14 628 F(1250) frac14 1592 p lt 001) an effect that continues to holdeven when we controlled for willingness to pay for thenapkins (p lt 001)

Effort Inferences A one-way ANOVA on effort infer-ences indicated that participants ascribed greater effort to thehigher aesthetic napkins (Mhigher frac14 380 vs Mlower frac14 319F(1 250) frac14 753 p lt 01) even when we controlled for will-ingness to pay (p lt 02)

Effort Destruction A one-way ANOVA on concernsabout effort destruction indicated that participants hadstronger concerns effort would be destroyed in the higheraesthetic condition (Mhigher frac14 254 vs Mlower frac14 195 F(1250) frac14 837 p lt 01) Again this effect holds even whenwe controlled for willingness to pay (p lt 02)

Mediation We conducted a serial multiple mediatormodel (model 6 Hayes 2013) testing our proposed media-tion path where effort inferences and concerns about ef-fort destruction served as serial mediators productaesthetics effort inferences concerns about the de-struction of effort usage likelihood Consistent withour predictions the indirect effect of aesthetics on usagelikelihood through effort inferences and concerns abouteffort destruction was significant (b frac14 ndash03 95 CI [ndash09 ndash01]) In addition the indirect effect of aesthetics onusage likelihood through effort destruction alone was sig-nificant (b frac14 ndash04 95 CI [ndash14 ndash003]) suggesting thismediator works serially but also individually Consistentwith study 2 willingness to pay did not mediate usagelikelihood (b frac14 01 95 CI [ndash03 06]) providing fur-ther evidence that inferred monetary value was not drivingour effects In sum product aesthetics affected usage like-lihood through effort inferences and concerns that onewould be destroying this effort

Discussion In study 3 using a new subtler contextwe show that the greater perceptions of effort ascribed tothe creation of higher aesthetic napkins led to stronger con-cerns that such effort would inevitably be destroyed in theconsumption process which ultimately discouraged usageFurther we once again demonstrate that inferred monetaryvalue does not account for our results Next we manipulateeffort inferences directly to show that shifting the per-ceived effort required to make an aesthetic product willmitigate our focal effect

STUDY 4 THE MODERATING ROLE OFEFFORT INFERENCES

Given the underlying role of effort in inhibiting the con-sumption of highly aesthetic products it follows that this re-duced consumption should be attenuated if the beautifulproduct does not trigger such effort inferences in the firstplace Thus in study 4 we manipulated information aboutthe products to directly influence effort inferences comple-menting study 3 by providing process evidence through mod-eration (Spencer Zanna and Fong 2005) Notably unlikeother studies in the current article study 4 utilizes a

10 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

comparative design in which participants are presented withboth higher and lower aesthetic products at once and areasked to make a choice between them This design allowsus to extend the generalizability of our findings to contextswhere consumers are faced with products of differing levelsof aesthetic appeal and have to choose one to immediatelyconsume Moreover study 4 replaces floral napkins withturquoise napkins in the higher aesthetic condition therebyusing especially subtle aesthetic stimuli to reveal that evenin the absence of product design changes in aesthetic ap-peal through other means (eg color) can shape consump-tion decisions in the same manner

Finally study 4 helps us test the alternative explanationthat concerns over how the product will look after usageor anticipated decrements in the productrsquos beauty aloneare driving lower consumption likelihood independent ofeffort inferences If this is the case the likelihood of usingaesthetically appealing products should not differ as afunction of expended effort since consumers should al-ways be less likely to use a beautiful product irrespectiveof the effort involved in its creation However if consump-tion likelihood is indeed affected by inferred effort thenchanges in inferred effort should systematically impactconsumption likelihood a relationship we examine directlyin study 4

Method

Participants and Procedure Two hundred forty-sixparticipants were recruited from Amazon MechanicalTurk to participate in a two-cell (intervention conditionno information control vs higher aesthetics frac14 lower ef-fort) between-subjects study in exchange for paymentSeven people participated in this study twice and wereexcluded yielding a final sample of 239 participants (48female [six did not report gender] median age frac14 31 ages18ndash69)

Study 4 used the same guided visualization scenario asstudy 3 where participants imagined visiting their localbakery and accidentally spilling coffee while they wereworking However this time they saw two separatestacks of napkins they could use to clean up the spillThe napkins were turquoise (higher aesthetic option) orplain white (lower aesthetic option see appendix A row4 for images) and both napkin images were presented atonce Additional details are available in the webappendix

At this point participants in the control condition pro-ceeded directly to a choice task in which they indicated whichtype of napkin they would use to clean up the spill On theother hand participants in the higher aestheticsfrac14 lower effortcondition were first told that as they looked at the napkinsthey recalled that a friend who used to work for this bakeryhad told them that it actually takes less effort and time forcompanies to manufacture the blue napkins than it does to

make and bleach the white ones2 Next participants in thislower effort condition completed the choice task After theirchoice all participants indicated how much they thought thenapkins cost (1 frac14 very little 7 frac14 quite a lot)

Results and Discussion

Conceptually replicating prior studies in the controlcondition where no effort inferences were made salientparticipants were less likely to choose the higher aestheticblue napkins to clean up the spill (1983 blue vs8017white) However this lower usage likelihood was re-versed when the higher aesthetic blue napkins elicitedlower perceptions of effort (6356blue vs 3644white v2

(1) frac14 4707 (n frac14 239) p lt 001) Importantly the choiceeffects continue to hold when we control for perceived cost(p lt 001)

Discussion Study 4 offers convergent support for theproposed underlying process by showing that the reducedconsumption of highly aesthetic products is reversed whenthese products elicit lower effort inferences As revealedby the pretest (see footnote 2) in the control conditionwhere no effort information was made salient participantsascribed greater effort to the higher aesthetic blue napkinand were less likely to use it but when this blue napkinwas thought to require less effort to produce participantsbecame more likely to use it Notably unlike our priorstudies study 4 employed a comparative design in whichparticipants saw higher and lower aesthetic options at thesame time mirroring real life where consumers encountermultiple product offerings with differing aesthetic appealand have to choose one to use

These results also suggest that anticipated decrements inbeauty alone or concerns over what the aesthetic productwill look like after consumption are unlikely to inhibitconsumption Such projected losses of beauty are not evi-dent before consumption has occurred when the highlyaesthetic product is still in pristine beautiful condition Ifexpected drops in the aesthetic appeal of the product alonehad been responsible for driving reduced consumption in-dividuals would have been equally inhibited from using thehigher aesthetic napkin irrespective of effort inferencesSuch an alternative is inconsistent with the reversal in us-age likelihood we observed in the higher aesthetics frac14lower effort condition since the aesthetic appeal of the

2 A pretest confirmed the validity of study 4rsquos effort manipulationParticipants (n frac14 201) completed a 2 (aesthetics) 2 (effort interven-tion) between-subjects study where they read the same scenario butwere randomly assigned a napkin choice and asked to make effortinferences about the napkin Results revealed a significant interaction(p lt 001) Whereas in the control condition the higher aesthetic nap-kin elicited higher perceptions of effort (Mcontrol higher aesthetic frac14 391vs Mcontrol lower aesthetic frac14 335 p lt 04) this pattern reversed in thelow effort condition (Mlow effort higher aesthetic frac14 302 vs Mlow effort lower

aesthetic frac14 431 p lt 001) Procedural details and full results are avail-able in the web appendix

WU ET AL 11

napkins remained constant only the perceived effort hadchanged Thus we provide further evidence for the prem-ise that consumers strongly link aesthetics and effort andshow that for consumption to be reduced the highly aes-thetic product must signal higher effort in addition to itsaesthetic qualities

Notably while our results support the notion that antici-pated drops in beauty alone are insufficient to lead to a re-duction in consumption likelihood it is also worthmentioning that because effort and beauty are inextricablylinked constructs concerns over destroying effort mayshare to some extent overlapping variance with concernsover the imminent losses of beauty This suggests that inother contexts anticipated decrements in beauty may alsoplay a role in driving usage potentially for products of ex-treme aesthetic appeal that are more defined by theirbeauty as opposed to the colored napkins used hereNonetheless in the current context the results demonstratethat shifting perceptions about the amount of effort neededto create a higher aesthetic product is sufficient to over-come any inhibition to consume it

We next provide additional evidence for our conceptual-ization by investigating a theoretically driven individualdifference that affects the degree to which effort is inher-ently appreciated and by extension should influence deci-sions to use highly aesthetic products

STUDY 5 THE ROLE OF IMPLICIT SELF-THEORIES IN SHAPING USAGE

Based on our theory because the higher effort as-cribed to beautiful products underlies their lower likeli-hood of usage such a reduction should be moderated bythe degree to which effort is intrinsically valued or peo-plersquos implicit self-theories According to research on im-plicit self-theories entity theorists view their personalqualities as stable and unable to be enhanced by self-improvement while incremental theorists view thesequalities as flexible and able to be cultivated through la-bor and effort (Dweck 2000) Similarly entity theoriststend to view effort as ineffective and pointless while in-cremental theorists are more optimistic that their effortscarry intrinsic value and will eventually bear fruit(Dweck and Leggett 1988)

We propose that beyond the recognition of personal ef-fort implicit self-theories affect the extent to which con-sumers appreciate othersrsquo effort and by extension theeffort that goes into the creation of highly aesthetic prod-ucts To test this prediction we conducted a correlationalstudy examining the relationship between implicit self-theories and the propensity to appreciate effort-laden prod-ucts Participants (n frac14 134) first completed the implicitself-theories scale (Levy Stroessner and Dweck 1998)where higher (lower) scores indicate greater endorsement

of incremental (entity) self-theory Next they indicatedtheir agreement with five items reflecting appreciation forothersrsquo effort (eg I notice when people work really hardto create something3 all anchored at 1 frac14 strongly disagree7 frac14 strongly agree a frac14 91) We found a significant posi-tive correlation (r frac14 23 p lt 01) such that incrementallyoriented individuals were more likely to appreciate thingsthat reflect a great deal of effort

Thus based on this appreciation for othersrsquo effort in study5 we predict that incremental theorists will be less likely toconsume products that are highly aesthetic and by extensionladen with effort By contrast because entity theorists havelower intrinsic appreciation for effort they will be equallylikely to use a product regardless of its aesthetic appeal

Method

Participants and Procedure One hundred eighty-seven undergraduate students from a southwesternuniversity participated in a 2 (aesthetics higher vs lower) continuous (implicit self-theories) between-subjectsstudy in exchange for partial course credit Two partici-pants reported having a gluten allergy that prevented themfrom consuming the goldfish crackers accompanying thenapkins An additional 11 participants were excluded fromthe analysismdashone respondent participated in this studytwice and 10 had missing data on implicit self-theorieswhich we had measured in a separate presurvey severalweeks prior to the focal study Thus the final sample com-prised 174 participants (52 female [four did not reportgender] median age frac14 21 ages 18ndash41)

Study 5 employed the same cover story about pairingfoods with videos used in study 2 but this time usingPepperidge Farm goldfish crackers We chose these crack-ers because they are slightly messy to eatmdashpeople wouldwant to use a napkin but did not necessarily have to creat-ing an ideal context within which to test our hypothesesParticipants received an individual pack of goldfish crack-ers along with a paper napkin which was either decorativewith a white background (higher aesthetic condition) orplain white (lower aesthetic condition) (both 61=2 inchessquare see appendix A row 5 for images) Importantlythe experimenter gave no explicit instructions on what to dowith this napkin Of note in addition to the pretest assessingdifferent levels of aesthetic appeal between the two napkinsanother between-subjects pretest (n frac14 81) showed that partic-ipants liked the higher (vs lower) aesthetic napkin and its de-sign more (Mhigher aesthetic frac14 516 vs Mlower aesthetic frac14 365t(79) frac14 ndash516 p lt 001 r frac14 87) but both napkins were

3 The other items were (2) I really appreciate it when somebodytakes the time and effort to make something (3) I treasure somethingmore when I know a lot of effort has gone into creating it (4) I havean appreciation for products that reflect a great deal of effort on themakerrsquos part and (5) I value something more when I know it took alot of time and energy to produce

12 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

rated as equally versatile in their usage (Mhigher aesthetic frac14 580vs Mlower aesthetic frac14 591 t(79) frac14 47 p gt 60 a frac14 91)Additional pretest details are available in the web appendix

Participants were told to watch a 35 minute video onwildlife animals while they ate the crackers and that theywere free to eat as much or as little as they liked Once par-ticipants finished the video the experimenter collected thenapkin and any leftover crackers and recorded whether thenapkin had been used or not (0 frac14 no 1 frac14 yes) in anotherroom A napkin was coded as ldquousedrdquo if it showed any signsof usage (ie had any food stains on it looked crumpled orhad been used to spit out gum) and was coded as ldquounusedrdquoonly if it appeared untouched and in pristine condition mak-ing it a highly conservative test of our hypotheses To againensure that perceived cost was not influencing our focal ef-fects we asked participants how much they would be will-ing to pay for a pack of napkins (ie dollar value) Finallyparticipants completed a series of filler measures that as-sessed how interesting the video was and how much theyliked eating goldfish crackers in general

Results and Discussion

A 2 (aesthetics condition) continuous (implicit self-theories) logistic regression on napkin usage behavior(used yes no) was performed Regressing usage behavioron the aesthetics manipulation mean-centered levels ofimplicit self-theories and their interaction revealed a sig-nificant simple effect of aesthetics at the mean of implicitself-theories (b frac14 ndash37 Wald v2 frac14 460 p frac14 03) suchthat a smaller percentage of people used the napkin in the

higher aesthetic condition across all participants conceptu-ally replicating prior studies Importantly the interactionwas also significant (b frac14 ndash30 Wald v2 frac14 419 p frac14 04see figure 3) Notably this interaction continued to holdeven when we controlled for willingness to pay (p lt 04)We used the Johnson-Neyman technique to identify therange of implicit self-theories for which the simple effectof the aesthetics manipulation was significant where lowervalues imply an entity-oriented mindset while higher val-ues imply an incrementally oriented mindset We found asignificant reduction in usage of the higher aesthetic deco-rative (vs lower aesthetic white) paper napkin for anyvalue of implicit self-theories above 406 (at p lt 05) butnot for any value less than 406 In other words incremen-tal theorists were less likely to use a higher (vs lower) aes-thetic napkin whereas entity theorists were equally likelyto use a napkin regardless of its appearance

Discussion In study 5 we provide further evidence forour proposed mechanism by showing that implicit self-theories or consumersrsquo chronic appreciation for investedeffort shapes decisions to use an aesthetically pleasingproduct Incremental theorists who are more appreciativeof effort were less likely to use a higher aesthetic decora-tive napkin than a lower aesthetic plain white napkin butsuch effects were not observed among entity theorists whohave lower intrinsic appreciation for effort We have nowreliably established the inhibiting effect of product aes-thetics on consumption across multiple products and con-sumption contexts and provided convergent support for theunderlying mechanism In our final two studies we

FIGURE 3

AESTHETICS IMPLICIT SELF-THEORIES ON NAPKIN USAGE (STUDY 5)

WU ET AL 13

elucidate the drivers of post-consumption emotions whileholding usage constant thereby allowing us to hone in onpost-consumption consequences in a more controlledfashion since people are inherently less likely to usehigher aesthetic products which could potentially result inself-selection issues

STUDY 6A DECREMENTS IN BEAUTYAND POST-CONSUMPTION AFFECT

Recall in study 2 that when the cupcake was highly aes-thetic consumption enjoyment was lower among individ-uals most motivated to engage in consumption (ie hungryindividuals) an effect we propose is determined by twoprocesses working in tandem First we expect that the ef-fort inferences made prior to consumption will continue todrive emotional outcomes given the consumption processinvolves the actual destruction of effort Second and onlyevident post-consumption are the decrements in beautythat aesthetic products undergo when their aesthetic quali-ties are visibly compromised through usage Because beau-tiful products are inherently pleasurable (Reber et al 2004Reimann et al 2010) we predict that individuals will expe-rience less pleasure and more negative affect when theywitness highly aesthetic products undergo steeper drops inbeauty as a result of consumption Consistent with prospecttheoryrsquos value function (Kahneman and Tversky 1979)initial changesmdashhere the larger losses of beauty associatedwith the usage of a higher (vs lower) aesthetic productmdashshould be particularly jarring and lead to more negative af-fect (Frederick and Loewenstein 1999)

Importantly unlike in study 2 where we measured theamount consumed as well as post-consumption enjoymentin study 6A we hold usage constant in the higher andlower aesthetic conditions and hone in on the changes inbeauty with a longitudinal study design Specifically theobjective of study 6A is to extend prior work on the rela-tionship between beauty and pleasure by establishing itscorollarymdashthat the consumption of a higher (vs lower)aesthetic product will lead to greater perceived losses ofbeauty and that such decrements in beauty will in turnhave a negative influence on post-consumption affect Wemeasure this decrement by capturing aesthetic judgmentsimmediately before and after usage

Method

Participants and Procedure Four hundred sixteen par-ticipants were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk toparticipate in a 2 (aesthetics higher vs lower between) 2(aesthetic judgment before vs after usage within) mixed-design study in exchange for payment Six individuals par-ticipated in this study twice and four had missing data onthe focal dependent measures and were excluded from theanalysis yielding a final sample of 406 participants (54

female [11 did not report gender] median age frac14 30 ages18ndash76)

The procedure was similar to that of study 3 featuringthe same bakery scenario and stimuli but with several mod-ifications After participants were initially presented witheither the higher or lower aesthetic napkins following thespill they immediately completed two semantic differen-tial items of aesthetic evaluations for these unused napkinson seven-point scales ldquonot at all prettyvery prettyrdquo andldquonot at all uglyvery uglyrdquo (reverse-coded) which havebeen shown in prior work to capture aesthetic judgments(Reber Winkielman and Schwarz 1998 r frac14 47) Aftercompleting these baseline aesthetic judgment measuresparticipants proceeded with the scenario They were toldthey realized they would need to grab at least 10 napkins tocome close to cleaning up the spill and were subsequentlyshown a stack of unused napkins The scenario ended withan image of a bundle of napkins now drenched with cof-fee that were used to clean up the spill Additional detailsof the procedure are available in the web appendix

Immediately after reading the scenario participantscompleted the same set of aesthetic judgment items a sec-ond time this time rating the coffee-drenched napkinswhich served as a measure of post-usage aesthetic judg-ments Participants then indicated to what extent they ex-perienced each of the following negative emotions whilethey were using the napkins to clean up the spill stressedregretful bad afraid fearful sad sorry and guilty whichwe combined into an index of post-consumption negativeaffect (1 frac14 not at all 7 frac14 very much so afrac14 91)

Results and Discussion

We predicted that participants would experience greaternegative affect after using the higher (vs lower) aestheticnapkins an effect that would be driven by the larger decre-ments in beauty that stem from the consumption of higheraesthetic products

Emotions A one-way ANOVA on negative emotionsexperienced after consumption revealed that participantswho used the higher aesthetic floral napkins to clean up thespill felt more negative affect than those who used thelower aesthetic white napkins (Mhigher aesthetic frac14 305 vsMlower aesthetic frac14 246 F(1 404) frac14 1686 p lt 001)

Decrements in Beauty (Longitudinal) A 2 (aestheticshigher vs lower) 2 (timing before usage vs after usage)mixed ANOVA on aesthetic judgments yielded main ef-fects of both aesthetics (F(1 404) frac14 10652 p lt 001) andtiming (F(1 404) frac14 125629 p lt 001) which were quali-fied by a significant aesthetics timing interaction (F(1404) frac14 5302 p lt 001) Planned contrasts revealed thatwhereas the higher aesthetic napkins elicited more favor-able aesthetic judgments than the lower aesthetic napkinsbefore usage (Mhigher frac14 594 vs Mlower frac14 447 F(1 404)

14 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

frac14 15269 p lt 001) this difference was substantiallyreduced after usage (Mhigher frac14 237 vs Mlower frac14 211F(1 404) frac14 484 p frac14 03) Importantly and arguably mostcentral to our research the decrement in aesthetic ratingsthrough usage was significantly larger in the higher aes-thetic conditionmdashin fact 151 largermdashthan that observedin the lower aesthetic condition (ie a drop of 357 unitsvs a drop of 236 units)

Mediation Finally we are interested in whether decre-ments in aesthetic judgment emanating from product usageunderlie post-consumption affect Consistent with predic-tions mediation analysis (model 4 Hayes 2013) revealedthat the indirect effect of aesthetics on negative affectthrough changes in aesthetic judgment was significant (b frac1415 95 CI [04 29]) suggesting that product aestheticsaffected the experience of negative emotions through thelarger losses of beauty resulting from the consumption ofhigher aesthetic products

Discussion While past work has shown that aestheticsare inextricably linked with pleasure (Reber et al 2004Reimann et al 2010) study 6A extends this body of re-search by revealing that in the context of nondurable prod-ucts where consumption entails damaging product designnot only does the usage of higher (vs lower) aestheticproducts result in larger decrements in beauty but suchlosses also drive greater negative affect after consumptionNotably while we asked participants to assess the aestheticqualities of the napkins before and immediately after usageto more precisely capture the changes in beauty we ob-served we recognize that this design may have caused theaesthetic appeal of the napkins to be more salient prior toconsumption making its decrement therefore more pro-nounced after consumption Thus having established thatbeauty decrements resulting from aesthetic product usageunderlie post-consumption affect in study 6B we measurethis change in a less invasive manner after consumptionWe also integrate changes in beauty and effort inferencesinto emotional reactions linked to consumption

STUDY 6B TESTING THE FULLCONCEPTUAL MODEL FOR POST-

CONSUMPTION AFFECT

The goal of study 6B is to elucidate the drivers of post-consumption emotions while continuing to hold usage con-stant in both conditions thereby allowing us to test the fullconceptual model in a more controlled fashion As alludedto in study 6A the inherently lower consumption likeli-hood of higher aesthetic products could potentially resultin self-selection issues In study 6B we predict that partici-pants will experience more negative affect after using ahigher (vs lower) aesthetic product an effect driven in tan-dem by effort inferences as well as changes in beauty

Further we try to better understand consumersrsquo emotionalreactions after aesthetic product usage by not highlightingthe productrsquos aesthetic qualities beforehand Finally wemeasure implicit self-theories to examine whether onersquos in-herent degree of effort appreciation moderates post-consumption negative affect

Method

Participants and Procedure Four hundred participantswere recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk to partici-pate in a two-cell (aesthetics higher vs lower) between-subjects study in exchange for payment Ten individualsparticipated in this study twice and 17 had missing data onthe focal dependent measures and were excluded from theanalysis yielding a final sample of 373 participants (55female [two did not report gender] median age frac14 32 ages18ndash76)

The study design of study 6B was almost identical tothat of study 6A aside from several modifications Firstparticipants completed the same negative emotion indexfrom study 6A (afrac14 91) immediately after reading the sce-nario instead of after aesthetics judgment measures (whichwere not included in this study) Second instead of assess-ing aesthetic ratings at two separate points in time we uti-lized a new single cross-sectional measure to capturedecrements in beauty post-consumption ldquoBy using thenapkins it felt like I was turning something that was oncebeautiful into something uglyrdquo (1 frac14 strongly disagree 7 frac14strongly agree) Next to examine effort inferences as a par-allel driver of negative affect after consumption partici-pants completed the same effort inferences and effortdestruction measures from study 3 although these mea-sures are distinct from study 3 in that they were assessedafter usage had already taken place Finally participantscompleted the implicit self-theories scale

Results and Discussion

Emotions Replicating study 6A a one-way ANOVAon negative emotions revealed that participants who usedthe higher aesthetic floral napkins to clean up the spill feltmore negative affect than those who used the lower aestheticwhite napkins (Mhigher aesthetic frac14 313 vs Mlower aesthetic frac14283 F(1 371) frac14 394 p lt 05) Of note this main effectdid not interact with implicit self-theories (p gt 30) sug-gesting that both incremental and entity theorists experi-enced more negative affect after using the higher (vslower) aesthetic napkins to clean up the spill a finding werevisit in the discussion section

Decrements in Beauty (Cross-Sectional) A one-wayANOVA on changes in beauty indicated that the higheraesthetic napkin underwent greater decrements in beautythrough consumption (Mhigher frac14 263 vs Mlower frac14 177F(1 371) frac14 2671 p lt 001)

WU ET AL 15

Effort Inferences A one-way ANOVA on effort infer-ences indicated that participants ascribed greater effort tothe higher aesthetic napkins (Mhigher frac14 349 vs Mlower frac14287 F(1 371) frac14 1359 p lt 001)

Effort Destruction A one-way ANOVA on concernsabout effort destruction indicated that participants hadstronger concerns that effort had been destroyed in thehigher aesthetic condition (Mhigher frac14 262 vs Mlower frac14200 F(1 371) frac14 1355 p lt 001)

Mediation Finally we conducted two separate media-tion analyses one testing the path of product aesthetics decrements in beauty negative affect (model 4 Hayes2013) and the other testing the serial path of product aes-thetics effort inferences concerns about effort de-struction negative affect (model 6) Results from thefirst analysis revealed that the indirect effect of aestheticson negative affect through changes in beauty was signifi-cant (b frac14 37 95 CI [23 54]) suggesting that productaesthetics affected the experience of negative emotionsthrough larger decrements in beauty in the higher aestheticcondition Second the indirect effect of aesthetics on nega-tive affect through effort inferences and concerns about ef-fort destruction (in serial) was also significant (b frac14 1295 CI [06 23]) as was the indirect effect of aestheticson negative affect through effort destruction alone (b frac1411 95 CI [01 23])

Finally we also included beauty decrements effort in-ferences and effort destruction into the model as parallelmediators to gain greater understanding of the relativestrength of these drivers This analysis revealed that whenall three mediators were in the model the indirect effectthrough decrements in beauty remained significant (b frac1422 95 CI [11 36]) as did the indirect effect througheffort destruction (b frac14 15 95 CI [06 27]) Taken to-gether these results suggest that while concerns about ef-fort destruction continue to play a role in driving theemotional outcomes of aesthetic product usage the decre-ments in beauty that become evident only after an aestheticproduct has been visibly compromised through consump-tion also lead to negative affect

Discussion Study 6B which allowed us to examinethe entire post-consumption conceptual model revealedthat people who used higher (vs lower) aesthetic napkinssubsequently experienced greater negative affect an effectdriven by two processes operating in parallel concernsabout the destruction of effort and decrements in beauty Inother words the consumption experience was associatedwith more negative affect because the consumption processnot only involved the actual destruction of effort but italso took a beautiful product that was typified by pleasureand transformed it into something marked by displeasure

We should also note that we replicated the post-consumption findings with actual paper napkins in a lab

context In a separate study using study 5rsquos procedure par-ticipants watched a video and received a snack to eat alongwith a higher versus lower aesthetic napkin and then indi-cated how they felt about the consumption experienceParticipants who chose to use their higher aesthetic napkinreported feeling more negative affect relative to whosewho chose to use their lower aesthetic napkin (p frac14 04)and relative to those who did not use their higher aestheticnapkin (p lt 01) Thus aesthetic product usage increasednegative affect even when consumers could choose to ei-ther use the aesthetic product or not and when the aestheticproduct (the napkin) was tangential to the affect measurescollected which specifically pertained to the video-watching and snack-eating task Additional details areavailable in the web appendix

Though we provide evidence that effort inferences con-tinued to partially drive consumer responses to beautifulproducts after usage it is interesting to note that post-consumption affect was not moderated by the degree towhich effort is intrinsically appreciated (ie implicit self-theories) While unexpected we speculate that this may oc-cur because post-consumption enjoyment is not exclusivelydriven by effort inferences Since losses of beauty alsoplay a substantial role in shaping emotional outcomes afterconsumption the beauty decrements associated with aes-thetic product usage may have brought entity theorists to asimilar emotional state as incremental theorists resultingin everybody feeling worse off after consumption irrespec-tive of individual differences in effort appreciation Morebroadly since post-consumption affect appears to be multi-ply determined it is difficult to completely disentangle thenegative affect stemming from the destruction of effortfrom the negative affect stemming from decrements inbeauty Study 6B offers a distinct test of this conjecturesince it made usage (and hence losses of beauty) salientthrough images of visibly used napkins

GENERAL DISCUSSION

Across a series of laboratory and field studies using avariety of nondurable product categories and consumptionsituations we reveal the negative impact of enhanced prod-uct aesthetics on usage and post-consumption conse-quences First we document an inhibiting effect of productaesthetics on consumption behaviors for disposable andperishable products in both real-world (study 1) and lab(study 2) settings Next we shed light on the drivers of us-age likelihood using mediation (study 3) a context-basedboundary condition (study 4) and a theoretically derivedindividual difference moderator (study 5) thereby provid-ing convergent support for an underlying process based oneffort Finally in studies 6A and 6B we hold product us-age constant to elucidate the drivers of post-consumptionaffect and show that the decrements in beauty that

16 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

aesthetic products inherently undergo as a result of con-sumption combined with concerns that one has actuallydestroyed effort underlie these effects

Theoretical Contributions Our work makes severaltheoretical contributions First while prior research hasshown that consumers respond favorably to both productaesthetics and effort we believe we are the first to establisha causal relationship between these constructs We findthat highly aesthetic products can elicit greater perceptionsof effort regardless of whether this effort was exerted dur-ing product design physical production or both processesWe further reveal that these effort inferences are not lim-ited to handmade products such as perishable foods butalso apply to mass-produced products such as consumerpackaged disposable goods

Second while existing literature suggests that consumerpreferences should increase as a function of a productrsquos aes-thetic appeal the prevailing ways of assessing the impact ofaesthetics on consumer preference have been limited to pur-chase intentions product evaluations and choice (Hagtvedtand Patrick 2008 Raghubir and Greenleaf 2006 Reimannet al 2010 Townsend and Shu 2010) Surprisingly the role ofaesthetics after choice has received little empirical attention todate Despite the stimulating effect that enhanced product aes-thetics have on choice and pre-usage evaluations our resultssuggest that once beautiful products are acquired consumersmay be less likely to consume them because the higher infer-ences of effort attributed to their creation elicit stronger con-cerns that such effort would be destroyed during consumption

This research also shows that the impact of implicit self-theories on consumer behavior may be more pervasivethan previously thought While prior research in psychol-ogy has shown that incremental and entity theorists carrydissimilar beliefs about the value of their own effort(Dweck 2000) we provide support for the novel predictionthat beyond the recognition of personal effort implicitself-theories affect the extent to which consumers appreci-ate the effort that goes into the creation of aestheticallyappealing products

Finally contrary to the notion that enhanced product aes-thetics are always beneficial to consumption enjoyment ourwork reveals that usage of highly aesthetic disposable prod-ucts can actually lower overall enjoyment of the consumptionexperience through two separate pathways (1) by elicitingconcerns that one has actually destroyed effort and (2) bycompromising the beauty that typically characterizes aestheticproducts Thus we add to the literature on aesthetics andpleasure by showing how the consumption of highly aestheticproducts can result in larger losses of beauty and that suchdecrements in turn drive the relationship between aestheticproduct consumption and negative affect

More generally these findings speak to researchthat explores when and why the drivers of predicted andexperienced utility might diverge For instance

Thompson et al (2005) found that consumersrsquo initial desirefor product capability before purchase leads them to chooseproducts packed with features but their growing desire forproduct usability after usage leads them to ultimately prefersimpler products Similarly Lee and Tsai (2014) showedthat price promotions can stimulate sales but lower atten-tion during consumption which in turn reduces consump-tion enjoyment In the same vein despite the delightinitially elicited by the choice of beautiful products wedemonstrate that enhanced aesthetics have the ability tolater discourage usage and lower consumption enjoyment

Substantive Implications Our findings carry importantpractical implications as they pose an interesting dilemmato managers While conventional wisdom suggests that mar-keters should strive to invest the highest degree of effort intomaking their products look aesthetically pleasing at least tothe extent that company resources will allow our researchreveals that the story is not so simple Enhancing productaesthetics might positively affect initial attention interestand choice but should be considered with caution given thatsuch increased appeal could inhibit usage and reduce enjoy-ment relative to less aesthetically appealing productsRelatedly people likely consume highly aesthetic disposableproducts more slowly which could affect interpurchasetime Thus the pursuit of product aesthetics and improvedshort-term sales must be constantly balanced against theneed to encourage consumption ensure customer satisfac-tion and maintain long-term profitability Still certain prod-ucts such as beautiful candles and soaps may serve adecorative purpose in addition to their basic utilitarian func-tion and consequently may also carry intrinsic aestheticvalue Our recommendations are admittedly less straightfor-ward under such circumstances as consumers are able toderive utility from the productsrsquo enhanced aesthetics simplyby displaying them

Our results also have clear implications for managersand policy makers interested in promoting conservationand sustainable business practices A growing number ofretail and service establishments have been switching tounbleached paper products as the traditional bleachingprocess that removes imperfections and gives paper itswhite appearance also produces hazardous chemicals (egchlorine and dioxins) that are harmful to the environment(Evans 2010) While the transition to unbleached paperproducts has benefited the environment the results fromour investigation suggest the growing popularity of thistrend may be a double-edged sword To the extent thatunbleached paper products are considered less aestheticallyappealing consumers may show less restraint in usingthem leading to backfiring effects for conservation effortsPut another way the positive environmental impact of pro-ducing unbleached paper products could potentially be off-set by consumersrsquo reduced inhibition in consuming theseproducts Thus increasing the aesthetic appeal of products

WU ET AL 17

may actually be an effective way for companies to promoteenvironmentally sustainable behaviors even after incorpo-rating the increased cost of implementing such practices

Finally given that rising obesity rates are a major publichealth concern traced to increased consumption (Chandonand Wansink 2007) there has been burgeoning interest inthe various factors that shape consumer food choices (Corniland Chandon 2016 McFerran et al 2010 Scott et al 2008)The results of study 2 suggest that one way to curb overeat-ing might be to enhance the aesthetic presentation of foodproducts especially hedonic foods Of course additionalresearch is needed to better explore the impact of aestheticsin this important area given the counteracting effects thatfood aesthetics exert on consumption versus enjoyment

Limitations and Future Research While the current setof studies was designed to elucidate perceived effort as anunderlying mechanism of lower usage of aestheticallyappealing products we recognize that this phenomenonlike many is likely driven by multiple processes (FuchsSchreier and van Osselaer 2015) Indeed as evident in ourresearch consumption likelihood and consumption enjoy-ment each have distinct sets of drivers For instance whilewe accounted for cost across multiple studies and demon-strated that our effects held even after we controlled for theperceived price of the product we believe that cost maycertainly play a role in certain situations For example cer-tain highly aesthetic products elicit perceptions of luxury(Hagtvedt and Patrick 2008) and may consequently reduceconsumption because they appear ldquotoo expensive to userdquoand cost may even interact with aesthetics under certaincircumstances to impact consumption such that the infer-ences of effort typically ascribed to aesthetically appealingproducts could be mitigated if people are told that theywere extremely inexpensive

In addition classic research by Loewenstein (1987)showed that people often prefer to delay consumption ofenjoyable experiences It may be that people are averse toimmediately consuming a highly aesthetic product becausethey are able to derive more utility by savoring the experi-ence and postponing consumption Further as alluded to instudy 4 it is possible that anticipated decrements in beautymay play a larger role in shaping usage in other consump-tion contexts Thus while we focus on the role of effortinferences in driving lower usage of highly aesthetic prod-ucts we are cognizant of the fact that other mechanismslikely exist which would provide intriguing avenues forfurther investigation

It would also be interesting to examine whether the neg-ative influence of enhanced aesthetics would hold acrossdifferent consumption contexts That is are there situationswhere the present phenomenon would not emerge Indeedone could argue that service establishments such as upscalerestaurants and luxury resorts which regularly pampertheir guests with beautifully plated entrees and folded

towel animals would eventually be driven out of businessif the consumption of highly aesthetic products alwaysresulted in lower enjoyment We believe that whether theusage of highly aesthetic products is accompanied bydecreased consumption and increased negative affect willhinge on the nature of the consumption environment Priorresearch indicates that our surroundings are capable ofautomatically eliciting normative behaviors when situa-tional norms are well established (Aarts and Dijksterhuis2003) Extending this perspective it is possible that theeffects observed in this article may be relatively weakenedwhen consumption occurs in environments characterizedby strong expectations to engage in indulgent consumptionsuch as in a fancy restaurant or luxurious hotel

Relatedly it would be interesting to examine whethercalling attention to fact that the aesthetic product if leftunconsumed will face inevitable destruction could enhanceconsumption likelihood and enjoyment to some extent par-ticularly for perishable products such as food4 Indeedrecent research has shown that consumers display a strongaversion to waste and unused utility (Bolton and Alba2012) Thus future studies should examine whether theeffects documented in this article could be attenuated ifthe inevitable destruction of effort is made salient to con-sumers (eg the product will go bad be thrown away orsomebody else will consume the product even if they donot) In summary future work should explore situationswhere enhanced aesthetics might carry more weight in theutility function for the overall consumption experienceand subsequently increase consumption and boostenjoyment

Another area for future research would be to examinewhether the destruction of product aesthetics is an ldquoall ornothingrdquo event such that any amount of consumption (evena single bite of a cupcake) would be viewed as destroyingthe productrsquos overall beauty While our experimentaldesigns did not allow us to examine whether destruction is acontinuous versus discrete function of consumption it isworth nothing that we did document lower usage acrossvarying degrees of consumption (eg consumption was con-tinuous in study 2 but discrete in study 5) and we did findthat different levels of consumption still led to reducedenjoyment Nevertheless we believe this is an importantempirical question worth investigating in the future

Finally while we have limited our analysis to nondura-bles (perishable and disposable products specifically) anintriguing path would be to investigate the potential moder-ating role of product durability on usage likelihood andsubsequent enjoyment of highly aesthetic products It maybe that the relative durability of the aesthetic product couldaffect individualsrsquo ability or motivation to anticipate decre-ments in beauty before consumption has occurred whichwould have implications for usage likelihood For instance

4 We thank one of the anonymous reviewers for this suggestion

18 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

with big-ticket high-involvement purchases such as sleekfurniture (eg a beautiful new white sectional sofa) con-sumers may more readily anticipate losses of beauty sincethey will have to live with and encounter the product on adaily basis even after its original beauty has faded or beentarnished through repeated use This may explain why cov-ering new furniture with plastic was at one time a verycommon practice (DiSalvo 2009)

On the other hand for nondurable lower-involvementproducts such as those used in the current research perhapspeople do not have the motivation or ability to considershifts in aesthetic appeal before consumption Furtherproducts often vary in their degree of durabilitymdasha delicateembroidered blanket while by no means nondurable or dis-posable may begin to show visible signs of wear and tearsooner than a fleece blanket Although the present researchspecifically focused on perishable and single-use productsit would be worth examining when and how the degree ofdurability or even perceptions of fragility might shapedecisions to use beautiful products

In conclusion our research documents an inhibitingeffect of enhanced product aesthetics on consumption par-ticularly for disposable and consumable nondurable prod-ucts Although beautiful products have the ability topromote positive pre-usage evaluations and stimulatechoice our work indicates that consumers are subsequentlyless likely to use them and those who do use them ulti-mately experience higher negative affect and lower enjoy-ment In addition different processes underlie consumerresponses to highly aesthetic products depending onwhether or not consumption has taken place Thus we con-clude that while products may never be too pretty tochoose they can in fact be too pretty to use

DATA COLLECTION INFORMATION

All studies were designed and analyzed by the first authorunder the guidance of the other authors The data for study 1was collected at the Scottsdale Pure Barre studio in fall2015 by research assistants and employees under the super-vision of the first author Research assistants collected thedata for studies 2 and 5 under the supervision of the firstauthor at the W P Carey School of Business MarketingDepartment Behavioral Lab in spring 2015 The data for theconceptual replication (reported in the discussion of study6B) was collected by research assistants under the supervi-sion of the first author at the W P Carey School ofBusiness Marketing Department Behavioral Lab in summer2015 The data for study 4 (both the effort manipulation pre-test and the main study) and the correlational study examin-ing the relationship between implicit self-theories andappreciation for othersrsquo effort were collected by the firstauthor using Amazon Mechanical Turk in spring 2016 Thefirst author collected the data for the aesthetic appeal pretest

(described in appendix B) studies 3 6A and 6B usingAmazon Mechanical Turk in summer 2016 Lastly researchassistants collected the data for the correlational study exam-ining the relationship between aesthetics and perceivedeffort (described in the table in ldquoThe Role of Effort inInhibiting Usagerdquo) under the supervision of the first authorat the W P Carey School of Business MarketingDepartment Behavioral Lab in fall 2016

APPENDIX A

STUDY STIMULI

WU ET AL 19

REFERENCES

Aarts Henk and Ap Dijksterhuis (2003) ldquoThe Silence of theLibrary Environment Situational Norm and SocialBehaviorrdquo Journal of Personality and Social Psychology84 (1) 18ndash28

Aharon Itzhak Nancy Etcoff Dan Ariely Christopher F ChabrisEthan OrsquoConnor and Hans C Breiter (2001) ldquoBeautifulFaces Have Variable Reward Value fMRI and BehavioralEvidencerdquo Neuron 32 (3) 537ndash51

Alba Joseph W and Elanor F Williams (2013) ldquoPleasurePrinciples A Review of Research on HedonicConsumptionrdquo Journal of Consumer Psychology 23 (1)2ndash18

Belk Russell W (1988) ldquoPossessions and the Extended SelfrdquoJournal of Consumer Research 15 (2) 139ndash67

Bem Daryl J (1972) Self-Perception Theory Stanford CAStanford University Press

Berridge Kent C (2009) ldquolsquoLikingrsquo and lsquoWantingrsquo Food RewardsBrain Substrates and Roles in Eating Disordersrdquo Physiologyamp Behavior 97 (5) 537ndash50

Bloch Peter H (1995) ldquoSeeking the Ideal Form Product Designand Consumer Responserdquo Journal of Marketing 59 (July)16ndash29

Bloch Peter H Frederic F Brunel and Todd J Arnold (2003)ldquoIndividual Differences in the Centrality of Visual ProductAesthetics Concept and Measurementrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 29 (4) 551ndash65

Bolton Lisa E and Joseph W Alba (2012) ldquoWhen Less Is MoreConsumer Aversion to Unused Utilityrdquo Journal of ConsumerPsychology 22 (3) 369ndash83

Brehm Jack W (1966) A Theory of Psychological ReactanceNew York Academic Press

Broniarczyk Susan M and Joseph W Alba (1994) ldquoThe Role ofConsumersrsquo Intuitions in Inference Makingrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 21 (3) 393ndash407

Cabanac Michel (1971) ldquoPhysiological Role of PleasurerdquoScience 173 (4002) 1103ndash7

mdashmdashmdash (1979) ldquoSensory Pleasurerdquo Quarterly Review of Biology54 (1) 1ndash29

mdashmdashmdash (1985) ldquoPreferring for Pleasurerdquo American Journal ofClinical Nutrition 42 (5) 1151ndash5

Chandon Pierre and Brian Wansink (2007) ldquoThe Biasing HealthHalos of Fast Food Restaurant Health Claims Lower CalorieEstimates and Higher Side-Dish Consumption IntentionsrdquoJournal of Consumer Research 34 (3) 301ndash14

Cornil Yann and Pierre Chandon (2016) ldquoPleasure as a Substitutefor Size How Multisensory Imagery Can Make PeopleHappier with Smaller Food Portionsrdquo Journal of MarketingResearch 53 (5) 847ndash64

Cleveland William S (1984) ldquoGraphical Methods for DataPresentation Full Scale Breaks Dot Charts and MultibasedLoggingrdquo The American Statistician 38 (4) 270ndash80

DiSalvo David (2009) ldquoThe Psychology of Plastic CouchCoversrdquo httpsneuronarrativewordpresscom20090119the-psychology-of-plastic-couch-covers

Dixie Products (2015) ldquoDixie Ultra Moments Ultimate Hostrdquohttpswwwyoutubecomwatchvfrac14wsBBq9PsgVI

Dutton Denis (2009) The Art Instinct Beauty Pleasure ampHuman Evolution New York Oxford University Press

Dweck Carol S (2000) Self-Theories Their Role in MotivationPersonality and Development Philadelphia Psychology Press

Dweck Carol S and Ellen L Leggett (1988) ldquoA Social-CognitiveApproach to Motivation and Personalityrdquo PsychologicalReview 95 (2) 256ndash73

Evans Lindsay (2010) ldquoWhy Buy Unbleached Paperrdquo httpwwwbrighthubcomenvironmentgreen-livingarticles16299aspx

Festinger Leon (1957) A Theory of Cognitive DissonanceStanford CA Stanford University Press

Frederick Shane and George Loewenstein (1999) ldquoHedonicAdaptationrdquo in Scientific Perspectives on EnjoymentSuffering and Well-Being ed Daniel Kahneman Ed Dienerand Norbert Schwartz New York Russell Sage Foundation302ndash29

Fuchs Christoph Martin Schreier and Stijn MJ van Osselaer(2015) ldquoThe Handmade Effect Whatrsquos Love Got to Do withItrdquo Journal of Marketing 79 (2) 98ndash110

Hagtvedt Henrik and Vanessa M Patrick (2008) ldquoArt InfusionThe Influence of Visual Art on the Perception and Evaluationof Consumer Productsrdquo Journal of Marketing Research 45(3) 379ndash89

AESTHETIC APPEAL PRETEST FOR ALL STIMULI USED IN STUDIES

Higher aesthetic Lower aesthetic Comparison a

Toilet paper (study 1) 377 (146) 253 (155) t(128) frac14 ndash469 p lt 001 a frac14 94Cupcake (study 2) 556 (106) 305 (146) t(128) frac14 ndash1120 p lt 001 a frac14 96Napkin (studies 3 and 6) 465 (153) 230 (144) t(128) frac14 ndash903 p lt 001 a frac14 97Napkin (study 4) 332 (145) 262 (154) t(128) frac14 ndash266 p lt 01 a frac14 92Napkin (study 5) 458 (159) 234 (151) t(128) frac14 ndash823 p lt 001 a frac14 97

NOTEmdashStandard deviations are in parentheses

In a between-subjects pretest participants were asked to rate each product along the following dimensions beautiful pretty artistic and aesthetically pleasing

(1 frac14 not at all 7 frac14 very much) which formed our aesthetic appeal index

APPENDIX B

20 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

Hayes Andrew F (2013) ldquoPROCESS A VersatileComputational Tool for Observed Variable MediationModeration and Conditional Process Modelingrdquo workingpaper School of Communication and Department ofPsychology Ohio State University Columbus OH 43210

Heller Steve (2015) ldquoA Grocery Store Illusion Is Getting You toSpend More Moneyrdquo httpwwwbusinessinsidercoma-grocery-store-illusion-is-getting-you-to-spend-more-money-2015-8ixzz3ifsOLBfG

Hurling Robert and Richard Shepherd (2003) ldquoEating with YourEyes Effect of Appearance on Expectations of LikingrdquoAppetite 41 (2) 167ndash74

Hoegg JoAndrea Joseph W Alba and Darren W Dahl (2010)ldquoThe Good the Bad and the Ugly Influence of Aesthetics onProduct Feature Judgmentsrdquo Journal of ConsumerPsychology 20 (4) 419ndash30

Johnson Palmer O and Jerzy Neyman (1936) ldquoTests of CertainLinear Hypotheses and Their Applications to SomeEducational Problemsrdquo Statistical Research Memoirs 157ndash93

Kahneman Daniel and Amos Tversky (1979) ldquoProspect TheoryAn Analysis of Decision under Riskrdquo Econometrica 47 (2)263ndash91

Kampe Knut K W Chris D Frith Raymond J Dolan and UtaFrith (2001) ldquoPsychology Reward Value of Attractivenessand Gazerdquo Nature 413 (6856) 589

Kelley Harold H (1967) ldquoAttribution Theory in SocialPsychologyrdquo in Nebraska Symposium of Motivation Vol 15ed D Levine Lincoln University of Nebraska Press192ndash238

Kirmani Amna (1990) ldquoThe Effect of Perceived AdvertisingCosts on Brand Perceptionsrdquo Journal of Consumer Research17 (2) 160ndash71

Kirmani Amna Michelle P Lee and Carolyn Yoon (2004)ldquoProcedural Priming Effects on Spontaneous InferenceFormationrdquo Journal of Economic Psychology 25 (6)859ndash75

Kruger Justin Derrick Wirtz Leaf Van Boven and T WilliamAltermatt (2004) ldquoThe Effort Heuristicrdquo Journal ofExperimental Social Psychology 40 (1) 91ndash8

Lee Leonard and Claire I Tsai (2014) ldquoHow Price PromotionsInfluence Postpurchase Consumption Experience overTimerdquo Journal of Consumer Research 40 (5) 943ndash59

Levy Sheri R Steven J Stroessner and Carol S Dweck (1998)ldquoStereotype Formation and Endorsement The Role ofImplicit Theoriesrdquo Journal of Personality and SocialPsychology 74 (6) 1421ndash36

Lisjak Monika Andrea Bonezzi Soo Kim and Derek D Rucker(2015) ldquoPerils of Compensatory Consumption Within-Domain Compensation Undermines Subsequent Self-Regulationrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 41 (5)1186ndash203

Loewenstein George (1987) ldquoAnticipation and the Valuation ofDelayed Consumptionrdquo Economic Journal 97 (September)666ndash84

Maritain Jacques (1966) ldquoBeauty and Imitationrdquo in A ModernBook of Esthetics ed Melvin Rader New York HoltRinehart amp Winston 27ndash34

McFerran Brent Darren W Dahl Gavan J Fitzsimons andAndrea C Morales (2010) ldquoIrsquoll Have What Shersquos HavingEffects of Social Influence and Body Type on the FoodChoices of Othersrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 36 (6)915ndash29

Morales Andrea C (2005) ldquoGiving Firms an lsquoErsquo for EffortConsumer Responses to High-Effort Firmsrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 31 (4) 806ndash12

Moreau C Page Leff Bonney and Kelly B Herd (2011) ldquoItrsquos theThought (and the Effort) That Counts How Customizing forOthers Differs from Customizing for Oneselfrdquo Journal ofMarketing 75 (5) 120ndash33

Norton Michael I Daniel Mochon and Dan Ariely (2012) ldquoThelsquoIkearsquo Effect When Labor Leads to Loverdquo Journal ofConsumer Psychology 22 (July) 453ndash60

Page Christine and Paul M Herr (2002) ldquoAn Investigation ofthe Processes by Which Product Design and Brand StrengthInteract to Determine Initial Affect and QualityJudgmentsrdquo Journal of Consumer Psychology 12 (2)133ndash47

Raghubir Priya and Eric A Greenleaf (2006) ldquoRatios inProportion What Should the Shape of the Package BerdquoJournal of Marketing 70 (2) 95ndash107

Raghunathan Rajagopal Rebecca Walker Naylor and Wayne DHoyer (2006) ldquoThe Unhealthy frac14 Tasty Intuition and ItsEffects on Taste Inferences Enjoyment and Choice of FoodProductsrdquo Journal of Marketing 70 (4) 170ndash84

Reber Rolf Norbert Schwarz and Piotr Winkielman (2004)ldquoProcessing Fluency and Aesthetic Pleasure Is Beauty in thePerceiverrsquos Processing Experiencerdquo Personality and SocialPsychology Review 8 (4) 364ndash82

Reber Rolf Piotr Winkielman and Norbert Schwarz (1998)ldquoEffects of Perceptual Fluency on Affective JudgmentsrdquoPsychological Science 9 (1) 45ndash48

Reimann Martin Judith Zaichkowksy Carolin Neuhaus ThomasBender and Bernd Weber (2010) ldquoAesthetic PackageDesign A Behavioral Neural and PsychologicalInvestigationrdquo Journal of Consumer Psychology 20 (4)431ndash41

Santayana George (18961955) The Sense of Beauty New YorkDover

Scott Maura L Stephen M Nowlis Naomi Mandel and AndreaC Morales (2008) ldquoThe Effects of Reduced Food Size andPackage Size on the Consumption Behavior of Restrainedand Unrestrained Eatersrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 35(3) 391ndash405

Spencer Steven J Mark P Zanna and Geoffrey T Fong (2005)ldquoEstablishing a Causal Chain Why Experiments Are OftenMore Effective than Mediational Analyses in ExaminingPsychological Processesrdquo Journal of Personality and SocialPsychology 89 (6) 845ndash51

Spiller Stephen A Gavan J Fitzsimons John G Lynch Jr andGary H McClelland (2013) ldquoSpotlights Floodlights andthe Magic Number Zero Simple Effects Tests inModerated Regressionrdquo Journal of Marketing Research 50(2) 277ndash88

Thompson Debora V Rebecca W Hamilton and Roland T Rust(2005) ldquoFeature Fatigue When Product CapabilitiesBecome Too Much of a Good Thingrdquo Journal of MarketingResearch 42 (November) 431ndash42

Townsend Claudia and Suzanne B Shu (2010) ldquoWhen and HowAesthetics Influences Financial Decisionsrdquo Journal ofConsumer Psychology 20 (4) 452ndash58

Townsend Claudia and Sanjay Sood (2012) ldquoSelf-Affirmationthrough the Choice of Highly Aesthetic Productsrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 39 (2) 415ndash28

Veryzer Robert W and J Wesley Hutchinson (1998) ldquoTheInfluence of Unity and Prototypicality on Aesthetic

WU ET AL 21

Responses to New Product Designsrdquo Journal of ConsumerResearch 24 (4) 374ndash94

Wada Yuji Carlos Arce-Lopera Tomohiro Masuda AtsushiKimura Ippeita Dan Sho-ichi Goto Daisuke Tsuzuki andKatsunori Okajima (2010) ldquoInfluence of LuminanceDistribution on the Appetizingly Fresh Appearance ofCabbagerdquo Appetite 54 (2) 363ndash68

Weiner Bernard (2000) ldquoAttributional Thoughts and ConsumerBehaviorrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 27 (December)382ndash87

Witz Anne Chris Warhurst and Dennis Nickson (2003) ldquoTheLabour of Aesthetics and The Aesthetics of OrganizationrdquoOrganization 10 (1) 33ndash54

Yamamoto Mel and David R Lambert (1994) ldquoThe Impact ofProduct Aesthetics on the Evaluation of Industrial ProductsrdquoJournal of Product Innovation Management 11 (4) 309ndash24

Yang Sha and Priya Raghubir (2005) ldquoCan Bottles SpeakVolumes The Effect of Package Shape on How Much toBuyrdquo Journal of Retailing 81 (4) 269ndash82

22 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

  • ucx057-FN1
  • ucx057-FN2
  • ucx057-FN3
  • ucx057-FN4
  • app1
  • app2
  • ucx057-TF1
  • ucx057-TF2
Page 3: It’s Too Pretty to Use! When and How Enhanced Product ...gavan/bio/GJF_articles/...testing the prediction that aesthetic products can elicit greater perceptions of effort. In line

disposable paper plates napkins bowls and plastic cupsfeaturing highly attractive and stylish designs (2015)

In sum extant research shows that consumers gravitatetoward beautiful products at the choice and pre-consumption stages of the decision process (Raghubir andGreenleaf 2006 Reimann et al 2010) However despitethe positive role that enhanced aesthetics play in motivat-ing choice we predict that there are also negative conse-quences of acquiring such products that can emerge duringand after consumption Next we discuss the pivotal rolethat effort inferences play in our conceptualization

The Role of Effort in Inhibiting Usage

Equally ubiquitous as consumersrsquo admiration for aes-thetics is their appreciation for effort Research in social psy-chology and consumer behavior has shown that the degreeof effort expendedmdashwhether in time physical labor pain ormoneymdashis directly associated with how positively peopleevaluate the outcome of that effort (Belk 1988 Bem 1972Festinger 1957 Moreau Bonney and Herd 2011 NortonMochon and Ariely 2012) Notably this appreciation for ef-fort is not limited to effort exerted by oneself The ldquoeffortheuristicrdquo (Kruger et al 2004) describes how increases in theperceived production time and effort of a given item enhanceratings of quality and liking Furthermore consumers rewardfirms that expend extra effort in creating or displaying theirproducts even when the quality of the products is not im-proved by the effort (Morales 2005)

While aesthetics and effort have traditionally been studiedin isolation we examine these two constructs in tandem bytesting the prediction that aesthetic products can elicitgreater perceptions of effort In line with attribution theorywhich posits that people seek out causes of particular events(Kelley 1967) we propose that the aesthetic appeal of aproduct naturally leads consumers to engage in attributionalsearch to identify what made the product so beautiful Thissearch then leads to the inference that more effort was in-vested in the productrsquos creation whether the effort was ex-pended during product design physical production orduring both processes Importantly the association betweenaesthetics and effort is likely one that consumers intuit at animplicit level Specifically we believe these inferences oc-cur fairly automatically similar to the spontaneously gener-ated consumer inferences documented in prior work(Broniarczyk and Alba 1994) For instance Kirmani Leeand Yoon (2004) showed that consumers spontaneously in-fer that higher advertising expenditures imply higher prod-uct quality and similarly Raghunathan Naylor and Hoyer(2006) found that the ldquounhealthy frac14 tastyrdquo intuition operatesat an implicit level In the same vein we posit that con-sumers are not actively deliberating about the positive asso-ciations between aesthetics and effort but instead intuit thisrelationship in a relatively spontaneous manner upon expo-sure to an aesthetic product

Though the association between aesthetics and effort hasnot been systematically explored in the consumer behaviorliterature support for this relationship does exist in relatedareas of research such as organizational behaviorldquoAesthetic laborrdquo refers to the notion that the process ofmaking oneself look attractive for frontline work often re-quires effort and hard labor (Witz Warhurst and Nickson2003) suggesting a positive association between aestheticappeal and perceived effort Still to provide further supportfor this assertion we conducted a pretest to examine the re-lationship between these two constructs across a variety ofproducts These products included the higher aesthetic stim-uli utilized in our focal studies such as toilet paper cup-cakes and paper napkins (see appendix A for images) aswell as higher aesthetic items used in prior research such ascalculators and coffee makers (Townsend and Sood 2012)Participants (n frac14 138) were shown a series of seven prod-ucts and asked to indicate for each one the degree of effortthey thought it took to (1) create the design of the productand (2) produce the product (1 frac14 hardly any effort 7 frac14 a lotof effort) Next they rated the degree to which the productwas beautiful artistic pretty and aesthetically appealingwhich formed our aesthetic appeal index (1 frac14 not at all7 frac14 very much for each of the seven products a 83)Correlations between aesthetic appeal and the two types ofeffort revealed that the more aesthetically appealing a prod-uct was rated the higher the perceived degree of design (r 35 p lt 001) and production effort (r 24 p lt 005) as-cribed to the productrsquos creation a pattern that held for eachof the seven products including machine-manufactured nap-kins and toilet paper (see table 1)

These findings suggest that consumers associate aes-thetics with effort regardless of whether the effort was at-tributed to product design or physical production Of noteto ensure comparability the stimuli in all of our studiesconsist of higher and lower aesthetic products within agiven product category (eg a higher vs lower aestheticcupcake) rather than across product categories (eg a cup-cake which tends to be more aesthetic vs a bagel whichtends to be less aesthetic)

TABLE 1

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN AESTHETICS AND PERCEIVEDEFFORT

Correlation betweenaesthetic appealand design effort

Correlation betweenaesthetic appeal and

production effort

Toilet paper r frac14 46 p lt 001 r frac14 54 p lt 001Cupcake r frac14 38 p lt 001 r frac14 44 p lt 001Napkin (floral) r frac14 58 p lt 001 r frac14 48 p lt 001Napkin (solid color) r frac14 38 p lt 001 r frac14 31 p lt 001Napkin (decorative) r frac14 52 p lt 001 r frac14 48 p lt 001Calculator r frac14 35 p lt 001 r frac14 24 p lt 005Coffee maker r frac14 36 p lt 001 r frac14 33 p lt 001

WU ET AL 3

In the current research we argue that particularly fornondurable aesthetic products the effort inferences as-cribed to their creation ironically curb actual usageSpecifically because people intuit that higher aestheticssignify higher effort as we established in our pretest andrecognize that effort is a controllable and volitional behav-ior (Morales 2005 Weiner 2000) they appreciate and re-ward the extra effort expended to make the product sobeautiful Indeed consumers often rely on perceived effortto ascertain the value and quality of an ad product or ser-vice (Kirmani 1990 Kruger et al 2004 Morales 2005) Inthe case of nondurable goods the consumption of an aes-thetically appealing product involves damaging its productdesign and by extension destroying the effort originallyinvested in making the product beautiful Based on thisperspective we posit that people refrain from using prod-ucts imbued with effort as this indirectly entails destroyingsomething they reward and appreciate Thus to the extentthat enhanced aesthetics evoke higher perceptions of de-sign andor production effort we predict that people shouldbe less likely to consume a product that has higher (vslower) aesthetic appeal More formally

H1 Consumers will be less likely to useconsume a nondura-

ble product that has higher (vs lower) aesthetic appeal

H2 The drop in consumption likelihood for nondurable prod-

ucts with higher (vs lower) aesthetic appeal will be me-

diated in serial by design andor production effort infer-

ences and concerns about the destruction of such effort

Importantly based on our conceptualization we wouldnot expect the same reduced consumption for beautiful prod-ucts that do not elicit high effort inferences or for individualswho do not recognize and appreciate effort For instancewhile consumers may be less likely to eat an intricately deco-rated cupcake because they do not want to destroy the effortthat presumably went into making it so beautiful this de-crease in consumption should be attenuated if they are madeto believe the cupcake required little effort to make in thefirst place or if they do not readily appreciate effort In study4 we manipulate effort inferences directly to show how thisreduced consumption is mitigated when beautiful productsare not associated with such inferences and in study 5 wediscuss an individual difference that makes some consumerseven more (vs less) likely to appreciate effort

Understanding Post-Consumption Affect

Beyond examining the factors that drive lower usage like-lihood of beautiful products we also investigate how con-sumers feel once consumption has occurred While wecontend that people will be less likely to use highly aestheticproducts due to concerns over the destruction of effort incases where they do we believe such concerns will continueto shape the emotional consequences of consumption giventhat their actions have resulted in the actual destruction of

effort Put another way if the mere thought of having to par-ticipate in the ruining of effort is sufficient to restrain con-sumption engaging in the actual destruction of effortthrough the consumption of a highly aesthetic nondurableproduct should similarly have a negative impact on subse-quent enjoyment of the experience Critically in addition toevoking concerns about effort destruction because consump-tion inherently compromises the beauty of a highly aestheticproduct by transforming it into something less attractive wepropose that witnessing such negative perceptual changesshould also play a role in impacting enjoyment and affect

According to the work of philosopher George Santayana(18961955) aesthetics are inextricably linked with pleasureand enjoyment a notion that has received widespread empir-ical support in work on hedonic consumption (Alba andWilliams 2013) Put simply people gravitate toward aesthet-ically appealing objects because of the immediate experien-tial pleasure that beauty in itself provides a process that isautomatic and does not require intervening cognitive reason-ing (Dutton 2009 Maritain 1966 Reber et al 2004) Thisnotion is further supported by neuroimaging studies showingthat the reward system in the brain plays an important rolein the processing of aesthetic stimuli (Aharon et al 2001Kampe et al 2001) For instance Reimann and colleagues(2010) demonstrated that exposure to aesthetic package de-signs resulted in increased activation in the nucleus accum-bens and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex key areas of thebrain that are known to process pleasure and reward

In the context of nondurable goods where consumptioninherently entails damaging the productrsquos appearance weargue that consumption of highly aesthetic products willlead to larger losses of beauty relative to the consumptionof less aesthetic products where the shifts in aesthetic ap-peal through usage will be less dramatic given lower ini-tial levels of attractiveness Thus if beautiful productsindeed afford greater pleasure and reward while they are inpristine condition it follows that the larger decrements inbeauty stemming from their consumption would result in aless pleasurable experience Since consumers are more sen-sitive to changes from a reference point rather than abso-lute levels (Kahneman and Tversky 1979) we predict thatthe steeper drops in beauty experienced in response to theconsumption of a higher aesthetic product will lead tomore negative responses than smaller changes in aestheticappeal from a lower starting point with the consumption ofa less aesthetic product More specifically we contend thatbecause consuming a highly aesthetic product inherentlyturns something beautiful which is pleasurable into some-thing unattractive which is unpleasant the accompanyingreductions in beauty will lead to reduced consumption en-joyment and greater negative affect

In sum we argue that while the effort inferences madebefore consumption will continue to mediate emotionaloutcomes given that consumption involves the actual de-struction of effort we predict that a second process will

4 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

also emerge one based on the decrements in beauty thathighly aesthetic products undergo when their aestheticqualities are compromised through consumption We pro-pose that these two processes will operate in tandem toshape the affective responses associated with the consump-tion of aesthetic products Formally

H3 Consumption of a higher (vs lower) aesthetic nondura-

ble product will negatively affect emotional outcomes

(enjoyment and affect)

H4a The effect of consuming a higher (vs lower) aesthetic

nondurable product on emotional outcomes will be

mediated in serial by design andor production effort

inferences and concerns over having destroyed such

effort as a result of consumption

H4b The effect of consuming a higher (vs lower) aesthetic

nondurable product on emotional outcomes will be

mediated by changes in beauty occurring as a result of

consumption

SUMMARY AND OVERVIEW OF STUDIES

In sum our conceptual model posits that different pro-cesses underlie consumer responses to highly aesthetic prod-ucts depending on whether or not consumption has takenplace Before consumption we expect higher effort infer-ences attributed to the creation of aesthetic products to elicitstronger concerns that such effort would be destroyed byconsumption lowering consumption likelihood After con-sumption in addition to these effort destruction concernsconsumers will also be confronted with the reality that theaesthetic appeal of the product has been visibly compromisedthrough usage Because beautiful products are inherentlypleasurable and rewarding the greater losses of beauty asso-ciated with aesthetic product usage will drive negative affectand reduce consumption enjoyment Importantly given thatnondurable products are designed for immediate consump-tion we do not expect anticipated shifts in aesthetic appealalone or concerns over what the product will look like post-consumption to play a significant role in stopping consumersfrom using them in the first place These decrements inbeauty are not evident before consumption when the highlyaesthetic product is still in pristine beautiful condition butinstead are salient only post-consumption

We test our predictions in field and laboratory studiesacross multiple consumption contexts summarized intable 2 Study 1 a field experiment provides an initialdemonstration of the inhibiting effect of product aestheticson usage behavior for real consumers Study 2 conceptu-ally replicates this effect in the lab using a different prod-uct and measure of consumption and provides preliminaryevidence that consumption of an aesthetic product can neg-atively impact product enjoyment Studies 3 4 and 5 pro-vide convergent support for effort inferences as a keydriver of reduced aesthetic product usage through

mediation (study 3) moderation by an effort intervention(study 4) and the theoretically relevant individual differ-ence of implicit self-theories (study 5) Of note effort in-ferences broadly speaking encompass both the inferencesabout the amount of effort required to make a productbeautiful as well as the inferences about the destruction ofsuch effort In our final two studies we hold usage constantto focus on the downstream consequences of aestheticproduct usage and shed light on the processes underlyingpost-consumption affect Study 6A establishes that the con-sumption of a higher (vs lower) aesthetic product resultsin larger losses of beauty and that such beauty decrementsnegatively impact post-consumption emotions while study6B tests the full conceptual model by integrating changesin beauty and effort inferences into emotional reactionslinked to the consumption experience The table inappendix B summarizes the results of a pretest showingthat all of the higher (vs lower) aesthetic stimuli utilized inour studies have greater aesthetic appeal Thus aestheticsmanipulation checks are not discussed in specific studies

STUDY 1 ESTABLISHING THEINHIBITING EFFECT OF ENHANCED

AESTHETICS ON USAGE IN THE FIELD

The goal of study 1 is to provide initial evidence that en-hanced product aesthetics can have an inhibiting effect onusage behavior in a real-world context We worked with afitness studio to conduct a field experiment that involvedmonitoring client toilet paper use over two weeks We an-ticipated that clients would use less toilet paper when itwas more (vs less) aesthetically appealing Importantlywe used the exact same brand and type of toilet paper inboth conditions which allowed us to vary its aestheticswhile holding constant all other unrelated factors such asquality texture and absorbency

Method

Participants and Procedure We manipulated whetherthe individual bathroom at a fitness studio located in thesouthwestern United States was stocked with plain whitetoilet paper (lower aesthetic condition) or white toilet paperfeaturing festive holiday motifs (higher aesthetic conditionsee appendix A row 1 for images) which was appropriateat the time of data collection as the study took place twoweeks before Christmas1 Of note in addition to the pretestassessing different levels of aesthetic appeal between thetwo different types of toilet paper another between-subjects

1 In coordinating the field study we originally made plans to run attwo locations to counterbalance the order of presentation of the toiletpaper (lower aesthetic first vs higher aesthetic first) Unfortunatelythe second studio encountered plumbing issues during the course ofthe study invalidating the data thereby yielding results from only onestudio

WU ET AL 5

TA

BL

E2

ST

UD

YO

VE

RV

IEW

Stu

dy

Conte

xt

Pro

duct

Desig

nD

ependentvariable

(s)

Sta

tisticalc

ontr

ols

Fin

din

gs

1F

ield

Toile

tpaper

bull2

(aest

hetic

shig

her

vs

low

er)

bullN

um

ber

ofsheets

used

bullB

asic

eff

ect

Aesth

etics

reduced

the

avera

ge

num

ber

of

sheets

used

(37

0vs

66

6plt

001)

2Lab

Cupcake

bull2

(aest

hetic

shig

her

vs

low

er)

hunger

(continuous)

bullC

onsum

ption

am

ount

bullC

onsum

ption

enjo

ym

ent

bullP

erc

eiv

ed

expense

bullM

od

era

tio

no

fb

asic

eff

ect

Aesth

etics

hunger

inte

rac-

tion

(pfrac14

03)

aesth

etics

reduce

dconsum

ption

ofth

ecup-

cake

prim

arily

am

ong

hungry

indiv

iduals

bullP

ost-

co

nsu

mp

tio

nco

nseq

uen

ces

Aesth

etics

hunger

inte

raction

(pfrac14

01)

aesth

etic

sre

duce

denjo

ymentofth

ecupcake

prim

arily

am

ong

hungry

indiv

iduals

3S

imula

tion

Paper

napkin

bull2

(aest

hetic

shig

her

vs

low

er)

bullU

sage

likelih

ood

bullE

ffort

infe

rences

bullC

oncern

sabouteffort

destr

uctio

n

bullW

illin

gness

topay

bullB

asic

eff

ect

Aesth

etics

reduced

usage

likelih

ood

(58

1vs62

8plt

001)

incr

eased

perc

eptions

ofeffort

(38

0vs31

9plt

01)

and

incre

ased

concern

sabouteffort

de-

str

uction

(25

4vs19

5plt

01)

bullP

re-c

on

su

mp

tio

np

rocess

by

med

iati

on

A

esth

etics

effort

infe

rences

concern

sabouteffort

destr

uctio

n

usage

likelih

ood

(95

CIfrac14

[ndash0

9ndash0

1])

4S

imula

tion

Paper

napkin

bull2

(napki

nin

form

atio

nnone

vs

hig

her

aest

hetics

re-

quired

low

er

pro

duction

effort

)

bullC

hoic

eofnapkin

touse

(hig

her

vslo

wer

aest

hetic)

bullP

erc

eiv

ed

cost

bullB

asic

eff

ect

Inth

econtr

olc

onditio

n198

chose

touse

the

hig

her

aest

hetic

napki

n

bullP

re-c

on

su

mp

tio

np

rocess

by

sit

uati

on

alb

ou

nd

ary

co

nd

itio

n

Inth

ein

terv

entio

nconditio

nw

here

the

hig

her

aesth

etic

napkin

was

desc

ribed

as

requirin

gle

ss

effort

topro

duce636

chose

touse

the

hig

her

aest

hetic

napki

n(plt

001)

5Lab

Paper

napkin

bull2

(aest

hetic

shig

her

vs

low

er)

implic

itself-

theo-

ries

(continuous)

bullN

apkin

usage

bullW

illin

gness

topay

bullB

asic

eff

ect

Aesth

etics

reduced

napkin

usage

(pfrac14

03)

bullP

re-c

on

su

mp

tio

np

rocess

by

ind

ivid

uald

iffe

ren

ce

mo

dera

tor

Aesth

etics

implic

itself-t

heories

inte

raction

(pfrac14

04)

aesth

etics

reduce

dnapki

nusageprim

arily

am

ong

incre

menta

ltheorists

6A

Sim

ula

tion

Paper

napkin

bull2

(aest

hetic

shig

her

vs

low

er

betw

een)

2(a

est

hetic

judgm

ent

befo

revs

after

usagew

ithin

)

bullE

motio

ns

bullC

hanges

inaesth

etic

judg-

mentacro

ss

tim

e

bullP

ost-

co

nsu

mp

tio

nco

nseq

uen

ces

Usage

ofaesth

etics

incre

ased

negative

affect(3

05

vs24

6plt

001)

and

decre

ments

inbeauty

acro

ss

tim

e(plt

001)

bullP

ost-

co

nsu

mp

tio

np

rocess

by

med

iati

on

A

esth

etics

decre

ments

inbeauty

em

otio

ns

(95

CIfrac14

[042

9])

6B

Sim

ula

tion

Paper

napkin

bull2

(aest

hetic

shig

her

vs

low

er)

bullE

motio

ns

bullC

hanges

inaesth

etic

judgm

ent

bullE

ffort

infe

rences

bullC

oncern

sth

ateffort

had

been

destr

oyed

bullP

ost-

co

nsu

mp

tio

nco

nseq

uen

ces

Usage

ofaesth

etics

incre

ased

negative

affect(3

13

vs28

3plt

05)

decre

-m

ents

inbeauty

(26

3vs

17

7plt

001)

perc

eptions

of

effort

(34

9vs

28

7plt

001)

and

concern

sth

ateffort

had

been

destr

oyed

(26

2vs20

0plt

001)

bullP

ost-

co

nsu

mp

tio

np

rocess

by

para

llelm

ed

iati

on

1A

esth

etics

decre

ments

inbeauty

em

otio

ns

(95

CIfrac14

[235

4])

2A

esth

etics

effort

infe

rences

concern

sth

atef-

fort

had

been

destr

oyed

em

otions

(95

CIfrac14

[06

23])

6 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

pretest (n frac14 100) revealed that people liked the higher (vslower) aesthetic toilet paper and its design more (Mhigher

aesthetic frac14 457 vs Mlower aesthetic frac14 400 t(98) frac14 ndash195pfrac14 05 rfrac14 88)

The studio owner provided us with the number of peoplewho attended classes each week and employees who re-mained blind to our research hypotheses replenished thetoilet paper as needed A total of 772 clients visited the stu-dio over the course of the studymdash387 in the lower aestheticcondition (week 1) and 385 in the higher aesthetic condi-tion (week 2) Clients were unaware that a study was beingconducted

Results and Discussion

As predicted clients used less of the more aestheticallyappealing toilet paper 2578 total sheets of the lower aes-thetic toilet paper were used while only 1425 sheets of thehigher aesthetic toilet paper were used Because we wereprovided with the number of class attendees we were alsoable to calculate average usage per client each client in thelower aesthetic condition used an average of 666 sheetswhile each client in the higher aesthetic condition used an av-erage of 370 sheets (v2 (1)frac14 32616 (n frac14 772) p lt 001)

Discussion We find preliminary evidence that en-hanced product aesthetics can reduce usage behaviorswhile controlling for differences in paper quality and thetotal number of clients Having provided a demonstrationof this phenomenon in an ecologically valid setting the re-maining studies replicate and generalize this finding andidentify its underlying mechanism in a more controlledenvironment

STUDY 2 THE IMPACT OF AESTHETICSON FOOD CONSUMPTION AND

ENJOYMENT

The purpose of study 2 was to conceptually replicatestudy 1 in a product category in which aesthetics play amajor role food A growing body of research has docu-mented the profound influence that food presentation hason how we evaluate what we eat (Hurling and Shepherd2003 Wada et al 2010) We chose cupcakes as our focalstimuli because they are a highly familiar dessert that canbe made more aesthetically appealing (ie higher aes-thetics with frosting in the shape of a rose) or more plain(ie lower aesthetics with smooth frosting) while holdingconstant aesthetically unrelated factors such as flavor andtaste (see appendix A row 2 for images) Consistent withthe extant aesthetics literature a pretest of the cupcakesused in study 2 revealed that people were more likely tochoose to purchase the higher (vs lower) aesthetic cupcakefor consumption in the future providing an even strongertest of our predictions about higher aesthetics lowering

consumption Details of this pretest are available in theweb appendix

Importantly given the inherent nature of food we arecognizant of baseline individual differences that could af-fect the amount consumed (Lisjak et al 2015) We ran thisstudy throughout the day (from 10 am to 5 pm) acrossmultiple days so we accounted for individual differencesin hunger and measured state hunger at the start of thestudy We expect that the inhibiting effect of aesthetics onconsumption will be greatest among hungry participantsas the need to exhibit restraint should be observed onlyamong those motivated to engage in consumption in thefirst place We do not expect differences in consumptionamong satiated participants as they should have a low de-sire to eat regardless of aesthetics

Notably an alternative explanation is that people feel in-hibited from consuming highly aesthetic products becausethey tend to cost more and not because of concerns overdestroying effort Thus we also aim to replicate study 1rsquosfindings while controlling for perceived expense

Finally we seek to provide initial evidence that the con-sumption of a highly aesthetic product will negatively af-fect how much participants enjoy the consumptionexperience a notion we explore in depth in study 6 In linewith our predictions for consumption amount we expectthe negative influence of food aesthetics on post-consumption affect to be greatest among hungry individ-uals as hunger leads people to not only eat more but toalso enjoy their food more (Berridge 2009 Cabanac 19711979 1985) Thus changes in the ability to derive enjoy-ment should be observed only among those motivated toengage in consumption in the first place

Method

Participants and Procedure One hundred eighty-threeundergraduate students from a southwestern university par-ticipated in a 2 (aesthetics higher vs lower) continuous(hunger) between-subjects study in exchange for partialcourse credit Five participants were excluded from theanalysis four had missing data on the dependent measuresand one had missing data on hunger This left a sample of178 participants (52 female [one did not report gender]median age frac14 21 ages 18ndash48)

Participants first indicated their current level of hunger(1 frac14 not at all hungry 7 frac14 very hungry) They were thentold that the goal of the study was to explore which foodsgo best with different videos and that they would be eatingvanilla cupcakes Participants were randomly assigned toeither the higher or lower aesthetic condition To ensurethey did not discount the overall consumption experiencebecause they lacked freedom of choice (Brehm 1966)within each aesthetic condition they chose either a pink orcream-colored cupcake to eat Experimenters preweighedeach cupcake before the start of each session

WU ET AL 7

Next participants were told to watch a 90 second videofeaturing scenes from around the world while they ate theircupcake and that they were free to eat as much or as littleof the cupcake as they liked After finishing the video theremains of the cupcake were collected and weighed in aseparate room Participants then rated how much they en-joyed the cupcake (1 frac14 not at all 7 frac14 very much so) andcompleted filler measures that assessed how interesting thevideo was and how much they liked cupcakes in generalFinally they rated how expensive they thought the cupcakewas (1 frac14 not at all expensive 7 frac14 very expensive)

Results and Discussion

We predicted that for consumers who were motivated toconsume (ie hungry individuals) higher aesthetics wouldcurb consumption quantity and reduce consumption enjoy-ment effects that were expected to hold even when wecontrolled for perceived expense

Consumption Amount We first log-transformed the de-pendent variable to normalize the distribution (Cleveland1984) Next we performed a 2 (aesthetics condition) continuous (hunger) multiple regression analysis on thelogged consumption amount Regressing this loggedamount on the aesthetics manipulation mean-centered lev-els of hunger and their interaction revealed a directionalsimple effect of aesthetics at the mean level of hunger(b frac14 ndash10 t(174) frac14 ndash126 p frac14 21) such that participantsin the higher aesthetic condition consumed less of the cup-cake Most importantly the interaction was also significant(b frac14 ndash10 t(174) frac14 ndash213 p frac14 03) Decomposing the inter-action in the lower aesthetic (smooth frosting) condition we

found a significant effect of hunger (b frac14 15 t(174) frac14446 p lt 001) such that hungry (vs satiated) individualsconsumed more of the cupcake However attesting to the in-hibitory nature of beautiful products in the higher aesthetic(rose frosting) condition the effect of hunger was not signifi-cant (b frac14 05 t(174) frac14 129 p frac14 20) Because self-reportedhunger was measured on a 1 to 7 scale (M frac14 425 SDfrac14 168median frac14 4) we ran a floodlight analysis using the Johnson-Neyman (1936) technique to identify the range of hunger forwhich the simple effect of aesthetics was significant (figure 1see also Spiller et al 2013) This analysis revealed a signifi-cant reduction in consumption of the higher (vs lower) aes-thetic cupcake for any value of hunger above 492 (at p lt05) Thus despite a higher baseline desire to eat hungry indi-viduals actively refrained from consumption when the cup-cake was more aesthetically appealing Consistent with ourpredictions such effects were not observed among satiated in-dividuals who displayed low motivation to eat regardless ofthe cupcakersquos appearance

Enjoyment of the Cupcake A 2 continuous regres-sion on cupcake enjoyment revealed only a significant in-teraction (b frac14 ndash41 t(174) frac14 ndash256 p frac14 01 see figure 2)In the lower aesthetic condition (b frac14 45 t(174) frac14 405p lt 001) hungry (vs satiated) individuals enjoyed thecupcake more There was no effect of hunger in the higheraesthetic condition (bfrac14 04 t(174) lt 1 ns) Floodlightanalysis revealed that for all values of hunger above 466participants in the higher aesthetic condition enjoyed thecupcake significantly less (p lt 05)

Perceived Expense A 2 continuous regression onperceived expense of the cupcake revealed only a signifi-cant simple effect of aesthetics at the mean level of hunger

FIGURE 1

AESTHETICS HUNGER ON CONSUMPTION AMOUNT (STUDY 2)

8 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

(p lt 001) such that the higher aesthetic cupcake was seenas more expensive Most importantly when we controlledfor expense the 2 continuous interactions and focal ef-fects continue to hold for consumption amount (p lt 04)and cupcake enjoyment (p lt 01) Finally a moderatedmediation analysis (model 8 Hayes 2013) revealed thatperceived expense did not mediate either amount con-sumed (b frac14 ndash01 95 CI [ndash08 05]) or degree of enjoy-ment (b frac14 12 95 CI [ndash05 35]) among hungryindividuals revealing that inferred monetary value was notdriving our effects

Discussion Though our pretest showed that consumerswere more likely to choose the higher aesthetic cupcake avery different pattern of results emerged with consumptionamount and consumption enjoyment Hungry participantsactively inhibited their consumption and ate less in thehigher aesthetic rose frosting condition In addition to eat-ing less these individuals experienced lower consumptionenjoyment when the cupcake was highly aesthetic By con-ceptually replicating the previous studyrsquos results with anew product we increase the generalizability of our find-ings to food a domain for which visual presentation playsa fundamental role We also provide initial evidence thatconsumption of highly aesthetic products can carry nega-tive implications for the consumption experience a notionwe explore in greater depth in studies 6A and 6B These ef-fects continued to hold even when we controlled for per-ceived expense thus rendering such an alternative accountless likely

Having reliably demonstrated the inhibiting effect ofaesthetics on consumption across two product categorieswe next elucidate the underlying process through three

different approaches First we provide evidence for ourproposed mechanism via mediation (study 3) Second wedirectly manipulate effort inferences to show process bymoderation (study 4) and third we identify a theoreticallygrounded individual difference moderator (study 5)

STUDY 3 THE MEDIATING ROLE OFEFFORT INFERENCES AND EFFORT

DESTRUCTION

The goal of study 3 is to replicate our focal effect in anew product domain paper napkins and to shed light onthe mechanism underlying consumption likelihood by test-ing the driving role of effort inferences and effort destruc-tion Consistent with our theorizing we predict that thehigher inferences of effort elicited by highly aestheticproducts will lead to stronger concerns that such effortwould be destroyed in the consumption process resultingin lower usage likelihood Notably this is a conservativecontext in which to assess effort inferences given that pa-per napkins are machine-manufactured and so differencesin perceived effort are quite subtle Further by shifting out-side of the food domain to even subtler stimuli we canmore confidently ensure that our findings are not merelyartifacts of the stimuli we have chosen (although handmadehighly aesthetic foods such as the cupcakes used in study2 are ubiquitous in the marketplace)

Method

Participants and Procedure Two hundred sixty partic-ipants were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk toparticipate in a two-cell (aesthetics higher vs lower)

FIGURE 2

AESTHETICS HUNGER ON CUPCAKE ENJOYMENT (STUDY 2)

WU ET AL 9

between-subjects study in exchange for payment Two in-dividuals participated in this study twice and six had miss-ing data on the dependent measures and were excludedfrom the analysis yielding a final sample of 252 partici-pants (44 female [five did not report gender] medianage frac14 31 ages 19ndash69)

Participants were presented with a guided visualizationscenario in which they imagined they were at a local bak-ery getting breakfast and doing work As they were work-ing they accidentally spilled coffee all over theirdocuments prompting them to look toward the counter tosee how they could clean up the spill We presented a situa-tion in which the destruction of the product paper napkinswas imminent to assess how such an outcome shapes pref-erences to consume aesthetically appealing productsParticipants were randomly assigned to either the higher orlower aesthetic condition Those in the higher aestheticcondition saw a stack of floral napkins at the counter toclean up the spill while those in the lower aesthetic condi-tion saw a stack of plain white napkins (see appendix Arow 3 for images) Additional details of the procedure areavailable in the web appendix Subsequently participantsindicated to what extent they would use the (floral orwhite) napkins to clean up the spill (1 frac14 definitely no 7 frac14definitely yes) how likely they would be to use the napkinsto clean up the spill (1 frac14 very unlikely 7 frac14 very likely)and how many napkins they would use to clean up the spill(1 frac14 none at all 7 frac14 very many) which formed our usagelikelihood index (afrac14 81) Next to examine effort infer-ences we asked participants how much effort they thoughtwent into making the napkins (1 frac14 none at all 7 frac14 quite abit) To examine concerns about effort destruction weasked participants to rate their agreement with the state-ment ldquoI felt like I was destroying someonersquos effort by usingthe napkinsrdquo (1 frac14 strongly disagree 7 frac14 stronglyagree) Finally to again show that inferred monetary valueis not driving our effects participants indicated how muchthey would be willing to pay for a pack of the napkins inthe scenario (ie dollar value)

Results and Discussion

We predicted that participants would be less likely touse the higher aesthetic napkins and that this effect wouldbe mediated in serial by effort inferences and concernsover destroying such effort

Usage Likelihood A one-way ANOVA on the usagelikelihood index indicated that participants were less likelyto use the higher aesthetic floral napkins to clean up thespill (Mhigher aesthetic frac14 581 vs Mlower aesthetic frac14 628 F(1250) frac14 1592 p lt 001) an effect that continues to holdeven when we controlled for willingness to pay for thenapkins (p lt 001)

Effort Inferences A one-way ANOVA on effort infer-ences indicated that participants ascribed greater effort to thehigher aesthetic napkins (Mhigher frac14 380 vs Mlower frac14 319F(1 250) frac14 753 p lt 01) even when we controlled for will-ingness to pay (p lt 02)

Effort Destruction A one-way ANOVA on concernsabout effort destruction indicated that participants hadstronger concerns effort would be destroyed in the higheraesthetic condition (Mhigher frac14 254 vs Mlower frac14 195 F(1250) frac14 837 p lt 01) Again this effect holds even whenwe controlled for willingness to pay (p lt 02)

Mediation We conducted a serial multiple mediatormodel (model 6 Hayes 2013) testing our proposed media-tion path where effort inferences and concerns about ef-fort destruction served as serial mediators productaesthetics effort inferences concerns about the de-struction of effort usage likelihood Consistent withour predictions the indirect effect of aesthetics on usagelikelihood through effort inferences and concerns abouteffort destruction was significant (b frac14 ndash03 95 CI [ndash09 ndash01]) In addition the indirect effect of aesthetics onusage likelihood through effort destruction alone was sig-nificant (b frac14 ndash04 95 CI [ndash14 ndash003]) suggesting thismediator works serially but also individually Consistentwith study 2 willingness to pay did not mediate usagelikelihood (b frac14 01 95 CI [ndash03 06]) providing fur-ther evidence that inferred monetary value was not drivingour effects In sum product aesthetics affected usage like-lihood through effort inferences and concerns that onewould be destroying this effort

Discussion In study 3 using a new subtler contextwe show that the greater perceptions of effort ascribed tothe creation of higher aesthetic napkins led to stronger con-cerns that such effort would inevitably be destroyed in theconsumption process which ultimately discouraged usageFurther we once again demonstrate that inferred monetaryvalue does not account for our results Next we manipulateeffort inferences directly to show that shifting the per-ceived effort required to make an aesthetic product willmitigate our focal effect

STUDY 4 THE MODERATING ROLE OFEFFORT INFERENCES

Given the underlying role of effort in inhibiting the con-sumption of highly aesthetic products it follows that this re-duced consumption should be attenuated if the beautifulproduct does not trigger such effort inferences in the firstplace Thus in study 4 we manipulated information aboutthe products to directly influence effort inferences comple-menting study 3 by providing process evidence through mod-eration (Spencer Zanna and Fong 2005) Notably unlikeother studies in the current article study 4 utilizes a

10 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

comparative design in which participants are presented withboth higher and lower aesthetic products at once and areasked to make a choice between them This design allowsus to extend the generalizability of our findings to contextswhere consumers are faced with products of differing levelsof aesthetic appeal and have to choose one to immediatelyconsume Moreover study 4 replaces floral napkins withturquoise napkins in the higher aesthetic condition therebyusing especially subtle aesthetic stimuli to reveal that evenin the absence of product design changes in aesthetic ap-peal through other means (eg color) can shape consump-tion decisions in the same manner

Finally study 4 helps us test the alternative explanationthat concerns over how the product will look after usageor anticipated decrements in the productrsquos beauty aloneare driving lower consumption likelihood independent ofeffort inferences If this is the case the likelihood of usingaesthetically appealing products should not differ as afunction of expended effort since consumers should al-ways be less likely to use a beautiful product irrespectiveof the effort involved in its creation However if consump-tion likelihood is indeed affected by inferred effort thenchanges in inferred effort should systematically impactconsumption likelihood a relationship we examine directlyin study 4

Method

Participants and Procedure Two hundred forty-sixparticipants were recruited from Amazon MechanicalTurk to participate in a two-cell (intervention conditionno information control vs higher aesthetics frac14 lower ef-fort) between-subjects study in exchange for paymentSeven people participated in this study twice and wereexcluded yielding a final sample of 239 participants (48female [six did not report gender] median age frac14 31 ages18ndash69)

Study 4 used the same guided visualization scenario asstudy 3 where participants imagined visiting their localbakery and accidentally spilling coffee while they wereworking However this time they saw two separatestacks of napkins they could use to clean up the spillThe napkins were turquoise (higher aesthetic option) orplain white (lower aesthetic option see appendix A row4 for images) and both napkin images were presented atonce Additional details are available in the webappendix

At this point participants in the control condition pro-ceeded directly to a choice task in which they indicated whichtype of napkin they would use to clean up the spill On theother hand participants in the higher aestheticsfrac14 lower effortcondition were first told that as they looked at the napkinsthey recalled that a friend who used to work for this bakeryhad told them that it actually takes less effort and time forcompanies to manufacture the blue napkins than it does to

make and bleach the white ones2 Next participants in thislower effort condition completed the choice task After theirchoice all participants indicated how much they thought thenapkins cost (1 frac14 very little 7 frac14 quite a lot)

Results and Discussion

Conceptually replicating prior studies in the controlcondition where no effort inferences were made salientparticipants were less likely to choose the higher aestheticblue napkins to clean up the spill (1983 blue vs8017white) However this lower usage likelihood was re-versed when the higher aesthetic blue napkins elicitedlower perceptions of effort (6356blue vs 3644white v2

(1) frac14 4707 (n frac14 239) p lt 001) Importantly the choiceeffects continue to hold when we control for perceived cost(p lt 001)

Discussion Study 4 offers convergent support for theproposed underlying process by showing that the reducedconsumption of highly aesthetic products is reversed whenthese products elicit lower effort inferences As revealedby the pretest (see footnote 2) in the control conditionwhere no effort information was made salient participantsascribed greater effort to the higher aesthetic blue napkinand were less likely to use it but when this blue napkinwas thought to require less effort to produce participantsbecame more likely to use it Notably unlike our priorstudies study 4 employed a comparative design in whichparticipants saw higher and lower aesthetic options at thesame time mirroring real life where consumers encountermultiple product offerings with differing aesthetic appealand have to choose one to use

These results also suggest that anticipated decrements inbeauty alone or concerns over what the aesthetic productwill look like after consumption are unlikely to inhibitconsumption Such projected losses of beauty are not evi-dent before consumption has occurred when the highlyaesthetic product is still in pristine beautiful condition Ifexpected drops in the aesthetic appeal of the product alonehad been responsible for driving reduced consumption in-dividuals would have been equally inhibited from using thehigher aesthetic napkin irrespective of effort inferencesSuch an alternative is inconsistent with the reversal in us-age likelihood we observed in the higher aesthetics frac14lower effort condition since the aesthetic appeal of the

2 A pretest confirmed the validity of study 4rsquos effort manipulationParticipants (n frac14 201) completed a 2 (aesthetics) 2 (effort interven-tion) between-subjects study where they read the same scenario butwere randomly assigned a napkin choice and asked to make effortinferences about the napkin Results revealed a significant interaction(p lt 001) Whereas in the control condition the higher aesthetic nap-kin elicited higher perceptions of effort (Mcontrol higher aesthetic frac14 391vs Mcontrol lower aesthetic frac14 335 p lt 04) this pattern reversed in thelow effort condition (Mlow effort higher aesthetic frac14 302 vs Mlow effort lower

aesthetic frac14 431 p lt 001) Procedural details and full results are avail-able in the web appendix

WU ET AL 11

napkins remained constant only the perceived effort hadchanged Thus we provide further evidence for the prem-ise that consumers strongly link aesthetics and effort andshow that for consumption to be reduced the highly aes-thetic product must signal higher effort in addition to itsaesthetic qualities

Notably while our results support the notion that antici-pated drops in beauty alone are insufficient to lead to a re-duction in consumption likelihood it is also worthmentioning that because effort and beauty are inextricablylinked constructs concerns over destroying effort mayshare to some extent overlapping variance with concernsover the imminent losses of beauty This suggests that inother contexts anticipated decrements in beauty may alsoplay a role in driving usage potentially for products of ex-treme aesthetic appeal that are more defined by theirbeauty as opposed to the colored napkins used hereNonetheless in the current context the results demonstratethat shifting perceptions about the amount of effort neededto create a higher aesthetic product is sufficient to over-come any inhibition to consume it

We next provide additional evidence for our conceptual-ization by investigating a theoretically driven individualdifference that affects the degree to which effort is inher-ently appreciated and by extension should influence deci-sions to use highly aesthetic products

STUDY 5 THE ROLE OF IMPLICIT SELF-THEORIES IN SHAPING USAGE

Based on our theory because the higher effort as-cribed to beautiful products underlies their lower likeli-hood of usage such a reduction should be moderated bythe degree to which effort is intrinsically valued or peo-plersquos implicit self-theories According to research on im-plicit self-theories entity theorists view their personalqualities as stable and unable to be enhanced by self-improvement while incremental theorists view thesequalities as flexible and able to be cultivated through la-bor and effort (Dweck 2000) Similarly entity theoriststend to view effort as ineffective and pointless while in-cremental theorists are more optimistic that their effortscarry intrinsic value and will eventually bear fruit(Dweck and Leggett 1988)

We propose that beyond the recognition of personal ef-fort implicit self-theories affect the extent to which con-sumers appreciate othersrsquo effort and by extension theeffort that goes into the creation of highly aesthetic prod-ucts To test this prediction we conducted a correlationalstudy examining the relationship between implicit self-theories and the propensity to appreciate effort-laden prod-ucts Participants (n frac14 134) first completed the implicitself-theories scale (Levy Stroessner and Dweck 1998)where higher (lower) scores indicate greater endorsement

of incremental (entity) self-theory Next they indicatedtheir agreement with five items reflecting appreciation forothersrsquo effort (eg I notice when people work really hardto create something3 all anchored at 1 frac14 strongly disagree7 frac14 strongly agree a frac14 91) We found a significant posi-tive correlation (r frac14 23 p lt 01) such that incrementallyoriented individuals were more likely to appreciate thingsthat reflect a great deal of effort

Thus based on this appreciation for othersrsquo effort in study5 we predict that incremental theorists will be less likely toconsume products that are highly aesthetic and by extensionladen with effort By contrast because entity theorists havelower intrinsic appreciation for effort they will be equallylikely to use a product regardless of its aesthetic appeal

Method

Participants and Procedure One hundred eighty-seven undergraduate students from a southwesternuniversity participated in a 2 (aesthetics higher vs lower) continuous (implicit self-theories) between-subjectsstudy in exchange for partial course credit Two partici-pants reported having a gluten allergy that prevented themfrom consuming the goldfish crackers accompanying thenapkins An additional 11 participants were excluded fromthe analysismdashone respondent participated in this studytwice and 10 had missing data on implicit self-theorieswhich we had measured in a separate presurvey severalweeks prior to the focal study Thus the final sample com-prised 174 participants (52 female [four did not reportgender] median age frac14 21 ages 18ndash41)

Study 5 employed the same cover story about pairingfoods with videos used in study 2 but this time usingPepperidge Farm goldfish crackers We chose these crack-ers because they are slightly messy to eatmdashpeople wouldwant to use a napkin but did not necessarily have to creat-ing an ideal context within which to test our hypothesesParticipants received an individual pack of goldfish crack-ers along with a paper napkin which was either decorativewith a white background (higher aesthetic condition) orplain white (lower aesthetic condition) (both 61=2 inchessquare see appendix A row 5 for images) Importantlythe experimenter gave no explicit instructions on what to dowith this napkin Of note in addition to the pretest assessingdifferent levels of aesthetic appeal between the two napkinsanother between-subjects pretest (n frac14 81) showed that partic-ipants liked the higher (vs lower) aesthetic napkin and its de-sign more (Mhigher aesthetic frac14 516 vs Mlower aesthetic frac14 365t(79) frac14 ndash516 p lt 001 r frac14 87) but both napkins were

3 The other items were (2) I really appreciate it when somebodytakes the time and effort to make something (3) I treasure somethingmore when I know a lot of effort has gone into creating it (4) I havean appreciation for products that reflect a great deal of effort on themakerrsquos part and (5) I value something more when I know it took alot of time and energy to produce

12 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

rated as equally versatile in their usage (Mhigher aesthetic frac14 580vs Mlower aesthetic frac14 591 t(79) frac14 47 p gt 60 a frac14 91)Additional pretest details are available in the web appendix

Participants were told to watch a 35 minute video onwildlife animals while they ate the crackers and that theywere free to eat as much or as little as they liked Once par-ticipants finished the video the experimenter collected thenapkin and any leftover crackers and recorded whether thenapkin had been used or not (0 frac14 no 1 frac14 yes) in anotherroom A napkin was coded as ldquousedrdquo if it showed any signsof usage (ie had any food stains on it looked crumpled orhad been used to spit out gum) and was coded as ldquounusedrdquoonly if it appeared untouched and in pristine condition mak-ing it a highly conservative test of our hypotheses To againensure that perceived cost was not influencing our focal ef-fects we asked participants how much they would be will-ing to pay for a pack of napkins (ie dollar value) Finallyparticipants completed a series of filler measures that as-sessed how interesting the video was and how much theyliked eating goldfish crackers in general

Results and Discussion

A 2 (aesthetics condition) continuous (implicit self-theories) logistic regression on napkin usage behavior(used yes no) was performed Regressing usage behavioron the aesthetics manipulation mean-centered levels ofimplicit self-theories and their interaction revealed a sig-nificant simple effect of aesthetics at the mean of implicitself-theories (b frac14 ndash37 Wald v2 frac14 460 p frac14 03) suchthat a smaller percentage of people used the napkin in the

higher aesthetic condition across all participants conceptu-ally replicating prior studies Importantly the interactionwas also significant (b frac14 ndash30 Wald v2 frac14 419 p frac14 04see figure 3) Notably this interaction continued to holdeven when we controlled for willingness to pay (p lt 04)We used the Johnson-Neyman technique to identify therange of implicit self-theories for which the simple effectof the aesthetics manipulation was significant where lowervalues imply an entity-oriented mindset while higher val-ues imply an incrementally oriented mindset We found asignificant reduction in usage of the higher aesthetic deco-rative (vs lower aesthetic white) paper napkin for anyvalue of implicit self-theories above 406 (at p lt 05) butnot for any value less than 406 In other words incremen-tal theorists were less likely to use a higher (vs lower) aes-thetic napkin whereas entity theorists were equally likelyto use a napkin regardless of its appearance

Discussion In study 5 we provide further evidence forour proposed mechanism by showing that implicit self-theories or consumersrsquo chronic appreciation for investedeffort shapes decisions to use an aesthetically pleasingproduct Incremental theorists who are more appreciativeof effort were less likely to use a higher aesthetic decora-tive napkin than a lower aesthetic plain white napkin butsuch effects were not observed among entity theorists whohave lower intrinsic appreciation for effort We have nowreliably established the inhibiting effect of product aes-thetics on consumption across multiple products and con-sumption contexts and provided convergent support for theunderlying mechanism In our final two studies we

FIGURE 3

AESTHETICS IMPLICIT SELF-THEORIES ON NAPKIN USAGE (STUDY 5)

WU ET AL 13

elucidate the drivers of post-consumption emotions whileholding usage constant thereby allowing us to hone in onpost-consumption consequences in a more controlledfashion since people are inherently less likely to usehigher aesthetic products which could potentially result inself-selection issues

STUDY 6A DECREMENTS IN BEAUTYAND POST-CONSUMPTION AFFECT

Recall in study 2 that when the cupcake was highly aes-thetic consumption enjoyment was lower among individ-uals most motivated to engage in consumption (ie hungryindividuals) an effect we propose is determined by twoprocesses working in tandem First we expect that the ef-fort inferences made prior to consumption will continue todrive emotional outcomes given the consumption processinvolves the actual destruction of effort Second and onlyevident post-consumption are the decrements in beautythat aesthetic products undergo when their aesthetic quali-ties are visibly compromised through usage Because beau-tiful products are inherently pleasurable (Reber et al 2004Reimann et al 2010) we predict that individuals will expe-rience less pleasure and more negative affect when theywitness highly aesthetic products undergo steeper drops inbeauty as a result of consumption Consistent with prospecttheoryrsquos value function (Kahneman and Tversky 1979)initial changesmdashhere the larger losses of beauty associatedwith the usage of a higher (vs lower) aesthetic productmdashshould be particularly jarring and lead to more negative af-fect (Frederick and Loewenstein 1999)

Importantly unlike in study 2 where we measured theamount consumed as well as post-consumption enjoymentin study 6A we hold usage constant in the higher andlower aesthetic conditions and hone in on the changes inbeauty with a longitudinal study design Specifically theobjective of study 6A is to extend prior work on the rela-tionship between beauty and pleasure by establishing itscorollarymdashthat the consumption of a higher (vs lower)aesthetic product will lead to greater perceived losses ofbeauty and that such decrements in beauty will in turnhave a negative influence on post-consumption affect Wemeasure this decrement by capturing aesthetic judgmentsimmediately before and after usage

Method

Participants and Procedure Four hundred sixteen par-ticipants were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk toparticipate in a 2 (aesthetics higher vs lower between) 2(aesthetic judgment before vs after usage within) mixed-design study in exchange for payment Six individuals par-ticipated in this study twice and four had missing data onthe focal dependent measures and were excluded from theanalysis yielding a final sample of 406 participants (54

female [11 did not report gender] median age frac14 30 ages18ndash76)

The procedure was similar to that of study 3 featuringthe same bakery scenario and stimuli but with several mod-ifications After participants were initially presented witheither the higher or lower aesthetic napkins following thespill they immediately completed two semantic differen-tial items of aesthetic evaluations for these unused napkinson seven-point scales ldquonot at all prettyvery prettyrdquo andldquonot at all uglyvery uglyrdquo (reverse-coded) which havebeen shown in prior work to capture aesthetic judgments(Reber Winkielman and Schwarz 1998 r frac14 47) Aftercompleting these baseline aesthetic judgment measuresparticipants proceeded with the scenario They were toldthey realized they would need to grab at least 10 napkins tocome close to cleaning up the spill and were subsequentlyshown a stack of unused napkins The scenario ended withan image of a bundle of napkins now drenched with cof-fee that were used to clean up the spill Additional detailsof the procedure are available in the web appendix

Immediately after reading the scenario participantscompleted the same set of aesthetic judgment items a sec-ond time this time rating the coffee-drenched napkinswhich served as a measure of post-usage aesthetic judg-ments Participants then indicated to what extent they ex-perienced each of the following negative emotions whilethey were using the napkins to clean up the spill stressedregretful bad afraid fearful sad sorry and guilty whichwe combined into an index of post-consumption negativeaffect (1 frac14 not at all 7 frac14 very much so afrac14 91)

Results and Discussion

We predicted that participants would experience greaternegative affect after using the higher (vs lower) aestheticnapkins an effect that would be driven by the larger decre-ments in beauty that stem from the consumption of higheraesthetic products

Emotions A one-way ANOVA on negative emotionsexperienced after consumption revealed that participantswho used the higher aesthetic floral napkins to clean up thespill felt more negative affect than those who used thelower aesthetic white napkins (Mhigher aesthetic frac14 305 vsMlower aesthetic frac14 246 F(1 404) frac14 1686 p lt 001)

Decrements in Beauty (Longitudinal) A 2 (aestheticshigher vs lower) 2 (timing before usage vs after usage)mixed ANOVA on aesthetic judgments yielded main ef-fects of both aesthetics (F(1 404) frac14 10652 p lt 001) andtiming (F(1 404) frac14 125629 p lt 001) which were quali-fied by a significant aesthetics timing interaction (F(1404) frac14 5302 p lt 001) Planned contrasts revealed thatwhereas the higher aesthetic napkins elicited more favor-able aesthetic judgments than the lower aesthetic napkinsbefore usage (Mhigher frac14 594 vs Mlower frac14 447 F(1 404)

14 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

frac14 15269 p lt 001) this difference was substantiallyreduced after usage (Mhigher frac14 237 vs Mlower frac14 211F(1 404) frac14 484 p frac14 03) Importantly and arguably mostcentral to our research the decrement in aesthetic ratingsthrough usage was significantly larger in the higher aes-thetic conditionmdashin fact 151 largermdashthan that observedin the lower aesthetic condition (ie a drop of 357 unitsvs a drop of 236 units)

Mediation Finally we are interested in whether decre-ments in aesthetic judgment emanating from product usageunderlie post-consumption affect Consistent with predic-tions mediation analysis (model 4 Hayes 2013) revealedthat the indirect effect of aesthetics on negative affectthrough changes in aesthetic judgment was significant (b frac1415 95 CI [04 29]) suggesting that product aestheticsaffected the experience of negative emotions through thelarger losses of beauty resulting from the consumption ofhigher aesthetic products

Discussion While past work has shown that aestheticsare inextricably linked with pleasure (Reber et al 2004Reimann et al 2010) study 6A extends this body of re-search by revealing that in the context of nondurable prod-ucts where consumption entails damaging product designnot only does the usage of higher (vs lower) aestheticproducts result in larger decrements in beauty but suchlosses also drive greater negative affect after consumptionNotably while we asked participants to assess the aestheticqualities of the napkins before and immediately after usageto more precisely capture the changes in beauty we ob-served we recognize that this design may have caused theaesthetic appeal of the napkins to be more salient prior toconsumption making its decrement therefore more pro-nounced after consumption Thus having established thatbeauty decrements resulting from aesthetic product usageunderlie post-consumption affect in study 6B we measurethis change in a less invasive manner after consumptionWe also integrate changes in beauty and effort inferencesinto emotional reactions linked to consumption

STUDY 6B TESTING THE FULLCONCEPTUAL MODEL FOR POST-

CONSUMPTION AFFECT

The goal of study 6B is to elucidate the drivers of post-consumption emotions while continuing to hold usage con-stant in both conditions thereby allowing us to test the fullconceptual model in a more controlled fashion As alludedto in study 6A the inherently lower consumption likeli-hood of higher aesthetic products could potentially resultin self-selection issues In study 6B we predict that partici-pants will experience more negative affect after using ahigher (vs lower) aesthetic product an effect driven in tan-dem by effort inferences as well as changes in beauty

Further we try to better understand consumersrsquo emotionalreactions after aesthetic product usage by not highlightingthe productrsquos aesthetic qualities beforehand Finally wemeasure implicit self-theories to examine whether onersquos in-herent degree of effort appreciation moderates post-consumption negative affect

Method

Participants and Procedure Four hundred participantswere recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk to partici-pate in a two-cell (aesthetics higher vs lower) between-subjects study in exchange for payment Ten individualsparticipated in this study twice and 17 had missing data onthe focal dependent measures and were excluded from theanalysis yielding a final sample of 373 participants (55female [two did not report gender] median age frac14 32 ages18ndash76)

The study design of study 6B was almost identical tothat of study 6A aside from several modifications Firstparticipants completed the same negative emotion indexfrom study 6A (afrac14 91) immediately after reading the sce-nario instead of after aesthetics judgment measures (whichwere not included in this study) Second instead of assess-ing aesthetic ratings at two separate points in time we uti-lized a new single cross-sectional measure to capturedecrements in beauty post-consumption ldquoBy using thenapkins it felt like I was turning something that was oncebeautiful into something uglyrdquo (1 frac14 strongly disagree 7 frac14strongly agree) Next to examine effort inferences as a par-allel driver of negative affect after consumption partici-pants completed the same effort inferences and effortdestruction measures from study 3 although these mea-sures are distinct from study 3 in that they were assessedafter usage had already taken place Finally participantscompleted the implicit self-theories scale

Results and Discussion

Emotions Replicating study 6A a one-way ANOVAon negative emotions revealed that participants who usedthe higher aesthetic floral napkins to clean up the spill feltmore negative affect than those who used the lower aestheticwhite napkins (Mhigher aesthetic frac14 313 vs Mlower aesthetic frac14283 F(1 371) frac14 394 p lt 05) Of note this main effectdid not interact with implicit self-theories (p gt 30) sug-gesting that both incremental and entity theorists experi-enced more negative affect after using the higher (vslower) aesthetic napkins to clean up the spill a finding werevisit in the discussion section

Decrements in Beauty (Cross-Sectional) A one-wayANOVA on changes in beauty indicated that the higheraesthetic napkin underwent greater decrements in beautythrough consumption (Mhigher frac14 263 vs Mlower frac14 177F(1 371) frac14 2671 p lt 001)

WU ET AL 15

Effort Inferences A one-way ANOVA on effort infer-ences indicated that participants ascribed greater effort tothe higher aesthetic napkins (Mhigher frac14 349 vs Mlower frac14287 F(1 371) frac14 1359 p lt 001)

Effort Destruction A one-way ANOVA on concernsabout effort destruction indicated that participants hadstronger concerns that effort had been destroyed in thehigher aesthetic condition (Mhigher frac14 262 vs Mlower frac14200 F(1 371) frac14 1355 p lt 001)

Mediation Finally we conducted two separate media-tion analyses one testing the path of product aesthetics decrements in beauty negative affect (model 4 Hayes2013) and the other testing the serial path of product aes-thetics effort inferences concerns about effort de-struction negative affect (model 6) Results from thefirst analysis revealed that the indirect effect of aestheticson negative affect through changes in beauty was signifi-cant (b frac14 37 95 CI [23 54]) suggesting that productaesthetics affected the experience of negative emotionsthrough larger decrements in beauty in the higher aestheticcondition Second the indirect effect of aesthetics on nega-tive affect through effort inferences and concerns about ef-fort destruction (in serial) was also significant (b frac14 1295 CI [06 23]) as was the indirect effect of aestheticson negative affect through effort destruction alone (b frac1411 95 CI [01 23])

Finally we also included beauty decrements effort in-ferences and effort destruction into the model as parallelmediators to gain greater understanding of the relativestrength of these drivers This analysis revealed that whenall three mediators were in the model the indirect effectthrough decrements in beauty remained significant (b frac1422 95 CI [11 36]) as did the indirect effect througheffort destruction (b frac14 15 95 CI [06 27]) Taken to-gether these results suggest that while concerns about ef-fort destruction continue to play a role in driving theemotional outcomes of aesthetic product usage the decre-ments in beauty that become evident only after an aestheticproduct has been visibly compromised through consump-tion also lead to negative affect

Discussion Study 6B which allowed us to examinethe entire post-consumption conceptual model revealedthat people who used higher (vs lower) aesthetic napkinssubsequently experienced greater negative affect an effectdriven by two processes operating in parallel concernsabout the destruction of effort and decrements in beauty Inother words the consumption experience was associatedwith more negative affect because the consumption processnot only involved the actual destruction of effort but italso took a beautiful product that was typified by pleasureand transformed it into something marked by displeasure

We should also note that we replicated the post-consumption findings with actual paper napkins in a lab

context In a separate study using study 5rsquos procedure par-ticipants watched a video and received a snack to eat alongwith a higher versus lower aesthetic napkin and then indi-cated how they felt about the consumption experienceParticipants who chose to use their higher aesthetic napkinreported feeling more negative affect relative to whosewho chose to use their lower aesthetic napkin (p frac14 04)and relative to those who did not use their higher aestheticnapkin (p lt 01) Thus aesthetic product usage increasednegative affect even when consumers could choose to ei-ther use the aesthetic product or not and when the aestheticproduct (the napkin) was tangential to the affect measurescollected which specifically pertained to the video-watching and snack-eating task Additional details areavailable in the web appendix

Though we provide evidence that effort inferences con-tinued to partially drive consumer responses to beautifulproducts after usage it is interesting to note that post-consumption affect was not moderated by the degree towhich effort is intrinsically appreciated (ie implicit self-theories) While unexpected we speculate that this may oc-cur because post-consumption enjoyment is not exclusivelydriven by effort inferences Since losses of beauty alsoplay a substantial role in shaping emotional outcomes afterconsumption the beauty decrements associated with aes-thetic product usage may have brought entity theorists to asimilar emotional state as incremental theorists resultingin everybody feeling worse off after consumption irrespec-tive of individual differences in effort appreciation Morebroadly since post-consumption affect appears to be multi-ply determined it is difficult to completely disentangle thenegative affect stemming from the destruction of effortfrom the negative affect stemming from decrements inbeauty Study 6B offers a distinct test of this conjecturesince it made usage (and hence losses of beauty) salientthrough images of visibly used napkins

GENERAL DISCUSSION

Across a series of laboratory and field studies using avariety of nondurable product categories and consumptionsituations we reveal the negative impact of enhanced prod-uct aesthetics on usage and post-consumption conse-quences First we document an inhibiting effect of productaesthetics on consumption behaviors for disposable andperishable products in both real-world (study 1) and lab(study 2) settings Next we shed light on the drivers of us-age likelihood using mediation (study 3) a context-basedboundary condition (study 4) and a theoretically derivedindividual difference moderator (study 5) thereby provid-ing convergent support for an underlying process based oneffort Finally in studies 6A and 6B we hold product us-age constant to elucidate the drivers of post-consumptionaffect and show that the decrements in beauty that

16 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

aesthetic products inherently undergo as a result of con-sumption combined with concerns that one has actuallydestroyed effort underlie these effects

Theoretical Contributions Our work makes severaltheoretical contributions First while prior research hasshown that consumers respond favorably to both productaesthetics and effort we believe we are the first to establisha causal relationship between these constructs We findthat highly aesthetic products can elicit greater perceptionsof effort regardless of whether this effort was exerted dur-ing product design physical production or both processesWe further reveal that these effort inferences are not lim-ited to handmade products such as perishable foods butalso apply to mass-produced products such as consumerpackaged disposable goods

Second while existing literature suggests that consumerpreferences should increase as a function of a productrsquos aes-thetic appeal the prevailing ways of assessing the impact ofaesthetics on consumer preference have been limited to pur-chase intentions product evaluations and choice (Hagtvedtand Patrick 2008 Raghubir and Greenleaf 2006 Reimannet al 2010 Townsend and Shu 2010) Surprisingly the role ofaesthetics after choice has received little empirical attention todate Despite the stimulating effect that enhanced product aes-thetics have on choice and pre-usage evaluations our resultssuggest that once beautiful products are acquired consumersmay be less likely to consume them because the higher infer-ences of effort attributed to their creation elicit stronger con-cerns that such effort would be destroyed during consumption

This research also shows that the impact of implicit self-theories on consumer behavior may be more pervasivethan previously thought While prior research in psychol-ogy has shown that incremental and entity theorists carrydissimilar beliefs about the value of their own effort(Dweck 2000) we provide support for the novel predictionthat beyond the recognition of personal effort implicitself-theories affect the extent to which consumers appreci-ate the effort that goes into the creation of aestheticallyappealing products

Finally contrary to the notion that enhanced product aes-thetics are always beneficial to consumption enjoyment ourwork reveals that usage of highly aesthetic disposable prod-ucts can actually lower overall enjoyment of the consumptionexperience through two separate pathways (1) by elicitingconcerns that one has actually destroyed effort and (2) bycompromising the beauty that typically characterizes aestheticproducts Thus we add to the literature on aesthetics andpleasure by showing how the consumption of highly aestheticproducts can result in larger losses of beauty and that suchdecrements in turn drive the relationship between aestheticproduct consumption and negative affect

More generally these findings speak to researchthat explores when and why the drivers of predicted andexperienced utility might diverge For instance

Thompson et al (2005) found that consumersrsquo initial desirefor product capability before purchase leads them to chooseproducts packed with features but their growing desire forproduct usability after usage leads them to ultimately prefersimpler products Similarly Lee and Tsai (2014) showedthat price promotions can stimulate sales but lower atten-tion during consumption which in turn reduces consump-tion enjoyment In the same vein despite the delightinitially elicited by the choice of beautiful products wedemonstrate that enhanced aesthetics have the ability tolater discourage usage and lower consumption enjoyment

Substantive Implications Our findings carry importantpractical implications as they pose an interesting dilemmato managers While conventional wisdom suggests that mar-keters should strive to invest the highest degree of effort intomaking their products look aesthetically pleasing at least tothe extent that company resources will allow our researchreveals that the story is not so simple Enhancing productaesthetics might positively affect initial attention interestand choice but should be considered with caution given thatsuch increased appeal could inhibit usage and reduce enjoy-ment relative to less aesthetically appealing productsRelatedly people likely consume highly aesthetic disposableproducts more slowly which could affect interpurchasetime Thus the pursuit of product aesthetics and improvedshort-term sales must be constantly balanced against theneed to encourage consumption ensure customer satisfac-tion and maintain long-term profitability Still certain prod-ucts such as beautiful candles and soaps may serve adecorative purpose in addition to their basic utilitarian func-tion and consequently may also carry intrinsic aestheticvalue Our recommendations are admittedly less straightfor-ward under such circumstances as consumers are able toderive utility from the productsrsquo enhanced aesthetics simplyby displaying them

Our results also have clear implications for managersand policy makers interested in promoting conservationand sustainable business practices A growing number ofretail and service establishments have been switching tounbleached paper products as the traditional bleachingprocess that removes imperfections and gives paper itswhite appearance also produces hazardous chemicals (egchlorine and dioxins) that are harmful to the environment(Evans 2010) While the transition to unbleached paperproducts has benefited the environment the results fromour investigation suggest the growing popularity of thistrend may be a double-edged sword To the extent thatunbleached paper products are considered less aestheticallyappealing consumers may show less restraint in usingthem leading to backfiring effects for conservation effortsPut another way the positive environmental impact of pro-ducing unbleached paper products could potentially be off-set by consumersrsquo reduced inhibition in consuming theseproducts Thus increasing the aesthetic appeal of products

WU ET AL 17

may actually be an effective way for companies to promoteenvironmentally sustainable behaviors even after incorpo-rating the increased cost of implementing such practices

Finally given that rising obesity rates are a major publichealth concern traced to increased consumption (Chandonand Wansink 2007) there has been burgeoning interest inthe various factors that shape consumer food choices (Corniland Chandon 2016 McFerran et al 2010 Scott et al 2008)The results of study 2 suggest that one way to curb overeat-ing might be to enhance the aesthetic presentation of foodproducts especially hedonic foods Of course additionalresearch is needed to better explore the impact of aestheticsin this important area given the counteracting effects thatfood aesthetics exert on consumption versus enjoyment

Limitations and Future Research While the current setof studies was designed to elucidate perceived effort as anunderlying mechanism of lower usage of aestheticallyappealing products we recognize that this phenomenonlike many is likely driven by multiple processes (FuchsSchreier and van Osselaer 2015) Indeed as evident in ourresearch consumption likelihood and consumption enjoy-ment each have distinct sets of drivers For instance whilewe accounted for cost across multiple studies and demon-strated that our effects held even after we controlled for theperceived price of the product we believe that cost maycertainly play a role in certain situations For example cer-tain highly aesthetic products elicit perceptions of luxury(Hagtvedt and Patrick 2008) and may consequently reduceconsumption because they appear ldquotoo expensive to userdquoand cost may even interact with aesthetics under certaincircumstances to impact consumption such that the infer-ences of effort typically ascribed to aesthetically appealingproducts could be mitigated if people are told that theywere extremely inexpensive

In addition classic research by Loewenstein (1987)showed that people often prefer to delay consumption ofenjoyable experiences It may be that people are averse toimmediately consuming a highly aesthetic product becausethey are able to derive more utility by savoring the experi-ence and postponing consumption Further as alluded to instudy 4 it is possible that anticipated decrements in beautymay play a larger role in shaping usage in other consump-tion contexts Thus while we focus on the role of effortinferences in driving lower usage of highly aesthetic prod-ucts we are cognizant of the fact that other mechanismslikely exist which would provide intriguing avenues forfurther investigation

It would also be interesting to examine whether the neg-ative influence of enhanced aesthetics would hold acrossdifferent consumption contexts That is are there situationswhere the present phenomenon would not emerge Indeedone could argue that service establishments such as upscalerestaurants and luxury resorts which regularly pampertheir guests with beautifully plated entrees and folded

towel animals would eventually be driven out of businessif the consumption of highly aesthetic products alwaysresulted in lower enjoyment We believe that whether theusage of highly aesthetic products is accompanied bydecreased consumption and increased negative affect willhinge on the nature of the consumption environment Priorresearch indicates that our surroundings are capable ofautomatically eliciting normative behaviors when situa-tional norms are well established (Aarts and Dijksterhuis2003) Extending this perspective it is possible that theeffects observed in this article may be relatively weakenedwhen consumption occurs in environments characterizedby strong expectations to engage in indulgent consumptionsuch as in a fancy restaurant or luxurious hotel

Relatedly it would be interesting to examine whethercalling attention to fact that the aesthetic product if leftunconsumed will face inevitable destruction could enhanceconsumption likelihood and enjoyment to some extent par-ticularly for perishable products such as food4 Indeedrecent research has shown that consumers display a strongaversion to waste and unused utility (Bolton and Alba2012) Thus future studies should examine whether theeffects documented in this article could be attenuated ifthe inevitable destruction of effort is made salient to con-sumers (eg the product will go bad be thrown away orsomebody else will consume the product even if they donot) In summary future work should explore situationswhere enhanced aesthetics might carry more weight in theutility function for the overall consumption experienceand subsequently increase consumption and boostenjoyment

Another area for future research would be to examinewhether the destruction of product aesthetics is an ldquoall ornothingrdquo event such that any amount of consumption (evena single bite of a cupcake) would be viewed as destroyingthe productrsquos overall beauty While our experimentaldesigns did not allow us to examine whether destruction is acontinuous versus discrete function of consumption it isworth nothing that we did document lower usage acrossvarying degrees of consumption (eg consumption was con-tinuous in study 2 but discrete in study 5) and we did findthat different levels of consumption still led to reducedenjoyment Nevertheless we believe this is an importantempirical question worth investigating in the future

Finally while we have limited our analysis to nondura-bles (perishable and disposable products specifically) anintriguing path would be to investigate the potential moder-ating role of product durability on usage likelihood andsubsequent enjoyment of highly aesthetic products It maybe that the relative durability of the aesthetic product couldaffect individualsrsquo ability or motivation to anticipate decre-ments in beauty before consumption has occurred whichwould have implications for usage likelihood For instance

4 We thank one of the anonymous reviewers for this suggestion

18 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

with big-ticket high-involvement purchases such as sleekfurniture (eg a beautiful new white sectional sofa) con-sumers may more readily anticipate losses of beauty sincethey will have to live with and encounter the product on adaily basis even after its original beauty has faded or beentarnished through repeated use This may explain why cov-ering new furniture with plastic was at one time a verycommon practice (DiSalvo 2009)

On the other hand for nondurable lower-involvementproducts such as those used in the current research perhapspeople do not have the motivation or ability to considershifts in aesthetic appeal before consumption Furtherproducts often vary in their degree of durabilitymdasha delicateembroidered blanket while by no means nondurable or dis-posable may begin to show visible signs of wear and tearsooner than a fleece blanket Although the present researchspecifically focused on perishable and single-use productsit would be worth examining when and how the degree ofdurability or even perceptions of fragility might shapedecisions to use beautiful products

In conclusion our research documents an inhibitingeffect of enhanced product aesthetics on consumption par-ticularly for disposable and consumable nondurable prod-ucts Although beautiful products have the ability topromote positive pre-usage evaluations and stimulatechoice our work indicates that consumers are subsequentlyless likely to use them and those who do use them ulti-mately experience higher negative affect and lower enjoy-ment In addition different processes underlie consumerresponses to highly aesthetic products depending onwhether or not consumption has taken place Thus we con-clude that while products may never be too pretty tochoose they can in fact be too pretty to use

DATA COLLECTION INFORMATION

All studies were designed and analyzed by the first authorunder the guidance of the other authors The data for study 1was collected at the Scottsdale Pure Barre studio in fall2015 by research assistants and employees under the super-vision of the first author Research assistants collected thedata for studies 2 and 5 under the supervision of the firstauthor at the W P Carey School of Business MarketingDepartment Behavioral Lab in spring 2015 The data for theconceptual replication (reported in the discussion of study6B) was collected by research assistants under the supervi-sion of the first author at the W P Carey School ofBusiness Marketing Department Behavioral Lab in summer2015 The data for study 4 (both the effort manipulation pre-test and the main study) and the correlational study examin-ing the relationship between implicit self-theories andappreciation for othersrsquo effort were collected by the firstauthor using Amazon Mechanical Turk in spring 2016 Thefirst author collected the data for the aesthetic appeal pretest

(described in appendix B) studies 3 6A and 6B usingAmazon Mechanical Turk in summer 2016 Lastly researchassistants collected the data for the correlational study exam-ining the relationship between aesthetics and perceivedeffort (described in the table in ldquoThe Role of Effort inInhibiting Usagerdquo) under the supervision of the first authorat the W P Carey School of Business MarketingDepartment Behavioral Lab in fall 2016

APPENDIX A

STUDY STIMULI

WU ET AL 19

REFERENCES

Aarts Henk and Ap Dijksterhuis (2003) ldquoThe Silence of theLibrary Environment Situational Norm and SocialBehaviorrdquo Journal of Personality and Social Psychology84 (1) 18ndash28

Aharon Itzhak Nancy Etcoff Dan Ariely Christopher F ChabrisEthan OrsquoConnor and Hans C Breiter (2001) ldquoBeautifulFaces Have Variable Reward Value fMRI and BehavioralEvidencerdquo Neuron 32 (3) 537ndash51

Alba Joseph W and Elanor F Williams (2013) ldquoPleasurePrinciples A Review of Research on HedonicConsumptionrdquo Journal of Consumer Psychology 23 (1)2ndash18

Belk Russell W (1988) ldquoPossessions and the Extended SelfrdquoJournal of Consumer Research 15 (2) 139ndash67

Bem Daryl J (1972) Self-Perception Theory Stanford CAStanford University Press

Berridge Kent C (2009) ldquolsquoLikingrsquo and lsquoWantingrsquo Food RewardsBrain Substrates and Roles in Eating Disordersrdquo Physiologyamp Behavior 97 (5) 537ndash50

Bloch Peter H (1995) ldquoSeeking the Ideal Form Product Designand Consumer Responserdquo Journal of Marketing 59 (July)16ndash29

Bloch Peter H Frederic F Brunel and Todd J Arnold (2003)ldquoIndividual Differences in the Centrality of Visual ProductAesthetics Concept and Measurementrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 29 (4) 551ndash65

Bolton Lisa E and Joseph W Alba (2012) ldquoWhen Less Is MoreConsumer Aversion to Unused Utilityrdquo Journal of ConsumerPsychology 22 (3) 369ndash83

Brehm Jack W (1966) A Theory of Psychological ReactanceNew York Academic Press

Broniarczyk Susan M and Joseph W Alba (1994) ldquoThe Role ofConsumersrsquo Intuitions in Inference Makingrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 21 (3) 393ndash407

Cabanac Michel (1971) ldquoPhysiological Role of PleasurerdquoScience 173 (4002) 1103ndash7

mdashmdashmdash (1979) ldquoSensory Pleasurerdquo Quarterly Review of Biology54 (1) 1ndash29

mdashmdashmdash (1985) ldquoPreferring for Pleasurerdquo American Journal ofClinical Nutrition 42 (5) 1151ndash5

Chandon Pierre and Brian Wansink (2007) ldquoThe Biasing HealthHalos of Fast Food Restaurant Health Claims Lower CalorieEstimates and Higher Side-Dish Consumption IntentionsrdquoJournal of Consumer Research 34 (3) 301ndash14

Cornil Yann and Pierre Chandon (2016) ldquoPleasure as a Substitutefor Size How Multisensory Imagery Can Make PeopleHappier with Smaller Food Portionsrdquo Journal of MarketingResearch 53 (5) 847ndash64

Cleveland William S (1984) ldquoGraphical Methods for DataPresentation Full Scale Breaks Dot Charts and MultibasedLoggingrdquo The American Statistician 38 (4) 270ndash80

DiSalvo David (2009) ldquoThe Psychology of Plastic CouchCoversrdquo httpsneuronarrativewordpresscom20090119the-psychology-of-plastic-couch-covers

Dixie Products (2015) ldquoDixie Ultra Moments Ultimate Hostrdquohttpswwwyoutubecomwatchvfrac14wsBBq9PsgVI

Dutton Denis (2009) The Art Instinct Beauty Pleasure ampHuman Evolution New York Oxford University Press

Dweck Carol S (2000) Self-Theories Their Role in MotivationPersonality and Development Philadelphia Psychology Press

Dweck Carol S and Ellen L Leggett (1988) ldquoA Social-CognitiveApproach to Motivation and Personalityrdquo PsychologicalReview 95 (2) 256ndash73

Evans Lindsay (2010) ldquoWhy Buy Unbleached Paperrdquo httpwwwbrighthubcomenvironmentgreen-livingarticles16299aspx

Festinger Leon (1957) A Theory of Cognitive DissonanceStanford CA Stanford University Press

Frederick Shane and George Loewenstein (1999) ldquoHedonicAdaptationrdquo in Scientific Perspectives on EnjoymentSuffering and Well-Being ed Daniel Kahneman Ed Dienerand Norbert Schwartz New York Russell Sage Foundation302ndash29

Fuchs Christoph Martin Schreier and Stijn MJ van Osselaer(2015) ldquoThe Handmade Effect Whatrsquos Love Got to Do withItrdquo Journal of Marketing 79 (2) 98ndash110

Hagtvedt Henrik and Vanessa M Patrick (2008) ldquoArt InfusionThe Influence of Visual Art on the Perception and Evaluationof Consumer Productsrdquo Journal of Marketing Research 45(3) 379ndash89

AESTHETIC APPEAL PRETEST FOR ALL STIMULI USED IN STUDIES

Higher aesthetic Lower aesthetic Comparison a

Toilet paper (study 1) 377 (146) 253 (155) t(128) frac14 ndash469 p lt 001 a frac14 94Cupcake (study 2) 556 (106) 305 (146) t(128) frac14 ndash1120 p lt 001 a frac14 96Napkin (studies 3 and 6) 465 (153) 230 (144) t(128) frac14 ndash903 p lt 001 a frac14 97Napkin (study 4) 332 (145) 262 (154) t(128) frac14 ndash266 p lt 01 a frac14 92Napkin (study 5) 458 (159) 234 (151) t(128) frac14 ndash823 p lt 001 a frac14 97

NOTEmdashStandard deviations are in parentheses

In a between-subjects pretest participants were asked to rate each product along the following dimensions beautiful pretty artistic and aesthetically pleasing

(1 frac14 not at all 7 frac14 very much) which formed our aesthetic appeal index

APPENDIX B

20 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

Hayes Andrew F (2013) ldquoPROCESS A VersatileComputational Tool for Observed Variable MediationModeration and Conditional Process Modelingrdquo workingpaper School of Communication and Department ofPsychology Ohio State University Columbus OH 43210

Heller Steve (2015) ldquoA Grocery Store Illusion Is Getting You toSpend More Moneyrdquo httpwwwbusinessinsidercoma-grocery-store-illusion-is-getting-you-to-spend-more-money-2015-8ixzz3ifsOLBfG

Hurling Robert and Richard Shepherd (2003) ldquoEating with YourEyes Effect of Appearance on Expectations of LikingrdquoAppetite 41 (2) 167ndash74

Hoegg JoAndrea Joseph W Alba and Darren W Dahl (2010)ldquoThe Good the Bad and the Ugly Influence of Aesthetics onProduct Feature Judgmentsrdquo Journal of ConsumerPsychology 20 (4) 419ndash30

Johnson Palmer O and Jerzy Neyman (1936) ldquoTests of CertainLinear Hypotheses and Their Applications to SomeEducational Problemsrdquo Statistical Research Memoirs 157ndash93

Kahneman Daniel and Amos Tversky (1979) ldquoProspect TheoryAn Analysis of Decision under Riskrdquo Econometrica 47 (2)263ndash91

Kampe Knut K W Chris D Frith Raymond J Dolan and UtaFrith (2001) ldquoPsychology Reward Value of Attractivenessand Gazerdquo Nature 413 (6856) 589

Kelley Harold H (1967) ldquoAttribution Theory in SocialPsychologyrdquo in Nebraska Symposium of Motivation Vol 15ed D Levine Lincoln University of Nebraska Press192ndash238

Kirmani Amna (1990) ldquoThe Effect of Perceived AdvertisingCosts on Brand Perceptionsrdquo Journal of Consumer Research17 (2) 160ndash71

Kirmani Amna Michelle P Lee and Carolyn Yoon (2004)ldquoProcedural Priming Effects on Spontaneous InferenceFormationrdquo Journal of Economic Psychology 25 (6)859ndash75

Kruger Justin Derrick Wirtz Leaf Van Boven and T WilliamAltermatt (2004) ldquoThe Effort Heuristicrdquo Journal ofExperimental Social Psychology 40 (1) 91ndash8

Lee Leonard and Claire I Tsai (2014) ldquoHow Price PromotionsInfluence Postpurchase Consumption Experience overTimerdquo Journal of Consumer Research 40 (5) 943ndash59

Levy Sheri R Steven J Stroessner and Carol S Dweck (1998)ldquoStereotype Formation and Endorsement The Role ofImplicit Theoriesrdquo Journal of Personality and SocialPsychology 74 (6) 1421ndash36

Lisjak Monika Andrea Bonezzi Soo Kim and Derek D Rucker(2015) ldquoPerils of Compensatory Consumption Within-Domain Compensation Undermines Subsequent Self-Regulationrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 41 (5)1186ndash203

Loewenstein George (1987) ldquoAnticipation and the Valuation ofDelayed Consumptionrdquo Economic Journal 97 (September)666ndash84

Maritain Jacques (1966) ldquoBeauty and Imitationrdquo in A ModernBook of Esthetics ed Melvin Rader New York HoltRinehart amp Winston 27ndash34

McFerran Brent Darren W Dahl Gavan J Fitzsimons andAndrea C Morales (2010) ldquoIrsquoll Have What Shersquos HavingEffects of Social Influence and Body Type on the FoodChoices of Othersrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 36 (6)915ndash29

Morales Andrea C (2005) ldquoGiving Firms an lsquoErsquo for EffortConsumer Responses to High-Effort Firmsrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 31 (4) 806ndash12

Moreau C Page Leff Bonney and Kelly B Herd (2011) ldquoItrsquos theThought (and the Effort) That Counts How Customizing forOthers Differs from Customizing for Oneselfrdquo Journal ofMarketing 75 (5) 120ndash33

Norton Michael I Daniel Mochon and Dan Ariely (2012) ldquoThelsquoIkearsquo Effect When Labor Leads to Loverdquo Journal ofConsumer Psychology 22 (July) 453ndash60

Page Christine and Paul M Herr (2002) ldquoAn Investigation ofthe Processes by Which Product Design and Brand StrengthInteract to Determine Initial Affect and QualityJudgmentsrdquo Journal of Consumer Psychology 12 (2)133ndash47

Raghubir Priya and Eric A Greenleaf (2006) ldquoRatios inProportion What Should the Shape of the Package BerdquoJournal of Marketing 70 (2) 95ndash107

Raghunathan Rajagopal Rebecca Walker Naylor and Wayne DHoyer (2006) ldquoThe Unhealthy frac14 Tasty Intuition and ItsEffects on Taste Inferences Enjoyment and Choice of FoodProductsrdquo Journal of Marketing 70 (4) 170ndash84

Reber Rolf Norbert Schwarz and Piotr Winkielman (2004)ldquoProcessing Fluency and Aesthetic Pleasure Is Beauty in thePerceiverrsquos Processing Experiencerdquo Personality and SocialPsychology Review 8 (4) 364ndash82

Reber Rolf Piotr Winkielman and Norbert Schwarz (1998)ldquoEffects of Perceptual Fluency on Affective JudgmentsrdquoPsychological Science 9 (1) 45ndash48

Reimann Martin Judith Zaichkowksy Carolin Neuhaus ThomasBender and Bernd Weber (2010) ldquoAesthetic PackageDesign A Behavioral Neural and PsychologicalInvestigationrdquo Journal of Consumer Psychology 20 (4)431ndash41

Santayana George (18961955) The Sense of Beauty New YorkDover

Scott Maura L Stephen M Nowlis Naomi Mandel and AndreaC Morales (2008) ldquoThe Effects of Reduced Food Size andPackage Size on the Consumption Behavior of Restrainedand Unrestrained Eatersrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 35(3) 391ndash405

Spencer Steven J Mark P Zanna and Geoffrey T Fong (2005)ldquoEstablishing a Causal Chain Why Experiments Are OftenMore Effective than Mediational Analyses in ExaminingPsychological Processesrdquo Journal of Personality and SocialPsychology 89 (6) 845ndash51

Spiller Stephen A Gavan J Fitzsimons John G Lynch Jr andGary H McClelland (2013) ldquoSpotlights Floodlights andthe Magic Number Zero Simple Effects Tests inModerated Regressionrdquo Journal of Marketing Research 50(2) 277ndash88

Thompson Debora V Rebecca W Hamilton and Roland T Rust(2005) ldquoFeature Fatigue When Product CapabilitiesBecome Too Much of a Good Thingrdquo Journal of MarketingResearch 42 (November) 431ndash42

Townsend Claudia and Suzanne B Shu (2010) ldquoWhen and HowAesthetics Influences Financial Decisionsrdquo Journal ofConsumer Psychology 20 (4) 452ndash58

Townsend Claudia and Sanjay Sood (2012) ldquoSelf-Affirmationthrough the Choice of Highly Aesthetic Productsrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 39 (2) 415ndash28

Veryzer Robert W and J Wesley Hutchinson (1998) ldquoTheInfluence of Unity and Prototypicality on Aesthetic

WU ET AL 21

Responses to New Product Designsrdquo Journal of ConsumerResearch 24 (4) 374ndash94

Wada Yuji Carlos Arce-Lopera Tomohiro Masuda AtsushiKimura Ippeita Dan Sho-ichi Goto Daisuke Tsuzuki andKatsunori Okajima (2010) ldquoInfluence of LuminanceDistribution on the Appetizingly Fresh Appearance ofCabbagerdquo Appetite 54 (2) 363ndash68

Weiner Bernard (2000) ldquoAttributional Thoughts and ConsumerBehaviorrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 27 (December)382ndash87

Witz Anne Chris Warhurst and Dennis Nickson (2003) ldquoTheLabour of Aesthetics and The Aesthetics of OrganizationrdquoOrganization 10 (1) 33ndash54

Yamamoto Mel and David R Lambert (1994) ldquoThe Impact ofProduct Aesthetics on the Evaluation of Industrial ProductsrdquoJournal of Product Innovation Management 11 (4) 309ndash24

Yang Sha and Priya Raghubir (2005) ldquoCan Bottles SpeakVolumes The Effect of Package Shape on How Much toBuyrdquo Journal of Retailing 81 (4) 269ndash82

22 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

  • ucx057-FN1
  • ucx057-FN2
  • ucx057-FN3
  • ucx057-FN4
  • app1
  • app2
  • ucx057-TF1
  • ucx057-TF2
Page 4: It’s Too Pretty to Use! When and How Enhanced Product ...gavan/bio/GJF_articles/...testing the prediction that aesthetic products can elicit greater perceptions of effort. In line

In the current research we argue that particularly fornondurable aesthetic products the effort inferences as-cribed to their creation ironically curb actual usageSpecifically because people intuit that higher aestheticssignify higher effort as we established in our pretest andrecognize that effort is a controllable and volitional behav-ior (Morales 2005 Weiner 2000) they appreciate and re-ward the extra effort expended to make the product sobeautiful Indeed consumers often rely on perceived effortto ascertain the value and quality of an ad product or ser-vice (Kirmani 1990 Kruger et al 2004 Morales 2005) Inthe case of nondurable goods the consumption of an aes-thetically appealing product involves damaging its productdesign and by extension destroying the effort originallyinvested in making the product beautiful Based on thisperspective we posit that people refrain from using prod-ucts imbued with effort as this indirectly entails destroyingsomething they reward and appreciate Thus to the extentthat enhanced aesthetics evoke higher perceptions of de-sign andor production effort we predict that people shouldbe less likely to consume a product that has higher (vslower) aesthetic appeal More formally

H1 Consumers will be less likely to useconsume a nondura-

ble product that has higher (vs lower) aesthetic appeal

H2 The drop in consumption likelihood for nondurable prod-

ucts with higher (vs lower) aesthetic appeal will be me-

diated in serial by design andor production effort infer-

ences and concerns about the destruction of such effort

Importantly based on our conceptualization we wouldnot expect the same reduced consumption for beautiful prod-ucts that do not elicit high effort inferences or for individualswho do not recognize and appreciate effort For instancewhile consumers may be less likely to eat an intricately deco-rated cupcake because they do not want to destroy the effortthat presumably went into making it so beautiful this de-crease in consumption should be attenuated if they are madeto believe the cupcake required little effort to make in thefirst place or if they do not readily appreciate effort In study4 we manipulate effort inferences directly to show how thisreduced consumption is mitigated when beautiful productsare not associated with such inferences and in study 5 wediscuss an individual difference that makes some consumerseven more (vs less) likely to appreciate effort

Understanding Post-Consumption Affect

Beyond examining the factors that drive lower usage like-lihood of beautiful products we also investigate how con-sumers feel once consumption has occurred While wecontend that people will be less likely to use highly aestheticproducts due to concerns over the destruction of effort incases where they do we believe such concerns will continueto shape the emotional consequences of consumption giventhat their actions have resulted in the actual destruction of

effort Put another way if the mere thought of having to par-ticipate in the ruining of effort is sufficient to restrain con-sumption engaging in the actual destruction of effortthrough the consumption of a highly aesthetic nondurableproduct should similarly have a negative impact on subse-quent enjoyment of the experience Critically in addition toevoking concerns about effort destruction because consump-tion inherently compromises the beauty of a highly aestheticproduct by transforming it into something less attractive wepropose that witnessing such negative perceptual changesshould also play a role in impacting enjoyment and affect

According to the work of philosopher George Santayana(18961955) aesthetics are inextricably linked with pleasureand enjoyment a notion that has received widespread empir-ical support in work on hedonic consumption (Alba andWilliams 2013) Put simply people gravitate toward aesthet-ically appealing objects because of the immediate experien-tial pleasure that beauty in itself provides a process that isautomatic and does not require intervening cognitive reason-ing (Dutton 2009 Maritain 1966 Reber et al 2004) Thisnotion is further supported by neuroimaging studies showingthat the reward system in the brain plays an important rolein the processing of aesthetic stimuli (Aharon et al 2001Kampe et al 2001) For instance Reimann and colleagues(2010) demonstrated that exposure to aesthetic package de-signs resulted in increased activation in the nucleus accum-bens and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex key areas of thebrain that are known to process pleasure and reward

In the context of nondurable goods where consumptioninherently entails damaging the productrsquos appearance weargue that consumption of highly aesthetic products willlead to larger losses of beauty relative to the consumptionof less aesthetic products where the shifts in aesthetic ap-peal through usage will be less dramatic given lower ini-tial levels of attractiveness Thus if beautiful productsindeed afford greater pleasure and reward while they are inpristine condition it follows that the larger decrements inbeauty stemming from their consumption would result in aless pleasurable experience Since consumers are more sen-sitive to changes from a reference point rather than abso-lute levels (Kahneman and Tversky 1979) we predict thatthe steeper drops in beauty experienced in response to theconsumption of a higher aesthetic product will lead tomore negative responses than smaller changes in aestheticappeal from a lower starting point with the consumption ofa less aesthetic product More specifically we contend thatbecause consuming a highly aesthetic product inherentlyturns something beautiful which is pleasurable into some-thing unattractive which is unpleasant the accompanyingreductions in beauty will lead to reduced consumption en-joyment and greater negative affect

In sum we argue that while the effort inferences madebefore consumption will continue to mediate emotionaloutcomes given that consumption involves the actual de-struction of effort we predict that a second process will

4 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

also emerge one based on the decrements in beauty thathighly aesthetic products undergo when their aestheticqualities are compromised through consumption We pro-pose that these two processes will operate in tandem toshape the affective responses associated with the consump-tion of aesthetic products Formally

H3 Consumption of a higher (vs lower) aesthetic nondura-

ble product will negatively affect emotional outcomes

(enjoyment and affect)

H4a The effect of consuming a higher (vs lower) aesthetic

nondurable product on emotional outcomes will be

mediated in serial by design andor production effort

inferences and concerns over having destroyed such

effort as a result of consumption

H4b The effect of consuming a higher (vs lower) aesthetic

nondurable product on emotional outcomes will be

mediated by changes in beauty occurring as a result of

consumption

SUMMARY AND OVERVIEW OF STUDIES

In sum our conceptual model posits that different pro-cesses underlie consumer responses to highly aesthetic prod-ucts depending on whether or not consumption has takenplace Before consumption we expect higher effort infer-ences attributed to the creation of aesthetic products to elicitstronger concerns that such effort would be destroyed byconsumption lowering consumption likelihood After con-sumption in addition to these effort destruction concernsconsumers will also be confronted with the reality that theaesthetic appeal of the product has been visibly compromisedthrough usage Because beautiful products are inherentlypleasurable and rewarding the greater losses of beauty asso-ciated with aesthetic product usage will drive negative affectand reduce consumption enjoyment Importantly given thatnondurable products are designed for immediate consump-tion we do not expect anticipated shifts in aesthetic appealalone or concerns over what the product will look like post-consumption to play a significant role in stopping consumersfrom using them in the first place These decrements inbeauty are not evident before consumption when the highlyaesthetic product is still in pristine beautiful condition butinstead are salient only post-consumption

We test our predictions in field and laboratory studiesacross multiple consumption contexts summarized intable 2 Study 1 a field experiment provides an initialdemonstration of the inhibiting effect of product aestheticson usage behavior for real consumers Study 2 conceptu-ally replicates this effect in the lab using a different prod-uct and measure of consumption and provides preliminaryevidence that consumption of an aesthetic product can neg-atively impact product enjoyment Studies 3 4 and 5 pro-vide convergent support for effort inferences as a keydriver of reduced aesthetic product usage through

mediation (study 3) moderation by an effort intervention(study 4) and the theoretically relevant individual differ-ence of implicit self-theories (study 5) Of note effort in-ferences broadly speaking encompass both the inferencesabout the amount of effort required to make a productbeautiful as well as the inferences about the destruction ofsuch effort In our final two studies we hold usage constantto focus on the downstream consequences of aestheticproduct usage and shed light on the processes underlyingpost-consumption affect Study 6A establishes that the con-sumption of a higher (vs lower) aesthetic product resultsin larger losses of beauty and that such beauty decrementsnegatively impact post-consumption emotions while study6B tests the full conceptual model by integrating changesin beauty and effort inferences into emotional reactionslinked to the consumption experience The table inappendix B summarizes the results of a pretest showingthat all of the higher (vs lower) aesthetic stimuli utilized inour studies have greater aesthetic appeal Thus aestheticsmanipulation checks are not discussed in specific studies

STUDY 1 ESTABLISHING THEINHIBITING EFFECT OF ENHANCED

AESTHETICS ON USAGE IN THE FIELD

The goal of study 1 is to provide initial evidence that en-hanced product aesthetics can have an inhibiting effect onusage behavior in a real-world context We worked with afitness studio to conduct a field experiment that involvedmonitoring client toilet paper use over two weeks We an-ticipated that clients would use less toilet paper when itwas more (vs less) aesthetically appealing Importantlywe used the exact same brand and type of toilet paper inboth conditions which allowed us to vary its aestheticswhile holding constant all other unrelated factors such asquality texture and absorbency

Method

Participants and Procedure We manipulated whetherthe individual bathroom at a fitness studio located in thesouthwestern United States was stocked with plain whitetoilet paper (lower aesthetic condition) or white toilet paperfeaturing festive holiday motifs (higher aesthetic conditionsee appendix A row 1 for images) which was appropriateat the time of data collection as the study took place twoweeks before Christmas1 Of note in addition to the pretestassessing different levels of aesthetic appeal between thetwo different types of toilet paper another between-subjects

1 In coordinating the field study we originally made plans to run attwo locations to counterbalance the order of presentation of the toiletpaper (lower aesthetic first vs higher aesthetic first) Unfortunatelythe second studio encountered plumbing issues during the course ofthe study invalidating the data thereby yielding results from only onestudio

WU ET AL 5

TA

BL

E2

ST

UD

YO

VE

RV

IEW

Stu

dy

Conte

xt

Pro

duct

Desig

nD

ependentvariable

(s)

Sta

tisticalc

ontr

ols

Fin

din

gs

1F

ield

Toile

tpaper

bull2

(aest

hetic

shig

her

vs

low

er)

bullN

um

ber

ofsheets

used

bullB

asic

eff

ect

Aesth

etics

reduced

the

avera

ge

num

ber

of

sheets

used

(37

0vs

66

6plt

001)

2Lab

Cupcake

bull2

(aest

hetic

shig

her

vs

low

er)

hunger

(continuous)

bullC

onsum

ption

am

ount

bullC

onsum

ption

enjo

ym

ent

bullP

erc

eiv

ed

expense

bullM

od

era

tio

no

fb

asic

eff

ect

Aesth

etics

hunger

inte

rac-

tion

(pfrac14

03)

aesth

etics

reduce

dconsum

ption

ofth

ecup-

cake

prim

arily

am

ong

hungry

indiv

iduals

bullP

ost-

co

nsu

mp

tio

nco

nseq

uen

ces

Aesth

etics

hunger

inte

raction

(pfrac14

01)

aesth

etic

sre

duce

denjo

ymentofth

ecupcake

prim

arily

am

ong

hungry

indiv

iduals

3S

imula

tion

Paper

napkin

bull2

(aest

hetic

shig

her

vs

low

er)

bullU

sage

likelih

ood

bullE

ffort

infe

rences

bullC

oncern

sabouteffort

destr

uctio

n

bullW

illin

gness

topay

bullB

asic

eff

ect

Aesth

etics

reduced

usage

likelih

ood

(58

1vs62

8plt

001)

incr

eased

perc

eptions

ofeffort

(38

0vs31

9plt

01)

and

incre

ased

concern

sabouteffort

de-

str

uction

(25

4vs19

5plt

01)

bullP

re-c

on

su

mp

tio

np

rocess

by

med

iati

on

A

esth

etics

effort

infe

rences

concern

sabouteffort

destr

uctio

n

usage

likelih

ood

(95

CIfrac14

[ndash0

9ndash0

1])

4S

imula

tion

Paper

napkin

bull2

(napki

nin

form

atio

nnone

vs

hig

her

aest

hetics

re-

quired

low

er

pro

duction

effort

)

bullC

hoic

eofnapkin

touse

(hig

her

vslo

wer

aest

hetic)

bullP

erc

eiv

ed

cost

bullB

asic

eff

ect

Inth

econtr

olc

onditio

n198

chose

touse

the

hig

her

aest

hetic

napki

n

bullP

re-c

on

su

mp

tio

np

rocess

by

sit

uati

on

alb

ou

nd

ary

co

nd

itio

n

Inth

ein

terv

entio

nconditio

nw

here

the

hig

her

aesth

etic

napkin

was

desc

ribed

as

requirin

gle

ss

effort

topro

duce636

chose

touse

the

hig

her

aest

hetic

napki

n(plt

001)

5Lab

Paper

napkin

bull2

(aest

hetic

shig

her

vs

low

er)

implic

itself-

theo-

ries

(continuous)

bullN

apkin

usage

bullW

illin

gness

topay

bullB

asic

eff

ect

Aesth

etics

reduced

napkin

usage

(pfrac14

03)

bullP

re-c

on

su

mp

tio

np

rocess

by

ind

ivid

uald

iffe

ren

ce

mo

dera

tor

Aesth

etics

implic

itself-t

heories

inte

raction

(pfrac14

04)

aesth

etics

reduce

dnapki

nusageprim

arily

am

ong

incre

menta

ltheorists

6A

Sim

ula

tion

Paper

napkin

bull2

(aest

hetic

shig

her

vs

low

er

betw

een)

2(a

est

hetic

judgm

ent

befo

revs

after

usagew

ithin

)

bullE

motio

ns

bullC

hanges

inaesth

etic

judg-

mentacro

ss

tim

e

bullP

ost-

co

nsu

mp

tio

nco

nseq

uen

ces

Usage

ofaesth

etics

incre

ased

negative

affect(3

05

vs24

6plt

001)

and

decre

ments

inbeauty

acro

ss

tim

e(plt

001)

bullP

ost-

co

nsu

mp

tio

np

rocess

by

med

iati

on

A

esth

etics

decre

ments

inbeauty

em

otio

ns

(95

CIfrac14

[042

9])

6B

Sim

ula

tion

Paper

napkin

bull2

(aest

hetic

shig

her

vs

low

er)

bullE

motio

ns

bullC

hanges

inaesth

etic

judgm

ent

bullE

ffort

infe

rences

bullC

oncern

sth

ateffort

had

been

destr

oyed

bullP

ost-

co

nsu

mp

tio

nco

nseq

uen

ces

Usage

ofaesth

etics

incre

ased

negative

affect(3

13

vs28

3plt

05)

decre

-m

ents

inbeauty

(26

3vs

17

7plt

001)

perc

eptions

of

effort

(34

9vs

28

7plt

001)

and

concern

sth

ateffort

had

been

destr

oyed

(26

2vs20

0plt

001)

bullP

ost-

co

nsu

mp

tio

np

rocess

by

para

llelm

ed

iati

on

1A

esth

etics

decre

ments

inbeauty

em

otio

ns

(95

CIfrac14

[235

4])

2A

esth

etics

effort

infe

rences

concern

sth

atef-

fort

had

been

destr

oyed

em

otions

(95

CIfrac14

[06

23])

6 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

pretest (n frac14 100) revealed that people liked the higher (vslower) aesthetic toilet paper and its design more (Mhigher

aesthetic frac14 457 vs Mlower aesthetic frac14 400 t(98) frac14 ndash195pfrac14 05 rfrac14 88)

The studio owner provided us with the number of peoplewho attended classes each week and employees who re-mained blind to our research hypotheses replenished thetoilet paper as needed A total of 772 clients visited the stu-dio over the course of the studymdash387 in the lower aestheticcondition (week 1) and 385 in the higher aesthetic condi-tion (week 2) Clients were unaware that a study was beingconducted

Results and Discussion

As predicted clients used less of the more aestheticallyappealing toilet paper 2578 total sheets of the lower aes-thetic toilet paper were used while only 1425 sheets of thehigher aesthetic toilet paper were used Because we wereprovided with the number of class attendees we were alsoable to calculate average usage per client each client in thelower aesthetic condition used an average of 666 sheetswhile each client in the higher aesthetic condition used an av-erage of 370 sheets (v2 (1)frac14 32616 (n frac14 772) p lt 001)

Discussion We find preliminary evidence that en-hanced product aesthetics can reduce usage behaviorswhile controlling for differences in paper quality and thetotal number of clients Having provided a demonstrationof this phenomenon in an ecologically valid setting the re-maining studies replicate and generalize this finding andidentify its underlying mechanism in a more controlledenvironment

STUDY 2 THE IMPACT OF AESTHETICSON FOOD CONSUMPTION AND

ENJOYMENT

The purpose of study 2 was to conceptually replicatestudy 1 in a product category in which aesthetics play amajor role food A growing body of research has docu-mented the profound influence that food presentation hason how we evaluate what we eat (Hurling and Shepherd2003 Wada et al 2010) We chose cupcakes as our focalstimuli because they are a highly familiar dessert that canbe made more aesthetically appealing (ie higher aes-thetics with frosting in the shape of a rose) or more plain(ie lower aesthetics with smooth frosting) while holdingconstant aesthetically unrelated factors such as flavor andtaste (see appendix A row 2 for images) Consistent withthe extant aesthetics literature a pretest of the cupcakesused in study 2 revealed that people were more likely tochoose to purchase the higher (vs lower) aesthetic cupcakefor consumption in the future providing an even strongertest of our predictions about higher aesthetics lowering

consumption Details of this pretest are available in theweb appendix

Importantly given the inherent nature of food we arecognizant of baseline individual differences that could af-fect the amount consumed (Lisjak et al 2015) We ran thisstudy throughout the day (from 10 am to 5 pm) acrossmultiple days so we accounted for individual differencesin hunger and measured state hunger at the start of thestudy We expect that the inhibiting effect of aesthetics onconsumption will be greatest among hungry participantsas the need to exhibit restraint should be observed onlyamong those motivated to engage in consumption in thefirst place We do not expect differences in consumptionamong satiated participants as they should have a low de-sire to eat regardless of aesthetics

Notably an alternative explanation is that people feel in-hibited from consuming highly aesthetic products becausethey tend to cost more and not because of concerns overdestroying effort Thus we also aim to replicate study 1rsquosfindings while controlling for perceived expense

Finally we seek to provide initial evidence that the con-sumption of a highly aesthetic product will negatively af-fect how much participants enjoy the consumptionexperience a notion we explore in depth in study 6 In linewith our predictions for consumption amount we expectthe negative influence of food aesthetics on post-consumption affect to be greatest among hungry individ-uals as hunger leads people to not only eat more but toalso enjoy their food more (Berridge 2009 Cabanac 19711979 1985) Thus changes in the ability to derive enjoy-ment should be observed only among those motivated toengage in consumption in the first place

Method

Participants and Procedure One hundred eighty-threeundergraduate students from a southwestern university par-ticipated in a 2 (aesthetics higher vs lower) continuous(hunger) between-subjects study in exchange for partialcourse credit Five participants were excluded from theanalysis four had missing data on the dependent measuresand one had missing data on hunger This left a sample of178 participants (52 female [one did not report gender]median age frac14 21 ages 18ndash48)

Participants first indicated their current level of hunger(1 frac14 not at all hungry 7 frac14 very hungry) They were thentold that the goal of the study was to explore which foodsgo best with different videos and that they would be eatingvanilla cupcakes Participants were randomly assigned toeither the higher or lower aesthetic condition To ensurethey did not discount the overall consumption experiencebecause they lacked freedom of choice (Brehm 1966)within each aesthetic condition they chose either a pink orcream-colored cupcake to eat Experimenters preweighedeach cupcake before the start of each session

WU ET AL 7

Next participants were told to watch a 90 second videofeaturing scenes from around the world while they ate theircupcake and that they were free to eat as much or as littleof the cupcake as they liked After finishing the video theremains of the cupcake were collected and weighed in aseparate room Participants then rated how much they en-joyed the cupcake (1 frac14 not at all 7 frac14 very much so) andcompleted filler measures that assessed how interesting thevideo was and how much they liked cupcakes in generalFinally they rated how expensive they thought the cupcakewas (1 frac14 not at all expensive 7 frac14 very expensive)

Results and Discussion

We predicted that for consumers who were motivated toconsume (ie hungry individuals) higher aesthetics wouldcurb consumption quantity and reduce consumption enjoy-ment effects that were expected to hold even when wecontrolled for perceived expense

Consumption Amount We first log-transformed the de-pendent variable to normalize the distribution (Cleveland1984) Next we performed a 2 (aesthetics condition) continuous (hunger) multiple regression analysis on thelogged consumption amount Regressing this loggedamount on the aesthetics manipulation mean-centered lev-els of hunger and their interaction revealed a directionalsimple effect of aesthetics at the mean level of hunger(b frac14 ndash10 t(174) frac14 ndash126 p frac14 21) such that participantsin the higher aesthetic condition consumed less of the cup-cake Most importantly the interaction was also significant(b frac14 ndash10 t(174) frac14 ndash213 p frac14 03) Decomposing the inter-action in the lower aesthetic (smooth frosting) condition we

found a significant effect of hunger (b frac14 15 t(174) frac14446 p lt 001) such that hungry (vs satiated) individualsconsumed more of the cupcake However attesting to the in-hibitory nature of beautiful products in the higher aesthetic(rose frosting) condition the effect of hunger was not signifi-cant (b frac14 05 t(174) frac14 129 p frac14 20) Because self-reportedhunger was measured on a 1 to 7 scale (M frac14 425 SDfrac14 168median frac14 4) we ran a floodlight analysis using the Johnson-Neyman (1936) technique to identify the range of hunger forwhich the simple effect of aesthetics was significant (figure 1see also Spiller et al 2013) This analysis revealed a signifi-cant reduction in consumption of the higher (vs lower) aes-thetic cupcake for any value of hunger above 492 (at p lt05) Thus despite a higher baseline desire to eat hungry indi-viduals actively refrained from consumption when the cup-cake was more aesthetically appealing Consistent with ourpredictions such effects were not observed among satiated in-dividuals who displayed low motivation to eat regardless ofthe cupcakersquos appearance

Enjoyment of the Cupcake A 2 continuous regres-sion on cupcake enjoyment revealed only a significant in-teraction (b frac14 ndash41 t(174) frac14 ndash256 p frac14 01 see figure 2)In the lower aesthetic condition (b frac14 45 t(174) frac14 405p lt 001) hungry (vs satiated) individuals enjoyed thecupcake more There was no effect of hunger in the higheraesthetic condition (bfrac14 04 t(174) lt 1 ns) Floodlightanalysis revealed that for all values of hunger above 466participants in the higher aesthetic condition enjoyed thecupcake significantly less (p lt 05)

Perceived Expense A 2 continuous regression onperceived expense of the cupcake revealed only a signifi-cant simple effect of aesthetics at the mean level of hunger

FIGURE 1

AESTHETICS HUNGER ON CONSUMPTION AMOUNT (STUDY 2)

8 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

(p lt 001) such that the higher aesthetic cupcake was seenas more expensive Most importantly when we controlledfor expense the 2 continuous interactions and focal ef-fects continue to hold for consumption amount (p lt 04)and cupcake enjoyment (p lt 01) Finally a moderatedmediation analysis (model 8 Hayes 2013) revealed thatperceived expense did not mediate either amount con-sumed (b frac14 ndash01 95 CI [ndash08 05]) or degree of enjoy-ment (b frac14 12 95 CI [ndash05 35]) among hungryindividuals revealing that inferred monetary value was notdriving our effects

Discussion Though our pretest showed that consumerswere more likely to choose the higher aesthetic cupcake avery different pattern of results emerged with consumptionamount and consumption enjoyment Hungry participantsactively inhibited their consumption and ate less in thehigher aesthetic rose frosting condition In addition to eat-ing less these individuals experienced lower consumptionenjoyment when the cupcake was highly aesthetic By con-ceptually replicating the previous studyrsquos results with anew product we increase the generalizability of our find-ings to food a domain for which visual presentation playsa fundamental role We also provide initial evidence thatconsumption of highly aesthetic products can carry nega-tive implications for the consumption experience a notionwe explore in greater depth in studies 6A and 6B These ef-fects continued to hold even when we controlled for per-ceived expense thus rendering such an alternative accountless likely

Having reliably demonstrated the inhibiting effect ofaesthetics on consumption across two product categorieswe next elucidate the underlying process through three

different approaches First we provide evidence for ourproposed mechanism via mediation (study 3) Second wedirectly manipulate effort inferences to show process bymoderation (study 4) and third we identify a theoreticallygrounded individual difference moderator (study 5)

STUDY 3 THE MEDIATING ROLE OFEFFORT INFERENCES AND EFFORT

DESTRUCTION

The goal of study 3 is to replicate our focal effect in anew product domain paper napkins and to shed light onthe mechanism underlying consumption likelihood by test-ing the driving role of effort inferences and effort destruc-tion Consistent with our theorizing we predict that thehigher inferences of effort elicited by highly aestheticproducts will lead to stronger concerns that such effortwould be destroyed in the consumption process resultingin lower usage likelihood Notably this is a conservativecontext in which to assess effort inferences given that pa-per napkins are machine-manufactured and so differencesin perceived effort are quite subtle Further by shifting out-side of the food domain to even subtler stimuli we canmore confidently ensure that our findings are not merelyartifacts of the stimuli we have chosen (although handmadehighly aesthetic foods such as the cupcakes used in study2 are ubiquitous in the marketplace)

Method

Participants and Procedure Two hundred sixty partic-ipants were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk toparticipate in a two-cell (aesthetics higher vs lower)

FIGURE 2

AESTHETICS HUNGER ON CUPCAKE ENJOYMENT (STUDY 2)

WU ET AL 9

between-subjects study in exchange for payment Two in-dividuals participated in this study twice and six had miss-ing data on the dependent measures and were excludedfrom the analysis yielding a final sample of 252 partici-pants (44 female [five did not report gender] medianage frac14 31 ages 19ndash69)

Participants were presented with a guided visualizationscenario in which they imagined they were at a local bak-ery getting breakfast and doing work As they were work-ing they accidentally spilled coffee all over theirdocuments prompting them to look toward the counter tosee how they could clean up the spill We presented a situa-tion in which the destruction of the product paper napkinswas imminent to assess how such an outcome shapes pref-erences to consume aesthetically appealing productsParticipants were randomly assigned to either the higher orlower aesthetic condition Those in the higher aestheticcondition saw a stack of floral napkins at the counter toclean up the spill while those in the lower aesthetic condi-tion saw a stack of plain white napkins (see appendix Arow 3 for images) Additional details of the procedure areavailable in the web appendix Subsequently participantsindicated to what extent they would use the (floral orwhite) napkins to clean up the spill (1 frac14 definitely no 7 frac14definitely yes) how likely they would be to use the napkinsto clean up the spill (1 frac14 very unlikely 7 frac14 very likely)and how many napkins they would use to clean up the spill(1 frac14 none at all 7 frac14 very many) which formed our usagelikelihood index (afrac14 81) Next to examine effort infer-ences we asked participants how much effort they thoughtwent into making the napkins (1 frac14 none at all 7 frac14 quite abit) To examine concerns about effort destruction weasked participants to rate their agreement with the state-ment ldquoI felt like I was destroying someonersquos effort by usingthe napkinsrdquo (1 frac14 strongly disagree 7 frac14 stronglyagree) Finally to again show that inferred monetary valueis not driving our effects participants indicated how muchthey would be willing to pay for a pack of the napkins inthe scenario (ie dollar value)

Results and Discussion

We predicted that participants would be less likely touse the higher aesthetic napkins and that this effect wouldbe mediated in serial by effort inferences and concernsover destroying such effort

Usage Likelihood A one-way ANOVA on the usagelikelihood index indicated that participants were less likelyto use the higher aesthetic floral napkins to clean up thespill (Mhigher aesthetic frac14 581 vs Mlower aesthetic frac14 628 F(1250) frac14 1592 p lt 001) an effect that continues to holdeven when we controlled for willingness to pay for thenapkins (p lt 001)

Effort Inferences A one-way ANOVA on effort infer-ences indicated that participants ascribed greater effort to thehigher aesthetic napkins (Mhigher frac14 380 vs Mlower frac14 319F(1 250) frac14 753 p lt 01) even when we controlled for will-ingness to pay (p lt 02)

Effort Destruction A one-way ANOVA on concernsabout effort destruction indicated that participants hadstronger concerns effort would be destroyed in the higheraesthetic condition (Mhigher frac14 254 vs Mlower frac14 195 F(1250) frac14 837 p lt 01) Again this effect holds even whenwe controlled for willingness to pay (p lt 02)

Mediation We conducted a serial multiple mediatormodel (model 6 Hayes 2013) testing our proposed media-tion path where effort inferences and concerns about ef-fort destruction served as serial mediators productaesthetics effort inferences concerns about the de-struction of effort usage likelihood Consistent withour predictions the indirect effect of aesthetics on usagelikelihood through effort inferences and concerns abouteffort destruction was significant (b frac14 ndash03 95 CI [ndash09 ndash01]) In addition the indirect effect of aesthetics onusage likelihood through effort destruction alone was sig-nificant (b frac14 ndash04 95 CI [ndash14 ndash003]) suggesting thismediator works serially but also individually Consistentwith study 2 willingness to pay did not mediate usagelikelihood (b frac14 01 95 CI [ndash03 06]) providing fur-ther evidence that inferred monetary value was not drivingour effects In sum product aesthetics affected usage like-lihood through effort inferences and concerns that onewould be destroying this effort

Discussion In study 3 using a new subtler contextwe show that the greater perceptions of effort ascribed tothe creation of higher aesthetic napkins led to stronger con-cerns that such effort would inevitably be destroyed in theconsumption process which ultimately discouraged usageFurther we once again demonstrate that inferred monetaryvalue does not account for our results Next we manipulateeffort inferences directly to show that shifting the per-ceived effort required to make an aesthetic product willmitigate our focal effect

STUDY 4 THE MODERATING ROLE OFEFFORT INFERENCES

Given the underlying role of effort in inhibiting the con-sumption of highly aesthetic products it follows that this re-duced consumption should be attenuated if the beautifulproduct does not trigger such effort inferences in the firstplace Thus in study 4 we manipulated information aboutthe products to directly influence effort inferences comple-menting study 3 by providing process evidence through mod-eration (Spencer Zanna and Fong 2005) Notably unlikeother studies in the current article study 4 utilizes a

10 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

comparative design in which participants are presented withboth higher and lower aesthetic products at once and areasked to make a choice between them This design allowsus to extend the generalizability of our findings to contextswhere consumers are faced with products of differing levelsof aesthetic appeal and have to choose one to immediatelyconsume Moreover study 4 replaces floral napkins withturquoise napkins in the higher aesthetic condition therebyusing especially subtle aesthetic stimuli to reveal that evenin the absence of product design changes in aesthetic ap-peal through other means (eg color) can shape consump-tion decisions in the same manner

Finally study 4 helps us test the alternative explanationthat concerns over how the product will look after usageor anticipated decrements in the productrsquos beauty aloneare driving lower consumption likelihood independent ofeffort inferences If this is the case the likelihood of usingaesthetically appealing products should not differ as afunction of expended effort since consumers should al-ways be less likely to use a beautiful product irrespectiveof the effort involved in its creation However if consump-tion likelihood is indeed affected by inferred effort thenchanges in inferred effort should systematically impactconsumption likelihood a relationship we examine directlyin study 4

Method

Participants and Procedure Two hundred forty-sixparticipants were recruited from Amazon MechanicalTurk to participate in a two-cell (intervention conditionno information control vs higher aesthetics frac14 lower ef-fort) between-subjects study in exchange for paymentSeven people participated in this study twice and wereexcluded yielding a final sample of 239 participants (48female [six did not report gender] median age frac14 31 ages18ndash69)

Study 4 used the same guided visualization scenario asstudy 3 where participants imagined visiting their localbakery and accidentally spilling coffee while they wereworking However this time they saw two separatestacks of napkins they could use to clean up the spillThe napkins were turquoise (higher aesthetic option) orplain white (lower aesthetic option see appendix A row4 for images) and both napkin images were presented atonce Additional details are available in the webappendix

At this point participants in the control condition pro-ceeded directly to a choice task in which they indicated whichtype of napkin they would use to clean up the spill On theother hand participants in the higher aestheticsfrac14 lower effortcondition were first told that as they looked at the napkinsthey recalled that a friend who used to work for this bakeryhad told them that it actually takes less effort and time forcompanies to manufacture the blue napkins than it does to

make and bleach the white ones2 Next participants in thislower effort condition completed the choice task After theirchoice all participants indicated how much they thought thenapkins cost (1 frac14 very little 7 frac14 quite a lot)

Results and Discussion

Conceptually replicating prior studies in the controlcondition where no effort inferences were made salientparticipants were less likely to choose the higher aestheticblue napkins to clean up the spill (1983 blue vs8017white) However this lower usage likelihood was re-versed when the higher aesthetic blue napkins elicitedlower perceptions of effort (6356blue vs 3644white v2

(1) frac14 4707 (n frac14 239) p lt 001) Importantly the choiceeffects continue to hold when we control for perceived cost(p lt 001)

Discussion Study 4 offers convergent support for theproposed underlying process by showing that the reducedconsumption of highly aesthetic products is reversed whenthese products elicit lower effort inferences As revealedby the pretest (see footnote 2) in the control conditionwhere no effort information was made salient participantsascribed greater effort to the higher aesthetic blue napkinand were less likely to use it but when this blue napkinwas thought to require less effort to produce participantsbecame more likely to use it Notably unlike our priorstudies study 4 employed a comparative design in whichparticipants saw higher and lower aesthetic options at thesame time mirroring real life where consumers encountermultiple product offerings with differing aesthetic appealand have to choose one to use

These results also suggest that anticipated decrements inbeauty alone or concerns over what the aesthetic productwill look like after consumption are unlikely to inhibitconsumption Such projected losses of beauty are not evi-dent before consumption has occurred when the highlyaesthetic product is still in pristine beautiful condition Ifexpected drops in the aesthetic appeal of the product alonehad been responsible for driving reduced consumption in-dividuals would have been equally inhibited from using thehigher aesthetic napkin irrespective of effort inferencesSuch an alternative is inconsistent with the reversal in us-age likelihood we observed in the higher aesthetics frac14lower effort condition since the aesthetic appeal of the

2 A pretest confirmed the validity of study 4rsquos effort manipulationParticipants (n frac14 201) completed a 2 (aesthetics) 2 (effort interven-tion) between-subjects study where they read the same scenario butwere randomly assigned a napkin choice and asked to make effortinferences about the napkin Results revealed a significant interaction(p lt 001) Whereas in the control condition the higher aesthetic nap-kin elicited higher perceptions of effort (Mcontrol higher aesthetic frac14 391vs Mcontrol lower aesthetic frac14 335 p lt 04) this pattern reversed in thelow effort condition (Mlow effort higher aesthetic frac14 302 vs Mlow effort lower

aesthetic frac14 431 p lt 001) Procedural details and full results are avail-able in the web appendix

WU ET AL 11

napkins remained constant only the perceived effort hadchanged Thus we provide further evidence for the prem-ise that consumers strongly link aesthetics and effort andshow that for consumption to be reduced the highly aes-thetic product must signal higher effort in addition to itsaesthetic qualities

Notably while our results support the notion that antici-pated drops in beauty alone are insufficient to lead to a re-duction in consumption likelihood it is also worthmentioning that because effort and beauty are inextricablylinked constructs concerns over destroying effort mayshare to some extent overlapping variance with concernsover the imminent losses of beauty This suggests that inother contexts anticipated decrements in beauty may alsoplay a role in driving usage potentially for products of ex-treme aesthetic appeal that are more defined by theirbeauty as opposed to the colored napkins used hereNonetheless in the current context the results demonstratethat shifting perceptions about the amount of effort neededto create a higher aesthetic product is sufficient to over-come any inhibition to consume it

We next provide additional evidence for our conceptual-ization by investigating a theoretically driven individualdifference that affects the degree to which effort is inher-ently appreciated and by extension should influence deci-sions to use highly aesthetic products

STUDY 5 THE ROLE OF IMPLICIT SELF-THEORIES IN SHAPING USAGE

Based on our theory because the higher effort as-cribed to beautiful products underlies their lower likeli-hood of usage such a reduction should be moderated bythe degree to which effort is intrinsically valued or peo-plersquos implicit self-theories According to research on im-plicit self-theories entity theorists view their personalqualities as stable and unable to be enhanced by self-improvement while incremental theorists view thesequalities as flexible and able to be cultivated through la-bor and effort (Dweck 2000) Similarly entity theoriststend to view effort as ineffective and pointless while in-cremental theorists are more optimistic that their effortscarry intrinsic value and will eventually bear fruit(Dweck and Leggett 1988)

We propose that beyond the recognition of personal ef-fort implicit self-theories affect the extent to which con-sumers appreciate othersrsquo effort and by extension theeffort that goes into the creation of highly aesthetic prod-ucts To test this prediction we conducted a correlationalstudy examining the relationship between implicit self-theories and the propensity to appreciate effort-laden prod-ucts Participants (n frac14 134) first completed the implicitself-theories scale (Levy Stroessner and Dweck 1998)where higher (lower) scores indicate greater endorsement

of incremental (entity) self-theory Next they indicatedtheir agreement with five items reflecting appreciation forothersrsquo effort (eg I notice when people work really hardto create something3 all anchored at 1 frac14 strongly disagree7 frac14 strongly agree a frac14 91) We found a significant posi-tive correlation (r frac14 23 p lt 01) such that incrementallyoriented individuals were more likely to appreciate thingsthat reflect a great deal of effort

Thus based on this appreciation for othersrsquo effort in study5 we predict that incremental theorists will be less likely toconsume products that are highly aesthetic and by extensionladen with effort By contrast because entity theorists havelower intrinsic appreciation for effort they will be equallylikely to use a product regardless of its aesthetic appeal

Method

Participants and Procedure One hundred eighty-seven undergraduate students from a southwesternuniversity participated in a 2 (aesthetics higher vs lower) continuous (implicit self-theories) between-subjectsstudy in exchange for partial course credit Two partici-pants reported having a gluten allergy that prevented themfrom consuming the goldfish crackers accompanying thenapkins An additional 11 participants were excluded fromthe analysismdashone respondent participated in this studytwice and 10 had missing data on implicit self-theorieswhich we had measured in a separate presurvey severalweeks prior to the focal study Thus the final sample com-prised 174 participants (52 female [four did not reportgender] median age frac14 21 ages 18ndash41)

Study 5 employed the same cover story about pairingfoods with videos used in study 2 but this time usingPepperidge Farm goldfish crackers We chose these crack-ers because they are slightly messy to eatmdashpeople wouldwant to use a napkin but did not necessarily have to creat-ing an ideal context within which to test our hypothesesParticipants received an individual pack of goldfish crack-ers along with a paper napkin which was either decorativewith a white background (higher aesthetic condition) orplain white (lower aesthetic condition) (both 61=2 inchessquare see appendix A row 5 for images) Importantlythe experimenter gave no explicit instructions on what to dowith this napkin Of note in addition to the pretest assessingdifferent levels of aesthetic appeal between the two napkinsanother between-subjects pretest (n frac14 81) showed that partic-ipants liked the higher (vs lower) aesthetic napkin and its de-sign more (Mhigher aesthetic frac14 516 vs Mlower aesthetic frac14 365t(79) frac14 ndash516 p lt 001 r frac14 87) but both napkins were

3 The other items were (2) I really appreciate it when somebodytakes the time and effort to make something (3) I treasure somethingmore when I know a lot of effort has gone into creating it (4) I havean appreciation for products that reflect a great deal of effort on themakerrsquos part and (5) I value something more when I know it took alot of time and energy to produce

12 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

rated as equally versatile in their usage (Mhigher aesthetic frac14 580vs Mlower aesthetic frac14 591 t(79) frac14 47 p gt 60 a frac14 91)Additional pretest details are available in the web appendix

Participants were told to watch a 35 minute video onwildlife animals while they ate the crackers and that theywere free to eat as much or as little as they liked Once par-ticipants finished the video the experimenter collected thenapkin and any leftover crackers and recorded whether thenapkin had been used or not (0 frac14 no 1 frac14 yes) in anotherroom A napkin was coded as ldquousedrdquo if it showed any signsof usage (ie had any food stains on it looked crumpled orhad been used to spit out gum) and was coded as ldquounusedrdquoonly if it appeared untouched and in pristine condition mak-ing it a highly conservative test of our hypotheses To againensure that perceived cost was not influencing our focal ef-fects we asked participants how much they would be will-ing to pay for a pack of napkins (ie dollar value) Finallyparticipants completed a series of filler measures that as-sessed how interesting the video was and how much theyliked eating goldfish crackers in general

Results and Discussion

A 2 (aesthetics condition) continuous (implicit self-theories) logistic regression on napkin usage behavior(used yes no) was performed Regressing usage behavioron the aesthetics manipulation mean-centered levels ofimplicit self-theories and their interaction revealed a sig-nificant simple effect of aesthetics at the mean of implicitself-theories (b frac14 ndash37 Wald v2 frac14 460 p frac14 03) suchthat a smaller percentage of people used the napkin in the

higher aesthetic condition across all participants conceptu-ally replicating prior studies Importantly the interactionwas also significant (b frac14 ndash30 Wald v2 frac14 419 p frac14 04see figure 3) Notably this interaction continued to holdeven when we controlled for willingness to pay (p lt 04)We used the Johnson-Neyman technique to identify therange of implicit self-theories for which the simple effectof the aesthetics manipulation was significant where lowervalues imply an entity-oriented mindset while higher val-ues imply an incrementally oriented mindset We found asignificant reduction in usage of the higher aesthetic deco-rative (vs lower aesthetic white) paper napkin for anyvalue of implicit self-theories above 406 (at p lt 05) butnot for any value less than 406 In other words incremen-tal theorists were less likely to use a higher (vs lower) aes-thetic napkin whereas entity theorists were equally likelyto use a napkin regardless of its appearance

Discussion In study 5 we provide further evidence forour proposed mechanism by showing that implicit self-theories or consumersrsquo chronic appreciation for investedeffort shapes decisions to use an aesthetically pleasingproduct Incremental theorists who are more appreciativeof effort were less likely to use a higher aesthetic decora-tive napkin than a lower aesthetic plain white napkin butsuch effects were not observed among entity theorists whohave lower intrinsic appreciation for effort We have nowreliably established the inhibiting effect of product aes-thetics on consumption across multiple products and con-sumption contexts and provided convergent support for theunderlying mechanism In our final two studies we

FIGURE 3

AESTHETICS IMPLICIT SELF-THEORIES ON NAPKIN USAGE (STUDY 5)

WU ET AL 13

elucidate the drivers of post-consumption emotions whileholding usage constant thereby allowing us to hone in onpost-consumption consequences in a more controlledfashion since people are inherently less likely to usehigher aesthetic products which could potentially result inself-selection issues

STUDY 6A DECREMENTS IN BEAUTYAND POST-CONSUMPTION AFFECT

Recall in study 2 that when the cupcake was highly aes-thetic consumption enjoyment was lower among individ-uals most motivated to engage in consumption (ie hungryindividuals) an effect we propose is determined by twoprocesses working in tandem First we expect that the ef-fort inferences made prior to consumption will continue todrive emotional outcomes given the consumption processinvolves the actual destruction of effort Second and onlyevident post-consumption are the decrements in beautythat aesthetic products undergo when their aesthetic quali-ties are visibly compromised through usage Because beau-tiful products are inherently pleasurable (Reber et al 2004Reimann et al 2010) we predict that individuals will expe-rience less pleasure and more negative affect when theywitness highly aesthetic products undergo steeper drops inbeauty as a result of consumption Consistent with prospecttheoryrsquos value function (Kahneman and Tversky 1979)initial changesmdashhere the larger losses of beauty associatedwith the usage of a higher (vs lower) aesthetic productmdashshould be particularly jarring and lead to more negative af-fect (Frederick and Loewenstein 1999)

Importantly unlike in study 2 where we measured theamount consumed as well as post-consumption enjoymentin study 6A we hold usage constant in the higher andlower aesthetic conditions and hone in on the changes inbeauty with a longitudinal study design Specifically theobjective of study 6A is to extend prior work on the rela-tionship between beauty and pleasure by establishing itscorollarymdashthat the consumption of a higher (vs lower)aesthetic product will lead to greater perceived losses ofbeauty and that such decrements in beauty will in turnhave a negative influence on post-consumption affect Wemeasure this decrement by capturing aesthetic judgmentsimmediately before and after usage

Method

Participants and Procedure Four hundred sixteen par-ticipants were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk toparticipate in a 2 (aesthetics higher vs lower between) 2(aesthetic judgment before vs after usage within) mixed-design study in exchange for payment Six individuals par-ticipated in this study twice and four had missing data onthe focal dependent measures and were excluded from theanalysis yielding a final sample of 406 participants (54

female [11 did not report gender] median age frac14 30 ages18ndash76)

The procedure was similar to that of study 3 featuringthe same bakery scenario and stimuli but with several mod-ifications After participants were initially presented witheither the higher or lower aesthetic napkins following thespill they immediately completed two semantic differen-tial items of aesthetic evaluations for these unused napkinson seven-point scales ldquonot at all prettyvery prettyrdquo andldquonot at all uglyvery uglyrdquo (reverse-coded) which havebeen shown in prior work to capture aesthetic judgments(Reber Winkielman and Schwarz 1998 r frac14 47) Aftercompleting these baseline aesthetic judgment measuresparticipants proceeded with the scenario They were toldthey realized they would need to grab at least 10 napkins tocome close to cleaning up the spill and were subsequentlyshown a stack of unused napkins The scenario ended withan image of a bundle of napkins now drenched with cof-fee that were used to clean up the spill Additional detailsof the procedure are available in the web appendix

Immediately after reading the scenario participantscompleted the same set of aesthetic judgment items a sec-ond time this time rating the coffee-drenched napkinswhich served as a measure of post-usage aesthetic judg-ments Participants then indicated to what extent they ex-perienced each of the following negative emotions whilethey were using the napkins to clean up the spill stressedregretful bad afraid fearful sad sorry and guilty whichwe combined into an index of post-consumption negativeaffect (1 frac14 not at all 7 frac14 very much so afrac14 91)

Results and Discussion

We predicted that participants would experience greaternegative affect after using the higher (vs lower) aestheticnapkins an effect that would be driven by the larger decre-ments in beauty that stem from the consumption of higheraesthetic products

Emotions A one-way ANOVA on negative emotionsexperienced after consumption revealed that participantswho used the higher aesthetic floral napkins to clean up thespill felt more negative affect than those who used thelower aesthetic white napkins (Mhigher aesthetic frac14 305 vsMlower aesthetic frac14 246 F(1 404) frac14 1686 p lt 001)

Decrements in Beauty (Longitudinal) A 2 (aestheticshigher vs lower) 2 (timing before usage vs after usage)mixed ANOVA on aesthetic judgments yielded main ef-fects of both aesthetics (F(1 404) frac14 10652 p lt 001) andtiming (F(1 404) frac14 125629 p lt 001) which were quali-fied by a significant aesthetics timing interaction (F(1404) frac14 5302 p lt 001) Planned contrasts revealed thatwhereas the higher aesthetic napkins elicited more favor-able aesthetic judgments than the lower aesthetic napkinsbefore usage (Mhigher frac14 594 vs Mlower frac14 447 F(1 404)

14 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

frac14 15269 p lt 001) this difference was substantiallyreduced after usage (Mhigher frac14 237 vs Mlower frac14 211F(1 404) frac14 484 p frac14 03) Importantly and arguably mostcentral to our research the decrement in aesthetic ratingsthrough usage was significantly larger in the higher aes-thetic conditionmdashin fact 151 largermdashthan that observedin the lower aesthetic condition (ie a drop of 357 unitsvs a drop of 236 units)

Mediation Finally we are interested in whether decre-ments in aesthetic judgment emanating from product usageunderlie post-consumption affect Consistent with predic-tions mediation analysis (model 4 Hayes 2013) revealedthat the indirect effect of aesthetics on negative affectthrough changes in aesthetic judgment was significant (b frac1415 95 CI [04 29]) suggesting that product aestheticsaffected the experience of negative emotions through thelarger losses of beauty resulting from the consumption ofhigher aesthetic products

Discussion While past work has shown that aestheticsare inextricably linked with pleasure (Reber et al 2004Reimann et al 2010) study 6A extends this body of re-search by revealing that in the context of nondurable prod-ucts where consumption entails damaging product designnot only does the usage of higher (vs lower) aestheticproducts result in larger decrements in beauty but suchlosses also drive greater negative affect after consumptionNotably while we asked participants to assess the aestheticqualities of the napkins before and immediately after usageto more precisely capture the changes in beauty we ob-served we recognize that this design may have caused theaesthetic appeal of the napkins to be more salient prior toconsumption making its decrement therefore more pro-nounced after consumption Thus having established thatbeauty decrements resulting from aesthetic product usageunderlie post-consumption affect in study 6B we measurethis change in a less invasive manner after consumptionWe also integrate changes in beauty and effort inferencesinto emotional reactions linked to consumption

STUDY 6B TESTING THE FULLCONCEPTUAL MODEL FOR POST-

CONSUMPTION AFFECT

The goal of study 6B is to elucidate the drivers of post-consumption emotions while continuing to hold usage con-stant in both conditions thereby allowing us to test the fullconceptual model in a more controlled fashion As alludedto in study 6A the inherently lower consumption likeli-hood of higher aesthetic products could potentially resultin self-selection issues In study 6B we predict that partici-pants will experience more negative affect after using ahigher (vs lower) aesthetic product an effect driven in tan-dem by effort inferences as well as changes in beauty

Further we try to better understand consumersrsquo emotionalreactions after aesthetic product usage by not highlightingthe productrsquos aesthetic qualities beforehand Finally wemeasure implicit self-theories to examine whether onersquos in-herent degree of effort appreciation moderates post-consumption negative affect

Method

Participants and Procedure Four hundred participantswere recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk to partici-pate in a two-cell (aesthetics higher vs lower) between-subjects study in exchange for payment Ten individualsparticipated in this study twice and 17 had missing data onthe focal dependent measures and were excluded from theanalysis yielding a final sample of 373 participants (55female [two did not report gender] median age frac14 32 ages18ndash76)

The study design of study 6B was almost identical tothat of study 6A aside from several modifications Firstparticipants completed the same negative emotion indexfrom study 6A (afrac14 91) immediately after reading the sce-nario instead of after aesthetics judgment measures (whichwere not included in this study) Second instead of assess-ing aesthetic ratings at two separate points in time we uti-lized a new single cross-sectional measure to capturedecrements in beauty post-consumption ldquoBy using thenapkins it felt like I was turning something that was oncebeautiful into something uglyrdquo (1 frac14 strongly disagree 7 frac14strongly agree) Next to examine effort inferences as a par-allel driver of negative affect after consumption partici-pants completed the same effort inferences and effortdestruction measures from study 3 although these mea-sures are distinct from study 3 in that they were assessedafter usage had already taken place Finally participantscompleted the implicit self-theories scale

Results and Discussion

Emotions Replicating study 6A a one-way ANOVAon negative emotions revealed that participants who usedthe higher aesthetic floral napkins to clean up the spill feltmore negative affect than those who used the lower aestheticwhite napkins (Mhigher aesthetic frac14 313 vs Mlower aesthetic frac14283 F(1 371) frac14 394 p lt 05) Of note this main effectdid not interact with implicit self-theories (p gt 30) sug-gesting that both incremental and entity theorists experi-enced more negative affect after using the higher (vslower) aesthetic napkins to clean up the spill a finding werevisit in the discussion section

Decrements in Beauty (Cross-Sectional) A one-wayANOVA on changes in beauty indicated that the higheraesthetic napkin underwent greater decrements in beautythrough consumption (Mhigher frac14 263 vs Mlower frac14 177F(1 371) frac14 2671 p lt 001)

WU ET AL 15

Effort Inferences A one-way ANOVA on effort infer-ences indicated that participants ascribed greater effort tothe higher aesthetic napkins (Mhigher frac14 349 vs Mlower frac14287 F(1 371) frac14 1359 p lt 001)

Effort Destruction A one-way ANOVA on concernsabout effort destruction indicated that participants hadstronger concerns that effort had been destroyed in thehigher aesthetic condition (Mhigher frac14 262 vs Mlower frac14200 F(1 371) frac14 1355 p lt 001)

Mediation Finally we conducted two separate media-tion analyses one testing the path of product aesthetics decrements in beauty negative affect (model 4 Hayes2013) and the other testing the serial path of product aes-thetics effort inferences concerns about effort de-struction negative affect (model 6) Results from thefirst analysis revealed that the indirect effect of aestheticson negative affect through changes in beauty was signifi-cant (b frac14 37 95 CI [23 54]) suggesting that productaesthetics affected the experience of negative emotionsthrough larger decrements in beauty in the higher aestheticcondition Second the indirect effect of aesthetics on nega-tive affect through effort inferences and concerns about ef-fort destruction (in serial) was also significant (b frac14 1295 CI [06 23]) as was the indirect effect of aestheticson negative affect through effort destruction alone (b frac1411 95 CI [01 23])

Finally we also included beauty decrements effort in-ferences and effort destruction into the model as parallelmediators to gain greater understanding of the relativestrength of these drivers This analysis revealed that whenall three mediators were in the model the indirect effectthrough decrements in beauty remained significant (b frac1422 95 CI [11 36]) as did the indirect effect througheffort destruction (b frac14 15 95 CI [06 27]) Taken to-gether these results suggest that while concerns about ef-fort destruction continue to play a role in driving theemotional outcomes of aesthetic product usage the decre-ments in beauty that become evident only after an aestheticproduct has been visibly compromised through consump-tion also lead to negative affect

Discussion Study 6B which allowed us to examinethe entire post-consumption conceptual model revealedthat people who used higher (vs lower) aesthetic napkinssubsequently experienced greater negative affect an effectdriven by two processes operating in parallel concernsabout the destruction of effort and decrements in beauty Inother words the consumption experience was associatedwith more negative affect because the consumption processnot only involved the actual destruction of effort but italso took a beautiful product that was typified by pleasureand transformed it into something marked by displeasure

We should also note that we replicated the post-consumption findings with actual paper napkins in a lab

context In a separate study using study 5rsquos procedure par-ticipants watched a video and received a snack to eat alongwith a higher versus lower aesthetic napkin and then indi-cated how they felt about the consumption experienceParticipants who chose to use their higher aesthetic napkinreported feeling more negative affect relative to whosewho chose to use their lower aesthetic napkin (p frac14 04)and relative to those who did not use their higher aestheticnapkin (p lt 01) Thus aesthetic product usage increasednegative affect even when consumers could choose to ei-ther use the aesthetic product or not and when the aestheticproduct (the napkin) was tangential to the affect measurescollected which specifically pertained to the video-watching and snack-eating task Additional details areavailable in the web appendix

Though we provide evidence that effort inferences con-tinued to partially drive consumer responses to beautifulproducts after usage it is interesting to note that post-consumption affect was not moderated by the degree towhich effort is intrinsically appreciated (ie implicit self-theories) While unexpected we speculate that this may oc-cur because post-consumption enjoyment is not exclusivelydriven by effort inferences Since losses of beauty alsoplay a substantial role in shaping emotional outcomes afterconsumption the beauty decrements associated with aes-thetic product usage may have brought entity theorists to asimilar emotional state as incremental theorists resultingin everybody feeling worse off after consumption irrespec-tive of individual differences in effort appreciation Morebroadly since post-consumption affect appears to be multi-ply determined it is difficult to completely disentangle thenegative affect stemming from the destruction of effortfrom the negative affect stemming from decrements inbeauty Study 6B offers a distinct test of this conjecturesince it made usage (and hence losses of beauty) salientthrough images of visibly used napkins

GENERAL DISCUSSION

Across a series of laboratory and field studies using avariety of nondurable product categories and consumptionsituations we reveal the negative impact of enhanced prod-uct aesthetics on usage and post-consumption conse-quences First we document an inhibiting effect of productaesthetics on consumption behaviors for disposable andperishable products in both real-world (study 1) and lab(study 2) settings Next we shed light on the drivers of us-age likelihood using mediation (study 3) a context-basedboundary condition (study 4) and a theoretically derivedindividual difference moderator (study 5) thereby provid-ing convergent support for an underlying process based oneffort Finally in studies 6A and 6B we hold product us-age constant to elucidate the drivers of post-consumptionaffect and show that the decrements in beauty that

16 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

aesthetic products inherently undergo as a result of con-sumption combined with concerns that one has actuallydestroyed effort underlie these effects

Theoretical Contributions Our work makes severaltheoretical contributions First while prior research hasshown that consumers respond favorably to both productaesthetics and effort we believe we are the first to establisha causal relationship between these constructs We findthat highly aesthetic products can elicit greater perceptionsof effort regardless of whether this effort was exerted dur-ing product design physical production or both processesWe further reveal that these effort inferences are not lim-ited to handmade products such as perishable foods butalso apply to mass-produced products such as consumerpackaged disposable goods

Second while existing literature suggests that consumerpreferences should increase as a function of a productrsquos aes-thetic appeal the prevailing ways of assessing the impact ofaesthetics on consumer preference have been limited to pur-chase intentions product evaluations and choice (Hagtvedtand Patrick 2008 Raghubir and Greenleaf 2006 Reimannet al 2010 Townsend and Shu 2010) Surprisingly the role ofaesthetics after choice has received little empirical attention todate Despite the stimulating effect that enhanced product aes-thetics have on choice and pre-usage evaluations our resultssuggest that once beautiful products are acquired consumersmay be less likely to consume them because the higher infer-ences of effort attributed to their creation elicit stronger con-cerns that such effort would be destroyed during consumption

This research also shows that the impact of implicit self-theories on consumer behavior may be more pervasivethan previously thought While prior research in psychol-ogy has shown that incremental and entity theorists carrydissimilar beliefs about the value of their own effort(Dweck 2000) we provide support for the novel predictionthat beyond the recognition of personal effort implicitself-theories affect the extent to which consumers appreci-ate the effort that goes into the creation of aestheticallyappealing products

Finally contrary to the notion that enhanced product aes-thetics are always beneficial to consumption enjoyment ourwork reveals that usage of highly aesthetic disposable prod-ucts can actually lower overall enjoyment of the consumptionexperience through two separate pathways (1) by elicitingconcerns that one has actually destroyed effort and (2) bycompromising the beauty that typically characterizes aestheticproducts Thus we add to the literature on aesthetics andpleasure by showing how the consumption of highly aestheticproducts can result in larger losses of beauty and that suchdecrements in turn drive the relationship between aestheticproduct consumption and negative affect

More generally these findings speak to researchthat explores when and why the drivers of predicted andexperienced utility might diverge For instance

Thompson et al (2005) found that consumersrsquo initial desirefor product capability before purchase leads them to chooseproducts packed with features but their growing desire forproduct usability after usage leads them to ultimately prefersimpler products Similarly Lee and Tsai (2014) showedthat price promotions can stimulate sales but lower atten-tion during consumption which in turn reduces consump-tion enjoyment In the same vein despite the delightinitially elicited by the choice of beautiful products wedemonstrate that enhanced aesthetics have the ability tolater discourage usage and lower consumption enjoyment

Substantive Implications Our findings carry importantpractical implications as they pose an interesting dilemmato managers While conventional wisdom suggests that mar-keters should strive to invest the highest degree of effort intomaking their products look aesthetically pleasing at least tothe extent that company resources will allow our researchreveals that the story is not so simple Enhancing productaesthetics might positively affect initial attention interestand choice but should be considered with caution given thatsuch increased appeal could inhibit usage and reduce enjoy-ment relative to less aesthetically appealing productsRelatedly people likely consume highly aesthetic disposableproducts more slowly which could affect interpurchasetime Thus the pursuit of product aesthetics and improvedshort-term sales must be constantly balanced against theneed to encourage consumption ensure customer satisfac-tion and maintain long-term profitability Still certain prod-ucts such as beautiful candles and soaps may serve adecorative purpose in addition to their basic utilitarian func-tion and consequently may also carry intrinsic aestheticvalue Our recommendations are admittedly less straightfor-ward under such circumstances as consumers are able toderive utility from the productsrsquo enhanced aesthetics simplyby displaying them

Our results also have clear implications for managersand policy makers interested in promoting conservationand sustainable business practices A growing number ofretail and service establishments have been switching tounbleached paper products as the traditional bleachingprocess that removes imperfections and gives paper itswhite appearance also produces hazardous chemicals (egchlorine and dioxins) that are harmful to the environment(Evans 2010) While the transition to unbleached paperproducts has benefited the environment the results fromour investigation suggest the growing popularity of thistrend may be a double-edged sword To the extent thatunbleached paper products are considered less aestheticallyappealing consumers may show less restraint in usingthem leading to backfiring effects for conservation effortsPut another way the positive environmental impact of pro-ducing unbleached paper products could potentially be off-set by consumersrsquo reduced inhibition in consuming theseproducts Thus increasing the aesthetic appeal of products

WU ET AL 17

may actually be an effective way for companies to promoteenvironmentally sustainable behaviors even after incorpo-rating the increased cost of implementing such practices

Finally given that rising obesity rates are a major publichealth concern traced to increased consumption (Chandonand Wansink 2007) there has been burgeoning interest inthe various factors that shape consumer food choices (Corniland Chandon 2016 McFerran et al 2010 Scott et al 2008)The results of study 2 suggest that one way to curb overeat-ing might be to enhance the aesthetic presentation of foodproducts especially hedonic foods Of course additionalresearch is needed to better explore the impact of aestheticsin this important area given the counteracting effects thatfood aesthetics exert on consumption versus enjoyment

Limitations and Future Research While the current setof studies was designed to elucidate perceived effort as anunderlying mechanism of lower usage of aestheticallyappealing products we recognize that this phenomenonlike many is likely driven by multiple processes (FuchsSchreier and van Osselaer 2015) Indeed as evident in ourresearch consumption likelihood and consumption enjoy-ment each have distinct sets of drivers For instance whilewe accounted for cost across multiple studies and demon-strated that our effects held even after we controlled for theperceived price of the product we believe that cost maycertainly play a role in certain situations For example cer-tain highly aesthetic products elicit perceptions of luxury(Hagtvedt and Patrick 2008) and may consequently reduceconsumption because they appear ldquotoo expensive to userdquoand cost may even interact with aesthetics under certaincircumstances to impact consumption such that the infer-ences of effort typically ascribed to aesthetically appealingproducts could be mitigated if people are told that theywere extremely inexpensive

In addition classic research by Loewenstein (1987)showed that people often prefer to delay consumption ofenjoyable experiences It may be that people are averse toimmediately consuming a highly aesthetic product becausethey are able to derive more utility by savoring the experi-ence and postponing consumption Further as alluded to instudy 4 it is possible that anticipated decrements in beautymay play a larger role in shaping usage in other consump-tion contexts Thus while we focus on the role of effortinferences in driving lower usage of highly aesthetic prod-ucts we are cognizant of the fact that other mechanismslikely exist which would provide intriguing avenues forfurther investigation

It would also be interesting to examine whether the neg-ative influence of enhanced aesthetics would hold acrossdifferent consumption contexts That is are there situationswhere the present phenomenon would not emerge Indeedone could argue that service establishments such as upscalerestaurants and luxury resorts which regularly pampertheir guests with beautifully plated entrees and folded

towel animals would eventually be driven out of businessif the consumption of highly aesthetic products alwaysresulted in lower enjoyment We believe that whether theusage of highly aesthetic products is accompanied bydecreased consumption and increased negative affect willhinge on the nature of the consumption environment Priorresearch indicates that our surroundings are capable ofautomatically eliciting normative behaviors when situa-tional norms are well established (Aarts and Dijksterhuis2003) Extending this perspective it is possible that theeffects observed in this article may be relatively weakenedwhen consumption occurs in environments characterizedby strong expectations to engage in indulgent consumptionsuch as in a fancy restaurant or luxurious hotel

Relatedly it would be interesting to examine whethercalling attention to fact that the aesthetic product if leftunconsumed will face inevitable destruction could enhanceconsumption likelihood and enjoyment to some extent par-ticularly for perishable products such as food4 Indeedrecent research has shown that consumers display a strongaversion to waste and unused utility (Bolton and Alba2012) Thus future studies should examine whether theeffects documented in this article could be attenuated ifthe inevitable destruction of effort is made salient to con-sumers (eg the product will go bad be thrown away orsomebody else will consume the product even if they donot) In summary future work should explore situationswhere enhanced aesthetics might carry more weight in theutility function for the overall consumption experienceand subsequently increase consumption and boostenjoyment

Another area for future research would be to examinewhether the destruction of product aesthetics is an ldquoall ornothingrdquo event such that any amount of consumption (evena single bite of a cupcake) would be viewed as destroyingthe productrsquos overall beauty While our experimentaldesigns did not allow us to examine whether destruction is acontinuous versus discrete function of consumption it isworth nothing that we did document lower usage acrossvarying degrees of consumption (eg consumption was con-tinuous in study 2 but discrete in study 5) and we did findthat different levels of consumption still led to reducedenjoyment Nevertheless we believe this is an importantempirical question worth investigating in the future

Finally while we have limited our analysis to nondura-bles (perishable and disposable products specifically) anintriguing path would be to investigate the potential moder-ating role of product durability on usage likelihood andsubsequent enjoyment of highly aesthetic products It maybe that the relative durability of the aesthetic product couldaffect individualsrsquo ability or motivation to anticipate decre-ments in beauty before consumption has occurred whichwould have implications for usage likelihood For instance

4 We thank one of the anonymous reviewers for this suggestion

18 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

with big-ticket high-involvement purchases such as sleekfurniture (eg a beautiful new white sectional sofa) con-sumers may more readily anticipate losses of beauty sincethey will have to live with and encounter the product on adaily basis even after its original beauty has faded or beentarnished through repeated use This may explain why cov-ering new furniture with plastic was at one time a verycommon practice (DiSalvo 2009)

On the other hand for nondurable lower-involvementproducts such as those used in the current research perhapspeople do not have the motivation or ability to considershifts in aesthetic appeal before consumption Furtherproducts often vary in their degree of durabilitymdasha delicateembroidered blanket while by no means nondurable or dis-posable may begin to show visible signs of wear and tearsooner than a fleece blanket Although the present researchspecifically focused on perishable and single-use productsit would be worth examining when and how the degree ofdurability or even perceptions of fragility might shapedecisions to use beautiful products

In conclusion our research documents an inhibitingeffect of enhanced product aesthetics on consumption par-ticularly for disposable and consumable nondurable prod-ucts Although beautiful products have the ability topromote positive pre-usage evaluations and stimulatechoice our work indicates that consumers are subsequentlyless likely to use them and those who do use them ulti-mately experience higher negative affect and lower enjoy-ment In addition different processes underlie consumerresponses to highly aesthetic products depending onwhether or not consumption has taken place Thus we con-clude that while products may never be too pretty tochoose they can in fact be too pretty to use

DATA COLLECTION INFORMATION

All studies were designed and analyzed by the first authorunder the guidance of the other authors The data for study 1was collected at the Scottsdale Pure Barre studio in fall2015 by research assistants and employees under the super-vision of the first author Research assistants collected thedata for studies 2 and 5 under the supervision of the firstauthor at the W P Carey School of Business MarketingDepartment Behavioral Lab in spring 2015 The data for theconceptual replication (reported in the discussion of study6B) was collected by research assistants under the supervi-sion of the first author at the W P Carey School ofBusiness Marketing Department Behavioral Lab in summer2015 The data for study 4 (both the effort manipulation pre-test and the main study) and the correlational study examin-ing the relationship between implicit self-theories andappreciation for othersrsquo effort were collected by the firstauthor using Amazon Mechanical Turk in spring 2016 Thefirst author collected the data for the aesthetic appeal pretest

(described in appendix B) studies 3 6A and 6B usingAmazon Mechanical Turk in summer 2016 Lastly researchassistants collected the data for the correlational study exam-ining the relationship between aesthetics and perceivedeffort (described in the table in ldquoThe Role of Effort inInhibiting Usagerdquo) under the supervision of the first authorat the W P Carey School of Business MarketingDepartment Behavioral Lab in fall 2016

APPENDIX A

STUDY STIMULI

WU ET AL 19

REFERENCES

Aarts Henk and Ap Dijksterhuis (2003) ldquoThe Silence of theLibrary Environment Situational Norm and SocialBehaviorrdquo Journal of Personality and Social Psychology84 (1) 18ndash28

Aharon Itzhak Nancy Etcoff Dan Ariely Christopher F ChabrisEthan OrsquoConnor and Hans C Breiter (2001) ldquoBeautifulFaces Have Variable Reward Value fMRI and BehavioralEvidencerdquo Neuron 32 (3) 537ndash51

Alba Joseph W and Elanor F Williams (2013) ldquoPleasurePrinciples A Review of Research on HedonicConsumptionrdquo Journal of Consumer Psychology 23 (1)2ndash18

Belk Russell W (1988) ldquoPossessions and the Extended SelfrdquoJournal of Consumer Research 15 (2) 139ndash67

Bem Daryl J (1972) Self-Perception Theory Stanford CAStanford University Press

Berridge Kent C (2009) ldquolsquoLikingrsquo and lsquoWantingrsquo Food RewardsBrain Substrates and Roles in Eating Disordersrdquo Physiologyamp Behavior 97 (5) 537ndash50

Bloch Peter H (1995) ldquoSeeking the Ideal Form Product Designand Consumer Responserdquo Journal of Marketing 59 (July)16ndash29

Bloch Peter H Frederic F Brunel and Todd J Arnold (2003)ldquoIndividual Differences in the Centrality of Visual ProductAesthetics Concept and Measurementrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 29 (4) 551ndash65

Bolton Lisa E and Joseph W Alba (2012) ldquoWhen Less Is MoreConsumer Aversion to Unused Utilityrdquo Journal of ConsumerPsychology 22 (3) 369ndash83

Brehm Jack W (1966) A Theory of Psychological ReactanceNew York Academic Press

Broniarczyk Susan M and Joseph W Alba (1994) ldquoThe Role ofConsumersrsquo Intuitions in Inference Makingrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 21 (3) 393ndash407

Cabanac Michel (1971) ldquoPhysiological Role of PleasurerdquoScience 173 (4002) 1103ndash7

mdashmdashmdash (1979) ldquoSensory Pleasurerdquo Quarterly Review of Biology54 (1) 1ndash29

mdashmdashmdash (1985) ldquoPreferring for Pleasurerdquo American Journal ofClinical Nutrition 42 (5) 1151ndash5

Chandon Pierre and Brian Wansink (2007) ldquoThe Biasing HealthHalos of Fast Food Restaurant Health Claims Lower CalorieEstimates and Higher Side-Dish Consumption IntentionsrdquoJournal of Consumer Research 34 (3) 301ndash14

Cornil Yann and Pierre Chandon (2016) ldquoPleasure as a Substitutefor Size How Multisensory Imagery Can Make PeopleHappier with Smaller Food Portionsrdquo Journal of MarketingResearch 53 (5) 847ndash64

Cleveland William S (1984) ldquoGraphical Methods for DataPresentation Full Scale Breaks Dot Charts and MultibasedLoggingrdquo The American Statistician 38 (4) 270ndash80

DiSalvo David (2009) ldquoThe Psychology of Plastic CouchCoversrdquo httpsneuronarrativewordpresscom20090119the-psychology-of-plastic-couch-covers

Dixie Products (2015) ldquoDixie Ultra Moments Ultimate Hostrdquohttpswwwyoutubecomwatchvfrac14wsBBq9PsgVI

Dutton Denis (2009) The Art Instinct Beauty Pleasure ampHuman Evolution New York Oxford University Press

Dweck Carol S (2000) Self-Theories Their Role in MotivationPersonality and Development Philadelphia Psychology Press

Dweck Carol S and Ellen L Leggett (1988) ldquoA Social-CognitiveApproach to Motivation and Personalityrdquo PsychologicalReview 95 (2) 256ndash73

Evans Lindsay (2010) ldquoWhy Buy Unbleached Paperrdquo httpwwwbrighthubcomenvironmentgreen-livingarticles16299aspx

Festinger Leon (1957) A Theory of Cognitive DissonanceStanford CA Stanford University Press

Frederick Shane and George Loewenstein (1999) ldquoHedonicAdaptationrdquo in Scientific Perspectives on EnjoymentSuffering and Well-Being ed Daniel Kahneman Ed Dienerand Norbert Schwartz New York Russell Sage Foundation302ndash29

Fuchs Christoph Martin Schreier and Stijn MJ van Osselaer(2015) ldquoThe Handmade Effect Whatrsquos Love Got to Do withItrdquo Journal of Marketing 79 (2) 98ndash110

Hagtvedt Henrik and Vanessa M Patrick (2008) ldquoArt InfusionThe Influence of Visual Art on the Perception and Evaluationof Consumer Productsrdquo Journal of Marketing Research 45(3) 379ndash89

AESTHETIC APPEAL PRETEST FOR ALL STIMULI USED IN STUDIES

Higher aesthetic Lower aesthetic Comparison a

Toilet paper (study 1) 377 (146) 253 (155) t(128) frac14 ndash469 p lt 001 a frac14 94Cupcake (study 2) 556 (106) 305 (146) t(128) frac14 ndash1120 p lt 001 a frac14 96Napkin (studies 3 and 6) 465 (153) 230 (144) t(128) frac14 ndash903 p lt 001 a frac14 97Napkin (study 4) 332 (145) 262 (154) t(128) frac14 ndash266 p lt 01 a frac14 92Napkin (study 5) 458 (159) 234 (151) t(128) frac14 ndash823 p lt 001 a frac14 97

NOTEmdashStandard deviations are in parentheses

In a between-subjects pretest participants were asked to rate each product along the following dimensions beautiful pretty artistic and aesthetically pleasing

(1 frac14 not at all 7 frac14 very much) which formed our aesthetic appeal index

APPENDIX B

20 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

Hayes Andrew F (2013) ldquoPROCESS A VersatileComputational Tool for Observed Variable MediationModeration and Conditional Process Modelingrdquo workingpaper School of Communication and Department ofPsychology Ohio State University Columbus OH 43210

Heller Steve (2015) ldquoA Grocery Store Illusion Is Getting You toSpend More Moneyrdquo httpwwwbusinessinsidercoma-grocery-store-illusion-is-getting-you-to-spend-more-money-2015-8ixzz3ifsOLBfG

Hurling Robert and Richard Shepherd (2003) ldquoEating with YourEyes Effect of Appearance on Expectations of LikingrdquoAppetite 41 (2) 167ndash74

Hoegg JoAndrea Joseph W Alba and Darren W Dahl (2010)ldquoThe Good the Bad and the Ugly Influence of Aesthetics onProduct Feature Judgmentsrdquo Journal of ConsumerPsychology 20 (4) 419ndash30

Johnson Palmer O and Jerzy Neyman (1936) ldquoTests of CertainLinear Hypotheses and Their Applications to SomeEducational Problemsrdquo Statistical Research Memoirs 157ndash93

Kahneman Daniel and Amos Tversky (1979) ldquoProspect TheoryAn Analysis of Decision under Riskrdquo Econometrica 47 (2)263ndash91

Kampe Knut K W Chris D Frith Raymond J Dolan and UtaFrith (2001) ldquoPsychology Reward Value of Attractivenessand Gazerdquo Nature 413 (6856) 589

Kelley Harold H (1967) ldquoAttribution Theory in SocialPsychologyrdquo in Nebraska Symposium of Motivation Vol 15ed D Levine Lincoln University of Nebraska Press192ndash238

Kirmani Amna (1990) ldquoThe Effect of Perceived AdvertisingCosts on Brand Perceptionsrdquo Journal of Consumer Research17 (2) 160ndash71

Kirmani Amna Michelle P Lee and Carolyn Yoon (2004)ldquoProcedural Priming Effects on Spontaneous InferenceFormationrdquo Journal of Economic Psychology 25 (6)859ndash75

Kruger Justin Derrick Wirtz Leaf Van Boven and T WilliamAltermatt (2004) ldquoThe Effort Heuristicrdquo Journal ofExperimental Social Psychology 40 (1) 91ndash8

Lee Leonard and Claire I Tsai (2014) ldquoHow Price PromotionsInfluence Postpurchase Consumption Experience overTimerdquo Journal of Consumer Research 40 (5) 943ndash59

Levy Sheri R Steven J Stroessner and Carol S Dweck (1998)ldquoStereotype Formation and Endorsement The Role ofImplicit Theoriesrdquo Journal of Personality and SocialPsychology 74 (6) 1421ndash36

Lisjak Monika Andrea Bonezzi Soo Kim and Derek D Rucker(2015) ldquoPerils of Compensatory Consumption Within-Domain Compensation Undermines Subsequent Self-Regulationrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 41 (5)1186ndash203

Loewenstein George (1987) ldquoAnticipation and the Valuation ofDelayed Consumptionrdquo Economic Journal 97 (September)666ndash84

Maritain Jacques (1966) ldquoBeauty and Imitationrdquo in A ModernBook of Esthetics ed Melvin Rader New York HoltRinehart amp Winston 27ndash34

McFerran Brent Darren W Dahl Gavan J Fitzsimons andAndrea C Morales (2010) ldquoIrsquoll Have What Shersquos HavingEffects of Social Influence and Body Type on the FoodChoices of Othersrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 36 (6)915ndash29

Morales Andrea C (2005) ldquoGiving Firms an lsquoErsquo for EffortConsumer Responses to High-Effort Firmsrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 31 (4) 806ndash12

Moreau C Page Leff Bonney and Kelly B Herd (2011) ldquoItrsquos theThought (and the Effort) That Counts How Customizing forOthers Differs from Customizing for Oneselfrdquo Journal ofMarketing 75 (5) 120ndash33

Norton Michael I Daniel Mochon and Dan Ariely (2012) ldquoThelsquoIkearsquo Effect When Labor Leads to Loverdquo Journal ofConsumer Psychology 22 (July) 453ndash60

Page Christine and Paul M Herr (2002) ldquoAn Investigation ofthe Processes by Which Product Design and Brand StrengthInteract to Determine Initial Affect and QualityJudgmentsrdquo Journal of Consumer Psychology 12 (2)133ndash47

Raghubir Priya and Eric A Greenleaf (2006) ldquoRatios inProportion What Should the Shape of the Package BerdquoJournal of Marketing 70 (2) 95ndash107

Raghunathan Rajagopal Rebecca Walker Naylor and Wayne DHoyer (2006) ldquoThe Unhealthy frac14 Tasty Intuition and ItsEffects on Taste Inferences Enjoyment and Choice of FoodProductsrdquo Journal of Marketing 70 (4) 170ndash84

Reber Rolf Norbert Schwarz and Piotr Winkielman (2004)ldquoProcessing Fluency and Aesthetic Pleasure Is Beauty in thePerceiverrsquos Processing Experiencerdquo Personality and SocialPsychology Review 8 (4) 364ndash82

Reber Rolf Piotr Winkielman and Norbert Schwarz (1998)ldquoEffects of Perceptual Fluency on Affective JudgmentsrdquoPsychological Science 9 (1) 45ndash48

Reimann Martin Judith Zaichkowksy Carolin Neuhaus ThomasBender and Bernd Weber (2010) ldquoAesthetic PackageDesign A Behavioral Neural and PsychologicalInvestigationrdquo Journal of Consumer Psychology 20 (4)431ndash41

Santayana George (18961955) The Sense of Beauty New YorkDover

Scott Maura L Stephen M Nowlis Naomi Mandel and AndreaC Morales (2008) ldquoThe Effects of Reduced Food Size andPackage Size on the Consumption Behavior of Restrainedand Unrestrained Eatersrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 35(3) 391ndash405

Spencer Steven J Mark P Zanna and Geoffrey T Fong (2005)ldquoEstablishing a Causal Chain Why Experiments Are OftenMore Effective than Mediational Analyses in ExaminingPsychological Processesrdquo Journal of Personality and SocialPsychology 89 (6) 845ndash51

Spiller Stephen A Gavan J Fitzsimons John G Lynch Jr andGary H McClelland (2013) ldquoSpotlights Floodlights andthe Magic Number Zero Simple Effects Tests inModerated Regressionrdquo Journal of Marketing Research 50(2) 277ndash88

Thompson Debora V Rebecca W Hamilton and Roland T Rust(2005) ldquoFeature Fatigue When Product CapabilitiesBecome Too Much of a Good Thingrdquo Journal of MarketingResearch 42 (November) 431ndash42

Townsend Claudia and Suzanne B Shu (2010) ldquoWhen and HowAesthetics Influences Financial Decisionsrdquo Journal ofConsumer Psychology 20 (4) 452ndash58

Townsend Claudia and Sanjay Sood (2012) ldquoSelf-Affirmationthrough the Choice of Highly Aesthetic Productsrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 39 (2) 415ndash28

Veryzer Robert W and J Wesley Hutchinson (1998) ldquoTheInfluence of Unity and Prototypicality on Aesthetic

WU ET AL 21

Responses to New Product Designsrdquo Journal of ConsumerResearch 24 (4) 374ndash94

Wada Yuji Carlos Arce-Lopera Tomohiro Masuda AtsushiKimura Ippeita Dan Sho-ichi Goto Daisuke Tsuzuki andKatsunori Okajima (2010) ldquoInfluence of LuminanceDistribution on the Appetizingly Fresh Appearance ofCabbagerdquo Appetite 54 (2) 363ndash68

Weiner Bernard (2000) ldquoAttributional Thoughts and ConsumerBehaviorrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 27 (December)382ndash87

Witz Anne Chris Warhurst and Dennis Nickson (2003) ldquoTheLabour of Aesthetics and The Aesthetics of OrganizationrdquoOrganization 10 (1) 33ndash54

Yamamoto Mel and David R Lambert (1994) ldquoThe Impact ofProduct Aesthetics on the Evaluation of Industrial ProductsrdquoJournal of Product Innovation Management 11 (4) 309ndash24

Yang Sha and Priya Raghubir (2005) ldquoCan Bottles SpeakVolumes The Effect of Package Shape on How Much toBuyrdquo Journal of Retailing 81 (4) 269ndash82

22 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

  • ucx057-FN1
  • ucx057-FN2
  • ucx057-FN3
  • ucx057-FN4
  • app1
  • app2
  • ucx057-TF1
  • ucx057-TF2
Page 5: It’s Too Pretty to Use! When and How Enhanced Product ...gavan/bio/GJF_articles/...testing the prediction that aesthetic products can elicit greater perceptions of effort. In line

also emerge one based on the decrements in beauty thathighly aesthetic products undergo when their aestheticqualities are compromised through consumption We pro-pose that these two processes will operate in tandem toshape the affective responses associated with the consump-tion of aesthetic products Formally

H3 Consumption of a higher (vs lower) aesthetic nondura-

ble product will negatively affect emotional outcomes

(enjoyment and affect)

H4a The effect of consuming a higher (vs lower) aesthetic

nondurable product on emotional outcomes will be

mediated in serial by design andor production effort

inferences and concerns over having destroyed such

effort as a result of consumption

H4b The effect of consuming a higher (vs lower) aesthetic

nondurable product on emotional outcomes will be

mediated by changes in beauty occurring as a result of

consumption

SUMMARY AND OVERVIEW OF STUDIES

In sum our conceptual model posits that different pro-cesses underlie consumer responses to highly aesthetic prod-ucts depending on whether or not consumption has takenplace Before consumption we expect higher effort infer-ences attributed to the creation of aesthetic products to elicitstronger concerns that such effort would be destroyed byconsumption lowering consumption likelihood After con-sumption in addition to these effort destruction concernsconsumers will also be confronted with the reality that theaesthetic appeal of the product has been visibly compromisedthrough usage Because beautiful products are inherentlypleasurable and rewarding the greater losses of beauty asso-ciated with aesthetic product usage will drive negative affectand reduce consumption enjoyment Importantly given thatnondurable products are designed for immediate consump-tion we do not expect anticipated shifts in aesthetic appealalone or concerns over what the product will look like post-consumption to play a significant role in stopping consumersfrom using them in the first place These decrements inbeauty are not evident before consumption when the highlyaesthetic product is still in pristine beautiful condition butinstead are salient only post-consumption

We test our predictions in field and laboratory studiesacross multiple consumption contexts summarized intable 2 Study 1 a field experiment provides an initialdemonstration of the inhibiting effect of product aestheticson usage behavior for real consumers Study 2 conceptu-ally replicates this effect in the lab using a different prod-uct and measure of consumption and provides preliminaryevidence that consumption of an aesthetic product can neg-atively impact product enjoyment Studies 3 4 and 5 pro-vide convergent support for effort inferences as a keydriver of reduced aesthetic product usage through

mediation (study 3) moderation by an effort intervention(study 4) and the theoretically relevant individual differ-ence of implicit self-theories (study 5) Of note effort in-ferences broadly speaking encompass both the inferencesabout the amount of effort required to make a productbeautiful as well as the inferences about the destruction ofsuch effort In our final two studies we hold usage constantto focus on the downstream consequences of aestheticproduct usage and shed light on the processes underlyingpost-consumption affect Study 6A establishes that the con-sumption of a higher (vs lower) aesthetic product resultsin larger losses of beauty and that such beauty decrementsnegatively impact post-consumption emotions while study6B tests the full conceptual model by integrating changesin beauty and effort inferences into emotional reactionslinked to the consumption experience The table inappendix B summarizes the results of a pretest showingthat all of the higher (vs lower) aesthetic stimuli utilized inour studies have greater aesthetic appeal Thus aestheticsmanipulation checks are not discussed in specific studies

STUDY 1 ESTABLISHING THEINHIBITING EFFECT OF ENHANCED

AESTHETICS ON USAGE IN THE FIELD

The goal of study 1 is to provide initial evidence that en-hanced product aesthetics can have an inhibiting effect onusage behavior in a real-world context We worked with afitness studio to conduct a field experiment that involvedmonitoring client toilet paper use over two weeks We an-ticipated that clients would use less toilet paper when itwas more (vs less) aesthetically appealing Importantlywe used the exact same brand and type of toilet paper inboth conditions which allowed us to vary its aestheticswhile holding constant all other unrelated factors such asquality texture and absorbency

Method

Participants and Procedure We manipulated whetherthe individual bathroom at a fitness studio located in thesouthwestern United States was stocked with plain whitetoilet paper (lower aesthetic condition) or white toilet paperfeaturing festive holiday motifs (higher aesthetic conditionsee appendix A row 1 for images) which was appropriateat the time of data collection as the study took place twoweeks before Christmas1 Of note in addition to the pretestassessing different levels of aesthetic appeal between thetwo different types of toilet paper another between-subjects

1 In coordinating the field study we originally made plans to run attwo locations to counterbalance the order of presentation of the toiletpaper (lower aesthetic first vs higher aesthetic first) Unfortunatelythe second studio encountered plumbing issues during the course ofthe study invalidating the data thereby yielding results from only onestudio

WU ET AL 5

TA

BL

E2

ST

UD

YO

VE

RV

IEW

Stu

dy

Conte

xt

Pro

duct

Desig

nD

ependentvariable

(s)

Sta

tisticalc

ontr

ols

Fin

din

gs

1F

ield

Toile

tpaper

bull2

(aest

hetic

shig

her

vs

low

er)

bullN

um

ber

ofsheets

used

bullB

asic

eff

ect

Aesth

etics

reduced

the

avera

ge

num

ber

of

sheets

used

(37

0vs

66

6plt

001)

2Lab

Cupcake

bull2

(aest

hetic

shig

her

vs

low

er)

hunger

(continuous)

bullC

onsum

ption

am

ount

bullC

onsum

ption

enjo

ym

ent

bullP

erc

eiv

ed

expense

bullM

od

era

tio

no

fb

asic

eff

ect

Aesth

etics

hunger

inte

rac-

tion

(pfrac14

03)

aesth

etics

reduce

dconsum

ption

ofth

ecup-

cake

prim

arily

am

ong

hungry

indiv

iduals

bullP

ost-

co

nsu

mp

tio

nco

nseq

uen

ces

Aesth

etics

hunger

inte

raction

(pfrac14

01)

aesth

etic

sre

duce

denjo

ymentofth

ecupcake

prim

arily

am

ong

hungry

indiv

iduals

3S

imula

tion

Paper

napkin

bull2

(aest

hetic

shig

her

vs

low

er)

bullU

sage

likelih

ood

bullE

ffort

infe

rences

bullC

oncern

sabouteffort

destr

uctio

n

bullW

illin

gness

topay

bullB

asic

eff

ect

Aesth

etics

reduced

usage

likelih

ood

(58

1vs62

8plt

001)

incr

eased

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(38

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01)

and

incre

ased

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uction

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4vs19

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9])

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her

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17

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001)

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(34

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001)

and

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been

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001)

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by

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on

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ns

(95

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[235

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rences

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sth

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oyed

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(95

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[06

23])

6 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

pretest (n frac14 100) revealed that people liked the higher (vslower) aesthetic toilet paper and its design more (Mhigher

aesthetic frac14 457 vs Mlower aesthetic frac14 400 t(98) frac14 ndash195pfrac14 05 rfrac14 88)

The studio owner provided us with the number of peoplewho attended classes each week and employees who re-mained blind to our research hypotheses replenished thetoilet paper as needed A total of 772 clients visited the stu-dio over the course of the studymdash387 in the lower aestheticcondition (week 1) and 385 in the higher aesthetic condi-tion (week 2) Clients were unaware that a study was beingconducted

Results and Discussion

As predicted clients used less of the more aestheticallyappealing toilet paper 2578 total sheets of the lower aes-thetic toilet paper were used while only 1425 sheets of thehigher aesthetic toilet paper were used Because we wereprovided with the number of class attendees we were alsoable to calculate average usage per client each client in thelower aesthetic condition used an average of 666 sheetswhile each client in the higher aesthetic condition used an av-erage of 370 sheets (v2 (1)frac14 32616 (n frac14 772) p lt 001)

Discussion We find preliminary evidence that en-hanced product aesthetics can reduce usage behaviorswhile controlling for differences in paper quality and thetotal number of clients Having provided a demonstrationof this phenomenon in an ecologically valid setting the re-maining studies replicate and generalize this finding andidentify its underlying mechanism in a more controlledenvironment

STUDY 2 THE IMPACT OF AESTHETICSON FOOD CONSUMPTION AND

ENJOYMENT

The purpose of study 2 was to conceptually replicatestudy 1 in a product category in which aesthetics play amajor role food A growing body of research has docu-mented the profound influence that food presentation hason how we evaluate what we eat (Hurling and Shepherd2003 Wada et al 2010) We chose cupcakes as our focalstimuli because they are a highly familiar dessert that canbe made more aesthetically appealing (ie higher aes-thetics with frosting in the shape of a rose) or more plain(ie lower aesthetics with smooth frosting) while holdingconstant aesthetically unrelated factors such as flavor andtaste (see appendix A row 2 for images) Consistent withthe extant aesthetics literature a pretest of the cupcakesused in study 2 revealed that people were more likely tochoose to purchase the higher (vs lower) aesthetic cupcakefor consumption in the future providing an even strongertest of our predictions about higher aesthetics lowering

consumption Details of this pretest are available in theweb appendix

Importantly given the inherent nature of food we arecognizant of baseline individual differences that could af-fect the amount consumed (Lisjak et al 2015) We ran thisstudy throughout the day (from 10 am to 5 pm) acrossmultiple days so we accounted for individual differencesin hunger and measured state hunger at the start of thestudy We expect that the inhibiting effect of aesthetics onconsumption will be greatest among hungry participantsas the need to exhibit restraint should be observed onlyamong those motivated to engage in consumption in thefirst place We do not expect differences in consumptionamong satiated participants as they should have a low de-sire to eat regardless of aesthetics

Notably an alternative explanation is that people feel in-hibited from consuming highly aesthetic products becausethey tend to cost more and not because of concerns overdestroying effort Thus we also aim to replicate study 1rsquosfindings while controlling for perceived expense

Finally we seek to provide initial evidence that the con-sumption of a highly aesthetic product will negatively af-fect how much participants enjoy the consumptionexperience a notion we explore in depth in study 6 In linewith our predictions for consumption amount we expectthe negative influence of food aesthetics on post-consumption affect to be greatest among hungry individ-uals as hunger leads people to not only eat more but toalso enjoy their food more (Berridge 2009 Cabanac 19711979 1985) Thus changes in the ability to derive enjoy-ment should be observed only among those motivated toengage in consumption in the first place

Method

Participants and Procedure One hundred eighty-threeundergraduate students from a southwestern university par-ticipated in a 2 (aesthetics higher vs lower) continuous(hunger) between-subjects study in exchange for partialcourse credit Five participants were excluded from theanalysis four had missing data on the dependent measuresand one had missing data on hunger This left a sample of178 participants (52 female [one did not report gender]median age frac14 21 ages 18ndash48)

Participants first indicated their current level of hunger(1 frac14 not at all hungry 7 frac14 very hungry) They were thentold that the goal of the study was to explore which foodsgo best with different videos and that they would be eatingvanilla cupcakes Participants were randomly assigned toeither the higher or lower aesthetic condition To ensurethey did not discount the overall consumption experiencebecause they lacked freedom of choice (Brehm 1966)within each aesthetic condition they chose either a pink orcream-colored cupcake to eat Experimenters preweighedeach cupcake before the start of each session

WU ET AL 7

Next participants were told to watch a 90 second videofeaturing scenes from around the world while they ate theircupcake and that they were free to eat as much or as littleof the cupcake as they liked After finishing the video theremains of the cupcake were collected and weighed in aseparate room Participants then rated how much they en-joyed the cupcake (1 frac14 not at all 7 frac14 very much so) andcompleted filler measures that assessed how interesting thevideo was and how much they liked cupcakes in generalFinally they rated how expensive they thought the cupcakewas (1 frac14 not at all expensive 7 frac14 very expensive)

Results and Discussion

We predicted that for consumers who were motivated toconsume (ie hungry individuals) higher aesthetics wouldcurb consumption quantity and reduce consumption enjoy-ment effects that were expected to hold even when wecontrolled for perceived expense

Consumption Amount We first log-transformed the de-pendent variable to normalize the distribution (Cleveland1984) Next we performed a 2 (aesthetics condition) continuous (hunger) multiple regression analysis on thelogged consumption amount Regressing this loggedamount on the aesthetics manipulation mean-centered lev-els of hunger and their interaction revealed a directionalsimple effect of aesthetics at the mean level of hunger(b frac14 ndash10 t(174) frac14 ndash126 p frac14 21) such that participantsin the higher aesthetic condition consumed less of the cup-cake Most importantly the interaction was also significant(b frac14 ndash10 t(174) frac14 ndash213 p frac14 03) Decomposing the inter-action in the lower aesthetic (smooth frosting) condition we

found a significant effect of hunger (b frac14 15 t(174) frac14446 p lt 001) such that hungry (vs satiated) individualsconsumed more of the cupcake However attesting to the in-hibitory nature of beautiful products in the higher aesthetic(rose frosting) condition the effect of hunger was not signifi-cant (b frac14 05 t(174) frac14 129 p frac14 20) Because self-reportedhunger was measured on a 1 to 7 scale (M frac14 425 SDfrac14 168median frac14 4) we ran a floodlight analysis using the Johnson-Neyman (1936) technique to identify the range of hunger forwhich the simple effect of aesthetics was significant (figure 1see also Spiller et al 2013) This analysis revealed a signifi-cant reduction in consumption of the higher (vs lower) aes-thetic cupcake for any value of hunger above 492 (at p lt05) Thus despite a higher baseline desire to eat hungry indi-viduals actively refrained from consumption when the cup-cake was more aesthetically appealing Consistent with ourpredictions such effects were not observed among satiated in-dividuals who displayed low motivation to eat regardless ofthe cupcakersquos appearance

Enjoyment of the Cupcake A 2 continuous regres-sion on cupcake enjoyment revealed only a significant in-teraction (b frac14 ndash41 t(174) frac14 ndash256 p frac14 01 see figure 2)In the lower aesthetic condition (b frac14 45 t(174) frac14 405p lt 001) hungry (vs satiated) individuals enjoyed thecupcake more There was no effect of hunger in the higheraesthetic condition (bfrac14 04 t(174) lt 1 ns) Floodlightanalysis revealed that for all values of hunger above 466participants in the higher aesthetic condition enjoyed thecupcake significantly less (p lt 05)

Perceived Expense A 2 continuous regression onperceived expense of the cupcake revealed only a signifi-cant simple effect of aesthetics at the mean level of hunger

FIGURE 1

AESTHETICS HUNGER ON CONSUMPTION AMOUNT (STUDY 2)

8 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

(p lt 001) such that the higher aesthetic cupcake was seenas more expensive Most importantly when we controlledfor expense the 2 continuous interactions and focal ef-fects continue to hold for consumption amount (p lt 04)and cupcake enjoyment (p lt 01) Finally a moderatedmediation analysis (model 8 Hayes 2013) revealed thatperceived expense did not mediate either amount con-sumed (b frac14 ndash01 95 CI [ndash08 05]) or degree of enjoy-ment (b frac14 12 95 CI [ndash05 35]) among hungryindividuals revealing that inferred monetary value was notdriving our effects

Discussion Though our pretest showed that consumerswere more likely to choose the higher aesthetic cupcake avery different pattern of results emerged with consumptionamount and consumption enjoyment Hungry participantsactively inhibited their consumption and ate less in thehigher aesthetic rose frosting condition In addition to eat-ing less these individuals experienced lower consumptionenjoyment when the cupcake was highly aesthetic By con-ceptually replicating the previous studyrsquos results with anew product we increase the generalizability of our find-ings to food a domain for which visual presentation playsa fundamental role We also provide initial evidence thatconsumption of highly aesthetic products can carry nega-tive implications for the consumption experience a notionwe explore in greater depth in studies 6A and 6B These ef-fects continued to hold even when we controlled for per-ceived expense thus rendering such an alternative accountless likely

Having reliably demonstrated the inhibiting effect ofaesthetics on consumption across two product categorieswe next elucidate the underlying process through three

different approaches First we provide evidence for ourproposed mechanism via mediation (study 3) Second wedirectly manipulate effort inferences to show process bymoderation (study 4) and third we identify a theoreticallygrounded individual difference moderator (study 5)

STUDY 3 THE MEDIATING ROLE OFEFFORT INFERENCES AND EFFORT

DESTRUCTION

The goal of study 3 is to replicate our focal effect in anew product domain paper napkins and to shed light onthe mechanism underlying consumption likelihood by test-ing the driving role of effort inferences and effort destruc-tion Consistent with our theorizing we predict that thehigher inferences of effort elicited by highly aestheticproducts will lead to stronger concerns that such effortwould be destroyed in the consumption process resultingin lower usage likelihood Notably this is a conservativecontext in which to assess effort inferences given that pa-per napkins are machine-manufactured and so differencesin perceived effort are quite subtle Further by shifting out-side of the food domain to even subtler stimuli we canmore confidently ensure that our findings are not merelyartifacts of the stimuli we have chosen (although handmadehighly aesthetic foods such as the cupcakes used in study2 are ubiquitous in the marketplace)

Method

Participants and Procedure Two hundred sixty partic-ipants were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk toparticipate in a two-cell (aesthetics higher vs lower)

FIGURE 2

AESTHETICS HUNGER ON CUPCAKE ENJOYMENT (STUDY 2)

WU ET AL 9

between-subjects study in exchange for payment Two in-dividuals participated in this study twice and six had miss-ing data on the dependent measures and were excludedfrom the analysis yielding a final sample of 252 partici-pants (44 female [five did not report gender] medianage frac14 31 ages 19ndash69)

Participants were presented with a guided visualizationscenario in which they imagined they were at a local bak-ery getting breakfast and doing work As they were work-ing they accidentally spilled coffee all over theirdocuments prompting them to look toward the counter tosee how they could clean up the spill We presented a situa-tion in which the destruction of the product paper napkinswas imminent to assess how such an outcome shapes pref-erences to consume aesthetically appealing productsParticipants were randomly assigned to either the higher orlower aesthetic condition Those in the higher aestheticcondition saw a stack of floral napkins at the counter toclean up the spill while those in the lower aesthetic condi-tion saw a stack of plain white napkins (see appendix Arow 3 for images) Additional details of the procedure areavailable in the web appendix Subsequently participantsindicated to what extent they would use the (floral orwhite) napkins to clean up the spill (1 frac14 definitely no 7 frac14definitely yes) how likely they would be to use the napkinsto clean up the spill (1 frac14 very unlikely 7 frac14 very likely)and how many napkins they would use to clean up the spill(1 frac14 none at all 7 frac14 very many) which formed our usagelikelihood index (afrac14 81) Next to examine effort infer-ences we asked participants how much effort they thoughtwent into making the napkins (1 frac14 none at all 7 frac14 quite abit) To examine concerns about effort destruction weasked participants to rate their agreement with the state-ment ldquoI felt like I was destroying someonersquos effort by usingthe napkinsrdquo (1 frac14 strongly disagree 7 frac14 stronglyagree) Finally to again show that inferred monetary valueis not driving our effects participants indicated how muchthey would be willing to pay for a pack of the napkins inthe scenario (ie dollar value)

Results and Discussion

We predicted that participants would be less likely touse the higher aesthetic napkins and that this effect wouldbe mediated in serial by effort inferences and concernsover destroying such effort

Usage Likelihood A one-way ANOVA on the usagelikelihood index indicated that participants were less likelyto use the higher aesthetic floral napkins to clean up thespill (Mhigher aesthetic frac14 581 vs Mlower aesthetic frac14 628 F(1250) frac14 1592 p lt 001) an effect that continues to holdeven when we controlled for willingness to pay for thenapkins (p lt 001)

Effort Inferences A one-way ANOVA on effort infer-ences indicated that participants ascribed greater effort to thehigher aesthetic napkins (Mhigher frac14 380 vs Mlower frac14 319F(1 250) frac14 753 p lt 01) even when we controlled for will-ingness to pay (p lt 02)

Effort Destruction A one-way ANOVA on concernsabout effort destruction indicated that participants hadstronger concerns effort would be destroyed in the higheraesthetic condition (Mhigher frac14 254 vs Mlower frac14 195 F(1250) frac14 837 p lt 01) Again this effect holds even whenwe controlled for willingness to pay (p lt 02)

Mediation We conducted a serial multiple mediatormodel (model 6 Hayes 2013) testing our proposed media-tion path where effort inferences and concerns about ef-fort destruction served as serial mediators productaesthetics effort inferences concerns about the de-struction of effort usage likelihood Consistent withour predictions the indirect effect of aesthetics on usagelikelihood through effort inferences and concerns abouteffort destruction was significant (b frac14 ndash03 95 CI [ndash09 ndash01]) In addition the indirect effect of aesthetics onusage likelihood through effort destruction alone was sig-nificant (b frac14 ndash04 95 CI [ndash14 ndash003]) suggesting thismediator works serially but also individually Consistentwith study 2 willingness to pay did not mediate usagelikelihood (b frac14 01 95 CI [ndash03 06]) providing fur-ther evidence that inferred monetary value was not drivingour effects In sum product aesthetics affected usage like-lihood through effort inferences and concerns that onewould be destroying this effort

Discussion In study 3 using a new subtler contextwe show that the greater perceptions of effort ascribed tothe creation of higher aesthetic napkins led to stronger con-cerns that such effort would inevitably be destroyed in theconsumption process which ultimately discouraged usageFurther we once again demonstrate that inferred monetaryvalue does not account for our results Next we manipulateeffort inferences directly to show that shifting the per-ceived effort required to make an aesthetic product willmitigate our focal effect

STUDY 4 THE MODERATING ROLE OFEFFORT INFERENCES

Given the underlying role of effort in inhibiting the con-sumption of highly aesthetic products it follows that this re-duced consumption should be attenuated if the beautifulproduct does not trigger such effort inferences in the firstplace Thus in study 4 we manipulated information aboutthe products to directly influence effort inferences comple-menting study 3 by providing process evidence through mod-eration (Spencer Zanna and Fong 2005) Notably unlikeother studies in the current article study 4 utilizes a

10 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

comparative design in which participants are presented withboth higher and lower aesthetic products at once and areasked to make a choice between them This design allowsus to extend the generalizability of our findings to contextswhere consumers are faced with products of differing levelsof aesthetic appeal and have to choose one to immediatelyconsume Moreover study 4 replaces floral napkins withturquoise napkins in the higher aesthetic condition therebyusing especially subtle aesthetic stimuli to reveal that evenin the absence of product design changes in aesthetic ap-peal through other means (eg color) can shape consump-tion decisions in the same manner

Finally study 4 helps us test the alternative explanationthat concerns over how the product will look after usageor anticipated decrements in the productrsquos beauty aloneare driving lower consumption likelihood independent ofeffort inferences If this is the case the likelihood of usingaesthetically appealing products should not differ as afunction of expended effort since consumers should al-ways be less likely to use a beautiful product irrespectiveof the effort involved in its creation However if consump-tion likelihood is indeed affected by inferred effort thenchanges in inferred effort should systematically impactconsumption likelihood a relationship we examine directlyin study 4

Method

Participants and Procedure Two hundred forty-sixparticipants were recruited from Amazon MechanicalTurk to participate in a two-cell (intervention conditionno information control vs higher aesthetics frac14 lower ef-fort) between-subjects study in exchange for paymentSeven people participated in this study twice and wereexcluded yielding a final sample of 239 participants (48female [six did not report gender] median age frac14 31 ages18ndash69)

Study 4 used the same guided visualization scenario asstudy 3 where participants imagined visiting their localbakery and accidentally spilling coffee while they wereworking However this time they saw two separatestacks of napkins they could use to clean up the spillThe napkins were turquoise (higher aesthetic option) orplain white (lower aesthetic option see appendix A row4 for images) and both napkin images were presented atonce Additional details are available in the webappendix

At this point participants in the control condition pro-ceeded directly to a choice task in which they indicated whichtype of napkin they would use to clean up the spill On theother hand participants in the higher aestheticsfrac14 lower effortcondition were first told that as they looked at the napkinsthey recalled that a friend who used to work for this bakeryhad told them that it actually takes less effort and time forcompanies to manufacture the blue napkins than it does to

make and bleach the white ones2 Next participants in thislower effort condition completed the choice task After theirchoice all participants indicated how much they thought thenapkins cost (1 frac14 very little 7 frac14 quite a lot)

Results and Discussion

Conceptually replicating prior studies in the controlcondition where no effort inferences were made salientparticipants were less likely to choose the higher aestheticblue napkins to clean up the spill (1983 blue vs8017white) However this lower usage likelihood was re-versed when the higher aesthetic blue napkins elicitedlower perceptions of effort (6356blue vs 3644white v2

(1) frac14 4707 (n frac14 239) p lt 001) Importantly the choiceeffects continue to hold when we control for perceived cost(p lt 001)

Discussion Study 4 offers convergent support for theproposed underlying process by showing that the reducedconsumption of highly aesthetic products is reversed whenthese products elicit lower effort inferences As revealedby the pretest (see footnote 2) in the control conditionwhere no effort information was made salient participantsascribed greater effort to the higher aesthetic blue napkinand were less likely to use it but when this blue napkinwas thought to require less effort to produce participantsbecame more likely to use it Notably unlike our priorstudies study 4 employed a comparative design in whichparticipants saw higher and lower aesthetic options at thesame time mirroring real life where consumers encountermultiple product offerings with differing aesthetic appealand have to choose one to use

These results also suggest that anticipated decrements inbeauty alone or concerns over what the aesthetic productwill look like after consumption are unlikely to inhibitconsumption Such projected losses of beauty are not evi-dent before consumption has occurred when the highlyaesthetic product is still in pristine beautiful condition Ifexpected drops in the aesthetic appeal of the product alonehad been responsible for driving reduced consumption in-dividuals would have been equally inhibited from using thehigher aesthetic napkin irrespective of effort inferencesSuch an alternative is inconsistent with the reversal in us-age likelihood we observed in the higher aesthetics frac14lower effort condition since the aesthetic appeal of the

2 A pretest confirmed the validity of study 4rsquos effort manipulationParticipants (n frac14 201) completed a 2 (aesthetics) 2 (effort interven-tion) between-subjects study where they read the same scenario butwere randomly assigned a napkin choice and asked to make effortinferences about the napkin Results revealed a significant interaction(p lt 001) Whereas in the control condition the higher aesthetic nap-kin elicited higher perceptions of effort (Mcontrol higher aesthetic frac14 391vs Mcontrol lower aesthetic frac14 335 p lt 04) this pattern reversed in thelow effort condition (Mlow effort higher aesthetic frac14 302 vs Mlow effort lower

aesthetic frac14 431 p lt 001) Procedural details and full results are avail-able in the web appendix

WU ET AL 11

napkins remained constant only the perceived effort hadchanged Thus we provide further evidence for the prem-ise that consumers strongly link aesthetics and effort andshow that for consumption to be reduced the highly aes-thetic product must signal higher effort in addition to itsaesthetic qualities

Notably while our results support the notion that antici-pated drops in beauty alone are insufficient to lead to a re-duction in consumption likelihood it is also worthmentioning that because effort and beauty are inextricablylinked constructs concerns over destroying effort mayshare to some extent overlapping variance with concernsover the imminent losses of beauty This suggests that inother contexts anticipated decrements in beauty may alsoplay a role in driving usage potentially for products of ex-treme aesthetic appeal that are more defined by theirbeauty as opposed to the colored napkins used hereNonetheless in the current context the results demonstratethat shifting perceptions about the amount of effort neededto create a higher aesthetic product is sufficient to over-come any inhibition to consume it

We next provide additional evidence for our conceptual-ization by investigating a theoretically driven individualdifference that affects the degree to which effort is inher-ently appreciated and by extension should influence deci-sions to use highly aesthetic products

STUDY 5 THE ROLE OF IMPLICIT SELF-THEORIES IN SHAPING USAGE

Based on our theory because the higher effort as-cribed to beautiful products underlies their lower likeli-hood of usage such a reduction should be moderated bythe degree to which effort is intrinsically valued or peo-plersquos implicit self-theories According to research on im-plicit self-theories entity theorists view their personalqualities as stable and unable to be enhanced by self-improvement while incremental theorists view thesequalities as flexible and able to be cultivated through la-bor and effort (Dweck 2000) Similarly entity theoriststend to view effort as ineffective and pointless while in-cremental theorists are more optimistic that their effortscarry intrinsic value and will eventually bear fruit(Dweck and Leggett 1988)

We propose that beyond the recognition of personal ef-fort implicit self-theories affect the extent to which con-sumers appreciate othersrsquo effort and by extension theeffort that goes into the creation of highly aesthetic prod-ucts To test this prediction we conducted a correlationalstudy examining the relationship between implicit self-theories and the propensity to appreciate effort-laden prod-ucts Participants (n frac14 134) first completed the implicitself-theories scale (Levy Stroessner and Dweck 1998)where higher (lower) scores indicate greater endorsement

of incremental (entity) self-theory Next they indicatedtheir agreement with five items reflecting appreciation forothersrsquo effort (eg I notice when people work really hardto create something3 all anchored at 1 frac14 strongly disagree7 frac14 strongly agree a frac14 91) We found a significant posi-tive correlation (r frac14 23 p lt 01) such that incrementallyoriented individuals were more likely to appreciate thingsthat reflect a great deal of effort

Thus based on this appreciation for othersrsquo effort in study5 we predict that incremental theorists will be less likely toconsume products that are highly aesthetic and by extensionladen with effort By contrast because entity theorists havelower intrinsic appreciation for effort they will be equallylikely to use a product regardless of its aesthetic appeal

Method

Participants and Procedure One hundred eighty-seven undergraduate students from a southwesternuniversity participated in a 2 (aesthetics higher vs lower) continuous (implicit self-theories) between-subjectsstudy in exchange for partial course credit Two partici-pants reported having a gluten allergy that prevented themfrom consuming the goldfish crackers accompanying thenapkins An additional 11 participants were excluded fromthe analysismdashone respondent participated in this studytwice and 10 had missing data on implicit self-theorieswhich we had measured in a separate presurvey severalweeks prior to the focal study Thus the final sample com-prised 174 participants (52 female [four did not reportgender] median age frac14 21 ages 18ndash41)

Study 5 employed the same cover story about pairingfoods with videos used in study 2 but this time usingPepperidge Farm goldfish crackers We chose these crack-ers because they are slightly messy to eatmdashpeople wouldwant to use a napkin but did not necessarily have to creat-ing an ideal context within which to test our hypothesesParticipants received an individual pack of goldfish crack-ers along with a paper napkin which was either decorativewith a white background (higher aesthetic condition) orplain white (lower aesthetic condition) (both 61=2 inchessquare see appendix A row 5 for images) Importantlythe experimenter gave no explicit instructions on what to dowith this napkin Of note in addition to the pretest assessingdifferent levels of aesthetic appeal between the two napkinsanother between-subjects pretest (n frac14 81) showed that partic-ipants liked the higher (vs lower) aesthetic napkin and its de-sign more (Mhigher aesthetic frac14 516 vs Mlower aesthetic frac14 365t(79) frac14 ndash516 p lt 001 r frac14 87) but both napkins were

3 The other items were (2) I really appreciate it when somebodytakes the time and effort to make something (3) I treasure somethingmore when I know a lot of effort has gone into creating it (4) I havean appreciation for products that reflect a great deal of effort on themakerrsquos part and (5) I value something more when I know it took alot of time and energy to produce

12 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

rated as equally versatile in their usage (Mhigher aesthetic frac14 580vs Mlower aesthetic frac14 591 t(79) frac14 47 p gt 60 a frac14 91)Additional pretest details are available in the web appendix

Participants were told to watch a 35 minute video onwildlife animals while they ate the crackers and that theywere free to eat as much or as little as they liked Once par-ticipants finished the video the experimenter collected thenapkin and any leftover crackers and recorded whether thenapkin had been used or not (0 frac14 no 1 frac14 yes) in anotherroom A napkin was coded as ldquousedrdquo if it showed any signsof usage (ie had any food stains on it looked crumpled orhad been used to spit out gum) and was coded as ldquounusedrdquoonly if it appeared untouched and in pristine condition mak-ing it a highly conservative test of our hypotheses To againensure that perceived cost was not influencing our focal ef-fects we asked participants how much they would be will-ing to pay for a pack of napkins (ie dollar value) Finallyparticipants completed a series of filler measures that as-sessed how interesting the video was and how much theyliked eating goldfish crackers in general

Results and Discussion

A 2 (aesthetics condition) continuous (implicit self-theories) logistic regression on napkin usage behavior(used yes no) was performed Regressing usage behavioron the aesthetics manipulation mean-centered levels ofimplicit self-theories and their interaction revealed a sig-nificant simple effect of aesthetics at the mean of implicitself-theories (b frac14 ndash37 Wald v2 frac14 460 p frac14 03) suchthat a smaller percentage of people used the napkin in the

higher aesthetic condition across all participants conceptu-ally replicating prior studies Importantly the interactionwas also significant (b frac14 ndash30 Wald v2 frac14 419 p frac14 04see figure 3) Notably this interaction continued to holdeven when we controlled for willingness to pay (p lt 04)We used the Johnson-Neyman technique to identify therange of implicit self-theories for which the simple effectof the aesthetics manipulation was significant where lowervalues imply an entity-oriented mindset while higher val-ues imply an incrementally oriented mindset We found asignificant reduction in usage of the higher aesthetic deco-rative (vs lower aesthetic white) paper napkin for anyvalue of implicit self-theories above 406 (at p lt 05) butnot for any value less than 406 In other words incremen-tal theorists were less likely to use a higher (vs lower) aes-thetic napkin whereas entity theorists were equally likelyto use a napkin regardless of its appearance

Discussion In study 5 we provide further evidence forour proposed mechanism by showing that implicit self-theories or consumersrsquo chronic appreciation for investedeffort shapes decisions to use an aesthetically pleasingproduct Incremental theorists who are more appreciativeof effort were less likely to use a higher aesthetic decora-tive napkin than a lower aesthetic plain white napkin butsuch effects were not observed among entity theorists whohave lower intrinsic appreciation for effort We have nowreliably established the inhibiting effect of product aes-thetics on consumption across multiple products and con-sumption contexts and provided convergent support for theunderlying mechanism In our final two studies we

FIGURE 3

AESTHETICS IMPLICIT SELF-THEORIES ON NAPKIN USAGE (STUDY 5)

WU ET AL 13

elucidate the drivers of post-consumption emotions whileholding usage constant thereby allowing us to hone in onpost-consumption consequences in a more controlledfashion since people are inherently less likely to usehigher aesthetic products which could potentially result inself-selection issues

STUDY 6A DECREMENTS IN BEAUTYAND POST-CONSUMPTION AFFECT

Recall in study 2 that when the cupcake was highly aes-thetic consumption enjoyment was lower among individ-uals most motivated to engage in consumption (ie hungryindividuals) an effect we propose is determined by twoprocesses working in tandem First we expect that the ef-fort inferences made prior to consumption will continue todrive emotional outcomes given the consumption processinvolves the actual destruction of effort Second and onlyevident post-consumption are the decrements in beautythat aesthetic products undergo when their aesthetic quali-ties are visibly compromised through usage Because beau-tiful products are inherently pleasurable (Reber et al 2004Reimann et al 2010) we predict that individuals will expe-rience less pleasure and more negative affect when theywitness highly aesthetic products undergo steeper drops inbeauty as a result of consumption Consistent with prospecttheoryrsquos value function (Kahneman and Tversky 1979)initial changesmdashhere the larger losses of beauty associatedwith the usage of a higher (vs lower) aesthetic productmdashshould be particularly jarring and lead to more negative af-fect (Frederick and Loewenstein 1999)

Importantly unlike in study 2 where we measured theamount consumed as well as post-consumption enjoymentin study 6A we hold usage constant in the higher andlower aesthetic conditions and hone in on the changes inbeauty with a longitudinal study design Specifically theobjective of study 6A is to extend prior work on the rela-tionship between beauty and pleasure by establishing itscorollarymdashthat the consumption of a higher (vs lower)aesthetic product will lead to greater perceived losses ofbeauty and that such decrements in beauty will in turnhave a negative influence on post-consumption affect Wemeasure this decrement by capturing aesthetic judgmentsimmediately before and after usage

Method

Participants and Procedure Four hundred sixteen par-ticipants were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk toparticipate in a 2 (aesthetics higher vs lower between) 2(aesthetic judgment before vs after usage within) mixed-design study in exchange for payment Six individuals par-ticipated in this study twice and four had missing data onthe focal dependent measures and were excluded from theanalysis yielding a final sample of 406 participants (54

female [11 did not report gender] median age frac14 30 ages18ndash76)

The procedure was similar to that of study 3 featuringthe same bakery scenario and stimuli but with several mod-ifications After participants were initially presented witheither the higher or lower aesthetic napkins following thespill they immediately completed two semantic differen-tial items of aesthetic evaluations for these unused napkinson seven-point scales ldquonot at all prettyvery prettyrdquo andldquonot at all uglyvery uglyrdquo (reverse-coded) which havebeen shown in prior work to capture aesthetic judgments(Reber Winkielman and Schwarz 1998 r frac14 47) Aftercompleting these baseline aesthetic judgment measuresparticipants proceeded with the scenario They were toldthey realized they would need to grab at least 10 napkins tocome close to cleaning up the spill and were subsequentlyshown a stack of unused napkins The scenario ended withan image of a bundle of napkins now drenched with cof-fee that were used to clean up the spill Additional detailsof the procedure are available in the web appendix

Immediately after reading the scenario participantscompleted the same set of aesthetic judgment items a sec-ond time this time rating the coffee-drenched napkinswhich served as a measure of post-usage aesthetic judg-ments Participants then indicated to what extent they ex-perienced each of the following negative emotions whilethey were using the napkins to clean up the spill stressedregretful bad afraid fearful sad sorry and guilty whichwe combined into an index of post-consumption negativeaffect (1 frac14 not at all 7 frac14 very much so afrac14 91)

Results and Discussion

We predicted that participants would experience greaternegative affect after using the higher (vs lower) aestheticnapkins an effect that would be driven by the larger decre-ments in beauty that stem from the consumption of higheraesthetic products

Emotions A one-way ANOVA on negative emotionsexperienced after consumption revealed that participantswho used the higher aesthetic floral napkins to clean up thespill felt more negative affect than those who used thelower aesthetic white napkins (Mhigher aesthetic frac14 305 vsMlower aesthetic frac14 246 F(1 404) frac14 1686 p lt 001)

Decrements in Beauty (Longitudinal) A 2 (aestheticshigher vs lower) 2 (timing before usage vs after usage)mixed ANOVA on aesthetic judgments yielded main ef-fects of both aesthetics (F(1 404) frac14 10652 p lt 001) andtiming (F(1 404) frac14 125629 p lt 001) which were quali-fied by a significant aesthetics timing interaction (F(1404) frac14 5302 p lt 001) Planned contrasts revealed thatwhereas the higher aesthetic napkins elicited more favor-able aesthetic judgments than the lower aesthetic napkinsbefore usage (Mhigher frac14 594 vs Mlower frac14 447 F(1 404)

14 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

frac14 15269 p lt 001) this difference was substantiallyreduced after usage (Mhigher frac14 237 vs Mlower frac14 211F(1 404) frac14 484 p frac14 03) Importantly and arguably mostcentral to our research the decrement in aesthetic ratingsthrough usage was significantly larger in the higher aes-thetic conditionmdashin fact 151 largermdashthan that observedin the lower aesthetic condition (ie a drop of 357 unitsvs a drop of 236 units)

Mediation Finally we are interested in whether decre-ments in aesthetic judgment emanating from product usageunderlie post-consumption affect Consistent with predic-tions mediation analysis (model 4 Hayes 2013) revealedthat the indirect effect of aesthetics on negative affectthrough changes in aesthetic judgment was significant (b frac1415 95 CI [04 29]) suggesting that product aestheticsaffected the experience of negative emotions through thelarger losses of beauty resulting from the consumption ofhigher aesthetic products

Discussion While past work has shown that aestheticsare inextricably linked with pleasure (Reber et al 2004Reimann et al 2010) study 6A extends this body of re-search by revealing that in the context of nondurable prod-ucts where consumption entails damaging product designnot only does the usage of higher (vs lower) aestheticproducts result in larger decrements in beauty but suchlosses also drive greater negative affect after consumptionNotably while we asked participants to assess the aestheticqualities of the napkins before and immediately after usageto more precisely capture the changes in beauty we ob-served we recognize that this design may have caused theaesthetic appeal of the napkins to be more salient prior toconsumption making its decrement therefore more pro-nounced after consumption Thus having established thatbeauty decrements resulting from aesthetic product usageunderlie post-consumption affect in study 6B we measurethis change in a less invasive manner after consumptionWe also integrate changes in beauty and effort inferencesinto emotional reactions linked to consumption

STUDY 6B TESTING THE FULLCONCEPTUAL MODEL FOR POST-

CONSUMPTION AFFECT

The goal of study 6B is to elucidate the drivers of post-consumption emotions while continuing to hold usage con-stant in both conditions thereby allowing us to test the fullconceptual model in a more controlled fashion As alludedto in study 6A the inherently lower consumption likeli-hood of higher aesthetic products could potentially resultin self-selection issues In study 6B we predict that partici-pants will experience more negative affect after using ahigher (vs lower) aesthetic product an effect driven in tan-dem by effort inferences as well as changes in beauty

Further we try to better understand consumersrsquo emotionalreactions after aesthetic product usage by not highlightingthe productrsquos aesthetic qualities beforehand Finally wemeasure implicit self-theories to examine whether onersquos in-herent degree of effort appreciation moderates post-consumption negative affect

Method

Participants and Procedure Four hundred participantswere recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk to partici-pate in a two-cell (aesthetics higher vs lower) between-subjects study in exchange for payment Ten individualsparticipated in this study twice and 17 had missing data onthe focal dependent measures and were excluded from theanalysis yielding a final sample of 373 participants (55female [two did not report gender] median age frac14 32 ages18ndash76)

The study design of study 6B was almost identical tothat of study 6A aside from several modifications Firstparticipants completed the same negative emotion indexfrom study 6A (afrac14 91) immediately after reading the sce-nario instead of after aesthetics judgment measures (whichwere not included in this study) Second instead of assess-ing aesthetic ratings at two separate points in time we uti-lized a new single cross-sectional measure to capturedecrements in beauty post-consumption ldquoBy using thenapkins it felt like I was turning something that was oncebeautiful into something uglyrdquo (1 frac14 strongly disagree 7 frac14strongly agree) Next to examine effort inferences as a par-allel driver of negative affect after consumption partici-pants completed the same effort inferences and effortdestruction measures from study 3 although these mea-sures are distinct from study 3 in that they were assessedafter usage had already taken place Finally participantscompleted the implicit self-theories scale

Results and Discussion

Emotions Replicating study 6A a one-way ANOVAon negative emotions revealed that participants who usedthe higher aesthetic floral napkins to clean up the spill feltmore negative affect than those who used the lower aestheticwhite napkins (Mhigher aesthetic frac14 313 vs Mlower aesthetic frac14283 F(1 371) frac14 394 p lt 05) Of note this main effectdid not interact with implicit self-theories (p gt 30) sug-gesting that both incremental and entity theorists experi-enced more negative affect after using the higher (vslower) aesthetic napkins to clean up the spill a finding werevisit in the discussion section

Decrements in Beauty (Cross-Sectional) A one-wayANOVA on changes in beauty indicated that the higheraesthetic napkin underwent greater decrements in beautythrough consumption (Mhigher frac14 263 vs Mlower frac14 177F(1 371) frac14 2671 p lt 001)

WU ET AL 15

Effort Inferences A one-way ANOVA on effort infer-ences indicated that participants ascribed greater effort tothe higher aesthetic napkins (Mhigher frac14 349 vs Mlower frac14287 F(1 371) frac14 1359 p lt 001)

Effort Destruction A one-way ANOVA on concernsabout effort destruction indicated that participants hadstronger concerns that effort had been destroyed in thehigher aesthetic condition (Mhigher frac14 262 vs Mlower frac14200 F(1 371) frac14 1355 p lt 001)

Mediation Finally we conducted two separate media-tion analyses one testing the path of product aesthetics decrements in beauty negative affect (model 4 Hayes2013) and the other testing the serial path of product aes-thetics effort inferences concerns about effort de-struction negative affect (model 6) Results from thefirst analysis revealed that the indirect effect of aestheticson negative affect through changes in beauty was signifi-cant (b frac14 37 95 CI [23 54]) suggesting that productaesthetics affected the experience of negative emotionsthrough larger decrements in beauty in the higher aestheticcondition Second the indirect effect of aesthetics on nega-tive affect through effort inferences and concerns about ef-fort destruction (in serial) was also significant (b frac14 1295 CI [06 23]) as was the indirect effect of aestheticson negative affect through effort destruction alone (b frac1411 95 CI [01 23])

Finally we also included beauty decrements effort in-ferences and effort destruction into the model as parallelmediators to gain greater understanding of the relativestrength of these drivers This analysis revealed that whenall three mediators were in the model the indirect effectthrough decrements in beauty remained significant (b frac1422 95 CI [11 36]) as did the indirect effect througheffort destruction (b frac14 15 95 CI [06 27]) Taken to-gether these results suggest that while concerns about ef-fort destruction continue to play a role in driving theemotional outcomes of aesthetic product usage the decre-ments in beauty that become evident only after an aestheticproduct has been visibly compromised through consump-tion also lead to negative affect

Discussion Study 6B which allowed us to examinethe entire post-consumption conceptual model revealedthat people who used higher (vs lower) aesthetic napkinssubsequently experienced greater negative affect an effectdriven by two processes operating in parallel concernsabout the destruction of effort and decrements in beauty Inother words the consumption experience was associatedwith more negative affect because the consumption processnot only involved the actual destruction of effort but italso took a beautiful product that was typified by pleasureand transformed it into something marked by displeasure

We should also note that we replicated the post-consumption findings with actual paper napkins in a lab

context In a separate study using study 5rsquos procedure par-ticipants watched a video and received a snack to eat alongwith a higher versus lower aesthetic napkin and then indi-cated how they felt about the consumption experienceParticipants who chose to use their higher aesthetic napkinreported feeling more negative affect relative to whosewho chose to use their lower aesthetic napkin (p frac14 04)and relative to those who did not use their higher aestheticnapkin (p lt 01) Thus aesthetic product usage increasednegative affect even when consumers could choose to ei-ther use the aesthetic product or not and when the aestheticproduct (the napkin) was tangential to the affect measurescollected which specifically pertained to the video-watching and snack-eating task Additional details areavailable in the web appendix

Though we provide evidence that effort inferences con-tinued to partially drive consumer responses to beautifulproducts after usage it is interesting to note that post-consumption affect was not moderated by the degree towhich effort is intrinsically appreciated (ie implicit self-theories) While unexpected we speculate that this may oc-cur because post-consumption enjoyment is not exclusivelydriven by effort inferences Since losses of beauty alsoplay a substantial role in shaping emotional outcomes afterconsumption the beauty decrements associated with aes-thetic product usage may have brought entity theorists to asimilar emotional state as incremental theorists resultingin everybody feeling worse off after consumption irrespec-tive of individual differences in effort appreciation Morebroadly since post-consumption affect appears to be multi-ply determined it is difficult to completely disentangle thenegative affect stemming from the destruction of effortfrom the negative affect stemming from decrements inbeauty Study 6B offers a distinct test of this conjecturesince it made usage (and hence losses of beauty) salientthrough images of visibly used napkins

GENERAL DISCUSSION

Across a series of laboratory and field studies using avariety of nondurable product categories and consumptionsituations we reveal the negative impact of enhanced prod-uct aesthetics on usage and post-consumption conse-quences First we document an inhibiting effect of productaesthetics on consumption behaviors for disposable andperishable products in both real-world (study 1) and lab(study 2) settings Next we shed light on the drivers of us-age likelihood using mediation (study 3) a context-basedboundary condition (study 4) and a theoretically derivedindividual difference moderator (study 5) thereby provid-ing convergent support for an underlying process based oneffort Finally in studies 6A and 6B we hold product us-age constant to elucidate the drivers of post-consumptionaffect and show that the decrements in beauty that

16 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

aesthetic products inherently undergo as a result of con-sumption combined with concerns that one has actuallydestroyed effort underlie these effects

Theoretical Contributions Our work makes severaltheoretical contributions First while prior research hasshown that consumers respond favorably to both productaesthetics and effort we believe we are the first to establisha causal relationship between these constructs We findthat highly aesthetic products can elicit greater perceptionsof effort regardless of whether this effort was exerted dur-ing product design physical production or both processesWe further reveal that these effort inferences are not lim-ited to handmade products such as perishable foods butalso apply to mass-produced products such as consumerpackaged disposable goods

Second while existing literature suggests that consumerpreferences should increase as a function of a productrsquos aes-thetic appeal the prevailing ways of assessing the impact ofaesthetics on consumer preference have been limited to pur-chase intentions product evaluations and choice (Hagtvedtand Patrick 2008 Raghubir and Greenleaf 2006 Reimannet al 2010 Townsend and Shu 2010) Surprisingly the role ofaesthetics after choice has received little empirical attention todate Despite the stimulating effect that enhanced product aes-thetics have on choice and pre-usage evaluations our resultssuggest that once beautiful products are acquired consumersmay be less likely to consume them because the higher infer-ences of effort attributed to their creation elicit stronger con-cerns that such effort would be destroyed during consumption

This research also shows that the impact of implicit self-theories on consumer behavior may be more pervasivethan previously thought While prior research in psychol-ogy has shown that incremental and entity theorists carrydissimilar beliefs about the value of their own effort(Dweck 2000) we provide support for the novel predictionthat beyond the recognition of personal effort implicitself-theories affect the extent to which consumers appreci-ate the effort that goes into the creation of aestheticallyappealing products

Finally contrary to the notion that enhanced product aes-thetics are always beneficial to consumption enjoyment ourwork reveals that usage of highly aesthetic disposable prod-ucts can actually lower overall enjoyment of the consumptionexperience through two separate pathways (1) by elicitingconcerns that one has actually destroyed effort and (2) bycompromising the beauty that typically characterizes aestheticproducts Thus we add to the literature on aesthetics andpleasure by showing how the consumption of highly aestheticproducts can result in larger losses of beauty and that suchdecrements in turn drive the relationship between aestheticproduct consumption and negative affect

More generally these findings speak to researchthat explores when and why the drivers of predicted andexperienced utility might diverge For instance

Thompson et al (2005) found that consumersrsquo initial desirefor product capability before purchase leads them to chooseproducts packed with features but their growing desire forproduct usability after usage leads them to ultimately prefersimpler products Similarly Lee and Tsai (2014) showedthat price promotions can stimulate sales but lower atten-tion during consumption which in turn reduces consump-tion enjoyment In the same vein despite the delightinitially elicited by the choice of beautiful products wedemonstrate that enhanced aesthetics have the ability tolater discourage usage and lower consumption enjoyment

Substantive Implications Our findings carry importantpractical implications as they pose an interesting dilemmato managers While conventional wisdom suggests that mar-keters should strive to invest the highest degree of effort intomaking their products look aesthetically pleasing at least tothe extent that company resources will allow our researchreveals that the story is not so simple Enhancing productaesthetics might positively affect initial attention interestand choice but should be considered with caution given thatsuch increased appeal could inhibit usage and reduce enjoy-ment relative to less aesthetically appealing productsRelatedly people likely consume highly aesthetic disposableproducts more slowly which could affect interpurchasetime Thus the pursuit of product aesthetics and improvedshort-term sales must be constantly balanced against theneed to encourage consumption ensure customer satisfac-tion and maintain long-term profitability Still certain prod-ucts such as beautiful candles and soaps may serve adecorative purpose in addition to their basic utilitarian func-tion and consequently may also carry intrinsic aestheticvalue Our recommendations are admittedly less straightfor-ward under such circumstances as consumers are able toderive utility from the productsrsquo enhanced aesthetics simplyby displaying them

Our results also have clear implications for managersand policy makers interested in promoting conservationand sustainable business practices A growing number ofretail and service establishments have been switching tounbleached paper products as the traditional bleachingprocess that removes imperfections and gives paper itswhite appearance also produces hazardous chemicals (egchlorine and dioxins) that are harmful to the environment(Evans 2010) While the transition to unbleached paperproducts has benefited the environment the results fromour investigation suggest the growing popularity of thistrend may be a double-edged sword To the extent thatunbleached paper products are considered less aestheticallyappealing consumers may show less restraint in usingthem leading to backfiring effects for conservation effortsPut another way the positive environmental impact of pro-ducing unbleached paper products could potentially be off-set by consumersrsquo reduced inhibition in consuming theseproducts Thus increasing the aesthetic appeal of products

WU ET AL 17

may actually be an effective way for companies to promoteenvironmentally sustainable behaviors even after incorpo-rating the increased cost of implementing such practices

Finally given that rising obesity rates are a major publichealth concern traced to increased consumption (Chandonand Wansink 2007) there has been burgeoning interest inthe various factors that shape consumer food choices (Corniland Chandon 2016 McFerran et al 2010 Scott et al 2008)The results of study 2 suggest that one way to curb overeat-ing might be to enhance the aesthetic presentation of foodproducts especially hedonic foods Of course additionalresearch is needed to better explore the impact of aestheticsin this important area given the counteracting effects thatfood aesthetics exert on consumption versus enjoyment

Limitations and Future Research While the current setof studies was designed to elucidate perceived effort as anunderlying mechanism of lower usage of aestheticallyappealing products we recognize that this phenomenonlike many is likely driven by multiple processes (FuchsSchreier and van Osselaer 2015) Indeed as evident in ourresearch consumption likelihood and consumption enjoy-ment each have distinct sets of drivers For instance whilewe accounted for cost across multiple studies and demon-strated that our effects held even after we controlled for theperceived price of the product we believe that cost maycertainly play a role in certain situations For example cer-tain highly aesthetic products elicit perceptions of luxury(Hagtvedt and Patrick 2008) and may consequently reduceconsumption because they appear ldquotoo expensive to userdquoand cost may even interact with aesthetics under certaincircumstances to impact consumption such that the infer-ences of effort typically ascribed to aesthetically appealingproducts could be mitigated if people are told that theywere extremely inexpensive

In addition classic research by Loewenstein (1987)showed that people often prefer to delay consumption ofenjoyable experiences It may be that people are averse toimmediately consuming a highly aesthetic product becausethey are able to derive more utility by savoring the experi-ence and postponing consumption Further as alluded to instudy 4 it is possible that anticipated decrements in beautymay play a larger role in shaping usage in other consump-tion contexts Thus while we focus on the role of effortinferences in driving lower usage of highly aesthetic prod-ucts we are cognizant of the fact that other mechanismslikely exist which would provide intriguing avenues forfurther investigation

It would also be interesting to examine whether the neg-ative influence of enhanced aesthetics would hold acrossdifferent consumption contexts That is are there situationswhere the present phenomenon would not emerge Indeedone could argue that service establishments such as upscalerestaurants and luxury resorts which regularly pampertheir guests with beautifully plated entrees and folded

towel animals would eventually be driven out of businessif the consumption of highly aesthetic products alwaysresulted in lower enjoyment We believe that whether theusage of highly aesthetic products is accompanied bydecreased consumption and increased negative affect willhinge on the nature of the consumption environment Priorresearch indicates that our surroundings are capable ofautomatically eliciting normative behaviors when situa-tional norms are well established (Aarts and Dijksterhuis2003) Extending this perspective it is possible that theeffects observed in this article may be relatively weakenedwhen consumption occurs in environments characterizedby strong expectations to engage in indulgent consumptionsuch as in a fancy restaurant or luxurious hotel

Relatedly it would be interesting to examine whethercalling attention to fact that the aesthetic product if leftunconsumed will face inevitable destruction could enhanceconsumption likelihood and enjoyment to some extent par-ticularly for perishable products such as food4 Indeedrecent research has shown that consumers display a strongaversion to waste and unused utility (Bolton and Alba2012) Thus future studies should examine whether theeffects documented in this article could be attenuated ifthe inevitable destruction of effort is made salient to con-sumers (eg the product will go bad be thrown away orsomebody else will consume the product even if they donot) In summary future work should explore situationswhere enhanced aesthetics might carry more weight in theutility function for the overall consumption experienceand subsequently increase consumption and boostenjoyment

Another area for future research would be to examinewhether the destruction of product aesthetics is an ldquoall ornothingrdquo event such that any amount of consumption (evena single bite of a cupcake) would be viewed as destroyingthe productrsquos overall beauty While our experimentaldesigns did not allow us to examine whether destruction is acontinuous versus discrete function of consumption it isworth nothing that we did document lower usage acrossvarying degrees of consumption (eg consumption was con-tinuous in study 2 but discrete in study 5) and we did findthat different levels of consumption still led to reducedenjoyment Nevertheless we believe this is an importantempirical question worth investigating in the future

Finally while we have limited our analysis to nondura-bles (perishable and disposable products specifically) anintriguing path would be to investigate the potential moder-ating role of product durability on usage likelihood andsubsequent enjoyment of highly aesthetic products It maybe that the relative durability of the aesthetic product couldaffect individualsrsquo ability or motivation to anticipate decre-ments in beauty before consumption has occurred whichwould have implications for usage likelihood For instance

4 We thank one of the anonymous reviewers for this suggestion

18 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

with big-ticket high-involvement purchases such as sleekfurniture (eg a beautiful new white sectional sofa) con-sumers may more readily anticipate losses of beauty sincethey will have to live with and encounter the product on adaily basis even after its original beauty has faded or beentarnished through repeated use This may explain why cov-ering new furniture with plastic was at one time a verycommon practice (DiSalvo 2009)

On the other hand for nondurable lower-involvementproducts such as those used in the current research perhapspeople do not have the motivation or ability to considershifts in aesthetic appeal before consumption Furtherproducts often vary in their degree of durabilitymdasha delicateembroidered blanket while by no means nondurable or dis-posable may begin to show visible signs of wear and tearsooner than a fleece blanket Although the present researchspecifically focused on perishable and single-use productsit would be worth examining when and how the degree ofdurability or even perceptions of fragility might shapedecisions to use beautiful products

In conclusion our research documents an inhibitingeffect of enhanced product aesthetics on consumption par-ticularly for disposable and consumable nondurable prod-ucts Although beautiful products have the ability topromote positive pre-usage evaluations and stimulatechoice our work indicates that consumers are subsequentlyless likely to use them and those who do use them ulti-mately experience higher negative affect and lower enjoy-ment In addition different processes underlie consumerresponses to highly aesthetic products depending onwhether or not consumption has taken place Thus we con-clude that while products may never be too pretty tochoose they can in fact be too pretty to use

DATA COLLECTION INFORMATION

All studies were designed and analyzed by the first authorunder the guidance of the other authors The data for study 1was collected at the Scottsdale Pure Barre studio in fall2015 by research assistants and employees under the super-vision of the first author Research assistants collected thedata for studies 2 and 5 under the supervision of the firstauthor at the W P Carey School of Business MarketingDepartment Behavioral Lab in spring 2015 The data for theconceptual replication (reported in the discussion of study6B) was collected by research assistants under the supervi-sion of the first author at the W P Carey School ofBusiness Marketing Department Behavioral Lab in summer2015 The data for study 4 (both the effort manipulation pre-test and the main study) and the correlational study examin-ing the relationship between implicit self-theories andappreciation for othersrsquo effort were collected by the firstauthor using Amazon Mechanical Turk in spring 2016 Thefirst author collected the data for the aesthetic appeal pretest

(described in appendix B) studies 3 6A and 6B usingAmazon Mechanical Turk in summer 2016 Lastly researchassistants collected the data for the correlational study exam-ining the relationship between aesthetics and perceivedeffort (described in the table in ldquoThe Role of Effort inInhibiting Usagerdquo) under the supervision of the first authorat the W P Carey School of Business MarketingDepartment Behavioral Lab in fall 2016

APPENDIX A

STUDY STIMULI

WU ET AL 19

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Aharon Itzhak Nancy Etcoff Dan Ariely Christopher F ChabrisEthan OrsquoConnor and Hans C Breiter (2001) ldquoBeautifulFaces Have Variable Reward Value fMRI and BehavioralEvidencerdquo Neuron 32 (3) 537ndash51

Alba Joseph W and Elanor F Williams (2013) ldquoPleasurePrinciples A Review of Research on HedonicConsumptionrdquo Journal of Consumer Psychology 23 (1)2ndash18

Belk Russell W (1988) ldquoPossessions and the Extended SelfrdquoJournal of Consumer Research 15 (2) 139ndash67

Bem Daryl J (1972) Self-Perception Theory Stanford CAStanford University Press

Berridge Kent C (2009) ldquolsquoLikingrsquo and lsquoWantingrsquo Food RewardsBrain Substrates and Roles in Eating Disordersrdquo Physiologyamp Behavior 97 (5) 537ndash50

Bloch Peter H (1995) ldquoSeeking the Ideal Form Product Designand Consumer Responserdquo Journal of Marketing 59 (July)16ndash29

Bloch Peter H Frederic F Brunel and Todd J Arnold (2003)ldquoIndividual Differences in the Centrality of Visual ProductAesthetics Concept and Measurementrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 29 (4) 551ndash65

Bolton Lisa E and Joseph W Alba (2012) ldquoWhen Less Is MoreConsumer Aversion to Unused Utilityrdquo Journal of ConsumerPsychology 22 (3) 369ndash83

Brehm Jack W (1966) A Theory of Psychological ReactanceNew York Academic Press

Broniarczyk Susan M and Joseph W Alba (1994) ldquoThe Role ofConsumersrsquo Intuitions in Inference Makingrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 21 (3) 393ndash407

Cabanac Michel (1971) ldquoPhysiological Role of PleasurerdquoScience 173 (4002) 1103ndash7

mdashmdashmdash (1979) ldquoSensory Pleasurerdquo Quarterly Review of Biology54 (1) 1ndash29

mdashmdashmdash (1985) ldquoPreferring for Pleasurerdquo American Journal ofClinical Nutrition 42 (5) 1151ndash5

Chandon Pierre and Brian Wansink (2007) ldquoThe Biasing HealthHalos of Fast Food Restaurant Health Claims Lower CalorieEstimates and Higher Side-Dish Consumption IntentionsrdquoJournal of Consumer Research 34 (3) 301ndash14

Cornil Yann and Pierre Chandon (2016) ldquoPleasure as a Substitutefor Size How Multisensory Imagery Can Make PeopleHappier with Smaller Food Portionsrdquo Journal of MarketingResearch 53 (5) 847ndash64

Cleveland William S (1984) ldquoGraphical Methods for DataPresentation Full Scale Breaks Dot Charts and MultibasedLoggingrdquo The American Statistician 38 (4) 270ndash80

DiSalvo David (2009) ldquoThe Psychology of Plastic CouchCoversrdquo httpsneuronarrativewordpresscom20090119the-psychology-of-plastic-couch-covers

Dixie Products (2015) ldquoDixie Ultra Moments Ultimate Hostrdquohttpswwwyoutubecomwatchvfrac14wsBBq9PsgVI

Dutton Denis (2009) The Art Instinct Beauty Pleasure ampHuman Evolution New York Oxford University Press

Dweck Carol S (2000) Self-Theories Their Role in MotivationPersonality and Development Philadelphia Psychology Press

Dweck Carol S and Ellen L Leggett (1988) ldquoA Social-CognitiveApproach to Motivation and Personalityrdquo PsychologicalReview 95 (2) 256ndash73

Evans Lindsay (2010) ldquoWhy Buy Unbleached Paperrdquo httpwwwbrighthubcomenvironmentgreen-livingarticles16299aspx

Festinger Leon (1957) A Theory of Cognitive DissonanceStanford CA Stanford University Press

Frederick Shane and George Loewenstein (1999) ldquoHedonicAdaptationrdquo in Scientific Perspectives on EnjoymentSuffering and Well-Being ed Daniel Kahneman Ed Dienerand Norbert Schwartz New York Russell Sage Foundation302ndash29

Fuchs Christoph Martin Schreier and Stijn MJ van Osselaer(2015) ldquoThe Handmade Effect Whatrsquos Love Got to Do withItrdquo Journal of Marketing 79 (2) 98ndash110

Hagtvedt Henrik and Vanessa M Patrick (2008) ldquoArt InfusionThe Influence of Visual Art on the Perception and Evaluationof Consumer Productsrdquo Journal of Marketing Research 45(3) 379ndash89

AESTHETIC APPEAL PRETEST FOR ALL STIMULI USED IN STUDIES

Higher aesthetic Lower aesthetic Comparison a

Toilet paper (study 1) 377 (146) 253 (155) t(128) frac14 ndash469 p lt 001 a frac14 94Cupcake (study 2) 556 (106) 305 (146) t(128) frac14 ndash1120 p lt 001 a frac14 96Napkin (studies 3 and 6) 465 (153) 230 (144) t(128) frac14 ndash903 p lt 001 a frac14 97Napkin (study 4) 332 (145) 262 (154) t(128) frac14 ndash266 p lt 01 a frac14 92Napkin (study 5) 458 (159) 234 (151) t(128) frac14 ndash823 p lt 001 a frac14 97

NOTEmdashStandard deviations are in parentheses

In a between-subjects pretest participants were asked to rate each product along the following dimensions beautiful pretty artistic and aesthetically pleasing

(1 frac14 not at all 7 frac14 very much) which formed our aesthetic appeal index

APPENDIX B

20 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

Hayes Andrew F (2013) ldquoPROCESS A VersatileComputational Tool for Observed Variable MediationModeration and Conditional Process Modelingrdquo workingpaper School of Communication and Department ofPsychology Ohio State University Columbus OH 43210

Heller Steve (2015) ldquoA Grocery Store Illusion Is Getting You toSpend More Moneyrdquo httpwwwbusinessinsidercoma-grocery-store-illusion-is-getting-you-to-spend-more-money-2015-8ixzz3ifsOLBfG

Hurling Robert and Richard Shepherd (2003) ldquoEating with YourEyes Effect of Appearance on Expectations of LikingrdquoAppetite 41 (2) 167ndash74

Hoegg JoAndrea Joseph W Alba and Darren W Dahl (2010)ldquoThe Good the Bad and the Ugly Influence of Aesthetics onProduct Feature Judgmentsrdquo Journal of ConsumerPsychology 20 (4) 419ndash30

Johnson Palmer O and Jerzy Neyman (1936) ldquoTests of CertainLinear Hypotheses and Their Applications to SomeEducational Problemsrdquo Statistical Research Memoirs 157ndash93

Kahneman Daniel and Amos Tversky (1979) ldquoProspect TheoryAn Analysis of Decision under Riskrdquo Econometrica 47 (2)263ndash91

Kampe Knut K W Chris D Frith Raymond J Dolan and UtaFrith (2001) ldquoPsychology Reward Value of Attractivenessand Gazerdquo Nature 413 (6856) 589

Kelley Harold H (1967) ldquoAttribution Theory in SocialPsychologyrdquo in Nebraska Symposium of Motivation Vol 15ed D Levine Lincoln University of Nebraska Press192ndash238

Kirmani Amna (1990) ldquoThe Effect of Perceived AdvertisingCosts on Brand Perceptionsrdquo Journal of Consumer Research17 (2) 160ndash71

Kirmani Amna Michelle P Lee and Carolyn Yoon (2004)ldquoProcedural Priming Effects on Spontaneous InferenceFormationrdquo Journal of Economic Psychology 25 (6)859ndash75

Kruger Justin Derrick Wirtz Leaf Van Boven and T WilliamAltermatt (2004) ldquoThe Effort Heuristicrdquo Journal ofExperimental Social Psychology 40 (1) 91ndash8

Lee Leonard and Claire I Tsai (2014) ldquoHow Price PromotionsInfluence Postpurchase Consumption Experience overTimerdquo Journal of Consumer Research 40 (5) 943ndash59

Levy Sheri R Steven J Stroessner and Carol S Dweck (1998)ldquoStereotype Formation and Endorsement The Role ofImplicit Theoriesrdquo Journal of Personality and SocialPsychology 74 (6) 1421ndash36

Lisjak Monika Andrea Bonezzi Soo Kim and Derek D Rucker(2015) ldquoPerils of Compensatory Consumption Within-Domain Compensation Undermines Subsequent Self-Regulationrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 41 (5)1186ndash203

Loewenstein George (1987) ldquoAnticipation and the Valuation ofDelayed Consumptionrdquo Economic Journal 97 (September)666ndash84

Maritain Jacques (1966) ldquoBeauty and Imitationrdquo in A ModernBook of Esthetics ed Melvin Rader New York HoltRinehart amp Winston 27ndash34

McFerran Brent Darren W Dahl Gavan J Fitzsimons andAndrea C Morales (2010) ldquoIrsquoll Have What Shersquos HavingEffects of Social Influence and Body Type on the FoodChoices of Othersrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 36 (6)915ndash29

Morales Andrea C (2005) ldquoGiving Firms an lsquoErsquo for EffortConsumer Responses to High-Effort Firmsrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 31 (4) 806ndash12

Moreau C Page Leff Bonney and Kelly B Herd (2011) ldquoItrsquos theThought (and the Effort) That Counts How Customizing forOthers Differs from Customizing for Oneselfrdquo Journal ofMarketing 75 (5) 120ndash33

Norton Michael I Daniel Mochon and Dan Ariely (2012) ldquoThelsquoIkearsquo Effect When Labor Leads to Loverdquo Journal ofConsumer Psychology 22 (July) 453ndash60

Page Christine and Paul M Herr (2002) ldquoAn Investigation ofthe Processes by Which Product Design and Brand StrengthInteract to Determine Initial Affect and QualityJudgmentsrdquo Journal of Consumer Psychology 12 (2)133ndash47

Raghubir Priya and Eric A Greenleaf (2006) ldquoRatios inProportion What Should the Shape of the Package BerdquoJournal of Marketing 70 (2) 95ndash107

Raghunathan Rajagopal Rebecca Walker Naylor and Wayne DHoyer (2006) ldquoThe Unhealthy frac14 Tasty Intuition and ItsEffects on Taste Inferences Enjoyment and Choice of FoodProductsrdquo Journal of Marketing 70 (4) 170ndash84

Reber Rolf Norbert Schwarz and Piotr Winkielman (2004)ldquoProcessing Fluency and Aesthetic Pleasure Is Beauty in thePerceiverrsquos Processing Experiencerdquo Personality and SocialPsychology Review 8 (4) 364ndash82

Reber Rolf Piotr Winkielman and Norbert Schwarz (1998)ldquoEffects of Perceptual Fluency on Affective JudgmentsrdquoPsychological Science 9 (1) 45ndash48

Reimann Martin Judith Zaichkowksy Carolin Neuhaus ThomasBender and Bernd Weber (2010) ldquoAesthetic PackageDesign A Behavioral Neural and PsychologicalInvestigationrdquo Journal of Consumer Psychology 20 (4)431ndash41

Santayana George (18961955) The Sense of Beauty New YorkDover

Scott Maura L Stephen M Nowlis Naomi Mandel and AndreaC Morales (2008) ldquoThe Effects of Reduced Food Size andPackage Size on the Consumption Behavior of Restrainedand Unrestrained Eatersrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 35(3) 391ndash405

Spencer Steven J Mark P Zanna and Geoffrey T Fong (2005)ldquoEstablishing a Causal Chain Why Experiments Are OftenMore Effective than Mediational Analyses in ExaminingPsychological Processesrdquo Journal of Personality and SocialPsychology 89 (6) 845ndash51

Spiller Stephen A Gavan J Fitzsimons John G Lynch Jr andGary H McClelland (2013) ldquoSpotlights Floodlights andthe Magic Number Zero Simple Effects Tests inModerated Regressionrdquo Journal of Marketing Research 50(2) 277ndash88

Thompson Debora V Rebecca W Hamilton and Roland T Rust(2005) ldquoFeature Fatigue When Product CapabilitiesBecome Too Much of a Good Thingrdquo Journal of MarketingResearch 42 (November) 431ndash42

Townsend Claudia and Suzanne B Shu (2010) ldquoWhen and HowAesthetics Influences Financial Decisionsrdquo Journal ofConsumer Psychology 20 (4) 452ndash58

Townsend Claudia and Sanjay Sood (2012) ldquoSelf-Affirmationthrough the Choice of Highly Aesthetic Productsrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 39 (2) 415ndash28

Veryzer Robert W and J Wesley Hutchinson (1998) ldquoTheInfluence of Unity and Prototypicality on Aesthetic

WU ET AL 21

Responses to New Product Designsrdquo Journal of ConsumerResearch 24 (4) 374ndash94

Wada Yuji Carlos Arce-Lopera Tomohiro Masuda AtsushiKimura Ippeita Dan Sho-ichi Goto Daisuke Tsuzuki andKatsunori Okajima (2010) ldquoInfluence of LuminanceDistribution on the Appetizingly Fresh Appearance ofCabbagerdquo Appetite 54 (2) 363ndash68

Weiner Bernard (2000) ldquoAttributional Thoughts and ConsumerBehaviorrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 27 (December)382ndash87

Witz Anne Chris Warhurst and Dennis Nickson (2003) ldquoTheLabour of Aesthetics and The Aesthetics of OrganizationrdquoOrganization 10 (1) 33ndash54

Yamamoto Mel and David R Lambert (1994) ldquoThe Impact ofProduct Aesthetics on the Evaluation of Industrial ProductsrdquoJournal of Product Innovation Management 11 (4) 309ndash24

Yang Sha and Priya Raghubir (2005) ldquoCan Bottles SpeakVolumes The Effect of Package Shape on How Much toBuyrdquo Journal of Retailing 81 (4) 269ndash82

22 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

  • ucx057-FN1
  • ucx057-FN2
  • ucx057-FN3
  • ucx057-FN4
  • app1
  • app2
  • ucx057-TF1
  • ucx057-TF2
Page 6: It’s Too Pretty to Use! When and How Enhanced Product ...gavan/bio/GJF_articles/...testing the prediction that aesthetic products can elicit greater perceptions of effort. In line

TA

BL

E2

ST

UD

YO

VE

RV

IEW

Stu

dy

Conte

xt

Pro

duct

Desig

nD

ependentvariable

(s)

Sta

tisticalc

ontr

ols

Fin

din

gs

1F

ield

Toile

tpaper

bull2

(aest

hetic

shig

her

vs

low

er)

bullN

um

ber

ofsheets

used

bullB

asic

eff

ect

Aesth

etics

reduced

the

avera

ge

num

ber

of

sheets

used

(37

0vs

66

6plt

001)

2Lab

Cupcake

bull2

(aest

hetic

shig

her

vs

low

er)

hunger

(continuous)

bullC

onsum

ption

am

ount

bullC

onsum

ption

enjo

ym

ent

bullP

erc

eiv

ed

expense

bullM

od

era

tio

no

fb

asic

eff

ect

Aesth

etics

hunger

inte

rac-

tion

(pfrac14

03)

aesth

etics

reduce

dconsum

ption

ofth

ecup-

cake

prim

arily

am

ong

hungry

indiv

iduals

bullP

ost-

co

nsu

mp

tio

nco

nseq

uen

ces

Aesth

etics

hunger

inte

raction

(pfrac14

01)

aesth

etic

sre

duce

denjo

ymentofth

ecupcake

prim

arily

am

ong

hungry

indiv

iduals

3S

imula

tion

Paper

napkin

bull2

(aest

hetic

shig

her

vs

low

er)

bullU

sage

likelih

ood

bullE

ffort

infe

rences

bullC

oncern

sabouteffort

destr

uctio

n

bullW

illin

gness

topay

bullB

asic

eff

ect

Aesth

etics

reduced

usage

likelih

ood

(58

1vs62

8plt

001)

incr

eased

perc

eptions

ofeffort

(38

0vs31

9plt

01)

and

incre

ased

concern

sabouteffort

de-

str

uction

(25

4vs19

5plt

01)

bullP

re-c

on

su

mp

tio

np

rocess

by

med

iati

on

A

esth

etics

effort

infe

rences

concern

sabouteffort

destr

uctio

n

usage

likelih

ood

(95

CIfrac14

[ndash0

9ndash0

1])

4S

imula

tion

Paper

napkin

bull2

(napki

nin

form

atio

nnone

vs

hig

her

aest

hetics

re-

quired

low

er

pro

duction

effort

)

bullC

hoic

eofnapkin

touse

(hig

her

vslo

wer

aest

hetic)

bullP

erc

eiv

ed

cost

bullB

asic

eff

ect

Inth

econtr

olc

onditio

n198

chose

touse

the

hig

her

aest

hetic

napki

n

bullP

re-c

on

su

mp

tio

np

rocess

by

sit

uati

on

alb

ou

nd

ary

co

nd

itio

n

Inth

ein

terv

entio

nconditio

nw

here

the

hig

her

aesth

etic

napkin

was

desc

ribed

as

requirin

gle

ss

effort

topro

duce636

chose

touse

the

hig

her

aest

hetic

napki

n(plt

001)

5Lab

Paper

napkin

bull2

(aest

hetic

shig

her

vs

low

er)

implic

itself-

theo-

ries

(continuous)

bullN

apkin

usage

bullW

illin

gness

topay

bullB

asic

eff

ect

Aesth

etics

reduced

napkin

usage

(pfrac14

03)

bullP

re-c

on

su

mp

tio

np

rocess

by

ind

ivid

uald

iffe

ren

ce

mo

dera

tor

Aesth

etics

implic

itself-t

heories

inte

raction

(pfrac14

04)

aesth

etics

reduce

dnapki

nusageprim

arily

am

ong

incre

menta

ltheorists

6A

Sim

ula

tion

Paper

napkin

bull2

(aest

hetic

shig

her

vs

low

er

betw

een)

2(a

est

hetic

judgm

ent

befo

revs

after

usagew

ithin

)

bullE

motio

ns

bullC

hanges

inaesth

etic

judg-

mentacro

ss

tim

e

bullP

ost-

co

nsu

mp

tio

nco

nseq

uen

ces

Usage

ofaesth

etics

incre

ased

negative

affect(3

05

vs24

6plt

001)

and

decre

ments

inbeauty

acro

ss

tim

e(plt

001)

bullP

ost-

co

nsu

mp

tio

np

rocess

by

med

iati

on

A

esth

etics

decre

ments

inbeauty

em

otio

ns

(95

CIfrac14

[042

9])

6B

Sim

ula

tion

Paper

napkin

bull2

(aest

hetic

shig

her

vs

low

er)

bullE

motio

ns

bullC

hanges

inaesth

etic

judgm

ent

bullE

ffort

infe

rences

bullC

oncern

sth

ateffort

had

been

destr

oyed

bullP

ost-

co

nsu

mp

tio

nco

nseq

uen

ces

Usage

ofaesth

etics

incre

ased

negative

affect(3

13

vs28

3plt

05)

decre

-m

ents

inbeauty

(26

3vs

17

7plt

001)

perc

eptions

of

effort

(34

9vs

28

7plt

001)

and

concern

sth

ateffort

had

been

destr

oyed

(26

2vs20

0plt

001)

bullP

ost-

co

nsu

mp

tio

np

rocess

by

para

llelm

ed

iati

on

1A

esth

etics

decre

ments

inbeauty

em

otio

ns

(95

CIfrac14

[235

4])

2A

esth

etics

effort

infe

rences

concern

sth

atef-

fort

had

been

destr

oyed

em

otions

(95

CIfrac14

[06

23])

6 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

pretest (n frac14 100) revealed that people liked the higher (vslower) aesthetic toilet paper and its design more (Mhigher

aesthetic frac14 457 vs Mlower aesthetic frac14 400 t(98) frac14 ndash195pfrac14 05 rfrac14 88)

The studio owner provided us with the number of peoplewho attended classes each week and employees who re-mained blind to our research hypotheses replenished thetoilet paper as needed A total of 772 clients visited the stu-dio over the course of the studymdash387 in the lower aestheticcondition (week 1) and 385 in the higher aesthetic condi-tion (week 2) Clients were unaware that a study was beingconducted

Results and Discussion

As predicted clients used less of the more aestheticallyappealing toilet paper 2578 total sheets of the lower aes-thetic toilet paper were used while only 1425 sheets of thehigher aesthetic toilet paper were used Because we wereprovided with the number of class attendees we were alsoable to calculate average usage per client each client in thelower aesthetic condition used an average of 666 sheetswhile each client in the higher aesthetic condition used an av-erage of 370 sheets (v2 (1)frac14 32616 (n frac14 772) p lt 001)

Discussion We find preliminary evidence that en-hanced product aesthetics can reduce usage behaviorswhile controlling for differences in paper quality and thetotal number of clients Having provided a demonstrationof this phenomenon in an ecologically valid setting the re-maining studies replicate and generalize this finding andidentify its underlying mechanism in a more controlledenvironment

STUDY 2 THE IMPACT OF AESTHETICSON FOOD CONSUMPTION AND

ENJOYMENT

The purpose of study 2 was to conceptually replicatestudy 1 in a product category in which aesthetics play amajor role food A growing body of research has docu-mented the profound influence that food presentation hason how we evaluate what we eat (Hurling and Shepherd2003 Wada et al 2010) We chose cupcakes as our focalstimuli because they are a highly familiar dessert that canbe made more aesthetically appealing (ie higher aes-thetics with frosting in the shape of a rose) or more plain(ie lower aesthetics with smooth frosting) while holdingconstant aesthetically unrelated factors such as flavor andtaste (see appendix A row 2 for images) Consistent withthe extant aesthetics literature a pretest of the cupcakesused in study 2 revealed that people were more likely tochoose to purchase the higher (vs lower) aesthetic cupcakefor consumption in the future providing an even strongertest of our predictions about higher aesthetics lowering

consumption Details of this pretest are available in theweb appendix

Importantly given the inherent nature of food we arecognizant of baseline individual differences that could af-fect the amount consumed (Lisjak et al 2015) We ran thisstudy throughout the day (from 10 am to 5 pm) acrossmultiple days so we accounted for individual differencesin hunger and measured state hunger at the start of thestudy We expect that the inhibiting effect of aesthetics onconsumption will be greatest among hungry participantsas the need to exhibit restraint should be observed onlyamong those motivated to engage in consumption in thefirst place We do not expect differences in consumptionamong satiated participants as they should have a low de-sire to eat regardless of aesthetics

Notably an alternative explanation is that people feel in-hibited from consuming highly aesthetic products becausethey tend to cost more and not because of concerns overdestroying effort Thus we also aim to replicate study 1rsquosfindings while controlling for perceived expense

Finally we seek to provide initial evidence that the con-sumption of a highly aesthetic product will negatively af-fect how much participants enjoy the consumptionexperience a notion we explore in depth in study 6 In linewith our predictions for consumption amount we expectthe negative influence of food aesthetics on post-consumption affect to be greatest among hungry individ-uals as hunger leads people to not only eat more but toalso enjoy their food more (Berridge 2009 Cabanac 19711979 1985) Thus changes in the ability to derive enjoy-ment should be observed only among those motivated toengage in consumption in the first place

Method

Participants and Procedure One hundred eighty-threeundergraduate students from a southwestern university par-ticipated in a 2 (aesthetics higher vs lower) continuous(hunger) between-subjects study in exchange for partialcourse credit Five participants were excluded from theanalysis four had missing data on the dependent measuresand one had missing data on hunger This left a sample of178 participants (52 female [one did not report gender]median age frac14 21 ages 18ndash48)

Participants first indicated their current level of hunger(1 frac14 not at all hungry 7 frac14 very hungry) They were thentold that the goal of the study was to explore which foodsgo best with different videos and that they would be eatingvanilla cupcakes Participants were randomly assigned toeither the higher or lower aesthetic condition To ensurethey did not discount the overall consumption experiencebecause they lacked freedom of choice (Brehm 1966)within each aesthetic condition they chose either a pink orcream-colored cupcake to eat Experimenters preweighedeach cupcake before the start of each session

WU ET AL 7

Next participants were told to watch a 90 second videofeaturing scenes from around the world while they ate theircupcake and that they were free to eat as much or as littleof the cupcake as they liked After finishing the video theremains of the cupcake were collected and weighed in aseparate room Participants then rated how much they en-joyed the cupcake (1 frac14 not at all 7 frac14 very much so) andcompleted filler measures that assessed how interesting thevideo was and how much they liked cupcakes in generalFinally they rated how expensive they thought the cupcakewas (1 frac14 not at all expensive 7 frac14 very expensive)

Results and Discussion

We predicted that for consumers who were motivated toconsume (ie hungry individuals) higher aesthetics wouldcurb consumption quantity and reduce consumption enjoy-ment effects that were expected to hold even when wecontrolled for perceived expense

Consumption Amount We first log-transformed the de-pendent variable to normalize the distribution (Cleveland1984) Next we performed a 2 (aesthetics condition) continuous (hunger) multiple regression analysis on thelogged consumption amount Regressing this loggedamount on the aesthetics manipulation mean-centered lev-els of hunger and their interaction revealed a directionalsimple effect of aesthetics at the mean level of hunger(b frac14 ndash10 t(174) frac14 ndash126 p frac14 21) such that participantsin the higher aesthetic condition consumed less of the cup-cake Most importantly the interaction was also significant(b frac14 ndash10 t(174) frac14 ndash213 p frac14 03) Decomposing the inter-action in the lower aesthetic (smooth frosting) condition we

found a significant effect of hunger (b frac14 15 t(174) frac14446 p lt 001) such that hungry (vs satiated) individualsconsumed more of the cupcake However attesting to the in-hibitory nature of beautiful products in the higher aesthetic(rose frosting) condition the effect of hunger was not signifi-cant (b frac14 05 t(174) frac14 129 p frac14 20) Because self-reportedhunger was measured on a 1 to 7 scale (M frac14 425 SDfrac14 168median frac14 4) we ran a floodlight analysis using the Johnson-Neyman (1936) technique to identify the range of hunger forwhich the simple effect of aesthetics was significant (figure 1see also Spiller et al 2013) This analysis revealed a signifi-cant reduction in consumption of the higher (vs lower) aes-thetic cupcake for any value of hunger above 492 (at p lt05) Thus despite a higher baseline desire to eat hungry indi-viduals actively refrained from consumption when the cup-cake was more aesthetically appealing Consistent with ourpredictions such effects were not observed among satiated in-dividuals who displayed low motivation to eat regardless ofthe cupcakersquos appearance

Enjoyment of the Cupcake A 2 continuous regres-sion on cupcake enjoyment revealed only a significant in-teraction (b frac14 ndash41 t(174) frac14 ndash256 p frac14 01 see figure 2)In the lower aesthetic condition (b frac14 45 t(174) frac14 405p lt 001) hungry (vs satiated) individuals enjoyed thecupcake more There was no effect of hunger in the higheraesthetic condition (bfrac14 04 t(174) lt 1 ns) Floodlightanalysis revealed that for all values of hunger above 466participants in the higher aesthetic condition enjoyed thecupcake significantly less (p lt 05)

Perceived Expense A 2 continuous regression onperceived expense of the cupcake revealed only a signifi-cant simple effect of aesthetics at the mean level of hunger

FIGURE 1

AESTHETICS HUNGER ON CONSUMPTION AMOUNT (STUDY 2)

8 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

(p lt 001) such that the higher aesthetic cupcake was seenas more expensive Most importantly when we controlledfor expense the 2 continuous interactions and focal ef-fects continue to hold for consumption amount (p lt 04)and cupcake enjoyment (p lt 01) Finally a moderatedmediation analysis (model 8 Hayes 2013) revealed thatperceived expense did not mediate either amount con-sumed (b frac14 ndash01 95 CI [ndash08 05]) or degree of enjoy-ment (b frac14 12 95 CI [ndash05 35]) among hungryindividuals revealing that inferred monetary value was notdriving our effects

Discussion Though our pretest showed that consumerswere more likely to choose the higher aesthetic cupcake avery different pattern of results emerged with consumptionamount and consumption enjoyment Hungry participantsactively inhibited their consumption and ate less in thehigher aesthetic rose frosting condition In addition to eat-ing less these individuals experienced lower consumptionenjoyment when the cupcake was highly aesthetic By con-ceptually replicating the previous studyrsquos results with anew product we increase the generalizability of our find-ings to food a domain for which visual presentation playsa fundamental role We also provide initial evidence thatconsumption of highly aesthetic products can carry nega-tive implications for the consumption experience a notionwe explore in greater depth in studies 6A and 6B These ef-fects continued to hold even when we controlled for per-ceived expense thus rendering such an alternative accountless likely

Having reliably demonstrated the inhibiting effect ofaesthetics on consumption across two product categorieswe next elucidate the underlying process through three

different approaches First we provide evidence for ourproposed mechanism via mediation (study 3) Second wedirectly manipulate effort inferences to show process bymoderation (study 4) and third we identify a theoreticallygrounded individual difference moderator (study 5)

STUDY 3 THE MEDIATING ROLE OFEFFORT INFERENCES AND EFFORT

DESTRUCTION

The goal of study 3 is to replicate our focal effect in anew product domain paper napkins and to shed light onthe mechanism underlying consumption likelihood by test-ing the driving role of effort inferences and effort destruc-tion Consistent with our theorizing we predict that thehigher inferences of effort elicited by highly aestheticproducts will lead to stronger concerns that such effortwould be destroyed in the consumption process resultingin lower usage likelihood Notably this is a conservativecontext in which to assess effort inferences given that pa-per napkins are machine-manufactured and so differencesin perceived effort are quite subtle Further by shifting out-side of the food domain to even subtler stimuli we canmore confidently ensure that our findings are not merelyartifacts of the stimuli we have chosen (although handmadehighly aesthetic foods such as the cupcakes used in study2 are ubiquitous in the marketplace)

Method

Participants and Procedure Two hundred sixty partic-ipants were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk toparticipate in a two-cell (aesthetics higher vs lower)

FIGURE 2

AESTHETICS HUNGER ON CUPCAKE ENJOYMENT (STUDY 2)

WU ET AL 9

between-subjects study in exchange for payment Two in-dividuals participated in this study twice and six had miss-ing data on the dependent measures and were excludedfrom the analysis yielding a final sample of 252 partici-pants (44 female [five did not report gender] medianage frac14 31 ages 19ndash69)

Participants were presented with a guided visualizationscenario in which they imagined they were at a local bak-ery getting breakfast and doing work As they were work-ing they accidentally spilled coffee all over theirdocuments prompting them to look toward the counter tosee how they could clean up the spill We presented a situa-tion in which the destruction of the product paper napkinswas imminent to assess how such an outcome shapes pref-erences to consume aesthetically appealing productsParticipants were randomly assigned to either the higher orlower aesthetic condition Those in the higher aestheticcondition saw a stack of floral napkins at the counter toclean up the spill while those in the lower aesthetic condi-tion saw a stack of plain white napkins (see appendix Arow 3 for images) Additional details of the procedure areavailable in the web appendix Subsequently participantsindicated to what extent they would use the (floral orwhite) napkins to clean up the spill (1 frac14 definitely no 7 frac14definitely yes) how likely they would be to use the napkinsto clean up the spill (1 frac14 very unlikely 7 frac14 very likely)and how many napkins they would use to clean up the spill(1 frac14 none at all 7 frac14 very many) which formed our usagelikelihood index (afrac14 81) Next to examine effort infer-ences we asked participants how much effort they thoughtwent into making the napkins (1 frac14 none at all 7 frac14 quite abit) To examine concerns about effort destruction weasked participants to rate their agreement with the state-ment ldquoI felt like I was destroying someonersquos effort by usingthe napkinsrdquo (1 frac14 strongly disagree 7 frac14 stronglyagree) Finally to again show that inferred monetary valueis not driving our effects participants indicated how muchthey would be willing to pay for a pack of the napkins inthe scenario (ie dollar value)

Results and Discussion

We predicted that participants would be less likely touse the higher aesthetic napkins and that this effect wouldbe mediated in serial by effort inferences and concernsover destroying such effort

Usage Likelihood A one-way ANOVA on the usagelikelihood index indicated that participants were less likelyto use the higher aesthetic floral napkins to clean up thespill (Mhigher aesthetic frac14 581 vs Mlower aesthetic frac14 628 F(1250) frac14 1592 p lt 001) an effect that continues to holdeven when we controlled for willingness to pay for thenapkins (p lt 001)

Effort Inferences A one-way ANOVA on effort infer-ences indicated that participants ascribed greater effort to thehigher aesthetic napkins (Mhigher frac14 380 vs Mlower frac14 319F(1 250) frac14 753 p lt 01) even when we controlled for will-ingness to pay (p lt 02)

Effort Destruction A one-way ANOVA on concernsabout effort destruction indicated that participants hadstronger concerns effort would be destroyed in the higheraesthetic condition (Mhigher frac14 254 vs Mlower frac14 195 F(1250) frac14 837 p lt 01) Again this effect holds even whenwe controlled for willingness to pay (p lt 02)

Mediation We conducted a serial multiple mediatormodel (model 6 Hayes 2013) testing our proposed media-tion path where effort inferences and concerns about ef-fort destruction served as serial mediators productaesthetics effort inferences concerns about the de-struction of effort usage likelihood Consistent withour predictions the indirect effect of aesthetics on usagelikelihood through effort inferences and concerns abouteffort destruction was significant (b frac14 ndash03 95 CI [ndash09 ndash01]) In addition the indirect effect of aesthetics onusage likelihood through effort destruction alone was sig-nificant (b frac14 ndash04 95 CI [ndash14 ndash003]) suggesting thismediator works serially but also individually Consistentwith study 2 willingness to pay did not mediate usagelikelihood (b frac14 01 95 CI [ndash03 06]) providing fur-ther evidence that inferred monetary value was not drivingour effects In sum product aesthetics affected usage like-lihood through effort inferences and concerns that onewould be destroying this effort

Discussion In study 3 using a new subtler contextwe show that the greater perceptions of effort ascribed tothe creation of higher aesthetic napkins led to stronger con-cerns that such effort would inevitably be destroyed in theconsumption process which ultimately discouraged usageFurther we once again demonstrate that inferred monetaryvalue does not account for our results Next we manipulateeffort inferences directly to show that shifting the per-ceived effort required to make an aesthetic product willmitigate our focal effect

STUDY 4 THE MODERATING ROLE OFEFFORT INFERENCES

Given the underlying role of effort in inhibiting the con-sumption of highly aesthetic products it follows that this re-duced consumption should be attenuated if the beautifulproduct does not trigger such effort inferences in the firstplace Thus in study 4 we manipulated information aboutthe products to directly influence effort inferences comple-menting study 3 by providing process evidence through mod-eration (Spencer Zanna and Fong 2005) Notably unlikeother studies in the current article study 4 utilizes a

10 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

comparative design in which participants are presented withboth higher and lower aesthetic products at once and areasked to make a choice between them This design allowsus to extend the generalizability of our findings to contextswhere consumers are faced with products of differing levelsof aesthetic appeal and have to choose one to immediatelyconsume Moreover study 4 replaces floral napkins withturquoise napkins in the higher aesthetic condition therebyusing especially subtle aesthetic stimuli to reveal that evenin the absence of product design changes in aesthetic ap-peal through other means (eg color) can shape consump-tion decisions in the same manner

Finally study 4 helps us test the alternative explanationthat concerns over how the product will look after usageor anticipated decrements in the productrsquos beauty aloneare driving lower consumption likelihood independent ofeffort inferences If this is the case the likelihood of usingaesthetically appealing products should not differ as afunction of expended effort since consumers should al-ways be less likely to use a beautiful product irrespectiveof the effort involved in its creation However if consump-tion likelihood is indeed affected by inferred effort thenchanges in inferred effort should systematically impactconsumption likelihood a relationship we examine directlyin study 4

Method

Participants and Procedure Two hundred forty-sixparticipants were recruited from Amazon MechanicalTurk to participate in a two-cell (intervention conditionno information control vs higher aesthetics frac14 lower ef-fort) between-subjects study in exchange for paymentSeven people participated in this study twice and wereexcluded yielding a final sample of 239 participants (48female [six did not report gender] median age frac14 31 ages18ndash69)

Study 4 used the same guided visualization scenario asstudy 3 where participants imagined visiting their localbakery and accidentally spilling coffee while they wereworking However this time they saw two separatestacks of napkins they could use to clean up the spillThe napkins were turquoise (higher aesthetic option) orplain white (lower aesthetic option see appendix A row4 for images) and both napkin images were presented atonce Additional details are available in the webappendix

At this point participants in the control condition pro-ceeded directly to a choice task in which they indicated whichtype of napkin they would use to clean up the spill On theother hand participants in the higher aestheticsfrac14 lower effortcondition were first told that as they looked at the napkinsthey recalled that a friend who used to work for this bakeryhad told them that it actually takes less effort and time forcompanies to manufacture the blue napkins than it does to

make and bleach the white ones2 Next participants in thislower effort condition completed the choice task After theirchoice all participants indicated how much they thought thenapkins cost (1 frac14 very little 7 frac14 quite a lot)

Results and Discussion

Conceptually replicating prior studies in the controlcondition where no effort inferences were made salientparticipants were less likely to choose the higher aestheticblue napkins to clean up the spill (1983 blue vs8017white) However this lower usage likelihood was re-versed when the higher aesthetic blue napkins elicitedlower perceptions of effort (6356blue vs 3644white v2

(1) frac14 4707 (n frac14 239) p lt 001) Importantly the choiceeffects continue to hold when we control for perceived cost(p lt 001)

Discussion Study 4 offers convergent support for theproposed underlying process by showing that the reducedconsumption of highly aesthetic products is reversed whenthese products elicit lower effort inferences As revealedby the pretest (see footnote 2) in the control conditionwhere no effort information was made salient participantsascribed greater effort to the higher aesthetic blue napkinand were less likely to use it but when this blue napkinwas thought to require less effort to produce participantsbecame more likely to use it Notably unlike our priorstudies study 4 employed a comparative design in whichparticipants saw higher and lower aesthetic options at thesame time mirroring real life where consumers encountermultiple product offerings with differing aesthetic appealand have to choose one to use

These results also suggest that anticipated decrements inbeauty alone or concerns over what the aesthetic productwill look like after consumption are unlikely to inhibitconsumption Such projected losses of beauty are not evi-dent before consumption has occurred when the highlyaesthetic product is still in pristine beautiful condition Ifexpected drops in the aesthetic appeal of the product alonehad been responsible for driving reduced consumption in-dividuals would have been equally inhibited from using thehigher aesthetic napkin irrespective of effort inferencesSuch an alternative is inconsistent with the reversal in us-age likelihood we observed in the higher aesthetics frac14lower effort condition since the aesthetic appeal of the

2 A pretest confirmed the validity of study 4rsquos effort manipulationParticipants (n frac14 201) completed a 2 (aesthetics) 2 (effort interven-tion) between-subjects study where they read the same scenario butwere randomly assigned a napkin choice and asked to make effortinferences about the napkin Results revealed a significant interaction(p lt 001) Whereas in the control condition the higher aesthetic nap-kin elicited higher perceptions of effort (Mcontrol higher aesthetic frac14 391vs Mcontrol lower aesthetic frac14 335 p lt 04) this pattern reversed in thelow effort condition (Mlow effort higher aesthetic frac14 302 vs Mlow effort lower

aesthetic frac14 431 p lt 001) Procedural details and full results are avail-able in the web appendix

WU ET AL 11

napkins remained constant only the perceived effort hadchanged Thus we provide further evidence for the prem-ise that consumers strongly link aesthetics and effort andshow that for consumption to be reduced the highly aes-thetic product must signal higher effort in addition to itsaesthetic qualities

Notably while our results support the notion that antici-pated drops in beauty alone are insufficient to lead to a re-duction in consumption likelihood it is also worthmentioning that because effort and beauty are inextricablylinked constructs concerns over destroying effort mayshare to some extent overlapping variance with concernsover the imminent losses of beauty This suggests that inother contexts anticipated decrements in beauty may alsoplay a role in driving usage potentially for products of ex-treme aesthetic appeal that are more defined by theirbeauty as opposed to the colored napkins used hereNonetheless in the current context the results demonstratethat shifting perceptions about the amount of effort neededto create a higher aesthetic product is sufficient to over-come any inhibition to consume it

We next provide additional evidence for our conceptual-ization by investigating a theoretically driven individualdifference that affects the degree to which effort is inher-ently appreciated and by extension should influence deci-sions to use highly aesthetic products

STUDY 5 THE ROLE OF IMPLICIT SELF-THEORIES IN SHAPING USAGE

Based on our theory because the higher effort as-cribed to beautiful products underlies their lower likeli-hood of usage such a reduction should be moderated bythe degree to which effort is intrinsically valued or peo-plersquos implicit self-theories According to research on im-plicit self-theories entity theorists view their personalqualities as stable and unable to be enhanced by self-improvement while incremental theorists view thesequalities as flexible and able to be cultivated through la-bor and effort (Dweck 2000) Similarly entity theoriststend to view effort as ineffective and pointless while in-cremental theorists are more optimistic that their effortscarry intrinsic value and will eventually bear fruit(Dweck and Leggett 1988)

We propose that beyond the recognition of personal ef-fort implicit self-theories affect the extent to which con-sumers appreciate othersrsquo effort and by extension theeffort that goes into the creation of highly aesthetic prod-ucts To test this prediction we conducted a correlationalstudy examining the relationship between implicit self-theories and the propensity to appreciate effort-laden prod-ucts Participants (n frac14 134) first completed the implicitself-theories scale (Levy Stroessner and Dweck 1998)where higher (lower) scores indicate greater endorsement

of incremental (entity) self-theory Next they indicatedtheir agreement with five items reflecting appreciation forothersrsquo effort (eg I notice when people work really hardto create something3 all anchored at 1 frac14 strongly disagree7 frac14 strongly agree a frac14 91) We found a significant posi-tive correlation (r frac14 23 p lt 01) such that incrementallyoriented individuals were more likely to appreciate thingsthat reflect a great deal of effort

Thus based on this appreciation for othersrsquo effort in study5 we predict that incremental theorists will be less likely toconsume products that are highly aesthetic and by extensionladen with effort By contrast because entity theorists havelower intrinsic appreciation for effort they will be equallylikely to use a product regardless of its aesthetic appeal

Method

Participants and Procedure One hundred eighty-seven undergraduate students from a southwesternuniversity participated in a 2 (aesthetics higher vs lower) continuous (implicit self-theories) between-subjectsstudy in exchange for partial course credit Two partici-pants reported having a gluten allergy that prevented themfrom consuming the goldfish crackers accompanying thenapkins An additional 11 participants were excluded fromthe analysismdashone respondent participated in this studytwice and 10 had missing data on implicit self-theorieswhich we had measured in a separate presurvey severalweeks prior to the focal study Thus the final sample com-prised 174 participants (52 female [four did not reportgender] median age frac14 21 ages 18ndash41)

Study 5 employed the same cover story about pairingfoods with videos used in study 2 but this time usingPepperidge Farm goldfish crackers We chose these crack-ers because they are slightly messy to eatmdashpeople wouldwant to use a napkin but did not necessarily have to creat-ing an ideal context within which to test our hypothesesParticipants received an individual pack of goldfish crack-ers along with a paper napkin which was either decorativewith a white background (higher aesthetic condition) orplain white (lower aesthetic condition) (both 61=2 inchessquare see appendix A row 5 for images) Importantlythe experimenter gave no explicit instructions on what to dowith this napkin Of note in addition to the pretest assessingdifferent levels of aesthetic appeal between the two napkinsanother between-subjects pretest (n frac14 81) showed that partic-ipants liked the higher (vs lower) aesthetic napkin and its de-sign more (Mhigher aesthetic frac14 516 vs Mlower aesthetic frac14 365t(79) frac14 ndash516 p lt 001 r frac14 87) but both napkins were

3 The other items were (2) I really appreciate it when somebodytakes the time and effort to make something (3) I treasure somethingmore when I know a lot of effort has gone into creating it (4) I havean appreciation for products that reflect a great deal of effort on themakerrsquos part and (5) I value something more when I know it took alot of time and energy to produce

12 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

rated as equally versatile in their usage (Mhigher aesthetic frac14 580vs Mlower aesthetic frac14 591 t(79) frac14 47 p gt 60 a frac14 91)Additional pretest details are available in the web appendix

Participants were told to watch a 35 minute video onwildlife animals while they ate the crackers and that theywere free to eat as much or as little as they liked Once par-ticipants finished the video the experimenter collected thenapkin and any leftover crackers and recorded whether thenapkin had been used or not (0 frac14 no 1 frac14 yes) in anotherroom A napkin was coded as ldquousedrdquo if it showed any signsof usage (ie had any food stains on it looked crumpled orhad been used to spit out gum) and was coded as ldquounusedrdquoonly if it appeared untouched and in pristine condition mak-ing it a highly conservative test of our hypotheses To againensure that perceived cost was not influencing our focal ef-fects we asked participants how much they would be will-ing to pay for a pack of napkins (ie dollar value) Finallyparticipants completed a series of filler measures that as-sessed how interesting the video was and how much theyliked eating goldfish crackers in general

Results and Discussion

A 2 (aesthetics condition) continuous (implicit self-theories) logistic regression on napkin usage behavior(used yes no) was performed Regressing usage behavioron the aesthetics manipulation mean-centered levels ofimplicit self-theories and their interaction revealed a sig-nificant simple effect of aesthetics at the mean of implicitself-theories (b frac14 ndash37 Wald v2 frac14 460 p frac14 03) suchthat a smaller percentage of people used the napkin in the

higher aesthetic condition across all participants conceptu-ally replicating prior studies Importantly the interactionwas also significant (b frac14 ndash30 Wald v2 frac14 419 p frac14 04see figure 3) Notably this interaction continued to holdeven when we controlled for willingness to pay (p lt 04)We used the Johnson-Neyman technique to identify therange of implicit self-theories for which the simple effectof the aesthetics manipulation was significant where lowervalues imply an entity-oriented mindset while higher val-ues imply an incrementally oriented mindset We found asignificant reduction in usage of the higher aesthetic deco-rative (vs lower aesthetic white) paper napkin for anyvalue of implicit self-theories above 406 (at p lt 05) butnot for any value less than 406 In other words incremen-tal theorists were less likely to use a higher (vs lower) aes-thetic napkin whereas entity theorists were equally likelyto use a napkin regardless of its appearance

Discussion In study 5 we provide further evidence forour proposed mechanism by showing that implicit self-theories or consumersrsquo chronic appreciation for investedeffort shapes decisions to use an aesthetically pleasingproduct Incremental theorists who are more appreciativeof effort were less likely to use a higher aesthetic decora-tive napkin than a lower aesthetic plain white napkin butsuch effects were not observed among entity theorists whohave lower intrinsic appreciation for effort We have nowreliably established the inhibiting effect of product aes-thetics on consumption across multiple products and con-sumption contexts and provided convergent support for theunderlying mechanism In our final two studies we

FIGURE 3

AESTHETICS IMPLICIT SELF-THEORIES ON NAPKIN USAGE (STUDY 5)

WU ET AL 13

elucidate the drivers of post-consumption emotions whileholding usage constant thereby allowing us to hone in onpost-consumption consequences in a more controlledfashion since people are inherently less likely to usehigher aesthetic products which could potentially result inself-selection issues

STUDY 6A DECREMENTS IN BEAUTYAND POST-CONSUMPTION AFFECT

Recall in study 2 that when the cupcake was highly aes-thetic consumption enjoyment was lower among individ-uals most motivated to engage in consumption (ie hungryindividuals) an effect we propose is determined by twoprocesses working in tandem First we expect that the ef-fort inferences made prior to consumption will continue todrive emotional outcomes given the consumption processinvolves the actual destruction of effort Second and onlyevident post-consumption are the decrements in beautythat aesthetic products undergo when their aesthetic quali-ties are visibly compromised through usage Because beau-tiful products are inherently pleasurable (Reber et al 2004Reimann et al 2010) we predict that individuals will expe-rience less pleasure and more negative affect when theywitness highly aesthetic products undergo steeper drops inbeauty as a result of consumption Consistent with prospecttheoryrsquos value function (Kahneman and Tversky 1979)initial changesmdashhere the larger losses of beauty associatedwith the usage of a higher (vs lower) aesthetic productmdashshould be particularly jarring and lead to more negative af-fect (Frederick and Loewenstein 1999)

Importantly unlike in study 2 where we measured theamount consumed as well as post-consumption enjoymentin study 6A we hold usage constant in the higher andlower aesthetic conditions and hone in on the changes inbeauty with a longitudinal study design Specifically theobjective of study 6A is to extend prior work on the rela-tionship between beauty and pleasure by establishing itscorollarymdashthat the consumption of a higher (vs lower)aesthetic product will lead to greater perceived losses ofbeauty and that such decrements in beauty will in turnhave a negative influence on post-consumption affect Wemeasure this decrement by capturing aesthetic judgmentsimmediately before and after usage

Method

Participants and Procedure Four hundred sixteen par-ticipants were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk toparticipate in a 2 (aesthetics higher vs lower between) 2(aesthetic judgment before vs after usage within) mixed-design study in exchange for payment Six individuals par-ticipated in this study twice and four had missing data onthe focal dependent measures and were excluded from theanalysis yielding a final sample of 406 participants (54

female [11 did not report gender] median age frac14 30 ages18ndash76)

The procedure was similar to that of study 3 featuringthe same bakery scenario and stimuli but with several mod-ifications After participants were initially presented witheither the higher or lower aesthetic napkins following thespill they immediately completed two semantic differen-tial items of aesthetic evaluations for these unused napkinson seven-point scales ldquonot at all prettyvery prettyrdquo andldquonot at all uglyvery uglyrdquo (reverse-coded) which havebeen shown in prior work to capture aesthetic judgments(Reber Winkielman and Schwarz 1998 r frac14 47) Aftercompleting these baseline aesthetic judgment measuresparticipants proceeded with the scenario They were toldthey realized they would need to grab at least 10 napkins tocome close to cleaning up the spill and were subsequentlyshown a stack of unused napkins The scenario ended withan image of a bundle of napkins now drenched with cof-fee that were used to clean up the spill Additional detailsof the procedure are available in the web appendix

Immediately after reading the scenario participantscompleted the same set of aesthetic judgment items a sec-ond time this time rating the coffee-drenched napkinswhich served as a measure of post-usage aesthetic judg-ments Participants then indicated to what extent they ex-perienced each of the following negative emotions whilethey were using the napkins to clean up the spill stressedregretful bad afraid fearful sad sorry and guilty whichwe combined into an index of post-consumption negativeaffect (1 frac14 not at all 7 frac14 very much so afrac14 91)

Results and Discussion

We predicted that participants would experience greaternegative affect after using the higher (vs lower) aestheticnapkins an effect that would be driven by the larger decre-ments in beauty that stem from the consumption of higheraesthetic products

Emotions A one-way ANOVA on negative emotionsexperienced after consumption revealed that participantswho used the higher aesthetic floral napkins to clean up thespill felt more negative affect than those who used thelower aesthetic white napkins (Mhigher aesthetic frac14 305 vsMlower aesthetic frac14 246 F(1 404) frac14 1686 p lt 001)

Decrements in Beauty (Longitudinal) A 2 (aestheticshigher vs lower) 2 (timing before usage vs after usage)mixed ANOVA on aesthetic judgments yielded main ef-fects of both aesthetics (F(1 404) frac14 10652 p lt 001) andtiming (F(1 404) frac14 125629 p lt 001) which were quali-fied by a significant aesthetics timing interaction (F(1404) frac14 5302 p lt 001) Planned contrasts revealed thatwhereas the higher aesthetic napkins elicited more favor-able aesthetic judgments than the lower aesthetic napkinsbefore usage (Mhigher frac14 594 vs Mlower frac14 447 F(1 404)

14 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

frac14 15269 p lt 001) this difference was substantiallyreduced after usage (Mhigher frac14 237 vs Mlower frac14 211F(1 404) frac14 484 p frac14 03) Importantly and arguably mostcentral to our research the decrement in aesthetic ratingsthrough usage was significantly larger in the higher aes-thetic conditionmdashin fact 151 largermdashthan that observedin the lower aesthetic condition (ie a drop of 357 unitsvs a drop of 236 units)

Mediation Finally we are interested in whether decre-ments in aesthetic judgment emanating from product usageunderlie post-consumption affect Consistent with predic-tions mediation analysis (model 4 Hayes 2013) revealedthat the indirect effect of aesthetics on negative affectthrough changes in aesthetic judgment was significant (b frac1415 95 CI [04 29]) suggesting that product aestheticsaffected the experience of negative emotions through thelarger losses of beauty resulting from the consumption ofhigher aesthetic products

Discussion While past work has shown that aestheticsare inextricably linked with pleasure (Reber et al 2004Reimann et al 2010) study 6A extends this body of re-search by revealing that in the context of nondurable prod-ucts where consumption entails damaging product designnot only does the usage of higher (vs lower) aestheticproducts result in larger decrements in beauty but suchlosses also drive greater negative affect after consumptionNotably while we asked participants to assess the aestheticqualities of the napkins before and immediately after usageto more precisely capture the changes in beauty we ob-served we recognize that this design may have caused theaesthetic appeal of the napkins to be more salient prior toconsumption making its decrement therefore more pro-nounced after consumption Thus having established thatbeauty decrements resulting from aesthetic product usageunderlie post-consumption affect in study 6B we measurethis change in a less invasive manner after consumptionWe also integrate changes in beauty and effort inferencesinto emotional reactions linked to consumption

STUDY 6B TESTING THE FULLCONCEPTUAL MODEL FOR POST-

CONSUMPTION AFFECT

The goal of study 6B is to elucidate the drivers of post-consumption emotions while continuing to hold usage con-stant in both conditions thereby allowing us to test the fullconceptual model in a more controlled fashion As alludedto in study 6A the inherently lower consumption likeli-hood of higher aesthetic products could potentially resultin self-selection issues In study 6B we predict that partici-pants will experience more negative affect after using ahigher (vs lower) aesthetic product an effect driven in tan-dem by effort inferences as well as changes in beauty

Further we try to better understand consumersrsquo emotionalreactions after aesthetic product usage by not highlightingthe productrsquos aesthetic qualities beforehand Finally wemeasure implicit self-theories to examine whether onersquos in-herent degree of effort appreciation moderates post-consumption negative affect

Method

Participants and Procedure Four hundred participantswere recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk to partici-pate in a two-cell (aesthetics higher vs lower) between-subjects study in exchange for payment Ten individualsparticipated in this study twice and 17 had missing data onthe focal dependent measures and were excluded from theanalysis yielding a final sample of 373 participants (55female [two did not report gender] median age frac14 32 ages18ndash76)

The study design of study 6B was almost identical tothat of study 6A aside from several modifications Firstparticipants completed the same negative emotion indexfrom study 6A (afrac14 91) immediately after reading the sce-nario instead of after aesthetics judgment measures (whichwere not included in this study) Second instead of assess-ing aesthetic ratings at two separate points in time we uti-lized a new single cross-sectional measure to capturedecrements in beauty post-consumption ldquoBy using thenapkins it felt like I was turning something that was oncebeautiful into something uglyrdquo (1 frac14 strongly disagree 7 frac14strongly agree) Next to examine effort inferences as a par-allel driver of negative affect after consumption partici-pants completed the same effort inferences and effortdestruction measures from study 3 although these mea-sures are distinct from study 3 in that they were assessedafter usage had already taken place Finally participantscompleted the implicit self-theories scale

Results and Discussion

Emotions Replicating study 6A a one-way ANOVAon negative emotions revealed that participants who usedthe higher aesthetic floral napkins to clean up the spill feltmore negative affect than those who used the lower aestheticwhite napkins (Mhigher aesthetic frac14 313 vs Mlower aesthetic frac14283 F(1 371) frac14 394 p lt 05) Of note this main effectdid not interact with implicit self-theories (p gt 30) sug-gesting that both incremental and entity theorists experi-enced more negative affect after using the higher (vslower) aesthetic napkins to clean up the spill a finding werevisit in the discussion section

Decrements in Beauty (Cross-Sectional) A one-wayANOVA on changes in beauty indicated that the higheraesthetic napkin underwent greater decrements in beautythrough consumption (Mhigher frac14 263 vs Mlower frac14 177F(1 371) frac14 2671 p lt 001)

WU ET AL 15

Effort Inferences A one-way ANOVA on effort infer-ences indicated that participants ascribed greater effort tothe higher aesthetic napkins (Mhigher frac14 349 vs Mlower frac14287 F(1 371) frac14 1359 p lt 001)

Effort Destruction A one-way ANOVA on concernsabout effort destruction indicated that participants hadstronger concerns that effort had been destroyed in thehigher aesthetic condition (Mhigher frac14 262 vs Mlower frac14200 F(1 371) frac14 1355 p lt 001)

Mediation Finally we conducted two separate media-tion analyses one testing the path of product aesthetics decrements in beauty negative affect (model 4 Hayes2013) and the other testing the serial path of product aes-thetics effort inferences concerns about effort de-struction negative affect (model 6) Results from thefirst analysis revealed that the indirect effect of aestheticson negative affect through changes in beauty was signifi-cant (b frac14 37 95 CI [23 54]) suggesting that productaesthetics affected the experience of negative emotionsthrough larger decrements in beauty in the higher aestheticcondition Second the indirect effect of aesthetics on nega-tive affect through effort inferences and concerns about ef-fort destruction (in serial) was also significant (b frac14 1295 CI [06 23]) as was the indirect effect of aestheticson negative affect through effort destruction alone (b frac1411 95 CI [01 23])

Finally we also included beauty decrements effort in-ferences and effort destruction into the model as parallelmediators to gain greater understanding of the relativestrength of these drivers This analysis revealed that whenall three mediators were in the model the indirect effectthrough decrements in beauty remained significant (b frac1422 95 CI [11 36]) as did the indirect effect througheffort destruction (b frac14 15 95 CI [06 27]) Taken to-gether these results suggest that while concerns about ef-fort destruction continue to play a role in driving theemotional outcomes of aesthetic product usage the decre-ments in beauty that become evident only after an aestheticproduct has been visibly compromised through consump-tion also lead to negative affect

Discussion Study 6B which allowed us to examinethe entire post-consumption conceptual model revealedthat people who used higher (vs lower) aesthetic napkinssubsequently experienced greater negative affect an effectdriven by two processes operating in parallel concernsabout the destruction of effort and decrements in beauty Inother words the consumption experience was associatedwith more negative affect because the consumption processnot only involved the actual destruction of effort but italso took a beautiful product that was typified by pleasureand transformed it into something marked by displeasure

We should also note that we replicated the post-consumption findings with actual paper napkins in a lab

context In a separate study using study 5rsquos procedure par-ticipants watched a video and received a snack to eat alongwith a higher versus lower aesthetic napkin and then indi-cated how they felt about the consumption experienceParticipants who chose to use their higher aesthetic napkinreported feeling more negative affect relative to whosewho chose to use their lower aesthetic napkin (p frac14 04)and relative to those who did not use their higher aestheticnapkin (p lt 01) Thus aesthetic product usage increasednegative affect even when consumers could choose to ei-ther use the aesthetic product or not and when the aestheticproduct (the napkin) was tangential to the affect measurescollected which specifically pertained to the video-watching and snack-eating task Additional details areavailable in the web appendix

Though we provide evidence that effort inferences con-tinued to partially drive consumer responses to beautifulproducts after usage it is interesting to note that post-consumption affect was not moderated by the degree towhich effort is intrinsically appreciated (ie implicit self-theories) While unexpected we speculate that this may oc-cur because post-consumption enjoyment is not exclusivelydriven by effort inferences Since losses of beauty alsoplay a substantial role in shaping emotional outcomes afterconsumption the beauty decrements associated with aes-thetic product usage may have brought entity theorists to asimilar emotional state as incremental theorists resultingin everybody feeling worse off after consumption irrespec-tive of individual differences in effort appreciation Morebroadly since post-consumption affect appears to be multi-ply determined it is difficult to completely disentangle thenegative affect stemming from the destruction of effortfrom the negative affect stemming from decrements inbeauty Study 6B offers a distinct test of this conjecturesince it made usage (and hence losses of beauty) salientthrough images of visibly used napkins

GENERAL DISCUSSION

Across a series of laboratory and field studies using avariety of nondurable product categories and consumptionsituations we reveal the negative impact of enhanced prod-uct aesthetics on usage and post-consumption conse-quences First we document an inhibiting effect of productaesthetics on consumption behaviors for disposable andperishable products in both real-world (study 1) and lab(study 2) settings Next we shed light on the drivers of us-age likelihood using mediation (study 3) a context-basedboundary condition (study 4) and a theoretically derivedindividual difference moderator (study 5) thereby provid-ing convergent support for an underlying process based oneffort Finally in studies 6A and 6B we hold product us-age constant to elucidate the drivers of post-consumptionaffect and show that the decrements in beauty that

16 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

aesthetic products inherently undergo as a result of con-sumption combined with concerns that one has actuallydestroyed effort underlie these effects

Theoretical Contributions Our work makes severaltheoretical contributions First while prior research hasshown that consumers respond favorably to both productaesthetics and effort we believe we are the first to establisha causal relationship between these constructs We findthat highly aesthetic products can elicit greater perceptionsof effort regardless of whether this effort was exerted dur-ing product design physical production or both processesWe further reveal that these effort inferences are not lim-ited to handmade products such as perishable foods butalso apply to mass-produced products such as consumerpackaged disposable goods

Second while existing literature suggests that consumerpreferences should increase as a function of a productrsquos aes-thetic appeal the prevailing ways of assessing the impact ofaesthetics on consumer preference have been limited to pur-chase intentions product evaluations and choice (Hagtvedtand Patrick 2008 Raghubir and Greenleaf 2006 Reimannet al 2010 Townsend and Shu 2010) Surprisingly the role ofaesthetics after choice has received little empirical attention todate Despite the stimulating effect that enhanced product aes-thetics have on choice and pre-usage evaluations our resultssuggest that once beautiful products are acquired consumersmay be less likely to consume them because the higher infer-ences of effort attributed to their creation elicit stronger con-cerns that such effort would be destroyed during consumption

This research also shows that the impact of implicit self-theories on consumer behavior may be more pervasivethan previously thought While prior research in psychol-ogy has shown that incremental and entity theorists carrydissimilar beliefs about the value of their own effort(Dweck 2000) we provide support for the novel predictionthat beyond the recognition of personal effort implicitself-theories affect the extent to which consumers appreci-ate the effort that goes into the creation of aestheticallyappealing products

Finally contrary to the notion that enhanced product aes-thetics are always beneficial to consumption enjoyment ourwork reveals that usage of highly aesthetic disposable prod-ucts can actually lower overall enjoyment of the consumptionexperience through two separate pathways (1) by elicitingconcerns that one has actually destroyed effort and (2) bycompromising the beauty that typically characterizes aestheticproducts Thus we add to the literature on aesthetics andpleasure by showing how the consumption of highly aestheticproducts can result in larger losses of beauty and that suchdecrements in turn drive the relationship between aestheticproduct consumption and negative affect

More generally these findings speak to researchthat explores when and why the drivers of predicted andexperienced utility might diverge For instance

Thompson et al (2005) found that consumersrsquo initial desirefor product capability before purchase leads them to chooseproducts packed with features but their growing desire forproduct usability after usage leads them to ultimately prefersimpler products Similarly Lee and Tsai (2014) showedthat price promotions can stimulate sales but lower atten-tion during consumption which in turn reduces consump-tion enjoyment In the same vein despite the delightinitially elicited by the choice of beautiful products wedemonstrate that enhanced aesthetics have the ability tolater discourage usage and lower consumption enjoyment

Substantive Implications Our findings carry importantpractical implications as they pose an interesting dilemmato managers While conventional wisdom suggests that mar-keters should strive to invest the highest degree of effort intomaking their products look aesthetically pleasing at least tothe extent that company resources will allow our researchreveals that the story is not so simple Enhancing productaesthetics might positively affect initial attention interestand choice but should be considered with caution given thatsuch increased appeal could inhibit usage and reduce enjoy-ment relative to less aesthetically appealing productsRelatedly people likely consume highly aesthetic disposableproducts more slowly which could affect interpurchasetime Thus the pursuit of product aesthetics and improvedshort-term sales must be constantly balanced against theneed to encourage consumption ensure customer satisfac-tion and maintain long-term profitability Still certain prod-ucts such as beautiful candles and soaps may serve adecorative purpose in addition to their basic utilitarian func-tion and consequently may also carry intrinsic aestheticvalue Our recommendations are admittedly less straightfor-ward under such circumstances as consumers are able toderive utility from the productsrsquo enhanced aesthetics simplyby displaying them

Our results also have clear implications for managersand policy makers interested in promoting conservationand sustainable business practices A growing number ofretail and service establishments have been switching tounbleached paper products as the traditional bleachingprocess that removes imperfections and gives paper itswhite appearance also produces hazardous chemicals (egchlorine and dioxins) that are harmful to the environment(Evans 2010) While the transition to unbleached paperproducts has benefited the environment the results fromour investigation suggest the growing popularity of thistrend may be a double-edged sword To the extent thatunbleached paper products are considered less aestheticallyappealing consumers may show less restraint in usingthem leading to backfiring effects for conservation effortsPut another way the positive environmental impact of pro-ducing unbleached paper products could potentially be off-set by consumersrsquo reduced inhibition in consuming theseproducts Thus increasing the aesthetic appeal of products

WU ET AL 17

may actually be an effective way for companies to promoteenvironmentally sustainable behaviors even after incorpo-rating the increased cost of implementing such practices

Finally given that rising obesity rates are a major publichealth concern traced to increased consumption (Chandonand Wansink 2007) there has been burgeoning interest inthe various factors that shape consumer food choices (Corniland Chandon 2016 McFerran et al 2010 Scott et al 2008)The results of study 2 suggest that one way to curb overeat-ing might be to enhance the aesthetic presentation of foodproducts especially hedonic foods Of course additionalresearch is needed to better explore the impact of aestheticsin this important area given the counteracting effects thatfood aesthetics exert on consumption versus enjoyment

Limitations and Future Research While the current setof studies was designed to elucidate perceived effort as anunderlying mechanism of lower usage of aestheticallyappealing products we recognize that this phenomenonlike many is likely driven by multiple processes (FuchsSchreier and van Osselaer 2015) Indeed as evident in ourresearch consumption likelihood and consumption enjoy-ment each have distinct sets of drivers For instance whilewe accounted for cost across multiple studies and demon-strated that our effects held even after we controlled for theperceived price of the product we believe that cost maycertainly play a role in certain situations For example cer-tain highly aesthetic products elicit perceptions of luxury(Hagtvedt and Patrick 2008) and may consequently reduceconsumption because they appear ldquotoo expensive to userdquoand cost may even interact with aesthetics under certaincircumstances to impact consumption such that the infer-ences of effort typically ascribed to aesthetically appealingproducts could be mitigated if people are told that theywere extremely inexpensive

In addition classic research by Loewenstein (1987)showed that people often prefer to delay consumption ofenjoyable experiences It may be that people are averse toimmediately consuming a highly aesthetic product becausethey are able to derive more utility by savoring the experi-ence and postponing consumption Further as alluded to instudy 4 it is possible that anticipated decrements in beautymay play a larger role in shaping usage in other consump-tion contexts Thus while we focus on the role of effortinferences in driving lower usage of highly aesthetic prod-ucts we are cognizant of the fact that other mechanismslikely exist which would provide intriguing avenues forfurther investigation

It would also be interesting to examine whether the neg-ative influence of enhanced aesthetics would hold acrossdifferent consumption contexts That is are there situationswhere the present phenomenon would not emerge Indeedone could argue that service establishments such as upscalerestaurants and luxury resorts which regularly pampertheir guests with beautifully plated entrees and folded

towel animals would eventually be driven out of businessif the consumption of highly aesthetic products alwaysresulted in lower enjoyment We believe that whether theusage of highly aesthetic products is accompanied bydecreased consumption and increased negative affect willhinge on the nature of the consumption environment Priorresearch indicates that our surroundings are capable ofautomatically eliciting normative behaviors when situa-tional norms are well established (Aarts and Dijksterhuis2003) Extending this perspective it is possible that theeffects observed in this article may be relatively weakenedwhen consumption occurs in environments characterizedby strong expectations to engage in indulgent consumptionsuch as in a fancy restaurant or luxurious hotel

Relatedly it would be interesting to examine whethercalling attention to fact that the aesthetic product if leftunconsumed will face inevitable destruction could enhanceconsumption likelihood and enjoyment to some extent par-ticularly for perishable products such as food4 Indeedrecent research has shown that consumers display a strongaversion to waste and unused utility (Bolton and Alba2012) Thus future studies should examine whether theeffects documented in this article could be attenuated ifthe inevitable destruction of effort is made salient to con-sumers (eg the product will go bad be thrown away orsomebody else will consume the product even if they donot) In summary future work should explore situationswhere enhanced aesthetics might carry more weight in theutility function for the overall consumption experienceand subsequently increase consumption and boostenjoyment

Another area for future research would be to examinewhether the destruction of product aesthetics is an ldquoall ornothingrdquo event such that any amount of consumption (evena single bite of a cupcake) would be viewed as destroyingthe productrsquos overall beauty While our experimentaldesigns did not allow us to examine whether destruction is acontinuous versus discrete function of consumption it isworth nothing that we did document lower usage acrossvarying degrees of consumption (eg consumption was con-tinuous in study 2 but discrete in study 5) and we did findthat different levels of consumption still led to reducedenjoyment Nevertheless we believe this is an importantempirical question worth investigating in the future

Finally while we have limited our analysis to nondura-bles (perishable and disposable products specifically) anintriguing path would be to investigate the potential moder-ating role of product durability on usage likelihood andsubsequent enjoyment of highly aesthetic products It maybe that the relative durability of the aesthetic product couldaffect individualsrsquo ability or motivation to anticipate decre-ments in beauty before consumption has occurred whichwould have implications for usage likelihood For instance

4 We thank one of the anonymous reviewers for this suggestion

18 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

with big-ticket high-involvement purchases such as sleekfurniture (eg a beautiful new white sectional sofa) con-sumers may more readily anticipate losses of beauty sincethey will have to live with and encounter the product on adaily basis even after its original beauty has faded or beentarnished through repeated use This may explain why cov-ering new furniture with plastic was at one time a verycommon practice (DiSalvo 2009)

On the other hand for nondurable lower-involvementproducts such as those used in the current research perhapspeople do not have the motivation or ability to considershifts in aesthetic appeal before consumption Furtherproducts often vary in their degree of durabilitymdasha delicateembroidered blanket while by no means nondurable or dis-posable may begin to show visible signs of wear and tearsooner than a fleece blanket Although the present researchspecifically focused on perishable and single-use productsit would be worth examining when and how the degree ofdurability or even perceptions of fragility might shapedecisions to use beautiful products

In conclusion our research documents an inhibitingeffect of enhanced product aesthetics on consumption par-ticularly for disposable and consumable nondurable prod-ucts Although beautiful products have the ability topromote positive pre-usage evaluations and stimulatechoice our work indicates that consumers are subsequentlyless likely to use them and those who do use them ulti-mately experience higher negative affect and lower enjoy-ment In addition different processes underlie consumerresponses to highly aesthetic products depending onwhether or not consumption has taken place Thus we con-clude that while products may never be too pretty tochoose they can in fact be too pretty to use

DATA COLLECTION INFORMATION

All studies were designed and analyzed by the first authorunder the guidance of the other authors The data for study 1was collected at the Scottsdale Pure Barre studio in fall2015 by research assistants and employees under the super-vision of the first author Research assistants collected thedata for studies 2 and 5 under the supervision of the firstauthor at the W P Carey School of Business MarketingDepartment Behavioral Lab in spring 2015 The data for theconceptual replication (reported in the discussion of study6B) was collected by research assistants under the supervi-sion of the first author at the W P Carey School ofBusiness Marketing Department Behavioral Lab in summer2015 The data for study 4 (both the effort manipulation pre-test and the main study) and the correlational study examin-ing the relationship between implicit self-theories andappreciation for othersrsquo effort were collected by the firstauthor using Amazon Mechanical Turk in spring 2016 Thefirst author collected the data for the aesthetic appeal pretest

(described in appendix B) studies 3 6A and 6B usingAmazon Mechanical Turk in summer 2016 Lastly researchassistants collected the data for the correlational study exam-ining the relationship between aesthetics and perceivedeffort (described in the table in ldquoThe Role of Effort inInhibiting Usagerdquo) under the supervision of the first authorat the W P Carey School of Business MarketingDepartment Behavioral Lab in fall 2016

APPENDIX A

STUDY STIMULI

WU ET AL 19

REFERENCES

Aarts Henk and Ap Dijksterhuis (2003) ldquoThe Silence of theLibrary Environment Situational Norm and SocialBehaviorrdquo Journal of Personality and Social Psychology84 (1) 18ndash28

Aharon Itzhak Nancy Etcoff Dan Ariely Christopher F ChabrisEthan OrsquoConnor and Hans C Breiter (2001) ldquoBeautifulFaces Have Variable Reward Value fMRI and BehavioralEvidencerdquo Neuron 32 (3) 537ndash51

Alba Joseph W and Elanor F Williams (2013) ldquoPleasurePrinciples A Review of Research on HedonicConsumptionrdquo Journal of Consumer Psychology 23 (1)2ndash18

Belk Russell W (1988) ldquoPossessions and the Extended SelfrdquoJournal of Consumer Research 15 (2) 139ndash67

Bem Daryl J (1972) Self-Perception Theory Stanford CAStanford University Press

Berridge Kent C (2009) ldquolsquoLikingrsquo and lsquoWantingrsquo Food RewardsBrain Substrates and Roles in Eating Disordersrdquo Physiologyamp Behavior 97 (5) 537ndash50

Bloch Peter H (1995) ldquoSeeking the Ideal Form Product Designand Consumer Responserdquo Journal of Marketing 59 (July)16ndash29

Bloch Peter H Frederic F Brunel and Todd J Arnold (2003)ldquoIndividual Differences in the Centrality of Visual ProductAesthetics Concept and Measurementrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 29 (4) 551ndash65

Bolton Lisa E and Joseph W Alba (2012) ldquoWhen Less Is MoreConsumer Aversion to Unused Utilityrdquo Journal of ConsumerPsychology 22 (3) 369ndash83

Brehm Jack W (1966) A Theory of Psychological ReactanceNew York Academic Press

Broniarczyk Susan M and Joseph W Alba (1994) ldquoThe Role ofConsumersrsquo Intuitions in Inference Makingrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 21 (3) 393ndash407

Cabanac Michel (1971) ldquoPhysiological Role of PleasurerdquoScience 173 (4002) 1103ndash7

mdashmdashmdash (1979) ldquoSensory Pleasurerdquo Quarterly Review of Biology54 (1) 1ndash29

mdashmdashmdash (1985) ldquoPreferring for Pleasurerdquo American Journal ofClinical Nutrition 42 (5) 1151ndash5

Chandon Pierre and Brian Wansink (2007) ldquoThe Biasing HealthHalos of Fast Food Restaurant Health Claims Lower CalorieEstimates and Higher Side-Dish Consumption IntentionsrdquoJournal of Consumer Research 34 (3) 301ndash14

Cornil Yann and Pierre Chandon (2016) ldquoPleasure as a Substitutefor Size How Multisensory Imagery Can Make PeopleHappier with Smaller Food Portionsrdquo Journal of MarketingResearch 53 (5) 847ndash64

Cleveland William S (1984) ldquoGraphical Methods for DataPresentation Full Scale Breaks Dot Charts and MultibasedLoggingrdquo The American Statistician 38 (4) 270ndash80

DiSalvo David (2009) ldquoThe Psychology of Plastic CouchCoversrdquo httpsneuronarrativewordpresscom20090119the-psychology-of-plastic-couch-covers

Dixie Products (2015) ldquoDixie Ultra Moments Ultimate Hostrdquohttpswwwyoutubecomwatchvfrac14wsBBq9PsgVI

Dutton Denis (2009) The Art Instinct Beauty Pleasure ampHuman Evolution New York Oxford University Press

Dweck Carol S (2000) Self-Theories Their Role in MotivationPersonality and Development Philadelphia Psychology Press

Dweck Carol S and Ellen L Leggett (1988) ldquoA Social-CognitiveApproach to Motivation and Personalityrdquo PsychologicalReview 95 (2) 256ndash73

Evans Lindsay (2010) ldquoWhy Buy Unbleached Paperrdquo httpwwwbrighthubcomenvironmentgreen-livingarticles16299aspx

Festinger Leon (1957) A Theory of Cognitive DissonanceStanford CA Stanford University Press

Frederick Shane and George Loewenstein (1999) ldquoHedonicAdaptationrdquo in Scientific Perspectives on EnjoymentSuffering and Well-Being ed Daniel Kahneman Ed Dienerand Norbert Schwartz New York Russell Sage Foundation302ndash29

Fuchs Christoph Martin Schreier and Stijn MJ van Osselaer(2015) ldquoThe Handmade Effect Whatrsquos Love Got to Do withItrdquo Journal of Marketing 79 (2) 98ndash110

Hagtvedt Henrik and Vanessa M Patrick (2008) ldquoArt InfusionThe Influence of Visual Art on the Perception and Evaluationof Consumer Productsrdquo Journal of Marketing Research 45(3) 379ndash89

AESTHETIC APPEAL PRETEST FOR ALL STIMULI USED IN STUDIES

Higher aesthetic Lower aesthetic Comparison a

Toilet paper (study 1) 377 (146) 253 (155) t(128) frac14 ndash469 p lt 001 a frac14 94Cupcake (study 2) 556 (106) 305 (146) t(128) frac14 ndash1120 p lt 001 a frac14 96Napkin (studies 3 and 6) 465 (153) 230 (144) t(128) frac14 ndash903 p lt 001 a frac14 97Napkin (study 4) 332 (145) 262 (154) t(128) frac14 ndash266 p lt 01 a frac14 92Napkin (study 5) 458 (159) 234 (151) t(128) frac14 ndash823 p lt 001 a frac14 97

NOTEmdashStandard deviations are in parentheses

In a between-subjects pretest participants were asked to rate each product along the following dimensions beautiful pretty artistic and aesthetically pleasing

(1 frac14 not at all 7 frac14 very much) which formed our aesthetic appeal index

APPENDIX B

20 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

Hayes Andrew F (2013) ldquoPROCESS A VersatileComputational Tool for Observed Variable MediationModeration and Conditional Process Modelingrdquo workingpaper School of Communication and Department ofPsychology Ohio State University Columbus OH 43210

Heller Steve (2015) ldquoA Grocery Store Illusion Is Getting You toSpend More Moneyrdquo httpwwwbusinessinsidercoma-grocery-store-illusion-is-getting-you-to-spend-more-money-2015-8ixzz3ifsOLBfG

Hurling Robert and Richard Shepherd (2003) ldquoEating with YourEyes Effect of Appearance on Expectations of LikingrdquoAppetite 41 (2) 167ndash74

Hoegg JoAndrea Joseph W Alba and Darren W Dahl (2010)ldquoThe Good the Bad and the Ugly Influence of Aesthetics onProduct Feature Judgmentsrdquo Journal of ConsumerPsychology 20 (4) 419ndash30

Johnson Palmer O and Jerzy Neyman (1936) ldquoTests of CertainLinear Hypotheses and Their Applications to SomeEducational Problemsrdquo Statistical Research Memoirs 157ndash93

Kahneman Daniel and Amos Tversky (1979) ldquoProspect TheoryAn Analysis of Decision under Riskrdquo Econometrica 47 (2)263ndash91

Kampe Knut K W Chris D Frith Raymond J Dolan and UtaFrith (2001) ldquoPsychology Reward Value of Attractivenessand Gazerdquo Nature 413 (6856) 589

Kelley Harold H (1967) ldquoAttribution Theory in SocialPsychologyrdquo in Nebraska Symposium of Motivation Vol 15ed D Levine Lincoln University of Nebraska Press192ndash238

Kirmani Amna (1990) ldquoThe Effect of Perceived AdvertisingCosts on Brand Perceptionsrdquo Journal of Consumer Research17 (2) 160ndash71

Kirmani Amna Michelle P Lee and Carolyn Yoon (2004)ldquoProcedural Priming Effects on Spontaneous InferenceFormationrdquo Journal of Economic Psychology 25 (6)859ndash75

Kruger Justin Derrick Wirtz Leaf Van Boven and T WilliamAltermatt (2004) ldquoThe Effort Heuristicrdquo Journal ofExperimental Social Psychology 40 (1) 91ndash8

Lee Leonard and Claire I Tsai (2014) ldquoHow Price PromotionsInfluence Postpurchase Consumption Experience overTimerdquo Journal of Consumer Research 40 (5) 943ndash59

Levy Sheri R Steven J Stroessner and Carol S Dweck (1998)ldquoStereotype Formation and Endorsement The Role ofImplicit Theoriesrdquo Journal of Personality and SocialPsychology 74 (6) 1421ndash36

Lisjak Monika Andrea Bonezzi Soo Kim and Derek D Rucker(2015) ldquoPerils of Compensatory Consumption Within-Domain Compensation Undermines Subsequent Self-Regulationrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 41 (5)1186ndash203

Loewenstein George (1987) ldquoAnticipation and the Valuation ofDelayed Consumptionrdquo Economic Journal 97 (September)666ndash84

Maritain Jacques (1966) ldquoBeauty and Imitationrdquo in A ModernBook of Esthetics ed Melvin Rader New York HoltRinehart amp Winston 27ndash34

McFerran Brent Darren W Dahl Gavan J Fitzsimons andAndrea C Morales (2010) ldquoIrsquoll Have What Shersquos HavingEffects of Social Influence and Body Type on the FoodChoices of Othersrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 36 (6)915ndash29

Morales Andrea C (2005) ldquoGiving Firms an lsquoErsquo for EffortConsumer Responses to High-Effort Firmsrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 31 (4) 806ndash12

Moreau C Page Leff Bonney and Kelly B Herd (2011) ldquoItrsquos theThought (and the Effort) That Counts How Customizing forOthers Differs from Customizing for Oneselfrdquo Journal ofMarketing 75 (5) 120ndash33

Norton Michael I Daniel Mochon and Dan Ariely (2012) ldquoThelsquoIkearsquo Effect When Labor Leads to Loverdquo Journal ofConsumer Psychology 22 (July) 453ndash60

Page Christine and Paul M Herr (2002) ldquoAn Investigation ofthe Processes by Which Product Design and Brand StrengthInteract to Determine Initial Affect and QualityJudgmentsrdquo Journal of Consumer Psychology 12 (2)133ndash47

Raghubir Priya and Eric A Greenleaf (2006) ldquoRatios inProportion What Should the Shape of the Package BerdquoJournal of Marketing 70 (2) 95ndash107

Raghunathan Rajagopal Rebecca Walker Naylor and Wayne DHoyer (2006) ldquoThe Unhealthy frac14 Tasty Intuition and ItsEffects on Taste Inferences Enjoyment and Choice of FoodProductsrdquo Journal of Marketing 70 (4) 170ndash84

Reber Rolf Norbert Schwarz and Piotr Winkielman (2004)ldquoProcessing Fluency and Aesthetic Pleasure Is Beauty in thePerceiverrsquos Processing Experiencerdquo Personality and SocialPsychology Review 8 (4) 364ndash82

Reber Rolf Piotr Winkielman and Norbert Schwarz (1998)ldquoEffects of Perceptual Fluency on Affective JudgmentsrdquoPsychological Science 9 (1) 45ndash48

Reimann Martin Judith Zaichkowksy Carolin Neuhaus ThomasBender and Bernd Weber (2010) ldquoAesthetic PackageDesign A Behavioral Neural and PsychologicalInvestigationrdquo Journal of Consumer Psychology 20 (4)431ndash41

Santayana George (18961955) The Sense of Beauty New YorkDover

Scott Maura L Stephen M Nowlis Naomi Mandel and AndreaC Morales (2008) ldquoThe Effects of Reduced Food Size andPackage Size on the Consumption Behavior of Restrainedand Unrestrained Eatersrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 35(3) 391ndash405

Spencer Steven J Mark P Zanna and Geoffrey T Fong (2005)ldquoEstablishing a Causal Chain Why Experiments Are OftenMore Effective than Mediational Analyses in ExaminingPsychological Processesrdquo Journal of Personality and SocialPsychology 89 (6) 845ndash51

Spiller Stephen A Gavan J Fitzsimons John G Lynch Jr andGary H McClelland (2013) ldquoSpotlights Floodlights andthe Magic Number Zero Simple Effects Tests inModerated Regressionrdquo Journal of Marketing Research 50(2) 277ndash88

Thompson Debora V Rebecca W Hamilton and Roland T Rust(2005) ldquoFeature Fatigue When Product CapabilitiesBecome Too Much of a Good Thingrdquo Journal of MarketingResearch 42 (November) 431ndash42

Townsend Claudia and Suzanne B Shu (2010) ldquoWhen and HowAesthetics Influences Financial Decisionsrdquo Journal ofConsumer Psychology 20 (4) 452ndash58

Townsend Claudia and Sanjay Sood (2012) ldquoSelf-Affirmationthrough the Choice of Highly Aesthetic Productsrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 39 (2) 415ndash28

Veryzer Robert W and J Wesley Hutchinson (1998) ldquoTheInfluence of Unity and Prototypicality on Aesthetic

WU ET AL 21

Responses to New Product Designsrdquo Journal of ConsumerResearch 24 (4) 374ndash94

Wada Yuji Carlos Arce-Lopera Tomohiro Masuda AtsushiKimura Ippeita Dan Sho-ichi Goto Daisuke Tsuzuki andKatsunori Okajima (2010) ldquoInfluence of LuminanceDistribution on the Appetizingly Fresh Appearance ofCabbagerdquo Appetite 54 (2) 363ndash68

Weiner Bernard (2000) ldquoAttributional Thoughts and ConsumerBehaviorrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 27 (December)382ndash87

Witz Anne Chris Warhurst and Dennis Nickson (2003) ldquoTheLabour of Aesthetics and The Aesthetics of OrganizationrdquoOrganization 10 (1) 33ndash54

Yamamoto Mel and David R Lambert (1994) ldquoThe Impact ofProduct Aesthetics on the Evaluation of Industrial ProductsrdquoJournal of Product Innovation Management 11 (4) 309ndash24

Yang Sha and Priya Raghubir (2005) ldquoCan Bottles SpeakVolumes The Effect of Package Shape on How Much toBuyrdquo Journal of Retailing 81 (4) 269ndash82

22 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

  • ucx057-FN1
  • ucx057-FN2
  • ucx057-FN3
  • ucx057-FN4
  • app1
  • app2
  • ucx057-TF1
  • ucx057-TF2
Page 7: It’s Too Pretty to Use! When and How Enhanced Product ...gavan/bio/GJF_articles/...testing the prediction that aesthetic products can elicit greater perceptions of effort. In line

pretest (n frac14 100) revealed that people liked the higher (vslower) aesthetic toilet paper and its design more (Mhigher

aesthetic frac14 457 vs Mlower aesthetic frac14 400 t(98) frac14 ndash195pfrac14 05 rfrac14 88)

The studio owner provided us with the number of peoplewho attended classes each week and employees who re-mained blind to our research hypotheses replenished thetoilet paper as needed A total of 772 clients visited the stu-dio over the course of the studymdash387 in the lower aestheticcondition (week 1) and 385 in the higher aesthetic condi-tion (week 2) Clients were unaware that a study was beingconducted

Results and Discussion

As predicted clients used less of the more aestheticallyappealing toilet paper 2578 total sheets of the lower aes-thetic toilet paper were used while only 1425 sheets of thehigher aesthetic toilet paper were used Because we wereprovided with the number of class attendees we were alsoable to calculate average usage per client each client in thelower aesthetic condition used an average of 666 sheetswhile each client in the higher aesthetic condition used an av-erage of 370 sheets (v2 (1)frac14 32616 (n frac14 772) p lt 001)

Discussion We find preliminary evidence that en-hanced product aesthetics can reduce usage behaviorswhile controlling for differences in paper quality and thetotal number of clients Having provided a demonstrationof this phenomenon in an ecologically valid setting the re-maining studies replicate and generalize this finding andidentify its underlying mechanism in a more controlledenvironment

STUDY 2 THE IMPACT OF AESTHETICSON FOOD CONSUMPTION AND

ENJOYMENT

The purpose of study 2 was to conceptually replicatestudy 1 in a product category in which aesthetics play amajor role food A growing body of research has docu-mented the profound influence that food presentation hason how we evaluate what we eat (Hurling and Shepherd2003 Wada et al 2010) We chose cupcakes as our focalstimuli because they are a highly familiar dessert that canbe made more aesthetically appealing (ie higher aes-thetics with frosting in the shape of a rose) or more plain(ie lower aesthetics with smooth frosting) while holdingconstant aesthetically unrelated factors such as flavor andtaste (see appendix A row 2 for images) Consistent withthe extant aesthetics literature a pretest of the cupcakesused in study 2 revealed that people were more likely tochoose to purchase the higher (vs lower) aesthetic cupcakefor consumption in the future providing an even strongertest of our predictions about higher aesthetics lowering

consumption Details of this pretest are available in theweb appendix

Importantly given the inherent nature of food we arecognizant of baseline individual differences that could af-fect the amount consumed (Lisjak et al 2015) We ran thisstudy throughout the day (from 10 am to 5 pm) acrossmultiple days so we accounted for individual differencesin hunger and measured state hunger at the start of thestudy We expect that the inhibiting effect of aesthetics onconsumption will be greatest among hungry participantsas the need to exhibit restraint should be observed onlyamong those motivated to engage in consumption in thefirst place We do not expect differences in consumptionamong satiated participants as they should have a low de-sire to eat regardless of aesthetics

Notably an alternative explanation is that people feel in-hibited from consuming highly aesthetic products becausethey tend to cost more and not because of concerns overdestroying effort Thus we also aim to replicate study 1rsquosfindings while controlling for perceived expense

Finally we seek to provide initial evidence that the con-sumption of a highly aesthetic product will negatively af-fect how much participants enjoy the consumptionexperience a notion we explore in depth in study 6 In linewith our predictions for consumption amount we expectthe negative influence of food aesthetics on post-consumption affect to be greatest among hungry individ-uals as hunger leads people to not only eat more but toalso enjoy their food more (Berridge 2009 Cabanac 19711979 1985) Thus changes in the ability to derive enjoy-ment should be observed only among those motivated toengage in consumption in the first place

Method

Participants and Procedure One hundred eighty-threeundergraduate students from a southwestern university par-ticipated in a 2 (aesthetics higher vs lower) continuous(hunger) between-subjects study in exchange for partialcourse credit Five participants were excluded from theanalysis four had missing data on the dependent measuresand one had missing data on hunger This left a sample of178 participants (52 female [one did not report gender]median age frac14 21 ages 18ndash48)

Participants first indicated their current level of hunger(1 frac14 not at all hungry 7 frac14 very hungry) They were thentold that the goal of the study was to explore which foodsgo best with different videos and that they would be eatingvanilla cupcakes Participants were randomly assigned toeither the higher or lower aesthetic condition To ensurethey did not discount the overall consumption experiencebecause they lacked freedom of choice (Brehm 1966)within each aesthetic condition they chose either a pink orcream-colored cupcake to eat Experimenters preweighedeach cupcake before the start of each session

WU ET AL 7

Next participants were told to watch a 90 second videofeaturing scenes from around the world while they ate theircupcake and that they were free to eat as much or as littleof the cupcake as they liked After finishing the video theremains of the cupcake were collected and weighed in aseparate room Participants then rated how much they en-joyed the cupcake (1 frac14 not at all 7 frac14 very much so) andcompleted filler measures that assessed how interesting thevideo was and how much they liked cupcakes in generalFinally they rated how expensive they thought the cupcakewas (1 frac14 not at all expensive 7 frac14 very expensive)

Results and Discussion

We predicted that for consumers who were motivated toconsume (ie hungry individuals) higher aesthetics wouldcurb consumption quantity and reduce consumption enjoy-ment effects that were expected to hold even when wecontrolled for perceived expense

Consumption Amount We first log-transformed the de-pendent variable to normalize the distribution (Cleveland1984) Next we performed a 2 (aesthetics condition) continuous (hunger) multiple regression analysis on thelogged consumption amount Regressing this loggedamount on the aesthetics manipulation mean-centered lev-els of hunger and their interaction revealed a directionalsimple effect of aesthetics at the mean level of hunger(b frac14 ndash10 t(174) frac14 ndash126 p frac14 21) such that participantsin the higher aesthetic condition consumed less of the cup-cake Most importantly the interaction was also significant(b frac14 ndash10 t(174) frac14 ndash213 p frac14 03) Decomposing the inter-action in the lower aesthetic (smooth frosting) condition we

found a significant effect of hunger (b frac14 15 t(174) frac14446 p lt 001) such that hungry (vs satiated) individualsconsumed more of the cupcake However attesting to the in-hibitory nature of beautiful products in the higher aesthetic(rose frosting) condition the effect of hunger was not signifi-cant (b frac14 05 t(174) frac14 129 p frac14 20) Because self-reportedhunger was measured on a 1 to 7 scale (M frac14 425 SDfrac14 168median frac14 4) we ran a floodlight analysis using the Johnson-Neyman (1936) technique to identify the range of hunger forwhich the simple effect of aesthetics was significant (figure 1see also Spiller et al 2013) This analysis revealed a signifi-cant reduction in consumption of the higher (vs lower) aes-thetic cupcake for any value of hunger above 492 (at p lt05) Thus despite a higher baseline desire to eat hungry indi-viduals actively refrained from consumption when the cup-cake was more aesthetically appealing Consistent with ourpredictions such effects were not observed among satiated in-dividuals who displayed low motivation to eat regardless ofthe cupcakersquos appearance

Enjoyment of the Cupcake A 2 continuous regres-sion on cupcake enjoyment revealed only a significant in-teraction (b frac14 ndash41 t(174) frac14 ndash256 p frac14 01 see figure 2)In the lower aesthetic condition (b frac14 45 t(174) frac14 405p lt 001) hungry (vs satiated) individuals enjoyed thecupcake more There was no effect of hunger in the higheraesthetic condition (bfrac14 04 t(174) lt 1 ns) Floodlightanalysis revealed that for all values of hunger above 466participants in the higher aesthetic condition enjoyed thecupcake significantly less (p lt 05)

Perceived Expense A 2 continuous regression onperceived expense of the cupcake revealed only a signifi-cant simple effect of aesthetics at the mean level of hunger

FIGURE 1

AESTHETICS HUNGER ON CONSUMPTION AMOUNT (STUDY 2)

8 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

(p lt 001) such that the higher aesthetic cupcake was seenas more expensive Most importantly when we controlledfor expense the 2 continuous interactions and focal ef-fects continue to hold for consumption amount (p lt 04)and cupcake enjoyment (p lt 01) Finally a moderatedmediation analysis (model 8 Hayes 2013) revealed thatperceived expense did not mediate either amount con-sumed (b frac14 ndash01 95 CI [ndash08 05]) or degree of enjoy-ment (b frac14 12 95 CI [ndash05 35]) among hungryindividuals revealing that inferred monetary value was notdriving our effects

Discussion Though our pretest showed that consumerswere more likely to choose the higher aesthetic cupcake avery different pattern of results emerged with consumptionamount and consumption enjoyment Hungry participantsactively inhibited their consumption and ate less in thehigher aesthetic rose frosting condition In addition to eat-ing less these individuals experienced lower consumptionenjoyment when the cupcake was highly aesthetic By con-ceptually replicating the previous studyrsquos results with anew product we increase the generalizability of our find-ings to food a domain for which visual presentation playsa fundamental role We also provide initial evidence thatconsumption of highly aesthetic products can carry nega-tive implications for the consumption experience a notionwe explore in greater depth in studies 6A and 6B These ef-fects continued to hold even when we controlled for per-ceived expense thus rendering such an alternative accountless likely

Having reliably demonstrated the inhibiting effect ofaesthetics on consumption across two product categorieswe next elucidate the underlying process through three

different approaches First we provide evidence for ourproposed mechanism via mediation (study 3) Second wedirectly manipulate effort inferences to show process bymoderation (study 4) and third we identify a theoreticallygrounded individual difference moderator (study 5)

STUDY 3 THE MEDIATING ROLE OFEFFORT INFERENCES AND EFFORT

DESTRUCTION

The goal of study 3 is to replicate our focal effect in anew product domain paper napkins and to shed light onthe mechanism underlying consumption likelihood by test-ing the driving role of effort inferences and effort destruc-tion Consistent with our theorizing we predict that thehigher inferences of effort elicited by highly aestheticproducts will lead to stronger concerns that such effortwould be destroyed in the consumption process resultingin lower usage likelihood Notably this is a conservativecontext in which to assess effort inferences given that pa-per napkins are machine-manufactured and so differencesin perceived effort are quite subtle Further by shifting out-side of the food domain to even subtler stimuli we canmore confidently ensure that our findings are not merelyartifacts of the stimuli we have chosen (although handmadehighly aesthetic foods such as the cupcakes used in study2 are ubiquitous in the marketplace)

Method

Participants and Procedure Two hundred sixty partic-ipants were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk toparticipate in a two-cell (aesthetics higher vs lower)

FIGURE 2

AESTHETICS HUNGER ON CUPCAKE ENJOYMENT (STUDY 2)

WU ET AL 9

between-subjects study in exchange for payment Two in-dividuals participated in this study twice and six had miss-ing data on the dependent measures and were excludedfrom the analysis yielding a final sample of 252 partici-pants (44 female [five did not report gender] medianage frac14 31 ages 19ndash69)

Participants were presented with a guided visualizationscenario in which they imagined they were at a local bak-ery getting breakfast and doing work As they were work-ing they accidentally spilled coffee all over theirdocuments prompting them to look toward the counter tosee how they could clean up the spill We presented a situa-tion in which the destruction of the product paper napkinswas imminent to assess how such an outcome shapes pref-erences to consume aesthetically appealing productsParticipants were randomly assigned to either the higher orlower aesthetic condition Those in the higher aestheticcondition saw a stack of floral napkins at the counter toclean up the spill while those in the lower aesthetic condi-tion saw a stack of plain white napkins (see appendix Arow 3 for images) Additional details of the procedure areavailable in the web appendix Subsequently participantsindicated to what extent they would use the (floral orwhite) napkins to clean up the spill (1 frac14 definitely no 7 frac14definitely yes) how likely they would be to use the napkinsto clean up the spill (1 frac14 very unlikely 7 frac14 very likely)and how many napkins they would use to clean up the spill(1 frac14 none at all 7 frac14 very many) which formed our usagelikelihood index (afrac14 81) Next to examine effort infer-ences we asked participants how much effort they thoughtwent into making the napkins (1 frac14 none at all 7 frac14 quite abit) To examine concerns about effort destruction weasked participants to rate their agreement with the state-ment ldquoI felt like I was destroying someonersquos effort by usingthe napkinsrdquo (1 frac14 strongly disagree 7 frac14 stronglyagree) Finally to again show that inferred monetary valueis not driving our effects participants indicated how muchthey would be willing to pay for a pack of the napkins inthe scenario (ie dollar value)

Results and Discussion

We predicted that participants would be less likely touse the higher aesthetic napkins and that this effect wouldbe mediated in serial by effort inferences and concernsover destroying such effort

Usage Likelihood A one-way ANOVA on the usagelikelihood index indicated that participants were less likelyto use the higher aesthetic floral napkins to clean up thespill (Mhigher aesthetic frac14 581 vs Mlower aesthetic frac14 628 F(1250) frac14 1592 p lt 001) an effect that continues to holdeven when we controlled for willingness to pay for thenapkins (p lt 001)

Effort Inferences A one-way ANOVA on effort infer-ences indicated that participants ascribed greater effort to thehigher aesthetic napkins (Mhigher frac14 380 vs Mlower frac14 319F(1 250) frac14 753 p lt 01) even when we controlled for will-ingness to pay (p lt 02)

Effort Destruction A one-way ANOVA on concernsabout effort destruction indicated that participants hadstronger concerns effort would be destroyed in the higheraesthetic condition (Mhigher frac14 254 vs Mlower frac14 195 F(1250) frac14 837 p lt 01) Again this effect holds even whenwe controlled for willingness to pay (p lt 02)

Mediation We conducted a serial multiple mediatormodel (model 6 Hayes 2013) testing our proposed media-tion path where effort inferences and concerns about ef-fort destruction served as serial mediators productaesthetics effort inferences concerns about the de-struction of effort usage likelihood Consistent withour predictions the indirect effect of aesthetics on usagelikelihood through effort inferences and concerns abouteffort destruction was significant (b frac14 ndash03 95 CI [ndash09 ndash01]) In addition the indirect effect of aesthetics onusage likelihood through effort destruction alone was sig-nificant (b frac14 ndash04 95 CI [ndash14 ndash003]) suggesting thismediator works serially but also individually Consistentwith study 2 willingness to pay did not mediate usagelikelihood (b frac14 01 95 CI [ndash03 06]) providing fur-ther evidence that inferred monetary value was not drivingour effects In sum product aesthetics affected usage like-lihood through effort inferences and concerns that onewould be destroying this effort

Discussion In study 3 using a new subtler contextwe show that the greater perceptions of effort ascribed tothe creation of higher aesthetic napkins led to stronger con-cerns that such effort would inevitably be destroyed in theconsumption process which ultimately discouraged usageFurther we once again demonstrate that inferred monetaryvalue does not account for our results Next we manipulateeffort inferences directly to show that shifting the per-ceived effort required to make an aesthetic product willmitigate our focal effect

STUDY 4 THE MODERATING ROLE OFEFFORT INFERENCES

Given the underlying role of effort in inhibiting the con-sumption of highly aesthetic products it follows that this re-duced consumption should be attenuated if the beautifulproduct does not trigger such effort inferences in the firstplace Thus in study 4 we manipulated information aboutthe products to directly influence effort inferences comple-menting study 3 by providing process evidence through mod-eration (Spencer Zanna and Fong 2005) Notably unlikeother studies in the current article study 4 utilizes a

10 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

comparative design in which participants are presented withboth higher and lower aesthetic products at once and areasked to make a choice between them This design allowsus to extend the generalizability of our findings to contextswhere consumers are faced with products of differing levelsof aesthetic appeal and have to choose one to immediatelyconsume Moreover study 4 replaces floral napkins withturquoise napkins in the higher aesthetic condition therebyusing especially subtle aesthetic stimuli to reveal that evenin the absence of product design changes in aesthetic ap-peal through other means (eg color) can shape consump-tion decisions in the same manner

Finally study 4 helps us test the alternative explanationthat concerns over how the product will look after usageor anticipated decrements in the productrsquos beauty aloneare driving lower consumption likelihood independent ofeffort inferences If this is the case the likelihood of usingaesthetically appealing products should not differ as afunction of expended effort since consumers should al-ways be less likely to use a beautiful product irrespectiveof the effort involved in its creation However if consump-tion likelihood is indeed affected by inferred effort thenchanges in inferred effort should systematically impactconsumption likelihood a relationship we examine directlyin study 4

Method

Participants and Procedure Two hundred forty-sixparticipants were recruited from Amazon MechanicalTurk to participate in a two-cell (intervention conditionno information control vs higher aesthetics frac14 lower ef-fort) between-subjects study in exchange for paymentSeven people participated in this study twice and wereexcluded yielding a final sample of 239 participants (48female [six did not report gender] median age frac14 31 ages18ndash69)

Study 4 used the same guided visualization scenario asstudy 3 where participants imagined visiting their localbakery and accidentally spilling coffee while they wereworking However this time they saw two separatestacks of napkins they could use to clean up the spillThe napkins were turquoise (higher aesthetic option) orplain white (lower aesthetic option see appendix A row4 for images) and both napkin images were presented atonce Additional details are available in the webappendix

At this point participants in the control condition pro-ceeded directly to a choice task in which they indicated whichtype of napkin they would use to clean up the spill On theother hand participants in the higher aestheticsfrac14 lower effortcondition were first told that as they looked at the napkinsthey recalled that a friend who used to work for this bakeryhad told them that it actually takes less effort and time forcompanies to manufacture the blue napkins than it does to

make and bleach the white ones2 Next participants in thislower effort condition completed the choice task After theirchoice all participants indicated how much they thought thenapkins cost (1 frac14 very little 7 frac14 quite a lot)

Results and Discussion

Conceptually replicating prior studies in the controlcondition where no effort inferences were made salientparticipants were less likely to choose the higher aestheticblue napkins to clean up the spill (1983 blue vs8017white) However this lower usage likelihood was re-versed when the higher aesthetic blue napkins elicitedlower perceptions of effort (6356blue vs 3644white v2

(1) frac14 4707 (n frac14 239) p lt 001) Importantly the choiceeffects continue to hold when we control for perceived cost(p lt 001)

Discussion Study 4 offers convergent support for theproposed underlying process by showing that the reducedconsumption of highly aesthetic products is reversed whenthese products elicit lower effort inferences As revealedby the pretest (see footnote 2) in the control conditionwhere no effort information was made salient participantsascribed greater effort to the higher aesthetic blue napkinand were less likely to use it but when this blue napkinwas thought to require less effort to produce participantsbecame more likely to use it Notably unlike our priorstudies study 4 employed a comparative design in whichparticipants saw higher and lower aesthetic options at thesame time mirroring real life where consumers encountermultiple product offerings with differing aesthetic appealand have to choose one to use

These results also suggest that anticipated decrements inbeauty alone or concerns over what the aesthetic productwill look like after consumption are unlikely to inhibitconsumption Such projected losses of beauty are not evi-dent before consumption has occurred when the highlyaesthetic product is still in pristine beautiful condition Ifexpected drops in the aesthetic appeal of the product alonehad been responsible for driving reduced consumption in-dividuals would have been equally inhibited from using thehigher aesthetic napkin irrespective of effort inferencesSuch an alternative is inconsistent with the reversal in us-age likelihood we observed in the higher aesthetics frac14lower effort condition since the aesthetic appeal of the

2 A pretest confirmed the validity of study 4rsquos effort manipulationParticipants (n frac14 201) completed a 2 (aesthetics) 2 (effort interven-tion) between-subjects study where they read the same scenario butwere randomly assigned a napkin choice and asked to make effortinferences about the napkin Results revealed a significant interaction(p lt 001) Whereas in the control condition the higher aesthetic nap-kin elicited higher perceptions of effort (Mcontrol higher aesthetic frac14 391vs Mcontrol lower aesthetic frac14 335 p lt 04) this pattern reversed in thelow effort condition (Mlow effort higher aesthetic frac14 302 vs Mlow effort lower

aesthetic frac14 431 p lt 001) Procedural details and full results are avail-able in the web appendix

WU ET AL 11

napkins remained constant only the perceived effort hadchanged Thus we provide further evidence for the prem-ise that consumers strongly link aesthetics and effort andshow that for consumption to be reduced the highly aes-thetic product must signal higher effort in addition to itsaesthetic qualities

Notably while our results support the notion that antici-pated drops in beauty alone are insufficient to lead to a re-duction in consumption likelihood it is also worthmentioning that because effort and beauty are inextricablylinked constructs concerns over destroying effort mayshare to some extent overlapping variance with concernsover the imminent losses of beauty This suggests that inother contexts anticipated decrements in beauty may alsoplay a role in driving usage potentially for products of ex-treme aesthetic appeal that are more defined by theirbeauty as opposed to the colored napkins used hereNonetheless in the current context the results demonstratethat shifting perceptions about the amount of effort neededto create a higher aesthetic product is sufficient to over-come any inhibition to consume it

We next provide additional evidence for our conceptual-ization by investigating a theoretically driven individualdifference that affects the degree to which effort is inher-ently appreciated and by extension should influence deci-sions to use highly aesthetic products

STUDY 5 THE ROLE OF IMPLICIT SELF-THEORIES IN SHAPING USAGE

Based on our theory because the higher effort as-cribed to beautiful products underlies their lower likeli-hood of usage such a reduction should be moderated bythe degree to which effort is intrinsically valued or peo-plersquos implicit self-theories According to research on im-plicit self-theories entity theorists view their personalqualities as stable and unable to be enhanced by self-improvement while incremental theorists view thesequalities as flexible and able to be cultivated through la-bor and effort (Dweck 2000) Similarly entity theoriststend to view effort as ineffective and pointless while in-cremental theorists are more optimistic that their effortscarry intrinsic value and will eventually bear fruit(Dweck and Leggett 1988)

We propose that beyond the recognition of personal ef-fort implicit self-theories affect the extent to which con-sumers appreciate othersrsquo effort and by extension theeffort that goes into the creation of highly aesthetic prod-ucts To test this prediction we conducted a correlationalstudy examining the relationship between implicit self-theories and the propensity to appreciate effort-laden prod-ucts Participants (n frac14 134) first completed the implicitself-theories scale (Levy Stroessner and Dweck 1998)where higher (lower) scores indicate greater endorsement

of incremental (entity) self-theory Next they indicatedtheir agreement with five items reflecting appreciation forothersrsquo effort (eg I notice when people work really hardto create something3 all anchored at 1 frac14 strongly disagree7 frac14 strongly agree a frac14 91) We found a significant posi-tive correlation (r frac14 23 p lt 01) such that incrementallyoriented individuals were more likely to appreciate thingsthat reflect a great deal of effort

Thus based on this appreciation for othersrsquo effort in study5 we predict that incremental theorists will be less likely toconsume products that are highly aesthetic and by extensionladen with effort By contrast because entity theorists havelower intrinsic appreciation for effort they will be equallylikely to use a product regardless of its aesthetic appeal

Method

Participants and Procedure One hundred eighty-seven undergraduate students from a southwesternuniversity participated in a 2 (aesthetics higher vs lower) continuous (implicit self-theories) between-subjectsstudy in exchange for partial course credit Two partici-pants reported having a gluten allergy that prevented themfrom consuming the goldfish crackers accompanying thenapkins An additional 11 participants were excluded fromthe analysismdashone respondent participated in this studytwice and 10 had missing data on implicit self-theorieswhich we had measured in a separate presurvey severalweeks prior to the focal study Thus the final sample com-prised 174 participants (52 female [four did not reportgender] median age frac14 21 ages 18ndash41)

Study 5 employed the same cover story about pairingfoods with videos used in study 2 but this time usingPepperidge Farm goldfish crackers We chose these crack-ers because they are slightly messy to eatmdashpeople wouldwant to use a napkin but did not necessarily have to creat-ing an ideal context within which to test our hypothesesParticipants received an individual pack of goldfish crack-ers along with a paper napkin which was either decorativewith a white background (higher aesthetic condition) orplain white (lower aesthetic condition) (both 61=2 inchessquare see appendix A row 5 for images) Importantlythe experimenter gave no explicit instructions on what to dowith this napkin Of note in addition to the pretest assessingdifferent levels of aesthetic appeal between the two napkinsanother between-subjects pretest (n frac14 81) showed that partic-ipants liked the higher (vs lower) aesthetic napkin and its de-sign more (Mhigher aesthetic frac14 516 vs Mlower aesthetic frac14 365t(79) frac14 ndash516 p lt 001 r frac14 87) but both napkins were

3 The other items were (2) I really appreciate it when somebodytakes the time and effort to make something (3) I treasure somethingmore when I know a lot of effort has gone into creating it (4) I havean appreciation for products that reflect a great deal of effort on themakerrsquos part and (5) I value something more when I know it took alot of time and energy to produce

12 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

rated as equally versatile in their usage (Mhigher aesthetic frac14 580vs Mlower aesthetic frac14 591 t(79) frac14 47 p gt 60 a frac14 91)Additional pretest details are available in the web appendix

Participants were told to watch a 35 minute video onwildlife animals while they ate the crackers and that theywere free to eat as much or as little as they liked Once par-ticipants finished the video the experimenter collected thenapkin and any leftover crackers and recorded whether thenapkin had been used or not (0 frac14 no 1 frac14 yes) in anotherroom A napkin was coded as ldquousedrdquo if it showed any signsof usage (ie had any food stains on it looked crumpled orhad been used to spit out gum) and was coded as ldquounusedrdquoonly if it appeared untouched and in pristine condition mak-ing it a highly conservative test of our hypotheses To againensure that perceived cost was not influencing our focal ef-fects we asked participants how much they would be will-ing to pay for a pack of napkins (ie dollar value) Finallyparticipants completed a series of filler measures that as-sessed how interesting the video was and how much theyliked eating goldfish crackers in general

Results and Discussion

A 2 (aesthetics condition) continuous (implicit self-theories) logistic regression on napkin usage behavior(used yes no) was performed Regressing usage behavioron the aesthetics manipulation mean-centered levels ofimplicit self-theories and their interaction revealed a sig-nificant simple effect of aesthetics at the mean of implicitself-theories (b frac14 ndash37 Wald v2 frac14 460 p frac14 03) suchthat a smaller percentage of people used the napkin in the

higher aesthetic condition across all participants conceptu-ally replicating prior studies Importantly the interactionwas also significant (b frac14 ndash30 Wald v2 frac14 419 p frac14 04see figure 3) Notably this interaction continued to holdeven when we controlled for willingness to pay (p lt 04)We used the Johnson-Neyman technique to identify therange of implicit self-theories for which the simple effectof the aesthetics manipulation was significant where lowervalues imply an entity-oriented mindset while higher val-ues imply an incrementally oriented mindset We found asignificant reduction in usage of the higher aesthetic deco-rative (vs lower aesthetic white) paper napkin for anyvalue of implicit self-theories above 406 (at p lt 05) butnot for any value less than 406 In other words incremen-tal theorists were less likely to use a higher (vs lower) aes-thetic napkin whereas entity theorists were equally likelyto use a napkin regardless of its appearance

Discussion In study 5 we provide further evidence forour proposed mechanism by showing that implicit self-theories or consumersrsquo chronic appreciation for investedeffort shapes decisions to use an aesthetically pleasingproduct Incremental theorists who are more appreciativeof effort were less likely to use a higher aesthetic decora-tive napkin than a lower aesthetic plain white napkin butsuch effects were not observed among entity theorists whohave lower intrinsic appreciation for effort We have nowreliably established the inhibiting effect of product aes-thetics on consumption across multiple products and con-sumption contexts and provided convergent support for theunderlying mechanism In our final two studies we

FIGURE 3

AESTHETICS IMPLICIT SELF-THEORIES ON NAPKIN USAGE (STUDY 5)

WU ET AL 13

elucidate the drivers of post-consumption emotions whileholding usage constant thereby allowing us to hone in onpost-consumption consequences in a more controlledfashion since people are inherently less likely to usehigher aesthetic products which could potentially result inself-selection issues

STUDY 6A DECREMENTS IN BEAUTYAND POST-CONSUMPTION AFFECT

Recall in study 2 that when the cupcake was highly aes-thetic consumption enjoyment was lower among individ-uals most motivated to engage in consumption (ie hungryindividuals) an effect we propose is determined by twoprocesses working in tandem First we expect that the ef-fort inferences made prior to consumption will continue todrive emotional outcomes given the consumption processinvolves the actual destruction of effort Second and onlyevident post-consumption are the decrements in beautythat aesthetic products undergo when their aesthetic quali-ties are visibly compromised through usage Because beau-tiful products are inherently pleasurable (Reber et al 2004Reimann et al 2010) we predict that individuals will expe-rience less pleasure and more negative affect when theywitness highly aesthetic products undergo steeper drops inbeauty as a result of consumption Consistent with prospecttheoryrsquos value function (Kahneman and Tversky 1979)initial changesmdashhere the larger losses of beauty associatedwith the usage of a higher (vs lower) aesthetic productmdashshould be particularly jarring and lead to more negative af-fect (Frederick and Loewenstein 1999)

Importantly unlike in study 2 where we measured theamount consumed as well as post-consumption enjoymentin study 6A we hold usage constant in the higher andlower aesthetic conditions and hone in on the changes inbeauty with a longitudinal study design Specifically theobjective of study 6A is to extend prior work on the rela-tionship between beauty and pleasure by establishing itscorollarymdashthat the consumption of a higher (vs lower)aesthetic product will lead to greater perceived losses ofbeauty and that such decrements in beauty will in turnhave a negative influence on post-consumption affect Wemeasure this decrement by capturing aesthetic judgmentsimmediately before and after usage

Method

Participants and Procedure Four hundred sixteen par-ticipants were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk toparticipate in a 2 (aesthetics higher vs lower between) 2(aesthetic judgment before vs after usage within) mixed-design study in exchange for payment Six individuals par-ticipated in this study twice and four had missing data onthe focal dependent measures and were excluded from theanalysis yielding a final sample of 406 participants (54

female [11 did not report gender] median age frac14 30 ages18ndash76)

The procedure was similar to that of study 3 featuringthe same bakery scenario and stimuli but with several mod-ifications After participants were initially presented witheither the higher or lower aesthetic napkins following thespill they immediately completed two semantic differen-tial items of aesthetic evaluations for these unused napkinson seven-point scales ldquonot at all prettyvery prettyrdquo andldquonot at all uglyvery uglyrdquo (reverse-coded) which havebeen shown in prior work to capture aesthetic judgments(Reber Winkielman and Schwarz 1998 r frac14 47) Aftercompleting these baseline aesthetic judgment measuresparticipants proceeded with the scenario They were toldthey realized they would need to grab at least 10 napkins tocome close to cleaning up the spill and were subsequentlyshown a stack of unused napkins The scenario ended withan image of a bundle of napkins now drenched with cof-fee that were used to clean up the spill Additional detailsof the procedure are available in the web appendix

Immediately after reading the scenario participantscompleted the same set of aesthetic judgment items a sec-ond time this time rating the coffee-drenched napkinswhich served as a measure of post-usage aesthetic judg-ments Participants then indicated to what extent they ex-perienced each of the following negative emotions whilethey were using the napkins to clean up the spill stressedregretful bad afraid fearful sad sorry and guilty whichwe combined into an index of post-consumption negativeaffect (1 frac14 not at all 7 frac14 very much so afrac14 91)

Results and Discussion

We predicted that participants would experience greaternegative affect after using the higher (vs lower) aestheticnapkins an effect that would be driven by the larger decre-ments in beauty that stem from the consumption of higheraesthetic products

Emotions A one-way ANOVA on negative emotionsexperienced after consumption revealed that participantswho used the higher aesthetic floral napkins to clean up thespill felt more negative affect than those who used thelower aesthetic white napkins (Mhigher aesthetic frac14 305 vsMlower aesthetic frac14 246 F(1 404) frac14 1686 p lt 001)

Decrements in Beauty (Longitudinal) A 2 (aestheticshigher vs lower) 2 (timing before usage vs after usage)mixed ANOVA on aesthetic judgments yielded main ef-fects of both aesthetics (F(1 404) frac14 10652 p lt 001) andtiming (F(1 404) frac14 125629 p lt 001) which were quali-fied by a significant aesthetics timing interaction (F(1404) frac14 5302 p lt 001) Planned contrasts revealed thatwhereas the higher aesthetic napkins elicited more favor-able aesthetic judgments than the lower aesthetic napkinsbefore usage (Mhigher frac14 594 vs Mlower frac14 447 F(1 404)

14 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

frac14 15269 p lt 001) this difference was substantiallyreduced after usage (Mhigher frac14 237 vs Mlower frac14 211F(1 404) frac14 484 p frac14 03) Importantly and arguably mostcentral to our research the decrement in aesthetic ratingsthrough usage was significantly larger in the higher aes-thetic conditionmdashin fact 151 largermdashthan that observedin the lower aesthetic condition (ie a drop of 357 unitsvs a drop of 236 units)

Mediation Finally we are interested in whether decre-ments in aesthetic judgment emanating from product usageunderlie post-consumption affect Consistent with predic-tions mediation analysis (model 4 Hayes 2013) revealedthat the indirect effect of aesthetics on negative affectthrough changes in aesthetic judgment was significant (b frac1415 95 CI [04 29]) suggesting that product aestheticsaffected the experience of negative emotions through thelarger losses of beauty resulting from the consumption ofhigher aesthetic products

Discussion While past work has shown that aestheticsare inextricably linked with pleasure (Reber et al 2004Reimann et al 2010) study 6A extends this body of re-search by revealing that in the context of nondurable prod-ucts where consumption entails damaging product designnot only does the usage of higher (vs lower) aestheticproducts result in larger decrements in beauty but suchlosses also drive greater negative affect after consumptionNotably while we asked participants to assess the aestheticqualities of the napkins before and immediately after usageto more precisely capture the changes in beauty we ob-served we recognize that this design may have caused theaesthetic appeal of the napkins to be more salient prior toconsumption making its decrement therefore more pro-nounced after consumption Thus having established thatbeauty decrements resulting from aesthetic product usageunderlie post-consumption affect in study 6B we measurethis change in a less invasive manner after consumptionWe also integrate changes in beauty and effort inferencesinto emotional reactions linked to consumption

STUDY 6B TESTING THE FULLCONCEPTUAL MODEL FOR POST-

CONSUMPTION AFFECT

The goal of study 6B is to elucidate the drivers of post-consumption emotions while continuing to hold usage con-stant in both conditions thereby allowing us to test the fullconceptual model in a more controlled fashion As alludedto in study 6A the inherently lower consumption likeli-hood of higher aesthetic products could potentially resultin self-selection issues In study 6B we predict that partici-pants will experience more negative affect after using ahigher (vs lower) aesthetic product an effect driven in tan-dem by effort inferences as well as changes in beauty

Further we try to better understand consumersrsquo emotionalreactions after aesthetic product usage by not highlightingthe productrsquos aesthetic qualities beforehand Finally wemeasure implicit self-theories to examine whether onersquos in-herent degree of effort appreciation moderates post-consumption negative affect

Method

Participants and Procedure Four hundred participantswere recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk to partici-pate in a two-cell (aesthetics higher vs lower) between-subjects study in exchange for payment Ten individualsparticipated in this study twice and 17 had missing data onthe focal dependent measures and were excluded from theanalysis yielding a final sample of 373 participants (55female [two did not report gender] median age frac14 32 ages18ndash76)

The study design of study 6B was almost identical tothat of study 6A aside from several modifications Firstparticipants completed the same negative emotion indexfrom study 6A (afrac14 91) immediately after reading the sce-nario instead of after aesthetics judgment measures (whichwere not included in this study) Second instead of assess-ing aesthetic ratings at two separate points in time we uti-lized a new single cross-sectional measure to capturedecrements in beauty post-consumption ldquoBy using thenapkins it felt like I was turning something that was oncebeautiful into something uglyrdquo (1 frac14 strongly disagree 7 frac14strongly agree) Next to examine effort inferences as a par-allel driver of negative affect after consumption partici-pants completed the same effort inferences and effortdestruction measures from study 3 although these mea-sures are distinct from study 3 in that they were assessedafter usage had already taken place Finally participantscompleted the implicit self-theories scale

Results and Discussion

Emotions Replicating study 6A a one-way ANOVAon negative emotions revealed that participants who usedthe higher aesthetic floral napkins to clean up the spill feltmore negative affect than those who used the lower aestheticwhite napkins (Mhigher aesthetic frac14 313 vs Mlower aesthetic frac14283 F(1 371) frac14 394 p lt 05) Of note this main effectdid not interact with implicit self-theories (p gt 30) sug-gesting that both incremental and entity theorists experi-enced more negative affect after using the higher (vslower) aesthetic napkins to clean up the spill a finding werevisit in the discussion section

Decrements in Beauty (Cross-Sectional) A one-wayANOVA on changes in beauty indicated that the higheraesthetic napkin underwent greater decrements in beautythrough consumption (Mhigher frac14 263 vs Mlower frac14 177F(1 371) frac14 2671 p lt 001)

WU ET AL 15

Effort Inferences A one-way ANOVA on effort infer-ences indicated that participants ascribed greater effort tothe higher aesthetic napkins (Mhigher frac14 349 vs Mlower frac14287 F(1 371) frac14 1359 p lt 001)

Effort Destruction A one-way ANOVA on concernsabout effort destruction indicated that participants hadstronger concerns that effort had been destroyed in thehigher aesthetic condition (Mhigher frac14 262 vs Mlower frac14200 F(1 371) frac14 1355 p lt 001)

Mediation Finally we conducted two separate media-tion analyses one testing the path of product aesthetics decrements in beauty negative affect (model 4 Hayes2013) and the other testing the serial path of product aes-thetics effort inferences concerns about effort de-struction negative affect (model 6) Results from thefirst analysis revealed that the indirect effect of aestheticson negative affect through changes in beauty was signifi-cant (b frac14 37 95 CI [23 54]) suggesting that productaesthetics affected the experience of negative emotionsthrough larger decrements in beauty in the higher aestheticcondition Second the indirect effect of aesthetics on nega-tive affect through effort inferences and concerns about ef-fort destruction (in serial) was also significant (b frac14 1295 CI [06 23]) as was the indirect effect of aestheticson negative affect through effort destruction alone (b frac1411 95 CI [01 23])

Finally we also included beauty decrements effort in-ferences and effort destruction into the model as parallelmediators to gain greater understanding of the relativestrength of these drivers This analysis revealed that whenall three mediators were in the model the indirect effectthrough decrements in beauty remained significant (b frac1422 95 CI [11 36]) as did the indirect effect througheffort destruction (b frac14 15 95 CI [06 27]) Taken to-gether these results suggest that while concerns about ef-fort destruction continue to play a role in driving theemotional outcomes of aesthetic product usage the decre-ments in beauty that become evident only after an aestheticproduct has been visibly compromised through consump-tion also lead to negative affect

Discussion Study 6B which allowed us to examinethe entire post-consumption conceptual model revealedthat people who used higher (vs lower) aesthetic napkinssubsequently experienced greater negative affect an effectdriven by two processes operating in parallel concernsabout the destruction of effort and decrements in beauty Inother words the consumption experience was associatedwith more negative affect because the consumption processnot only involved the actual destruction of effort but italso took a beautiful product that was typified by pleasureand transformed it into something marked by displeasure

We should also note that we replicated the post-consumption findings with actual paper napkins in a lab

context In a separate study using study 5rsquos procedure par-ticipants watched a video and received a snack to eat alongwith a higher versus lower aesthetic napkin and then indi-cated how they felt about the consumption experienceParticipants who chose to use their higher aesthetic napkinreported feeling more negative affect relative to whosewho chose to use their lower aesthetic napkin (p frac14 04)and relative to those who did not use their higher aestheticnapkin (p lt 01) Thus aesthetic product usage increasednegative affect even when consumers could choose to ei-ther use the aesthetic product or not and when the aestheticproduct (the napkin) was tangential to the affect measurescollected which specifically pertained to the video-watching and snack-eating task Additional details areavailable in the web appendix

Though we provide evidence that effort inferences con-tinued to partially drive consumer responses to beautifulproducts after usage it is interesting to note that post-consumption affect was not moderated by the degree towhich effort is intrinsically appreciated (ie implicit self-theories) While unexpected we speculate that this may oc-cur because post-consumption enjoyment is not exclusivelydriven by effort inferences Since losses of beauty alsoplay a substantial role in shaping emotional outcomes afterconsumption the beauty decrements associated with aes-thetic product usage may have brought entity theorists to asimilar emotional state as incremental theorists resultingin everybody feeling worse off after consumption irrespec-tive of individual differences in effort appreciation Morebroadly since post-consumption affect appears to be multi-ply determined it is difficult to completely disentangle thenegative affect stemming from the destruction of effortfrom the negative affect stemming from decrements inbeauty Study 6B offers a distinct test of this conjecturesince it made usage (and hence losses of beauty) salientthrough images of visibly used napkins

GENERAL DISCUSSION

Across a series of laboratory and field studies using avariety of nondurable product categories and consumptionsituations we reveal the negative impact of enhanced prod-uct aesthetics on usage and post-consumption conse-quences First we document an inhibiting effect of productaesthetics on consumption behaviors for disposable andperishable products in both real-world (study 1) and lab(study 2) settings Next we shed light on the drivers of us-age likelihood using mediation (study 3) a context-basedboundary condition (study 4) and a theoretically derivedindividual difference moderator (study 5) thereby provid-ing convergent support for an underlying process based oneffort Finally in studies 6A and 6B we hold product us-age constant to elucidate the drivers of post-consumptionaffect and show that the decrements in beauty that

16 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

aesthetic products inherently undergo as a result of con-sumption combined with concerns that one has actuallydestroyed effort underlie these effects

Theoretical Contributions Our work makes severaltheoretical contributions First while prior research hasshown that consumers respond favorably to both productaesthetics and effort we believe we are the first to establisha causal relationship between these constructs We findthat highly aesthetic products can elicit greater perceptionsof effort regardless of whether this effort was exerted dur-ing product design physical production or both processesWe further reveal that these effort inferences are not lim-ited to handmade products such as perishable foods butalso apply to mass-produced products such as consumerpackaged disposable goods

Second while existing literature suggests that consumerpreferences should increase as a function of a productrsquos aes-thetic appeal the prevailing ways of assessing the impact ofaesthetics on consumer preference have been limited to pur-chase intentions product evaluations and choice (Hagtvedtand Patrick 2008 Raghubir and Greenleaf 2006 Reimannet al 2010 Townsend and Shu 2010) Surprisingly the role ofaesthetics after choice has received little empirical attention todate Despite the stimulating effect that enhanced product aes-thetics have on choice and pre-usage evaluations our resultssuggest that once beautiful products are acquired consumersmay be less likely to consume them because the higher infer-ences of effort attributed to their creation elicit stronger con-cerns that such effort would be destroyed during consumption

This research also shows that the impact of implicit self-theories on consumer behavior may be more pervasivethan previously thought While prior research in psychol-ogy has shown that incremental and entity theorists carrydissimilar beliefs about the value of their own effort(Dweck 2000) we provide support for the novel predictionthat beyond the recognition of personal effort implicitself-theories affect the extent to which consumers appreci-ate the effort that goes into the creation of aestheticallyappealing products

Finally contrary to the notion that enhanced product aes-thetics are always beneficial to consumption enjoyment ourwork reveals that usage of highly aesthetic disposable prod-ucts can actually lower overall enjoyment of the consumptionexperience through two separate pathways (1) by elicitingconcerns that one has actually destroyed effort and (2) bycompromising the beauty that typically characterizes aestheticproducts Thus we add to the literature on aesthetics andpleasure by showing how the consumption of highly aestheticproducts can result in larger losses of beauty and that suchdecrements in turn drive the relationship between aestheticproduct consumption and negative affect

More generally these findings speak to researchthat explores when and why the drivers of predicted andexperienced utility might diverge For instance

Thompson et al (2005) found that consumersrsquo initial desirefor product capability before purchase leads them to chooseproducts packed with features but their growing desire forproduct usability after usage leads them to ultimately prefersimpler products Similarly Lee and Tsai (2014) showedthat price promotions can stimulate sales but lower atten-tion during consumption which in turn reduces consump-tion enjoyment In the same vein despite the delightinitially elicited by the choice of beautiful products wedemonstrate that enhanced aesthetics have the ability tolater discourage usage and lower consumption enjoyment

Substantive Implications Our findings carry importantpractical implications as they pose an interesting dilemmato managers While conventional wisdom suggests that mar-keters should strive to invest the highest degree of effort intomaking their products look aesthetically pleasing at least tothe extent that company resources will allow our researchreveals that the story is not so simple Enhancing productaesthetics might positively affect initial attention interestand choice but should be considered with caution given thatsuch increased appeal could inhibit usage and reduce enjoy-ment relative to less aesthetically appealing productsRelatedly people likely consume highly aesthetic disposableproducts more slowly which could affect interpurchasetime Thus the pursuit of product aesthetics and improvedshort-term sales must be constantly balanced against theneed to encourage consumption ensure customer satisfac-tion and maintain long-term profitability Still certain prod-ucts such as beautiful candles and soaps may serve adecorative purpose in addition to their basic utilitarian func-tion and consequently may also carry intrinsic aestheticvalue Our recommendations are admittedly less straightfor-ward under such circumstances as consumers are able toderive utility from the productsrsquo enhanced aesthetics simplyby displaying them

Our results also have clear implications for managersand policy makers interested in promoting conservationand sustainable business practices A growing number ofretail and service establishments have been switching tounbleached paper products as the traditional bleachingprocess that removes imperfections and gives paper itswhite appearance also produces hazardous chemicals (egchlorine and dioxins) that are harmful to the environment(Evans 2010) While the transition to unbleached paperproducts has benefited the environment the results fromour investigation suggest the growing popularity of thistrend may be a double-edged sword To the extent thatunbleached paper products are considered less aestheticallyappealing consumers may show less restraint in usingthem leading to backfiring effects for conservation effortsPut another way the positive environmental impact of pro-ducing unbleached paper products could potentially be off-set by consumersrsquo reduced inhibition in consuming theseproducts Thus increasing the aesthetic appeal of products

WU ET AL 17

may actually be an effective way for companies to promoteenvironmentally sustainable behaviors even after incorpo-rating the increased cost of implementing such practices

Finally given that rising obesity rates are a major publichealth concern traced to increased consumption (Chandonand Wansink 2007) there has been burgeoning interest inthe various factors that shape consumer food choices (Corniland Chandon 2016 McFerran et al 2010 Scott et al 2008)The results of study 2 suggest that one way to curb overeat-ing might be to enhance the aesthetic presentation of foodproducts especially hedonic foods Of course additionalresearch is needed to better explore the impact of aestheticsin this important area given the counteracting effects thatfood aesthetics exert on consumption versus enjoyment

Limitations and Future Research While the current setof studies was designed to elucidate perceived effort as anunderlying mechanism of lower usage of aestheticallyappealing products we recognize that this phenomenonlike many is likely driven by multiple processes (FuchsSchreier and van Osselaer 2015) Indeed as evident in ourresearch consumption likelihood and consumption enjoy-ment each have distinct sets of drivers For instance whilewe accounted for cost across multiple studies and demon-strated that our effects held even after we controlled for theperceived price of the product we believe that cost maycertainly play a role in certain situations For example cer-tain highly aesthetic products elicit perceptions of luxury(Hagtvedt and Patrick 2008) and may consequently reduceconsumption because they appear ldquotoo expensive to userdquoand cost may even interact with aesthetics under certaincircumstances to impact consumption such that the infer-ences of effort typically ascribed to aesthetically appealingproducts could be mitigated if people are told that theywere extremely inexpensive

In addition classic research by Loewenstein (1987)showed that people often prefer to delay consumption ofenjoyable experiences It may be that people are averse toimmediately consuming a highly aesthetic product becausethey are able to derive more utility by savoring the experi-ence and postponing consumption Further as alluded to instudy 4 it is possible that anticipated decrements in beautymay play a larger role in shaping usage in other consump-tion contexts Thus while we focus on the role of effortinferences in driving lower usage of highly aesthetic prod-ucts we are cognizant of the fact that other mechanismslikely exist which would provide intriguing avenues forfurther investigation

It would also be interesting to examine whether the neg-ative influence of enhanced aesthetics would hold acrossdifferent consumption contexts That is are there situationswhere the present phenomenon would not emerge Indeedone could argue that service establishments such as upscalerestaurants and luxury resorts which regularly pampertheir guests with beautifully plated entrees and folded

towel animals would eventually be driven out of businessif the consumption of highly aesthetic products alwaysresulted in lower enjoyment We believe that whether theusage of highly aesthetic products is accompanied bydecreased consumption and increased negative affect willhinge on the nature of the consumption environment Priorresearch indicates that our surroundings are capable ofautomatically eliciting normative behaviors when situa-tional norms are well established (Aarts and Dijksterhuis2003) Extending this perspective it is possible that theeffects observed in this article may be relatively weakenedwhen consumption occurs in environments characterizedby strong expectations to engage in indulgent consumptionsuch as in a fancy restaurant or luxurious hotel

Relatedly it would be interesting to examine whethercalling attention to fact that the aesthetic product if leftunconsumed will face inevitable destruction could enhanceconsumption likelihood and enjoyment to some extent par-ticularly for perishable products such as food4 Indeedrecent research has shown that consumers display a strongaversion to waste and unused utility (Bolton and Alba2012) Thus future studies should examine whether theeffects documented in this article could be attenuated ifthe inevitable destruction of effort is made salient to con-sumers (eg the product will go bad be thrown away orsomebody else will consume the product even if they donot) In summary future work should explore situationswhere enhanced aesthetics might carry more weight in theutility function for the overall consumption experienceand subsequently increase consumption and boostenjoyment

Another area for future research would be to examinewhether the destruction of product aesthetics is an ldquoall ornothingrdquo event such that any amount of consumption (evena single bite of a cupcake) would be viewed as destroyingthe productrsquos overall beauty While our experimentaldesigns did not allow us to examine whether destruction is acontinuous versus discrete function of consumption it isworth nothing that we did document lower usage acrossvarying degrees of consumption (eg consumption was con-tinuous in study 2 but discrete in study 5) and we did findthat different levels of consumption still led to reducedenjoyment Nevertheless we believe this is an importantempirical question worth investigating in the future

Finally while we have limited our analysis to nondura-bles (perishable and disposable products specifically) anintriguing path would be to investigate the potential moder-ating role of product durability on usage likelihood andsubsequent enjoyment of highly aesthetic products It maybe that the relative durability of the aesthetic product couldaffect individualsrsquo ability or motivation to anticipate decre-ments in beauty before consumption has occurred whichwould have implications for usage likelihood For instance

4 We thank one of the anonymous reviewers for this suggestion

18 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

with big-ticket high-involvement purchases such as sleekfurniture (eg a beautiful new white sectional sofa) con-sumers may more readily anticipate losses of beauty sincethey will have to live with and encounter the product on adaily basis even after its original beauty has faded or beentarnished through repeated use This may explain why cov-ering new furniture with plastic was at one time a verycommon practice (DiSalvo 2009)

On the other hand for nondurable lower-involvementproducts such as those used in the current research perhapspeople do not have the motivation or ability to considershifts in aesthetic appeal before consumption Furtherproducts often vary in their degree of durabilitymdasha delicateembroidered blanket while by no means nondurable or dis-posable may begin to show visible signs of wear and tearsooner than a fleece blanket Although the present researchspecifically focused on perishable and single-use productsit would be worth examining when and how the degree ofdurability or even perceptions of fragility might shapedecisions to use beautiful products

In conclusion our research documents an inhibitingeffect of enhanced product aesthetics on consumption par-ticularly for disposable and consumable nondurable prod-ucts Although beautiful products have the ability topromote positive pre-usage evaluations and stimulatechoice our work indicates that consumers are subsequentlyless likely to use them and those who do use them ulti-mately experience higher negative affect and lower enjoy-ment In addition different processes underlie consumerresponses to highly aesthetic products depending onwhether or not consumption has taken place Thus we con-clude that while products may never be too pretty tochoose they can in fact be too pretty to use

DATA COLLECTION INFORMATION

All studies were designed and analyzed by the first authorunder the guidance of the other authors The data for study 1was collected at the Scottsdale Pure Barre studio in fall2015 by research assistants and employees under the super-vision of the first author Research assistants collected thedata for studies 2 and 5 under the supervision of the firstauthor at the W P Carey School of Business MarketingDepartment Behavioral Lab in spring 2015 The data for theconceptual replication (reported in the discussion of study6B) was collected by research assistants under the supervi-sion of the first author at the W P Carey School ofBusiness Marketing Department Behavioral Lab in summer2015 The data for study 4 (both the effort manipulation pre-test and the main study) and the correlational study examin-ing the relationship between implicit self-theories andappreciation for othersrsquo effort were collected by the firstauthor using Amazon Mechanical Turk in spring 2016 Thefirst author collected the data for the aesthetic appeal pretest

(described in appendix B) studies 3 6A and 6B usingAmazon Mechanical Turk in summer 2016 Lastly researchassistants collected the data for the correlational study exam-ining the relationship between aesthetics and perceivedeffort (described in the table in ldquoThe Role of Effort inInhibiting Usagerdquo) under the supervision of the first authorat the W P Carey School of Business MarketingDepartment Behavioral Lab in fall 2016

APPENDIX A

STUDY STIMULI

WU ET AL 19

REFERENCES

Aarts Henk and Ap Dijksterhuis (2003) ldquoThe Silence of theLibrary Environment Situational Norm and SocialBehaviorrdquo Journal of Personality and Social Psychology84 (1) 18ndash28

Aharon Itzhak Nancy Etcoff Dan Ariely Christopher F ChabrisEthan OrsquoConnor and Hans C Breiter (2001) ldquoBeautifulFaces Have Variable Reward Value fMRI and BehavioralEvidencerdquo Neuron 32 (3) 537ndash51

Alba Joseph W and Elanor F Williams (2013) ldquoPleasurePrinciples A Review of Research on HedonicConsumptionrdquo Journal of Consumer Psychology 23 (1)2ndash18

Belk Russell W (1988) ldquoPossessions and the Extended SelfrdquoJournal of Consumer Research 15 (2) 139ndash67

Bem Daryl J (1972) Self-Perception Theory Stanford CAStanford University Press

Berridge Kent C (2009) ldquolsquoLikingrsquo and lsquoWantingrsquo Food RewardsBrain Substrates and Roles in Eating Disordersrdquo Physiologyamp Behavior 97 (5) 537ndash50

Bloch Peter H (1995) ldquoSeeking the Ideal Form Product Designand Consumer Responserdquo Journal of Marketing 59 (July)16ndash29

Bloch Peter H Frederic F Brunel and Todd J Arnold (2003)ldquoIndividual Differences in the Centrality of Visual ProductAesthetics Concept and Measurementrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 29 (4) 551ndash65

Bolton Lisa E and Joseph W Alba (2012) ldquoWhen Less Is MoreConsumer Aversion to Unused Utilityrdquo Journal of ConsumerPsychology 22 (3) 369ndash83

Brehm Jack W (1966) A Theory of Psychological ReactanceNew York Academic Press

Broniarczyk Susan M and Joseph W Alba (1994) ldquoThe Role ofConsumersrsquo Intuitions in Inference Makingrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 21 (3) 393ndash407

Cabanac Michel (1971) ldquoPhysiological Role of PleasurerdquoScience 173 (4002) 1103ndash7

mdashmdashmdash (1979) ldquoSensory Pleasurerdquo Quarterly Review of Biology54 (1) 1ndash29

mdashmdashmdash (1985) ldquoPreferring for Pleasurerdquo American Journal ofClinical Nutrition 42 (5) 1151ndash5

Chandon Pierre and Brian Wansink (2007) ldquoThe Biasing HealthHalos of Fast Food Restaurant Health Claims Lower CalorieEstimates and Higher Side-Dish Consumption IntentionsrdquoJournal of Consumer Research 34 (3) 301ndash14

Cornil Yann and Pierre Chandon (2016) ldquoPleasure as a Substitutefor Size How Multisensory Imagery Can Make PeopleHappier with Smaller Food Portionsrdquo Journal of MarketingResearch 53 (5) 847ndash64

Cleveland William S (1984) ldquoGraphical Methods for DataPresentation Full Scale Breaks Dot Charts and MultibasedLoggingrdquo The American Statistician 38 (4) 270ndash80

DiSalvo David (2009) ldquoThe Psychology of Plastic CouchCoversrdquo httpsneuronarrativewordpresscom20090119the-psychology-of-plastic-couch-covers

Dixie Products (2015) ldquoDixie Ultra Moments Ultimate Hostrdquohttpswwwyoutubecomwatchvfrac14wsBBq9PsgVI

Dutton Denis (2009) The Art Instinct Beauty Pleasure ampHuman Evolution New York Oxford University Press

Dweck Carol S (2000) Self-Theories Their Role in MotivationPersonality and Development Philadelphia Psychology Press

Dweck Carol S and Ellen L Leggett (1988) ldquoA Social-CognitiveApproach to Motivation and Personalityrdquo PsychologicalReview 95 (2) 256ndash73

Evans Lindsay (2010) ldquoWhy Buy Unbleached Paperrdquo httpwwwbrighthubcomenvironmentgreen-livingarticles16299aspx

Festinger Leon (1957) A Theory of Cognitive DissonanceStanford CA Stanford University Press

Frederick Shane and George Loewenstein (1999) ldquoHedonicAdaptationrdquo in Scientific Perspectives on EnjoymentSuffering and Well-Being ed Daniel Kahneman Ed Dienerand Norbert Schwartz New York Russell Sage Foundation302ndash29

Fuchs Christoph Martin Schreier and Stijn MJ van Osselaer(2015) ldquoThe Handmade Effect Whatrsquos Love Got to Do withItrdquo Journal of Marketing 79 (2) 98ndash110

Hagtvedt Henrik and Vanessa M Patrick (2008) ldquoArt InfusionThe Influence of Visual Art on the Perception and Evaluationof Consumer Productsrdquo Journal of Marketing Research 45(3) 379ndash89

AESTHETIC APPEAL PRETEST FOR ALL STIMULI USED IN STUDIES

Higher aesthetic Lower aesthetic Comparison a

Toilet paper (study 1) 377 (146) 253 (155) t(128) frac14 ndash469 p lt 001 a frac14 94Cupcake (study 2) 556 (106) 305 (146) t(128) frac14 ndash1120 p lt 001 a frac14 96Napkin (studies 3 and 6) 465 (153) 230 (144) t(128) frac14 ndash903 p lt 001 a frac14 97Napkin (study 4) 332 (145) 262 (154) t(128) frac14 ndash266 p lt 01 a frac14 92Napkin (study 5) 458 (159) 234 (151) t(128) frac14 ndash823 p lt 001 a frac14 97

NOTEmdashStandard deviations are in parentheses

In a between-subjects pretest participants were asked to rate each product along the following dimensions beautiful pretty artistic and aesthetically pleasing

(1 frac14 not at all 7 frac14 very much) which formed our aesthetic appeal index

APPENDIX B

20 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

Hayes Andrew F (2013) ldquoPROCESS A VersatileComputational Tool for Observed Variable MediationModeration and Conditional Process Modelingrdquo workingpaper School of Communication and Department ofPsychology Ohio State University Columbus OH 43210

Heller Steve (2015) ldquoA Grocery Store Illusion Is Getting You toSpend More Moneyrdquo httpwwwbusinessinsidercoma-grocery-store-illusion-is-getting-you-to-spend-more-money-2015-8ixzz3ifsOLBfG

Hurling Robert and Richard Shepherd (2003) ldquoEating with YourEyes Effect of Appearance on Expectations of LikingrdquoAppetite 41 (2) 167ndash74

Hoegg JoAndrea Joseph W Alba and Darren W Dahl (2010)ldquoThe Good the Bad and the Ugly Influence of Aesthetics onProduct Feature Judgmentsrdquo Journal of ConsumerPsychology 20 (4) 419ndash30

Johnson Palmer O and Jerzy Neyman (1936) ldquoTests of CertainLinear Hypotheses and Their Applications to SomeEducational Problemsrdquo Statistical Research Memoirs 157ndash93

Kahneman Daniel and Amos Tversky (1979) ldquoProspect TheoryAn Analysis of Decision under Riskrdquo Econometrica 47 (2)263ndash91

Kampe Knut K W Chris D Frith Raymond J Dolan and UtaFrith (2001) ldquoPsychology Reward Value of Attractivenessand Gazerdquo Nature 413 (6856) 589

Kelley Harold H (1967) ldquoAttribution Theory in SocialPsychologyrdquo in Nebraska Symposium of Motivation Vol 15ed D Levine Lincoln University of Nebraska Press192ndash238

Kirmani Amna (1990) ldquoThe Effect of Perceived AdvertisingCosts on Brand Perceptionsrdquo Journal of Consumer Research17 (2) 160ndash71

Kirmani Amna Michelle P Lee and Carolyn Yoon (2004)ldquoProcedural Priming Effects on Spontaneous InferenceFormationrdquo Journal of Economic Psychology 25 (6)859ndash75

Kruger Justin Derrick Wirtz Leaf Van Boven and T WilliamAltermatt (2004) ldquoThe Effort Heuristicrdquo Journal ofExperimental Social Psychology 40 (1) 91ndash8

Lee Leonard and Claire I Tsai (2014) ldquoHow Price PromotionsInfluence Postpurchase Consumption Experience overTimerdquo Journal of Consumer Research 40 (5) 943ndash59

Levy Sheri R Steven J Stroessner and Carol S Dweck (1998)ldquoStereotype Formation and Endorsement The Role ofImplicit Theoriesrdquo Journal of Personality and SocialPsychology 74 (6) 1421ndash36

Lisjak Monika Andrea Bonezzi Soo Kim and Derek D Rucker(2015) ldquoPerils of Compensatory Consumption Within-Domain Compensation Undermines Subsequent Self-Regulationrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 41 (5)1186ndash203

Loewenstein George (1987) ldquoAnticipation and the Valuation ofDelayed Consumptionrdquo Economic Journal 97 (September)666ndash84

Maritain Jacques (1966) ldquoBeauty and Imitationrdquo in A ModernBook of Esthetics ed Melvin Rader New York HoltRinehart amp Winston 27ndash34

McFerran Brent Darren W Dahl Gavan J Fitzsimons andAndrea C Morales (2010) ldquoIrsquoll Have What Shersquos HavingEffects of Social Influence and Body Type on the FoodChoices of Othersrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 36 (6)915ndash29

Morales Andrea C (2005) ldquoGiving Firms an lsquoErsquo for EffortConsumer Responses to High-Effort Firmsrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 31 (4) 806ndash12

Moreau C Page Leff Bonney and Kelly B Herd (2011) ldquoItrsquos theThought (and the Effort) That Counts How Customizing forOthers Differs from Customizing for Oneselfrdquo Journal ofMarketing 75 (5) 120ndash33

Norton Michael I Daniel Mochon and Dan Ariely (2012) ldquoThelsquoIkearsquo Effect When Labor Leads to Loverdquo Journal ofConsumer Psychology 22 (July) 453ndash60

Page Christine and Paul M Herr (2002) ldquoAn Investigation ofthe Processes by Which Product Design and Brand StrengthInteract to Determine Initial Affect and QualityJudgmentsrdquo Journal of Consumer Psychology 12 (2)133ndash47

Raghubir Priya and Eric A Greenleaf (2006) ldquoRatios inProportion What Should the Shape of the Package BerdquoJournal of Marketing 70 (2) 95ndash107

Raghunathan Rajagopal Rebecca Walker Naylor and Wayne DHoyer (2006) ldquoThe Unhealthy frac14 Tasty Intuition and ItsEffects on Taste Inferences Enjoyment and Choice of FoodProductsrdquo Journal of Marketing 70 (4) 170ndash84

Reber Rolf Norbert Schwarz and Piotr Winkielman (2004)ldquoProcessing Fluency and Aesthetic Pleasure Is Beauty in thePerceiverrsquos Processing Experiencerdquo Personality and SocialPsychology Review 8 (4) 364ndash82

Reber Rolf Piotr Winkielman and Norbert Schwarz (1998)ldquoEffects of Perceptual Fluency on Affective JudgmentsrdquoPsychological Science 9 (1) 45ndash48

Reimann Martin Judith Zaichkowksy Carolin Neuhaus ThomasBender and Bernd Weber (2010) ldquoAesthetic PackageDesign A Behavioral Neural and PsychologicalInvestigationrdquo Journal of Consumer Psychology 20 (4)431ndash41

Santayana George (18961955) The Sense of Beauty New YorkDover

Scott Maura L Stephen M Nowlis Naomi Mandel and AndreaC Morales (2008) ldquoThe Effects of Reduced Food Size andPackage Size on the Consumption Behavior of Restrainedand Unrestrained Eatersrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 35(3) 391ndash405

Spencer Steven J Mark P Zanna and Geoffrey T Fong (2005)ldquoEstablishing a Causal Chain Why Experiments Are OftenMore Effective than Mediational Analyses in ExaminingPsychological Processesrdquo Journal of Personality and SocialPsychology 89 (6) 845ndash51

Spiller Stephen A Gavan J Fitzsimons John G Lynch Jr andGary H McClelland (2013) ldquoSpotlights Floodlights andthe Magic Number Zero Simple Effects Tests inModerated Regressionrdquo Journal of Marketing Research 50(2) 277ndash88

Thompson Debora V Rebecca W Hamilton and Roland T Rust(2005) ldquoFeature Fatigue When Product CapabilitiesBecome Too Much of a Good Thingrdquo Journal of MarketingResearch 42 (November) 431ndash42

Townsend Claudia and Suzanne B Shu (2010) ldquoWhen and HowAesthetics Influences Financial Decisionsrdquo Journal ofConsumer Psychology 20 (4) 452ndash58

Townsend Claudia and Sanjay Sood (2012) ldquoSelf-Affirmationthrough the Choice of Highly Aesthetic Productsrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 39 (2) 415ndash28

Veryzer Robert W and J Wesley Hutchinson (1998) ldquoTheInfluence of Unity and Prototypicality on Aesthetic

WU ET AL 21

Responses to New Product Designsrdquo Journal of ConsumerResearch 24 (4) 374ndash94

Wada Yuji Carlos Arce-Lopera Tomohiro Masuda AtsushiKimura Ippeita Dan Sho-ichi Goto Daisuke Tsuzuki andKatsunori Okajima (2010) ldquoInfluence of LuminanceDistribution on the Appetizingly Fresh Appearance ofCabbagerdquo Appetite 54 (2) 363ndash68

Weiner Bernard (2000) ldquoAttributional Thoughts and ConsumerBehaviorrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 27 (December)382ndash87

Witz Anne Chris Warhurst and Dennis Nickson (2003) ldquoTheLabour of Aesthetics and The Aesthetics of OrganizationrdquoOrganization 10 (1) 33ndash54

Yamamoto Mel and David R Lambert (1994) ldquoThe Impact ofProduct Aesthetics on the Evaluation of Industrial ProductsrdquoJournal of Product Innovation Management 11 (4) 309ndash24

Yang Sha and Priya Raghubir (2005) ldquoCan Bottles SpeakVolumes The Effect of Package Shape on How Much toBuyrdquo Journal of Retailing 81 (4) 269ndash82

22 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

  • ucx057-FN1
  • ucx057-FN2
  • ucx057-FN3
  • ucx057-FN4
  • app1
  • app2
  • ucx057-TF1
  • ucx057-TF2
Page 8: It’s Too Pretty to Use! When and How Enhanced Product ...gavan/bio/GJF_articles/...testing the prediction that aesthetic products can elicit greater perceptions of effort. In line

Next participants were told to watch a 90 second videofeaturing scenes from around the world while they ate theircupcake and that they were free to eat as much or as littleof the cupcake as they liked After finishing the video theremains of the cupcake were collected and weighed in aseparate room Participants then rated how much they en-joyed the cupcake (1 frac14 not at all 7 frac14 very much so) andcompleted filler measures that assessed how interesting thevideo was and how much they liked cupcakes in generalFinally they rated how expensive they thought the cupcakewas (1 frac14 not at all expensive 7 frac14 very expensive)

Results and Discussion

We predicted that for consumers who were motivated toconsume (ie hungry individuals) higher aesthetics wouldcurb consumption quantity and reduce consumption enjoy-ment effects that were expected to hold even when wecontrolled for perceived expense

Consumption Amount We first log-transformed the de-pendent variable to normalize the distribution (Cleveland1984) Next we performed a 2 (aesthetics condition) continuous (hunger) multiple regression analysis on thelogged consumption amount Regressing this loggedamount on the aesthetics manipulation mean-centered lev-els of hunger and their interaction revealed a directionalsimple effect of aesthetics at the mean level of hunger(b frac14 ndash10 t(174) frac14 ndash126 p frac14 21) such that participantsin the higher aesthetic condition consumed less of the cup-cake Most importantly the interaction was also significant(b frac14 ndash10 t(174) frac14 ndash213 p frac14 03) Decomposing the inter-action in the lower aesthetic (smooth frosting) condition we

found a significant effect of hunger (b frac14 15 t(174) frac14446 p lt 001) such that hungry (vs satiated) individualsconsumed more of the cupcake However attesting to the in-hibitory nature of beautiful products in the higher aesthetic(rose frosting) condition the effect of hunger was not signifi-cant (b frac14 05 t(174) frac14 129 p frac14 20) Because self-reportedhunger was measured on a 1 to 7 scale (M frac14 425 SDfrac14 168median frac14 4) we ran a floodlight analysis using the Johnson-Neyman (1936) technique to identify the range of hunger forwhich the simple effect of aesthetics was significant (figure 1see also Spiller et al 2013) This analysis revealed a signifi-cant reduction in consumption of the higher (vs lower) aes-thetic cupcake for any value of hunger above 492 (at p lt05) Thus despite a higher baseline desire to eat hungry indi-viduals actively refrained from consumption when the cup-cake was more aesthetically appealing Consistent with ourpredictions such effects were not observed among satiated in-dividuals who displayed low motivation to eat regardless ofthe cupcakersquos appearance

Enjoyment of the Cupcake A 2 continuous regres-sion on cupcake enjoyment revealed only a significant in-teraction (b frac14 ndash41 t(174) frac14 ndash256 p frac14 01 see figure 2)In the lower aesthetic condition (b frac14 45 t(174) frac14 405p lt 001) hungry (vs satiated) individuals enjoyed thecupcake more There was no effect of hunger in the higheraesthetic condition (bfrac14 04 t(174) lt 1 ns) Floodlightanalysis revealed that for all values of hunger above 466participants in the higher aesthetic condition enjoyed thecupcake significantly less (p lt 05)

Perceived Expense A 2 continuous regression onperceived expense of the cupcake revealed only a signifi-cant simple effect of aesthetics at the mean level of hunger

FIGURE 1

AESTHETICS HUNGER ON CONSUMPTION AMOUNT (STUDY 2)

8 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

(p lt 001) such that the higher aesthetic cupcake was seenas more expensive Most importantly when we controlledfor expense the 2 continuous interactions and focal ef-fects continue to hold for consumption amount (p lt 04)and cupcake enjoyment (p lt 01) Finally a moderatedmediation analysis (model 8 Hayes 2013) revealed thatperceived expense did not mediate either amount con-sumed (b frac14 ndash01 95 CI [ndash08 05]) or degree of enjoy-ment (b frac14 12 95 CI [ndash05 35]) among hungryindividuals revealing that inferred monetary value was notdriving our effects

Discussion Though our pretest showed that consumerswere more likely to choose the higher aesthetic cupcake avery different pattern of results emerged with consumptionamount and consumption enjoyment Hungry participantsactively inhibited their consumption and ate less in thehigher aesthetic rose frosting condition In addition to eat-ing less these individuals experienced lower consumptionenjoyment when the cupcake was highly aesthetic By con-ceptually replicating the previous studyrsquos results with anew product we increase the generalizability of our find-ings to food a domain for which visual presentation playsa fundamental role We also provide initial evidence thatconsumption of highly aesthetic products can carry nega-tive implications for the consumption experience a notionwe explore in greater depth in studies 6A and 6B These ef-fects continued to hold even when we controlled for per-ceived expense thus rendering such an alternative accountless likely

Having reliably demonstrated the inhibiting effect ofaesthetics on consumption across two product categorieswe next elucidate the underlying process through three

different approaches First we provide evidence for ourproposed mechanism via mediation (study 3) Second wedirectly manipulate effort inferences to show process bymoderation (study 4) and third we identify a theoreticallygrounded individual difference moderator (study 5)

STUDY 3 THE MEDIATING ROLE OFEFFORT INFERENCES AND EFFORT

DESTRUCTION

The goal of study 3 is to replicate our focal effect in anew product domain paper napkins and to shed light onthe mechanism underlying consumption likelihood by test-ing the driving role of effort inferences and effort destruc-tion Consistent with our theorizing we predict that thehigher inferences of effort elicited by highly aestheticproducts will lead to stronger concerns that such effortwould be destroyed in the consumption process resultingin lower usage likelihood Notably this is a conservativecontext in which to assess effort inferences given that pa-per napkins are machine-manufactured and so differencesin perceived effort are quite subtle Further by shifting out-side of the food domain to even subtler stimuli we canmore confidently ensure that our findings are not merelyartifacts of the stimuli we have chosen (although handmadehighly aesthetic foods such as the cupcakes used in study2 are ubiquitous in the marketplace)

Method

Participants and Procedure Two hundred sixty partic-ipants were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk toparticipate in a two-cell (aesthetics higher vs lower)

FIGURE 2

AESTHETICS HUNGER ON CUPCAKE ENJOYMENT (STUDY 2)

WU ET AL 9

between-subjects study in exchange for payment Two in-dividuals participated in this study twice and six had miss-ing data on the dependent measures and were excludedfrom the analysis yielding a final sample of 252 partici-pants (44 female [five did not report gender] medianage frac14 31 ages 19ndash69)

Participants were presented with a guided visualizationscenario in which they imagined they were at a local bak-ery getting breakfast and doing work As they were work-ing they accidentally spilled coffee all over theirdocuments prompting them to look toward the counter tosee how they could clean up the spill We presented a situa-tion in which the destruction of the product paper napkinswas imminent to assess how such an outcome shapes pref-erences to consume aesthetically appealing productsParticipants were randomly assigned to either the higher orlower aesthetic condition Those in the higher aestheticcondition saw a stack of floral napkins at the counter toclean up the spill while those in the lower aesthetic condi-tion saw a stack of plain white napkins (see appendix Arow 3 for images) Additional details of the procedure areavailable in the web appendix Subsequently participantsindicated to what extent they would use the (floral orwhite) napkins to clean up the spill (1 frac14 definitely no 7 frac14definitely yes) how likely they would be to use the napkinsto clean up the spill (1 frac14 very unlikely 7 frac14 very likely)and how many napkins they would use to clean up the spill(1 frac14 none at all 7 frac14 very many) which formed our usagelikelihood index (afrac14 81) Next to examine effort infer-ences we asked participants how much effort they thoughtwent into making the napkins (1 frac14 none at all 7 frac14 quite abit) To examine concerns about effort destruction weasked participants to rate their agreement with the state-ment ldquoI felt like I was destroying someonersquos effort by usingthe napkinsrdquo (1 frac14 strongly disagree 7 frac14 stronglyagree) Finally to again show that inferred monetary valueis not driving our effects participants indicated how muchthey would be willing to pay for a pack of the napkins inthe scenario (ie dollar value)

Results and Discussion

We predicted that participants would be less likely touse the higher aesthetic napkins and that this effect wouldbe mediated in serial by effort inferences and concernsover destroying such effort

Usage Likelihood A one-way ANOVA on the usagelikelihood index indicated that participants were less likelyto use the higher aesthetic floral napkins to clean up thespill (Mhigher aesthetic frac14 581 vs Mlower aesthetic frac14 628 F(1250) frac14 1592 p lt 001) an effect that continues to holdeven when we controlled for willingness to pay for thenapkins (p lt 001)

Effort Inferences A one-way ANOVA on effort infer-ences indicated that participants ascribed greater effort to thehigher aesthetic napkins (Mhigher frac14 380 vs Mlower frac14 319F(1 250) frac14 753 p lt 01) even when we controlled for will-ingness to pay (p lt 02)

Effort Destruction A one-way ANOVA on concernsabout effort destruction indicated that participants hadstronger concerns effort would be destroyed in the higheraesthetic condition (Mhigher frac14 254 vs Mlower frac14 195 F(1250) frac14 837 p lt 01) Again this effect holds even whenwe controlled for willingness to pay (p lt 02)

Mediation We conducted a serial multiple mediatormodel (model 6 Hayes 2013) testing our proposed media-tion path where effort inferences and concerns about ef-fort destruction served as serial mediators productaesthetics effort inferences concerns about the de-struction of effort usage likelihood Consistent withour predictions the indirect effect of aesthetics on usagelikelihood through effort inferences and concerns abouteffort destruction was significant (b frac14 ndash03 95 CI [ndash09 ndash01]) In addition the indirect effect of aesthetics onusage likelihood through effort destruction alone was sig-nificant (b frac14 ndash04 95 CI [ndash14 ndash003]) suggesting thismediator works serially but also individually Consistentwith study 2 willingness to pay did not mediate usagelikelihood (b frac14 01 95 CI [ndash03 06]) providing fur-ther evidence that inferred monetary value was not drivingour effects In sum product aesthetics affected usage like-lihood through effort inferences and concerns that onewould be destroying this effort

Discussion In study 3 using a new subtler contextwe show that the greater perceptions of effort ascribed tothe creation of higher aesthetic napkins led to stronger con-cerns that such effort would inevitably be destroyed in theconsumption process which ultimately discouraged usageFurther we once again demonstrate that inferred monetaryvalue does not account for our results Next we manipulateeffort inferences directly to show that shifting the per-ceived effort required to make an aesthetic product willmitigate our focal effect

STUDY 4 THE MODERATING ROLE OFEFFORT INFERENCES

Given the underlying role of effort in inhibiting the con-sumption of highly aesthetic products it follows that this re-duced consumption should be attenuated if the beautifulproduct does not trigger such effort inferences in the firstplace Thus in study 4 we manipulated information aboutthe products to directly influence effort inferences comple-menting study 3 by providing process evidence through mod-eration (Spencer Zanna and Fong 2005) Notably unlikeother studies in the current article study 4 utilizes a

10 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

comparative design in which participants are presented withboth higher and lower aesthetic products at once and areasked to make a choice between them This design allowsus to extend the generalizability of our findings to contextswhere consumers are faced with products of differing levelsof aesthetic appeal and have to choose one to immediatelyconsume Moreover study 4 replaces floral napkins withturquoise napkins in the higher aesthetic condition therebyusing especially subtle aesthetic stimuli to reveal that evenin the absence of product design changes in aesthetic ap-peal through other means (eg color) can shape consump-tion decisions in the same manner

Finally study 4 helps us test the alternative explanationthat concerns over how the product will look after usageor anticipated decrements in the productrsquos beauty aloneare driving lower consumption likelihood independent ofeffort inferences If this is the case the likelihood of usingaesthetically appealing products should not differ as afunction of expended effort since consumers should al-ways be less likely to use a beautiful product irrespectiveof the effort involved in its creation However if consump-tion likelihood is indeed affected by inferred effort thenchanges in inferred effort should systematically impactconsumption likelihood a relationship we examine directlyin study 4

Method

Participants and Procedure Two hundred forty-sixparticipants were recruited from Amazon MechanicalTurk to participate in a two-cell (intervention conditionno information control vs higher aesthetics frac14 lower ef-fort) between-subjects study in exchange for paymentSeven people participated in this study twice and wereexcluded yielding a final sample of 239 participants (48female [six did not report gender] median age frac14 31 ages18ndash69)

Study 4 used the same guided visualization scenario asstudy 3 where participants imagined visiting their localbakery and accidentally spilling coffee while they wereworking However this time they saw two separatestacks of napkins they could use to clean up the spillThe napkins were turquoise (higher aesthetic option) orplain white (lower aesthetic option see appendix A row4 for images) and both napkin images were presented atonce Additional details are available in the webappendix

At this point participants in the control condition pro-ceeded directly to a choice task in which they indicated whichtype of napkin they would use to clean up the spill On theother hand participants in the higher aestheticsfrac14 lower effortcondition were first told that as they looked at the napkinsthey recalled that a friend who used to work for this bakeryhad told them that it actually takes less effort and time forcompanies to manufacture the blue napkins than it does to

make and bleach the white ones2 Next participants in thislower effort condition completed the choice task After theirchoice all participants indicated how much they thought thenapkins cost (1 frac14 very little 7 frac14 quite a lot)

Results and Discussion

Conceptually replicating prior studies in the controlcondition where no effort inferences were made salientparticipants were less likely to choose the higher aestheticblue napkins to clean up the spill (1983 blue vs8017white) However this lower usage likelihood was re-versed when the higher aesthetic blue napkins elicitedlower perceptions of effort (6356blue vs 3644white v2

(1) frac14 4707 (n frac14 239) p lt 001) Importantly the choiceeffects continue to hold when we control for perceived cost(p lt 001)

Discussion Study 4 offers convergent support for theproposed underlying process by showing that the reducedconsumption of highly aesthetic products is reversed whenthese products elicit lower effort inferences As revealedby the pretest (see footnote 2) in the control conditionwhere no effort information was made salient participantsascribed greater effort to the higher aesthetic blue napkinand were less likely to use it but when this blue napkinwas thought to require less effort to produce participantsbecame more likely to use it Notably unlike our priorstudies study 4 employed a comparative design in whichparticipants saw higher and lower aesthetic options at thesame time mirroring real life where consumers encountermultiple product offerings with differing aesthetic appealand have to choose one to use

These results also suggest that anticipated decrements inbeauty alone or concerns over what the aesthetic productwill look like after consumption are unlikely to inhibitconsumption Such projected losses of beauty are not evi-dent before consumption has occurred when the highlyaesthetic product is still in pristine beautiful condition Ifexpected drops in the aesthetic appeal of the product alonehad been responsible for driving reduced consumption in-dividuals would have been equally inhibited from using thehigher aesthetic napkin irrespective of effort inferencesSuch an alternative is inconsistent with the reversal in us-age likelihood we observed in the higher aesthetics frac14lower effort condition since the aesthetic appeal of the

2 A pretest confirmed the validity of study 4rsquos effort manipulationParticipants (n frac14 201) completed a 2 (aesthetics) 2 (effort interven-tion) between-subjects study where they read the same scenario butwere randomly assigned a napkin choice and asked to make effortinferences about the napkin Results revealed a significant interaction(p lt 001) Whereas in the control condition the higher aesthetic nap-kin elicited higher perceptions of effort (Mcontrol higher aesthetic frac14 391vs Mcontrol lower aesthetic frac14 335 p lt 04) this pattern reversed in thelow effort condition (Mlow effort higher aesthetic frac14 302 vs Mlow effort lower

aesthetic frac14 431 p lt 001) Procedural details and full results are avail-able in the web appendix

WU ET AL 11

napkins remained constant only the perceived effort hadchanged Thus we provide further evidence for the prem-ise that consumers strongly link aesthetics and effort andshow that for consumption to be reduced the highly aes-thetic product must signal higher effort in addition to itsaesthetic qualities

Notably while our results support the notion that antici-pated drops in beauty alone are insufficient to lead to a re-duction in consumption likelihood it is also worthmentioning that because effort and beauty are inextricablylinked constructs concerns over destroying effort mayshare to some extent overlapping variance with concernsover the imminent losses of beauty This suggests that inother contexts anticipated decrements in beauty may alsoplay a role in driving usage potentially for products of ex-treme aesthetic appeal that are more defined by theirbeauty as opposed to the colored napkins used hereNonetheless in the current context the results demonstratethat shifting perceptions about the amount of effort neededto create a higher aesthetic product is sufficient to over-come any inhibition to consume it

We next provide additional evidence for our conceptual-ization by investigating a theoretically driven individualdifference that affects the degree to which effort is inher-ently appreciated and by extension should influence deci-sions to use highly aesthetic products

STUDY 5 THE ROLE OF IMPLICIT SELF-THEORIES IN SHAPING USAGE

Based on our theory because the higher effort as-cribed to beautiful products underlies their lower likeli-hood of usage such a reduction should be moderated bythe degree to which effort is intrinsically valued or peo-plersquos implicit self-theories According to research on im-plicit self-theories entity theorists view their personalqualities as stable and unable to be enhanced by self-improvement while incremental theorists view thesequalities as flexible and able to be cultivated through la-bor and effort (Dweck 2000) Similarly entity theoriststend to view effort as ineffective and pointless while in-cremental theorists are more optimistic that their effortscarry intrinsic value and will eventually bear fruit(Dweck and Leggett 1988)

We propose that beyond the recognition of personal ef-fort implicit self-theories affect the extent to which con-sumers appreciate othersrsquo effort and by extension theeffort that goes into the creation of highly aesthetic prod-ucts To test this prediction we conducted a correlationalstudy examining the relationship between implicit self-theories and the propensity to appreciate effort-laden prod-ucts Participants (n frac14 134) first completed the implicitself-theories scale (Levy Stroessner and Dweck 1998)where higher (lower) scores indicate greater endorsement

of incremental (entity) self-theory Next they indicatedtheir agreement with five items reflecting appreciation forothersrsquo effort (eg I notice when people work really hardto create something3 all anchored at 1 frac14 strongly disagree7 frac14 strongly agree a frac14 91) We found a significant posi-tive correlation (r frac14 23 p lt 01) such that incrementallyoriented individuals were more likely to appreciate thingsthat reflect a great deal of effort

Thus based on this appreciation for othersrsquo effort in study5 we predict that incremental theorists will be less likely toconsume products that are highly aesthetic and by extensionladen with effort By contrast because entity theorists havelower intrinsic appreciation for effort they will be equallylikely to use a product regardless of its aesthetic appeal

Method

Participants and Procedure One hundred eighty-seven undergraduate students from a southwesternuniversity participated in a 2 (aesthetics higher vs lower) continuous (implicit self-theories) between-subjectsstudy in exchange for partial course credit Two partici-pants reported having a gluten allergy that prevented themfrom consuming the goldfish crackers accompanying thenapkins An additional 11 participants were excluded fromthe analysismdashone respondent participated in this studytwice and 10 had missing data on implicit self-theorieswhich we had measured in a separate presurvey severalweeks prior to the focal study Thus the final sample com-prised 174 participants (52 female [four did not reportgender] median age frac14 21 ages 18ndash41)

Study 5 employed the same cover story about pairingfoods with videos used in study 2 but this time usingPepperidge Farm goldfish crackers We chose these crack-ers because they are slightly messy to eatmdashpeople wouldwant to use a napkin but did not necessarily have to creat-ing an ideal context within which to test our hypothesesParticipants received an individual pack of goldfish crack-ers along with a paper napkin which was either decorativewith a white background (higher aesthetic condition) orplain white (lower aesthetic condition) (both 61=2 inchessquare see appendix A row 5 for images) Importantlythe experimenter gave no explicit instructions on what to dowith this napkin Of note in addition to the pretest assessingdifferent levels of aesthetic appeal between the two napkinsanother between-subjects pretest (n frac14 81) showed that partic-ipants liked the higher (vs lower) aesthetic napkin and its de-sign more (Mhigher aesthetic frac14 516 vs Mlower aesthetic frac14 365t(79) frac14 ndash516 p lt 001 r frac14 87) but both napkins were

3 The other items were (2) I really appreciate it when somebodytakes the time and effort to make something (3) I treasure somethingmore when I know a lot of effort has gone into creating it (4) I havean appreciation for products that reflect a great deal of effort on themakerrsquos part and (5) I value something more when I know it took alot of time and energy to produce

12 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

rated as equally versatile in their usage (Mhigher aesthetic frac14 580vs Mlower aesthetic frac14 591 t(79) frac14 47 p gt 60 a frac14 91)Additional pretest details are available in the web appendix

Participants were told to watch a 35 minute video onwildlife animals while they ate the crackers and that theywere free to eat as much or as little as they liked Once par-ticipants finished the video the experimenter collected thenapkin and any leftover crackers and recorded whether thenapkin had been used or not (0 frac14 no 1 frac14 yes) in anotherroom A napkin was coded as ldquousedrdquo if it showed any signsof usage (ie had any food stains on it looked crumpled orhad been used to spit out gum) and was coded as ldquounusedrdquoonly if it appeared untouched and in pristine condition mak-ing it a highly conservative test of our hypotheses To againensure that perceived cost was not influencing our focal ef-fects we asked participants how much they would be will-ing to pay for a pack of napkins (ie dollar value) Finallyparticipants completed a series of filler measures that as-sessed how interesting the video was and how much theyliked eating goldfish crackers in general

Results and Discussion

A 2 (aesthetics condition) continuous (implicit self-theories) logistic regression on napkin usage behavior(used yes no) was performed Regressing usage behavioron the aesthetics manipulation mean-centered levels ofimplicit self-theories and their interaction revealed a sig-nificant simple effect of aesthetics at the mean of implicitself-theories (b frac14 ndash37 Wald v2 frac14 460 p frac14 03) suchthat a smaller percentage of people used the napkin in the

higher aesthetic condition across all participants conceptu-ally replicating prior studies Importantly the interactionwas also significant (b frac14 ndash30 Wald v2 frac14 419 p frac14 04see figure 3) Notably this interaction continued to holdeven when we controlled for willingness to pay (p lt 04)We used the Johnson-Neyman technique to identify therange of implicit self-theories for which the simple effectof the aesthetics manipulation was significant where lowervalues imply an entity-oriented mindset while higher val-ues imply an incrementally oriented mindset We found asignificant reduction in usage of the higher aesthetic deco-rative (vs lower aesthetic white) paper napkin for anyvalue of implicit self-theories above 406 (at p lt 05) butnot for any value less than 406 In other words incremen-tal theorists were less likely to use a higher (vs lower) aes-thetic napkin whereas entity theorists were equally likelyto use a napkin regardless of its appearance

Discussion In study 5 we provide further evidence forour proposed mechanism by showing that implicit self-theories or consumersrsquo chronic appreciation for investedeffort shapes decisions to use an aesthetically pleasingproduct Incremental theorists who are more appreciativeof effort were less likely to use a higher aesthetic decora-tive napkin than a lower aesthetic plain white napkin butsuch effects were not observed among entity theorists whohave lower intrinsic appreciation for effort We have nowreliably established the inhibiting effect of product aes-thetics on consumption across multiple products and con-sumption contexts and provided convergent support for theunderlying mechanism In our final two studies we

FIGURE 3

AESTHETICS IMPLICIT SELF-THEORIES ON NAPKIN USAGE (STUDY 5)

WU ET AL 13

elucidate the drivers of post-consumption emotions whileholding usage constant thereby allowing us to hone in onpost-consumption consequences in a more controlledfashion since people are inherently less likely to usehigher aesthetic products which could potentially result inself-selection issues

STUDY 6A DECREMENTS IN BEAUTYAND POST-CONSUMPTION AFFECT

Recall in study 2 that when the cupcake was highly aes-thetic consumption enjoyment was lower among individ-uals most motivated to engage in consumption (ie hungryindividuals) an effect we propose is determined by twoprocesses working in tandem First we expect that the ef-fort inferences made prior to consumption will continue todrive emotional outcomes given the consumption processinvolves the actual destruction of effort Second and onlyevident post-consumption are the decrements in beautythat aesthetic products undergo when their aesthetic quali-ties are visibly compromised through usage Because beau-tiful products are inherently pleasurable (Reber et al 2004Reimann et al 2010) we predict that individuals will expe-rience less pleasure and more negative affect when theywitness highly aesthetic products undergo steeper drops inbeauty as a result of consumption Consistent with prospecttheoryrsquos value function (Kahneman and Tversky 1979)initial changesmdashhere the larger losses of beauty associatedwith the usage of a higher (vs lower) aesthetic productmdashshould be particularly jarring and lead to more negative af-fect (Frederick and Loewenstein 1999)

Importantly unlike in study 2 where we measured theamount consumed as well as post-consumption enjoymentin study 6A we hold usage constant in the higher andlower aesthetic conditions and hone in on the changes inbeauty with a longitudinal study design Specifically theobjective of study 6A is to extend prior work on the rela-tionship between beauty and pleasure by establishing itscorollarymdashthat the consumption of a higher (vs lower)aesthetic product will lead to greater perceived losses ofbeauty and that such decrements in beauty will in turnhave a negative influence on post-consumption affect Wemeasure this decrement by capturing aesthetic judgmentsimmediately before and after usage

Method

Participants and Procedure Four hundred sixteen par-ticipants were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk toparticipate in a 2 (aesthetics higher vs lower between) 2(aesthetic judgment before vs after usage within) mixed-design study in exchange for payment Six individuals par-ticipated in this study twice and four had missing data onthe focal dependent measures and were excluded from theanalysis yielding a final sample of 406 participants (54

female [11 did not report gender] median age frac14 30 ages18ndash76)

The procedure was similar to that of study 3 featuringthe same bakery scenario and stimuli but with several mod-ifications After participants were initially presented witheither the higher or lower aesthetic napkins following thespill they immediately completed two semantic differen-tial items of aesthetic evaluations for these unused napkinson seven-point scales ldquonot at all prettyvery prettyrdquo andldquonot at all uglyvery uglyrdquo (reverse-coded) which havebeen shown in prior work to capture aesthetic judgments(Reber Winkielman and Schwarz 1998 r frac14 47) Aftercompleting these baseline aesthetic judgment measuresparticipants proceeded with the scenario They were toldthey realized they would need to grab at least 10 napkins tocome close to cleaning up the spill and were subsequentlyshown a stack of unused napkins The scenario ended withan image of a bundle of napkins now drenched with cof-fee that were used to clean up the spill Additional detailsof the procedure are available in the web appendix

Immediately after reading the scenario participantscompleted the same set of aesthetic judgment items a sec-ond time this time rating the coffee-drenched napkinswhich served as a measure of post-usage aesthetic judg-ments Participants then indicated to what extent they ex-perienced each of the following negative emotions whilethey were using the napkins to clean up the spill stressedregretful bad afraid fearful sad sorry and guilty whichwe combined into an index of post-consumption negativeaffect (1 frac14 not at all 7 frac14 very much so afrac14 91)

Results and Discussion

We predicted that participants would experience greaternegative affect after using the higher (vs lower) aestheticnapkins an effect that would be driven by the larger decre-ments in beauty that stem from the consumption of higheraesthetic products

Emotions A one-way ANOVA on negative emotionsexperienced after consumption revealed that participantswho used the higher aesthetic floral napkins to clean up thespill felt more negative affect than those who used thelower aesthetic white napkins (Mhigher aesthetic frac14 305 vsMlower aesthetic frac14 246 F(1 404) frac14 1686 p lt 001)

Decrements in Beauty (Longitudinal) A 2 (aestheticshigher vs lower) 2 (timing before usage vs after usage)mixed ANOVA on aesthetic judgments yielded main ef-fects of both aesthetics (F(1 404) frac14 10652 p lt 001) andtiming (F(1 404) frac14 125629 p lt 001) which were quali-fied by a significant aesthetics timing interaction (F(1404) frac14 5302 p lt 001) Planned contrasts revealed thatwhereas the higher aesthetic napkins elicited more favor-able aesthetic judgments than the lower aesthetic napkinsbefore usage (Mhigher frac14 594 vs Mlower frac14 447 F(1 404)

14 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

frac14 15269 p lt 001) this difference was substantiallyreduced after usage (Mhigher frac14 237 vs Mlower frac14 211F(1 404) frac14 484 p frac14 03) Importantly and arguably mostcentral to our research the decrement in aesthetic ratingsthrough usage was significantly larger in the higher aes-thetic conditionmdashin fact 151 largermdashthan that observedin the lower aesthetic condition (ie a drop of 357 unitsvs a drop of 236 units)

Mediation Finally we are interested in whether decre-ments in aesthetic judgment emanating from product usageunderlie post-consumption affect Consistent with predic-tions mediation analysis (model 4 Hayes 2013) revealedthat the indirect effect of aesthetics on negative affectthrough changes in aesthetic judgment was significant (b frac1415 95 CI [04 29]) suggesting that product aestheticsaffected the experience of negative emotions through thelarger losses of beauty resulting from the consumption ofhigher aesthetic products

Discussion While past work has shown that aestheticsare inextricably linked with pleasure (Reber et al 2004Reimann et al 2010) study 6A extends this body of re-search by revealing that in the context of nondurable prod-ucts where consumption entails damaging product designnot only does the usage of higher (vs lower) aestheticproducts result in larger decrements in beauty but suchlosses also drive greater negative affect after consumptionNotably while we asked participants to assess the aestheticqualities of the napkins before and immediately after usageto more precisely capture the changes in beauty we ob-served we recognize that this design may have caused theaesthetic appeal of the napkins to be more salient prior toconsumption making its decrement therefore more pro-nounced after consumption Thus having established thatbeauty decrements resulting from aesthetic product usageunderlie post-consumption affect in study 6B we measurethis change in a less invasive manner after consumptionWe also integrate changes in beauty and effort inferencesinto emotional reactions linked to consumption

STUDY 6B TESTING THE FULLCONCEPTUAL MODEL FOR POST-

CONSUMPTION AFFECT

The goal of study 6B is to elucidate the drivers of post-consumption emotions while continuing to hold usage con-stant in both conditions thereby allowing us to test the fullconceptual model in a more controlled fashion As alludedto in study 6A the inherently lower consumption likeli-hood of higher aesthetic products could potentially resultin self-selection issues In study 6B we predict that partici-pants will experience more negative affect after using ahigher (vs lower) aesthetic product an effect driven in tan-dem by effort inferences as well as changes in beauty

Further we try to better understand consumersrsquo emotionalreactions after aesthetic product usage by not highlightingthe productrsquos aesthetic qualities beforehand Finally wemeasure implicit self-theories to examine whether onersquos in-herent degree of effort appreciation moderates post-consumption negative affect

Method

Participants and Procedure Four hundred participantswere recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk to partici-pate in a two-cell (aesthetics higher vs lower) between-subjects study in exchange for payment Ten individualsparticipated in this study twice and 17 had missing data onthe focal dependent measures and were excluded from theanalysis yielding a final sample of 373 participants (55female [two did not report gender] median age frac14 32 ages18ndash76)

The study design of study 6B was almost identical tothat of study 6A aside from several modifications Firstparticipants completed the same negative emotion indexfrom study 6A (afrac14 91) immediately after reading the sce-nario instead of after aesthetics judgment measures (whichwere not included in this study) Second instead of assess-ing aesthetic ratings at two separate points in time we uti-lized a new single cross-sectional measure to capturedecrements in beauty post-consumption ldquoBy using thenapkins it felt like I was turning something that was oncebeautiful into something uglyrdquo (1 frac14 strongly disagree 7 frac14strongly agree) Next to examine effort inferences as a par-allel driver of negative affect after consumption partici-pants completed the same effort inferences and effortdestruction measures from study 3 although these mea-sures are distinct from study 3 in that they were assessedafter usage had already taken place Finally participantscompleted the implicit self-theories scale

Results and Discussion

Emotions Replicating study 6A a one-way ANOVAon negative emotions revealed that participants who usedthe higher aesthetic floral napkins to clean up the spill feltmore negative affect than those who used the lower aestheticwhite napkins (Mhigher aesthetic frac14 313 vs Mlower aesthetic frac14283 F(1 371) frac14 394 p lt 05) Of note this main effectdid not interact with implicit self-theories (p gt 30) sug-gesting that both incremental and entity theorists experi-enced more negative affect after using the higher (vslower) aesthetic napkins to clean up the spill a finding werevisit in the discussion section

Decrements in Beauty (Cross-Sectional) A one-wayANOVA on changes in beauty indicated that the higheraesthetic napkin underwent greater decrements in beautythrough consumption (Mhigher frac14 263 vs Mlower frac14 177F(1 371) frac14 2671 p lt 001)

WU ET AL 15

Effort Inferences A one-way ANOVA on effort infer-ences indicated that participants ascribed greater effort tothe higher aesthetic napkins (Mhigher frac14 349 vs Mlower frac14287 F(1 371) frac14 1359 p lt 001)

Effort Destruction A one-way ANOVA on concernsabout effort destruction indicated that participants hadstronger concerns that effort had been destroyed in thehigher aesthetic condition (Mhigher frac14 262 vs Mlower frac14200 F(1 371) frac14 1355 p lt 001)

Mediation Finally we conducted two separate media-tion analyses one testing the path of product aesthetics decrements in beauty negative affect (model 4 Hayes2013) and the other testing the serial path of product aes-thetics effort inferences concerns about effort de-struction negative affect (model 6) Results from thefirst analysis revealed that the indirect effect of aestheticson negative affect through changes in beauty was signifi-cant (b frac14 37 95 CI [23 54]) suggesting that productaesthetics affected the experience of negative emotionsthrough larger decrements in beauty in the higher aestheticcondition Second the indirect effect of aesthetics on nega-tive affect through effort inferences and concerns about ef-fort destruction (in serial) was also significant (b frac14 1295 CI [06 23]) as was the indirect effect of aestheticson negative affect through effort destruction alone (b frac1411 95 CI [01 23])

Finally we also included beauty decrements effort in-ferences and effort destruction into the model as parallelmediators to gain greater understanding of the relativestrength of these drivers This analysis revealed that whenall three mediators were in the model the indirect effectthrough decrements in beauty remained significant (b frac1422 95 CI [11 36]) as did the indirect effect througheffort destruction (b frac14 15 95 CI [06 27]) Taken to-gether these results suggest that while concerns about ef-fort destruction continue to play a role in driving theemotional outcomes of aesthetic product usage the decre-ments in beauty that become evident only after an aestheticproduct has been visibly compromised through consump-tion also lead to negative affect

Discussion Study 6B which allowed us to examinethe entire post-consumption conceptual model revealedthat people who used higher (vs lower) aesthetic napkinssubsequently experienced greater negative affect an effectdriven by two processes operating in parallel concernsabout the destruction of effort and decrements in beauty Inother words the consumption experience was associatedwith more negative affect because the consumption processnot only involved the actual destruction of effort but italso took a beautiful product that was typified by pleasureand transformed it into something marked by displeasure

We should also note that we replicated the post-consumption findings with actual paper napkins in a lab

context In a separate study using study 5rsquos procedure par-ticipants watched a video and received a snack to eat alongwith a higher versus lower aesthetic napkin and then indi-cated how they felt about the consumption experienceParticipants who chose to use their higher aesthetic napkinreported feeling more negative affect relative to whosewho chose to use their lower aesthetic napkin (p frac14 04)and relative to those who did not use their higher aestheticnapkin (p lt 01) Thus aesthetic product usage increasednegative affect even when consumers could choose to ei-ther use the aesthetic product or not and when the aestheticproduct (the napkin) was tangential to the affect measurescollected which specifically pertained to the video-watching and snack-eating task Additional details areavailable in the web appendix

Though we provide evidence that effort inferences con-tinued to partially drive consumer responses to beautifulproducts after usage it is interesting to note that post-consumption affect was not moderated by the degree towhich effort is intrinsically appreciated (ie implicit self-theories) While unexpected we speculate that this may oc-cur because post-consumption enjoyment is not exclusivelydriven by effort inferences Since losses of beauty alsoplay a substantial role in shaping emotional outcomes afterconsumption the beauty decrements associated with aes-thetic product usage may have brought entity theorists to asimilar emotional state as incremental theorists resultingin everybody feeling worse off after consumption irrespec-tive of individual differences in effort appreciation Morebroadly since post-consumption affect appears to be multi-ply determined it is difficult to completely disentangle thenegative affect stemming from the destruction of effortfrom the negative affect stemming from decrements inbeauty Study 6B offers a distinct test of this conjecturesince it made usage (and hence losses of beauty) salientthrough images of visibly used napkins

GENERAL DISCUSSION

Across a series of laboratory and field studies using avariety of nondurable product categories and consumptionsituations we reveal the negative impact of enhanced prod-uct aesthetics on usage and post-consumption conse-quences First we document an inhibiting effect of productaesthetics on consumption behaviors for disposable andperishable products in both real-world (study 1) and lab(study 2) settings Next we shed light on the drivers of us-age likelihood using mediation (study 3) a context-basedboundary condition (study 4) and a theoretically derivedindividual difference moderator (study 5) thereby provid-ing convergent support for an underlying process based oneffort Finally in studies 6A and 6B we hold product us-age constant to elucidate the drivers of post-consumptionaffect and show that the decrements in beauty that

16 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

aesthetic products inherently undergo as a result of con-sumption combined with concerns that one has actuallydestroyed effort underlie these effects

Theoretical Contributions Our work makes severaltheoretical contributions First while prior research hasshown that consumers respond favorably to both productaesthetics and effort we believe we are the first to establisha causal relationship between these constructs We findthat highly aesthetic products can elicit greater perceptionsof effort regardless of whether this effort was exerted dur-ing product design physical production or both processesWe further reveal that these effort inferences are not lim-ited to handmade products such as perishable foods butalso apply to mass-produced products such as consumerpackaged disposable goods

Second while existing literature suggests that consumerpreferences should increase as a function of a productrsquos aes-thetic appeal the prevailing ways of assessing the impact ofaesthetics on consumer preference have been limited to pur-chase intentions product evaluations and choice (Hagtvedtand Patrick 2008 Raghubir and Greenleaf 2006 Reimannet al 2010 Townsend and Shu 2010) Surprisingly the role ofaesthetics after choice has received little empirical attention todate Despite the stimulating effect that enhanced product aes-thetics have on choice and pre-usage evaluations our resultssuggest that once beautiful products are acquired consumersmay be less likely to consume them because the higher infer-ences of effort attributed to their creation elicit stronger con-cerns that such effort would be destroyed during consumption

This research also shows that the impact of implicit self-theories on consumer behavior may be more pervasivethan previously thought While prior research in psychol-ogy has shown that incremental and entity theorists carrydissimilar beliefs about the value of their own effort(Dweck 2000) we provide support for the novel predictionthat beyond the recognition of personal effort implicitself-theories affect the extent to which consumers appreci-ate the effort that goes into the creation of aestheticallyappealing products

Finally contrary to the notion that enhanced product aes-thetics are always beneficial to consumption enjoyment ourwork reveals that usage of highly aesthetic disposable prod-ucts can actually lower overall enjoyment of the consumptionexperience through two separate pathways (1) by elicitingconcerns that one has actually destroyed effort and (2) bycompromising the beauty that typically characterizes aestheticproducts Thus we add to the literature on aesthetics andpleasure by showing how the consumption of highly aestheticproducts can result in larger losses of beauty and that suchdecrements in turn drive the relationship between aestheticproduct consumption and negative affect

More generally these findings speak to researchthat explores when and why the drivers of predicted andexperienced utility might diverge For instance

Thompson et al (2005) found that consumersrsquo initial desirefor product capability before purchase leads them to chooseproducts packed with features but their growing desire forproduct usability after usage leads them to ultimately prefersimpler products Similarly Lee and Tsai (2014) showedthat price promotions can stimulate sales but lower atten-tion during consumption which in turn reduces consump-tion enjoyment In the same vein despite the delightinitially elicited by the choice of beautiful products wedemonstrate that enhanced aesthetics have the ability tolater discourage usage and lower consumption enjoyment

Substantive Implications Our findings carry importantpractical implications as they pose an interesting dilemmato managers While conventional wisdom suggests that mar-keters should strive to invest the highest degree of effort intomaking their products look aesthetically pleasing at least tothe extent that company resources will allow our researchreveals that the story is not so simple Enhancing productaesthetics might positively affect initial attention interestand choice but should be considered with caution given thatsuch increased appeal could inhibit usage and reduce enjoy-ment relative to less aesthetically appealing productsRelatedly people likely consume highly aesthetic disposableproducts more slowly which could affect interpurchasetime Thus the pursuit of product aesthetics and improvedshort-term sales must be constantly balanced against theneed to encourage consumption ensure customer satisfac-tion and maintain long-term profitability Still certain prod-ucts such as beautiful candles and soaps may serve adecorative purpose in addition to their basic utilitarian func-tion and consequently may also carry intrinsic aestheticvalue Our recommendations are admittedly less straightfor-ward under such circumstances as consumers are able toderive utility from the productsrsquo enhanced aesthetics simplyby displaying them

Our results also have clear implications for managersand policy makers interested in promoting conservationand sustainable business practices A growing number ofretail and service establishments have been switching tounbleached paper products as the traditional bleachingprocess that removes imperfections and gives paper itswhite appearance also produces hazardous chemicals (egchlorine and dioxins) that are harmful to the environment(Evans 2010) While the transition to unbleached paperproducts has benefited the environment the results fromour investigation suggest the growing popularity of thistrend may be a double-edged sword To the extent thatunbleached paper products are considered less aestheticallyappealing consumers may show less restraint in usingthem leading to backfiring effects for conservation effortsPut another way the positive environmental impact of pro-ducing unbleached paper products could potentially be off-set by consumersrsquo reduced inhibition in consuming theseproducts Thus increasing the aesthetic appeal of products

WU ET AL 17

may actually be an effective way for companies to promoteenvironmentally sustainable behaviors even after incorpo-rating the increased cost of implementing such practices

Finally given that rising obesity rates are a major publichealth concern traced to increased consumption (Chandonand Wansink 2007) there has been burgeoning interest inthe various factors that shape consumer food choices (Corniland Chandon 2016 McFerran et al 2010 Scott et al 2008)The results of study 2 suggest that one way to curb overeat-ing might be to enhance the aesthetic presentation of foodproducts especially hedonic foods Of course additionalresearch is needed to better explore the impact of aestheticsin this important area given the counteracting effects thatfood aesthetics exert on consumption versus enjoyment

Limitations and Future Research While the current setof studies was designed to elucidate perceived effort as anunderlying mechanism of lower usage of aestheticallyappealing products we recognize that this phenomenonlike many is likely driven by multiple processes (FuchsSchreier and van Osselaer 2015) Indeed as evident in ourresearch consumption likelihood and consumption enjoy-ment each have distinct sets of drivers For instance whilewe accounted for cost across multiple studies and demon-strated that our effects held even after we controlled for theperceived price of the product we believe that cost maycertainly play a role in certain situations For example cer-tain highly aesthetic products elicit perceptions of luxury(Hagtvedt and Patrick 2008) and may consequently reduceconsumption because they appear ldquotoo expensive to userdquoand cost may even interact with aesthetics under certaincircumstances to impact consumption such that the infer-ences of effort typically ascribed to aesthetically appealingproducts could be mitigated if people are told that theywere extremely inexpensive

In addition classic research by Loewenstein (1987)showed that people often prefer to delay consumption ofenjoyable experiences It may be that people are averse toimmediately consuming a highly aesthetic product becausethey are able to derive more utility by savoring the experi-ence and postponing consumption Further as alluded to instudy 4 it is possible that anticipated decrements in beautymay play a larger role in shaping usage in other consump-tion contexts Thus while we focus on the role of effortinferences in driving lower usage of highly aesthetic prod-ucts we are cognizant of the fact that other mechanismslikely exist which would provide intriguing avenues forfurther investigation

It would also be interesting to examine whether the neg-ative influence of enhanced aesthetics would hold acrossdifferent consumption contexts That is are there situationswhere the present phenomenon would not emerge Indeedone could argue that service establishments such as upscalerestaurants and luxury resorts which regularly pampertheir guests with beautifully plated entrees and folded

towel animals would eventually be driven out of businessif the consumption of highly aesthetic products alwaysresulted in lower enjoyment We believe that whether theusage of highly aesthetic products is accompanied bydecreased consumption and increased negative affect willhinge on the nature of the consumption environment Priorresearch indicates that our surroundings are capable ofautomatically eliciting normative behaviors when situa-tional norms are well established (Aarts and Dijksterhuis2003) Extending this perspective it is possible that theeffects observed in this article may be relatively weakenedwhen consumption occurs in environments characterizedby strong expectations to engage in indulgent consumptionsuch as in a fancy restaurant or luxurious hotel

Relatedly it would be interesting to examine whethercalling attention to fact that the aesthetic product if leftunconsumed will face inevitable destruction could enhanceconsumption likelihood and enjoyment to some extent par-ticularly for perishable products such as food4 Indeedrecent research has shown that consumers display a strongaversion to waste and unused utility (Bolton and Alba2012) Thus future studies should examine whether theeffects documented in this article could be attenuated ifthe inevitable destruction of effort is made salient to con-sumers (eg the product will go bad be thrown away orsomebody else will consume the product even if they donot) In summary future work should explore situationswhere enhanced aesthetics might carry more weight in theutility function for the overall consumption experienceand subsequently increase consumption and boostenjoyment

Another area for future research would be to examinewhether the destruction of product aesthetics is an ldquoall ornothingrdquo event such that any amount of consumption (evena single bite of a cupcake) would be viewed as destroyingthe productrsquos overall beauty While our experimentaldesigns did not allow us to examine whether destruction is acontinuous versus discrete function of consumption it isworth nothing that we did document lower usage acrossvarying degrees of consumption (eg consumption was con-tinuous in study 2 but discrete in study 5) and we did findthat different levels of consumption still led to reducedenjoyment Nevertheless we believe this is an importantempirical question worth investigating in the future

Finally while we have limited our analysis to nondura-bles (perishable and disposable products specifically) anintriguing path would be to investigate the potential moder-ating role of product durability on usage likelihood andsubsequent enjoyment of highly aesthetic products It maybe that the relative durability of the aesthetic product couldaffect individualsrsquo ability or motivation to anticipate decre-ments in beauty before consumption has occurred whichwould have implications for usage likelihood For instance

4 We thank one of the anonymous reviewers for this suggestion

18 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

with big-ticket high-involvement purchases such as sleekfurniture (eg a beautiful new white sectional sofa) con-sumers may more readily anticipate losses of beauty sincethey will have to live with and encounter the product on adaily basis even after its original beauty has faded or beentarnished through repeated use This may explain why cov-ering new furniture with plastic was at one time a verycommon practice (DiSalvo 2009)

On the other hand for nondurable lower-involvementproducts such as those used in the current research perhapspeople do not have the motivation or ability to considershifts in aesthetic appeal before consumption Furtherproducts often vary in their degree of durabilitymdasha delicateembroidered blanket while by no means nondurable or dis-posable may begin to show visible signs of wear and tearsooner than a fleece blanket Although the present researchspecifically focused on perishable and single-use productsit would be worth examining when and how the degree ofdurability or even perceptions of fragility might shapedecisions to use beautiful products

In conclusion our research documents an inhibitingeffect of enhanced product aesthetics on consumption par-ticularly for disposable and consumable nondurable prod-ucts Although beautiful products have the ability topromote positive pre-usage evaluations and stimulatechoice our work indicates that consumers are subsequentlyless likely to use them and those who do use them ulti-mately experience higher negative affect and lower enjoy-ment In addition different processes underlie consumerresponses to highly aesthetic products depending onwhether or not consumption has taken place Thus we con-clude that while products may never be too pretty tochoose they can in fact be too pretty to use

DATA COLLECTION INFORMATION

All studies were designed and analyzed by the first authorunder the guidance of the other authors The data for study 1was collected at the Scottsdale Pure Barre studio in fall2015 by research assistants and employees under the super-vision of the first author Research assistants collected thedata for studies 2 and 5 under the supervision of the firstauthor at the W P Carey School of Business MarketingDepartment Behavioral Lab in spring 2015 The data for theconceptual replication (reported in the discussion of study6B) was collected by research assistants under the supervi-sion of the first author at the W P Carey School ofBusiness Marketing Department Behavioral Lab in summer2015 The data for study 4 (both the effort manipulation pre-test and the main study) and the correlational study examin-ing the relationship between implicit self-theories andappreciation for othersrsquo effort were collected by the firstauthor using Amazon Mechanical Turk in spring 2016 Thefirst author collected the data for the aesthetic appeal pretest

(described in appendix B) studies 3 6A and 6B usingAmazon Mechanical Turk in summer 2016 Lastly researchassistants collected the data for the correlational study exam-ining the relationship between aesthetics and perceivedeffort (described in the table in ldquoThe Role of Effort inInhibiting Usagerdquo) under the supervision of the first authorat the W P Carey School of Business MarketingDepartment Behavioral Lab in fall 2016

APPENDIX A

STUDY STIMULI

WU ET AL 19

REFERENCES

Aarts Henk and Ap Dijksterhuis (2003) ldquoThe Silence of theLibrary Environment Situational Norm and SocialBehaviorrdquo Journal of Personality and Social Psychology84 (1) 18ndash28

Aharon Itzhak Nancy Etcoff Dan Ariely Christopher F ChabrisEthan OrsquoConnor and Hans C Breiter (2001) ldquoBeautifulFaces Have Variable Reward Value fMRI and BehavioralEvidencerdquo Neuron 32 (3) 537ndash51

Alba Joseph W and Elanor F Williams (2013) ldquoPleasurePrinciples A Review of Research on HedonicConsumptionrdquo Journal of Consumer Psychology 23 (1)2ndash18

Belk Russell W (1988) ldquoPossessions and the Extended SelfrdquoJournal of Consumer Research 15 (2) 139ndash67

Bem Daryl J (1972) Self-Perception Theory Stanford CAStanford University Press

Berridge Kent C (2009) ldquolsquoLikingrsquo and lsquoWantingrsquo Food RewardsBrain Substrates and Roles in Eating Disordersrdquo Physiologyamp Behavior 97 (5) 537ndash50

Bloch Peter H (1995) ldquoSeeking the Ideal Form Product Designand Consumer Responserdquo Journal of Marketing 59 (July)16ndash29

Bloch Peter H Frederic F Brunel and Todd J Arnold (2003)ldquoIndividual Differences in the Centrality of Visual ProductAesthetics Concept and Measurementrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 29 (4) 551ndash65

Bolton Lisa E and Joseph W Alba (2012) ldquoWhen Less Is MoreConsumer Aversion to Unused Utilityrdquo Journal of ConsumerPsychology 22 (3) 369ndash83

Brehm Jack W (1966) A Theory of Psychological ReactanceNew York Academic Press

Broniarczyk Susan M and Joseph W Alba (1994) ldquoThe Role ofConsumersrsquo Intuitions in Inference Makingrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 21 (3) 393ndash407

Cabanac Michel (1971) ldquoPhysiological Role of PleasurerdquoScience 173 (4002) 1103ndash7

mdashmdashmdash (1979) ldquoSensory Pleasurerdquo Quarterly Review of Biology54 (1) 1ndash29

mdashmdashmdash (1985) ldquoPreferring for Pleasurerdquo American Journal ofClinical Nutrition 42 (5) 1151ndash5

Chandon Pierre and Brian Wansink (2007) ldquoThe Biasing HealthHalos of Fast Food Restaurant Health Claims Lower CalorieEstimates and Higher Side-Dish Consumption IntentionsrdquoJournal of Consumer Research 34 (3) 301ndash14

Cornil Yann and Pierre Chandon (2016) ldquoPleasure as a Substitutefor Size How Multisensory Imagery Can Make PeopleHappier with Smaller Food Portionsrdquo Journal of MarketingResearch 53 (5) 847ndash64

Cleveland William S (1984) ldquoGraphical Methods for DataPresentation Full Scale Breaks Dot Charts and MultibasedLoggingrdquo The American Statistician 38 (4) 270ndash80

DiSalvo David (2009) ldquoThe Psychology of Plastic CouchCoversrdquo httpsneuronarrativewordpresscom20090119the-psychology-of-plastic-couch-covers

Dixie Products (2015) ldquoDixie Ultra Moments Ultimate Hostrdquohttpswwwyoutubecomwatchvfrac14wsBBq9PsgVI

Dutton Denis (2009) The Art Instinct Beauty Pleasure ampHuman Evolution New York Oxford University Press

Dweck Carol S (2000) Self-Theories Their Role in MotivationPersonality and Development Philadelphia Psychology Press

Dweck Carol S and Ellen L Leggett (1988) ldquoA Social-CognitiveApproach to Motivation and Personalityrdquo PsychologicalReview 95 (2) 256ndash73

Evans Lindsay (2010) ldquoWhy Buy Unbleached Paperrdquo httpwwwbrighthubcomenvironmentgreen-livingarticles16299aspx

Festinger Leon (1957) A Theory of Cognitive DissonanceStanford CA Stanford University Press

Frederick Shane and George Loewenstein (1999) ldquoHedonicAdaptationrdquo in Scientific Perspectives on EnjoymentSuffering and Well-Being ed Daniel Kahneman Ed Dienerand Norbert Schwartz New York Russell Sage Foundation302ndash29

Fuchs Christoph Martin Schreier and Stijn MJ van Osselaer(2015) ldquoThe Handmade Effect Whatrsquos Love Got to Do withItrdquo Journal of Marketing 79 (2) 98ndash110

Hagtvedt Henrik and Vanessa M Patrick (2008) ldquoArt InfusionThe Influence of Visual Art on the Perception and Evaluationof Consumer Productsrdquo Journal of Marketing Research 45(3) 379ndash89

AESTHETIC APPEAL PRETEST FOR ALL STIMULI USED IN STUDIES

Higher aesthetic Lower aesthetic Comparison a

Toilet paper (study 1) 377 (146) 253 (155) t(128) frac14 ndash469 p lt 001 a frac14 94Cupcake (study 2) 556 (106) 305 (146) t(128) frac14 ndash1120 p lt 001 a frac14 96Napkin (studies 3 and 6) 465 (153) 230 (144) t(128) frac14 ndash903 p lt 001 a frac14 97Napkin (study 4) 332 (145) 262 (154) t(128) frac14 ndash266 p lt 01 a frac14 92Napkin (study 5) 458 (159) 234 (151) t(128) frac14 ndash823 p lt 001 a frac14 97

NOTEmdashStandard deviations are in parentheses

In a between-subjects pretest participants were asked to rate each product along the following dimensions beautiful pretty artistic and aesthetically pleasing

(1 frac14 not at all 7 frac14 very much) which formed our aesthetic appeal index

APPENDIX B

20 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

Hayes Andrew F (2013) ldquoPROCESS A VersatileComputational Tool for Observed Variable MediationModeration and Conditional Process Modelingrdquo workingpaper School of Communication and Department ofPsychology Ohio State University Columbus OH 43210

Heller Steve (2015) ldquoA Grocery Store Illusion Is Getting You toSpend More Moneyrdquo httpwwwbusinessinsidercoma-grocery-store-illusion-is-getting-you-to-spend-more-money-2015-8ixzz3ifsOLBfG

Hurling Robert and Richard Shepherd (2003) ldquoEating with YourEyes Effect of Appearance on Expectations of LikingrdquoAppetite 41 (2) 167ndash74

Hoegg JoAndrea Joseph W Alba and Darren W Dahl (2010)ldquoThe Good the Bad and the Ugly Influence of Aesthetics onProduct Feature Judgmentsrdquo Journal of ConsumerPsychology 20 (4) 419ndash30

Johnson Palmer O and Jerzy Neyman (1936) ldquoTests of CertainLinear Hypotheses and Their Applications to SomeEducational Problemsrdquo Statistical Research Memoirs 157ndash93

Kahneman Daniel and Amos Tversky (1979) ldquoProspect TheoryAn Analysis of Decision under Riskrdquo Econometrica 47 (2)263ndash91

Kampe Knut K W Chris D Frith Raymond J Dolan and UtaFrith (2001) ldquoPsychology Reward Value of Attractivenessand Gazerdquo Nature 413 (6856) 589

Kelley Harold H (1967) ldquoAttribution Theory in SocialPsychologyrdquo in Nebraska Symposium of Motivation Vol 15ed D Levine Lincoln University of Nebraska Press192ndash238

Kirmani Amna (1990) ldquoThe Effect of Perceived AdvertisingCosts on Brand Perceptionsrdquo Journal of Consumer Research17 (2) 160ndash71

Kirmani Amna Michelle P Lee and Carolyn Yoon (2004)ldquoProcedural Priming Effects on Spontaneous InferenceFormationrdquo Journal of Economic Psychology 25 (6)859ndash75

Kruger Justin Derrick Wirtz Leaf Van Boven and T WilliamAltermatt (2004) ldquoThe Effort Heuristicrdquo Journal ofExperimental Social Psychology 40 (1) 91ndash8

Lee Leonard and Claire I Tsai (2014) ldquoHow Price PromotionsInfluence Postpurchase Consumption Experience overTimerdquo Journal of Consumer Research 40 (5) 943ndash59

Levy Sheri R Steven J Stroessner and Carol S Dweck (1998)ldquoStereotype Formation and Endorsement The Role ofImplicit Theoriesrdquo Journal of Personality and SocialPsychology 74 (6) 1421ndash36

Lisjak Monika Andrea Bonezzi Soo Kim and Derek D Rucker(2015) ldquoPerils of Compensatory Consumption Within-Domain Compensation Undermines Subsequent Self-Regulationrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 41 (5)1186ndash203

Loewenstein George (1987) ldquoAnticipation and the Valuation ofDelayed Consumptionrdquo Economic Journal 97 (September)666ndash84

Maritain Jacques (1966) ldquoBeauty and Imitationrdquo in A ModernBook of Esthetics ed Melvin Rader New York HoltRinehart amp Winston 27ndash34

McFerran Brent Darren W Dahl Gavan J Fitzsimons andAndrea C Morales (2010) ldquoIrsquoll Have What Shersquos HavingEffects of Social Influence and Body Type on the FoodChoices of Othersrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 36 (6)915ndash29

Morales Andrea C (2005) ldquoGiving Firms an lsquoErsquo for EffortConsumer Responses to High-Effort Firmsrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 31 (4) 806ndash12

Moreau C Page Leff Bonney and Kelly B Herd (2011) ldquoItrsquos theThought (and the Effort) That Counts How Customizing forOthers Differs from Customizing for Oneselfrdquo Journal ofMarketing 75 (5) 120ndash33

Norton Michael I Daniel Mochon and Dan Ariely (2012) ldquoThelsquoIkearsquo Effect When Labor Leads to Loverdquo Journal ofConsumer Psychology 22 (July) 453ndash60

Page Christine and Paul M Herr (2002) ldquoAn Investigation ofthe Processes by Which Product Design and Brand StrengthInteract to Determine Initial Affect and QualityJudgmentsrdquo Journal of Consumer Psychology 12 (2)133ndash47

Raghubir Priya and Eric A Greenleaf (2006) ldquoRatios inProportion What Should the Shape of the Package BerdquoJournal of Marketing 70 (2) 95ndash107

Raghunathan Rajagopal Rebecca Walker Naylor and Wayne DHoyer (2006) ldquoThe Unhealthy frac14 Tasty Intuition and ItsEffects on Taste Inferences Enjoyment and Choice of FoodProductsrdquo Journal of Marketing 70 (4) 170ndash84

Reber Rolf Norbert Schwarz and Piotr Winkielman (2004)ldquoProcessing Fluency and Aesthetic Pleasure Is Beauty in thePerceiverrsquos Processing Experiencerdquo Personality and SocialPsychology Review 8 (4) 364ndash82

Reber Rolf Piotr Winkielman and Norbert Schwarz (1998)ldquoEffects of Perceptual Fluency on Affective JudgmentsrdquoPsychological Science 9 (1) 45ndash48

Reimann Martin Judith Zaichkowksy Carolin Neuhaus ThomasBender and Bernd Weber (2010) ldquoAesthetic PackageDesign A Behavioral Neural and PsychologicalInvestigationrdquo Journal of Consumer Psychology 20 (4)431ndash41

Santayana George (18961955) The Sense of Beauty New YorkDover

Scott Maura L Stephen M Nowlis Naomi Mandel and AndreaC Morales (2008) ldquoThe Effects of Reduced Food Size andPackage Size on the Consumption Behavior of Restrainedand Unrestrained Eatersrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 35(3) 391ndash405

Spencer Steven J Mark P Zanna and Geoffrey T Fong (2005)ldquoEstablishing a Causal Chain Why Experiments Are OftenMore Effective than Mediational Analyses in ExaminingPsychological Processesrdquo Journal of Personality and SocialPsychology 89 (6) 845ndash51

Spiller Stephen A Gavan J Fitzsimons John G Lynch Jr andGary H McClelland (2013) ldquoSpotlights Floodlights andthe Magic Number Zero Simple Effects Tests inModerated Regressionrdquo Journal of Marketing Research 50(2) 277ndash88

Thompson Debora V Rebecca W Hamilton and Roland T Rust(2005) ldquoFeature Fatigue When Product CapabilitiesBecome Too Much of a Good Thingrdquo Journal of MarketingResearch 42 (November) 431ndash42

Townsend Claudia and Suzanne B Shu (2010) ldquoWhen and HowAesthetics Influences Financial Decisionsrdquo Journal ofConsumer Psychology 20 (4) 452ndash58

Townsend Claudia and Sanjay Sood (2012) ldquoSelf-Affirmationthrough the Choice of Highly Aesthetic Productsrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 39 (2) 415ndash28

Veryzer Robert W and J Wesley Hutchinson (1998) ldquoTheInfluence of Unity and Prototypicality on Aesthetic

WU ET AL 21

Responses to New Product Designsrdquo Journal of ConsumerResearch 24 (4) 374ndash94

Wada Yuji Carlos Arce-Lopera Tomohiro Masuda AtsushiKimura Ippeita Dan Sho-ichi Goto Daisuke Tsuzuki andKatsunori Okajima (2010) ldquoInfluence of LuminanceDistribution on the Appetizingly Fresh Appearance ofCabbagerdquo Appetite 54 (2) 363ndash68

Weiner Bernard (2000) ldquoAttributional Thoughts and ConsumerBehaviorrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 27 (December)382ndash87

Witz Anne Chris Warhurst and Dennis Nickson (2003) ldquoTheLabour of Aesthetics and The Aesthetics of OrganizationrdquoOrganization 10 (1) 33ndash54

Yamamoto Mel and David R Lambert (1994) ldquoThe Impact ofProduct Aesthetics on the Evaluation of Industrial ProductsrdquoJournal of Product Innovation Management 11 (4) 309ndash24

Yang Sha and Priya Raghubir (2005) ldquoCan Bottles SpeakVolumes The Effect of Package Shape on How Much toBuyrdquo Journal of Retailing 81 (4) 269ndash82

22 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

  • ucx057-FN1
  • ucx057-FN2
  • ucx057-FN3
  • ucx057-FN4
  • app1
  • app2
  • ucx057-TF1
  • ucx057-TF2
Page 9: It’s Too Pretty to Use! When and How Enhanced Product ...gavan/bio/GJF_articles/...testing the prediction that aesthetic products can elicit greater perceptions of effort. In line

(p lt 001) such that the higher aesthetic cupcake was seenas more expensive Most importantly when we controlledfor expense the 2 continuous interactions and focal ef-fects continue to hold for consumption amount (p lt 04)and cupcake enjoyment (p lt 01) Finally a moderatedmediation analysis (model 8 Hayes 2013) revealed thatperceived expense did not mediate either amount con-sumed (b frac14 ndash01 95 CI [ndash08 05]) or degree of enjoy-ment (b frac14 12 95 CI [ndash05 35]) among hungryindividuals revealing that inferred monetary value was notdriving our effects

Discussion Though our pretest showed that consumerswere more likely to choose the higher aesthetic cupcake avery different pattern of results emerged with consumptionamount and consumption enjoyment Hungry participantsactively inhibited their consumption and ate less in thehigher aesthetic rose frosting condition In addition to eat-ing less these individuals experienced lower consumptionenjoyment when the cupcake was highly aesthetic By con-ceptually replicating the previous studyrsquos results with anew product we increase the generalizability of our find-ings to food a domain for which visual presentation playsa fundamental role We also provide initial evidence thatconsumption of highly aesthetic products can carry nega-tive implications for the consumption experience a notionwe explore in greater depth in studies 6A and 6B These ef-fects continued to hold even when we controlled for per-ceived expense thus rendering such an alternative accountless likely

Having reliably demonstrated the inhibiting effect ofaesthetics on consumption across two product categorieswe next elucidate the underlying process through three

different approaches First we provide evidence for ourproposed mechanism via mediation (study 3) Second wedirectly manipulate effort inferences to show process bymoderation (study 4) and third we identify a theoreticallygrounded individual difference moderator (study 5)

STUDY 3 THE MEDIATING ROLE OFEFFORT INFERENCES AND EFFORT

DESTRUCTION

The goal of study 3 is to replicate our focal effect in anew product domain paper napkins and to shed light onthe mechanism underlying consumption likelihood by test-ing the driving role of effort inferences and effort destruc-tion Consistent with our theorizing we predict that thehigher inferences of effort elicited by highly aestheticproducts will lead to stronger concerns that such effortwould be destroyed in the consumption process resultingin lower usage likelihood Notably this is a conservativecontext in which to assess effort inferences given that pa-per napkins are machine-manufactured and so differencesin perceived effort are quite subtle Further by shifting out-side of the food domain to even subtler stimuli we canmore confidently ensure that our findings are not merelyartifacts of the stimuli we have chosen (although handmadehighly aesthetic foods such as the cupcakes used in study2 are ubiquitous in the marketplace)

Method

Participants and Procedure Two hundred sixty partic-ipants were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk toparticipate in a two-cell (aesthetics higher vs lower)

FIGURE 2

AESTHETICS HUNGER ON CUPCAKE ENJOYMENT (STUDY 2)

WU ET AL 9

between-subjects study in exchange for payment Two in-dividuals participated in this study twice and six had miss-ing data on the dependent measures and were excludedfrom the analysis yielding a final sample of 252 partici-pants (44 female [five did not report gender] medianage frac14 31 ages 19ndash69)

Participants were presented with a guided visualizationscenario in which they imagined they were at a local bak-ery getting breakfast and doing work As they were work-ing they accidentally spilled coffee all over theirdocuments prompting them to look toward the counter tosee how they could clean up the spill We presented a situa-tion in which the destruction of the product paper napkinswas imminent to assess how such an outcome shapes pref-erences to consume aesthetically appealing productsParticipants were randomly assigned to either the higher orlower aesthetic condition Those in the higher aestheticcondition saw a stack of floral napkins at the counter toclean up the spill while those in the lower aesthetic condi-tion saw a stack of plain white napkins (see appendix Arow 3 for images) Additional details of the procedure areavailable in the web appendix Subsequently participantsindicated to what extent they would use the (floral orwhite) napkins to clean up the spill (1 frac14 definitely no 7 frac14definitely yes) how likely they would be to use the napkinsto clean up the spill (1 frac14 very unlikely 7 frac14 very likely)and how many napkins they would use to clean up the spill(1 frac14 none at all 7 frac14 very many) which formed our usagelikelihood index (afrac14 81) Next to examine effort infer-ences we asked participants how much effort they thoughtwent into making the napkins (1 frac14 none at all 7 frac14 quite abit) To examine concerns about effort destruction weasked participants to rate their agreement with the state-ment ldquoI felt like I was destroying someonersquos effort by usingthe napkinsrdquo (1 frac14 strongly disagree 7 frac14 stronglyagree) Finally to again show that inferred monetary valueis not driving our effects participants indicated how muchthey would be willing to pay for a pack of the napkins inthe scenario (ie dollar value)

Results and Discussion

We predicted that participants would be less likely touse the higher aesthetic napkins and that this effect wouldbe mediated in serial by effort inferences and concernsover destroying such effort

Usage Likelihood A one-way ANOVA on the usagelikelihood index indicated that participants were less likelyto use the higher aesthetic floral napkins to clean up thespill (Mhigher aesthetic frac14 581 vs Mlower aesthetic frac14 628 F(1250) frac14 1592 p lt 001) an effect that continues to holdeven when we controlled for willingness to pay for thenapkins (p lt 001)

Effort Inferences A one-way ANOVA on effort infer-ences indicated that participants ascribed greater effort to thehigher aesthetic napkins (Mhigher frac14 380 vs Mlower frac14 319F(1 250) frac14 753 p lt 01) even when we controlled for will-ingness to pay (p lt 02)

Effort Destruction A one-way ANOVA on concernsabout effort destruction indicated that participants hadstronger concerns effort would be destroyed in the higheraesthetic condition (Mhigher frac14 254 vs Mlower frac14 195 F(1250) frac14 837 p lt 01) Again this effect holds even whenwe controlled for willingness to pay (p lt 02)

Mediation We conducted a serial multiple mediatormodel (model 6 Hayes 2013) testing our proposed media-tion path where effort inferences and concerns about ef-fort destruction served as serial mediators productaesthetics effort inferences concerns about the de-struction of effort usage likelihood Consistent withour predictions the indirect effect of aesthetics on usagelikelihood through effort inferences and concerns abouteffort destruction was significant (b frac14 ndash03 95 CI [ndash09 ndash01]) In addition the indirect effect of aesthetics onusage likelihood through effort destruction alone was sig-nificant (b frac14 ndash04 95 CI [ndash14 ndash003]) suggesting thismediator works serially but also individually Consistentwith study 2 willingness to pay did not mediate usagelikelihood (b frac14 01 95 CI [ndash03 06]) providing fur-ther evidence that inferred monetary value was not drivingour effects In sum product aesthetics affected usage like-lihood through effort inferences and concerns that onewould be destroying this effort

Discussion In study 3 using a new subtler contextwe show that the greater perceptions of effort ascribed tothe creation of higher aesthetic napkins led to stronger con-cerns that such effort would inevitably be destroyed in theconsumption process which ultimately discouraged usageFurther we once again demonstrate that inferred monetaryvalue does not account for our results Next we manipulateeffort inferences directly to show that shifting the per-ceived effort required to make an aesthetic product willmitigate our focal effect

STUDY 4 THE MODERATING ROLE OFEFFORT INFERENCES

Given the underlying role of effort in inhibiting the con-sumption of highly aesthetic products it follows that this re-duced consumption should be attenuated if the beautifulproduct does not trigger such effort inferences in the firstplace Thus in study 4 we manipulated information aboutthe products to directly influence effort inferences comple-menting study 3 by providing process evidence through mod-eration (Spencer Zanna and Fong 2005) Notably unlikeother studies in the current article study 4 utilizes a

10 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

comparative design in which participants are presented withboth higher and lower aesthetic products at once and areasked to make a choice between them This design allowsus to extend the generalizability of our findings to contextswhere consumers are faced with products of differing levelsof aesthetic appeal and have to choose one to immediatelyconsume Moreover study 4 replaces floral napkins withturquoise napkins in the higher aesthetic condition therebyusing especially subtle aesthetic stimuli to reveal that evenin the absence of product design changes in aesthetic ap-peal through other means (eg color) can shape consump-tion decisions in the same manner

Finally study 4 helps us test the alternative explanationthat concerns over how the product will look after usageor anticipated decrements in the productrsquos beauty aloneare driving lower consumption likelihood independent ofeffort inferences If this is the case the likelihood of usingaesthetically appealing products should not differ as afunction of expended effort since consumers should al-ways be less likely to use a beautiful product irrespectiveof the effort involved in its creation However if consump-tion likelihood is indeed affected by inferred effort thenchanges in inferred effort should systematically impactconsumption likelihood a relationship we examine directlyin study 4

Method

Participants and Procedure Two hundred forty-sixparticipants were recruited from Amazon MechanicalTurk to participate in a two-cell (intervention conditionno information control vs higher aesthetics frac14 lower ef-fort) between-subjects study in exchange for paymentSeven people participated in this study twice and wereexcluded yielding a final sample of 239 participants (48female [six did not report gender] median age frac14 31 ages18ndash69)

Study 4 used the same guided visualization scenario asstudy 3 where participants imagined visiting their localbakery and accidentally spilling coffee while they wereworking However this time they saw two separatestacks of napkins they could use to clean up the spillThe napkins were turquoise (higher aesthetic option) orplain white (lower aesthetic option see appendix A row4 for images) and both napkin images were presented atonce Additional details are available in the webappendix

At this point participants in the control condition pro-ceeded directly to a choice task in which they indicated whichtype of napkin they would use to clean up the spill On theother hand participants in the higher aestheticsfrac14 lower effortcondition were first told that as they looked at the napkinsthey recalled that a friend who used to work for this bakeryhad told them that it actually takes less effort and time forcompanies to manufacture the blue napkins than it does to

make and bleach the white ones2 Next participants in thislower effort condition completed the choice task After theirchoice all participants indicated how much they thought thenapkins cost (1 frac14 very little 7 frac14 quite a lot)

Results and Discussion

Conceptually replicating prior studies in the controlcondition where no effort inferences were made salientparticipants were less likely to choose the higher aestheticblue napkins to clean up the spill (1983 blue vs8017white) However this lower usage likelihood was re-versed when the higher aesthetic blue napkins elicitedlower perceptions of effort (6356blue vs 3644white v2

(1) frac14 4707 (n frac14 239) p lt 001) Importantly the choiceeffects continue to hold when we control for perceived cost(p lt 001)

Discussion Study 4 offers convergent support for theproposed underlying process by showing that the reducedconsumption of highly aesthetic products is reversed whenthese products elicit lower effort inferences As revealedby the pretest (see footnote 2) in the control conditionwhere no effort information was made salient participantsascribed greater effort to the higher aesthetic blue napkinand were less likely to use it but when this blue napkinwas thought to require less effort to produce participantsbecame more likely to use it Notably unlike our priorstudies study 4 employed a comparative design in whichparticipants saw higher and lower aesthetic options at thesame time mirroring real life where consumers encountermultiple product offerings with differing aesthetic appealand have to choose one to use

These results also suggest that anticipated decrements inbeauty alone or concerns over what the aesthetic productwill look like after consumption are unlikely to inhibitconsumption Such projected losses of beauty are not evi-dent before consumption has occurred when the highlyaesthetic product is still in pristine beautiful condition Ifexpected drops in the aesthetic appeal of the product alonehad been responsible for driving reduced consumption in-dividuals would have been equally inhibited from using thehigher aesthetic napkin irrespective of effort inferencesSuch an alternative is inconsistent with the reversal in us-age likelihood we observed in the higher aesthetics frac14lower effort condition since the aesthetic appeal of the

2 A pretest confirmed the validity of study 4rsquos effort manipulationParticipants (n frac14 201) completed a 2 (aesthetics) 2 (effort interven-tion) between-subjects study where they read the same scenario butwere randomly assigned a napkin choice and asked to make effortinferences about the napkin Results revealed a significant interaction(p lt 001) Whereas in the control condition the higher aesthetic nap-kin elicited higher perceptions of effort (Mcontrol higher aesthetic frac14 391vs Mcontrol lower aesthetic frac14 335 p lt 04) this pattern reversed in thelow effort condition (Mlow effort higher aesthetic frac14 302 vs Mlow effort lower

aesthetic frac14 431 p lt 001) Procedural details and full results are avail-able in the web appendix

WU ET AL 11

napkins remained constant only the perceived effort hadchanged Thus we provide further evidence for the prem-ise that consumers strongly link aesthetics and effort andshow that for consumption to be reduced the highly aes-thetic product must signal higher effort in addition to itsaesthetic qualities

Notably while our results support the notion that antici-pated drops in beauty alone are insufficient to lead to a re-duction in consumption likelihood it is also worthmentioning that because effort and beauty are inextricablylinked constructs concerns over destroying effort mayshare to some extent overlapping variance with concernsover the imminent losses of beauty This suggests that inother contexts anticipated decrements in beauty may alsoplay a role in driving usage potentially for products of ex-treme aesthetic appeal that are more defined by theirbeauty as opposed to the colored napkins used hereNonetheless in the current context the results demonstratethat shifting perceptions about the amount of effort neededto create a higher aesthetic product is sufficient to over-come any inhibition to consume it

We next provide additional evidence for our conceptual-ization by investigating a theoretically driven individualdifference that affects the degree to which effort is inher-ently appreciated and by extension should influence deci-sions to use highly aesthetic products

STUDY 5 THE ROLE OF IMPLICIT SELF-THEORIES IN SHAPING USAGE

Based on our theory because the higher effort as-cribed to beautiful products underlies their lower likeli-hood of usage such a reduction should be moderated bythe degree to which effort is intrinsically valued or peo-plersquos implicit self-theories According to research on im-plicit self-theories entity theorists view their personalqualities as stable and unable to be enhanced by self-improvement while incremental theorists view thesequalities as flexible and able to be cultivated through la-bor and effort (Dweck 2000) Similarly entity theoriststend to view effort as ineffective and pointless while in-cremental theorists are more optimistic that their effortscarry intrinsic value and will eventually bear fruit(Dweck and Leggett 1988)

We propose that beyond the recognition of personal ef-fort implicit self-theories affect the extent to which con-sumers appreciate othersrsquo effort and by extension theeffort that goes into the creation of highly aesthetic prod-ucts To test this prediction we conducted a correlationalstudy examining the relationship between implicit self-theories and the propensity to appreciate effort-laden prod-ucts Participants (n frac14 134) first completed the implicitself-theories scale (Levy Stroessner and Dweck 1998)where higher (lower) scores indicate greater endorsement

of incremental (entity) self-theory Next they indicatedtheir agreement with five items reflecting appreciation forothersrsquo effort (eg I notice when people work really hardto create something3 all anchored at 1 frac14 strongly disagree7 frac14 strongly agree a frac14 91) We found a significant posi-tive correlation (r frac14 23 p lt 01) such that incrementallyoriented individuals were more likely to appreciate thingsthat reflect a great deal of effort

Thus based on this appreciation for othersrsquo effort in study5 we predict that incremental theorists will be less likely toconsume products that are highly aesthetic and by extensionladen with effort By contrast because entity theorists havelower intrinsic appreciation for effort they will be equallylikely to use a product regardless of its aesthetic appeal

Method

Participants and Procedure One hundred eighty-seven undergraduate students from a southwesternuniversity participated in a 2 (aesthetics higher vs lower) continuous (implicit self-theories) between-subjectsstudy in exchange for partial course credit Two partici-pants reported having a gluten allergy that prevented themfrom consuming the goldfish crackers accompanying thenapkins An additional 11 participants were excluded fromthe analysismdashone respondent participated in this studytwice and 10 had missing data on implicit self-theorieswhich we had measured in a separate presurvey severalweeks prior to the focal study Thus the final sample com-prised 174 participants (52 female [four did not reportgender] median age frac14 21 ages 18ndash41)

Study 5 employed the same cover story about pairingfoods with videos used in study 2 but this time usingPepperidge Farm goldfish crackers We chose these crack-ers because they are slightly messy to eatmdashpeople wouldwant to use a napkin but did not necessarily have to creat-ing an ideal context within which to test our hypothesesParticipants received an individual pack of goldfish crack-ers along with a paper napkin which was either decorativewith a white background (higher aesthetic condition) orplain white (lower aesthetic condition) (both 61=2 inchessquare see appendix A row 5 for images) Importantlythe experimenter gave no explicit instructions on what to dowith this napkin Of note in addition to the pretest assessingdifferent levels of aesthetic appeal between the two napkinsanother between-subjects pretest (n frac14 81) showed that partic-ipants liked the higher (vs lower) aesthetic napkin and its de-sign more (Mhigher aesthetic frac14 516 vs Mlower aesthetic frac14 365t(79) frac14 ndash516 p lt 001 r frac14 87) but both napkins were

3 The other items were (2) I really appreciate it when somebodytakes the time and effort to make something (3) I treasure somethingmore when I know a lot of effort has gone into creating it (4) I havean appreciation for products that reflect a great deal of effort on themakerrsquos part and (5) I value something more when I know it took alot of time and energy to produce

12 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

rated as equally versatile in their usage (Mhigher aesthetic frac14 580vs Mlower aesthetic frac14 591 t(79) frac14 47 p gt 60 a frac14 91)Additional pretest details are available in the web appendix

Participants were told to watch a 35 minute video onwildlife animals while they ate the crackers and that theywere free to eat as much or as little as they liked Once par-ticipants finished the video the experimenter collected thenapkin and any leftover crackers and recorded whether thenapkin had been used or not (0 frac14 no 1 frac14 yes) in anotherroom A napkin was coded as ldquousedrdquo if it showed any signsof usage (ie had any food stains on it looked crumpled orhad been used to spit out gum) and was coded as ldquounusedrdquoonly if it appeared untouched and in pristine condition mak-ing it a highly conservative test of our hypotheses To againensure that perceived cost was not influencing our focal ef-fects we asked participants how much they would be will-ing to pay for a pack of napkins (ie dollar value) Finallyparticipants completed a series of filler measures that as-sessed how interesting the video was and how much theyliked eating goldfish crackers in general

Results and Discussion

A 2 (aesthetics condition) continuous (implicit self-theories) logistic regression on napkin usage behavior(used yes no) was performed Regressing usage behavioron the aesthetics manipulation mean-centered levels ofimplicit self-theories and their interaction revealed a sig-nificant simple effect of aesthetics at the mean of implicitself-theories (b frac14 ndash37 Wald v2 frac14 460 p frac14 03) suchthat a smaller percentage of people used the napkin in the

higher aesthetic condition across all participants conceptu-ally replicating prior studies Importantly the interactionwas also significant (b frac14 ndash30 Wald v2 frac14 419 p frac14 04see figure 3) Notably this interaction continued to holdeven when we controlled for willingness to pay (p lt 04)We used the Johnson-Neyman technique to identify therange of implicit self-theories for which the simple effectof the aesthetics manipulation was significant where lowervalues imply an entity-oriented mindset while higher val-ues imply an incrementally oriented mindset We found asignificant reduction in usage of the higher aesthetic deco-rative (vs lower aesthetic white) paper napkin for anyvalue of implicit self-theories above 406 (at p lt 05) butnot for any value less than 406 In other words incremen-tal theorists were less likely to use a higher (vs lower) aes-thetic napkin whereas entity theorists were equally likelyto use a napkin regardless of its appearance

Discussion In study 5 we provide further evidence forour proposed mechanism by showing that implicit self-theories or consumersrsquo chronic appreciation for investedeffort shapes decisions to use an aesthetically pleasingproduct Incremental theorists who are more appreciativeof effort were less likely to use a higher aesthetic decora-tive napkin than a lower aesthetic plain white napkin butsuch effects were not observed among entity theorists whohave lower intrinsic appreciation for effort We have nowreliably established the inhibiting effect of product aes-thetics on consumption across multiple products and con-sumption contexts and provided convergent support for theunderlying mechanism In our final two studies we

FIGURE 3

AESTHETICS IMPLICIT SELF-THEORIES ON NAPKIN USAGE (STUDY 5)

WU ET AL 13

elucidate the drivers of post-consumption emotions whileholding usage constant thereby allowing us to hone in onpost-consumption consequences in a more controlledfashion since people are inherently less likely to usehigher aesthetic products which could potentially result inself-selection issues

STUDY 6A DECREMENTS IN BEAUTYAND POST-CONSUMPTION AFFECT

Recall in study 2 that when the cupcake was highly aes-thetic consumption enjoyment was lower among individ-uals most motivated to engage in consumption (ie hungryindividuals) an effect we propose is determined by twoprocesses working in tandem First we expect that the ef-fort inferences made prior to consumption will continue todrive emotional outcomes given the consumption processinvolves the actual destruction of effort Second and onlyevident post-consumption are the decrements in beautythat aesthetic products undergo when their aesthetic quali-ties are visibly compromised through usage Because beau-tiful products are inherently pleasurable (Reber et al 2004Reimann et al 2010) we predict that individuals will expe-rience less pleasure and more negative affect when theywitness highly aesthetic products undergo steeper drops inbeauty as a result of consumption Consistent with prospecttheoryrsquos value function (Kahneman and Tversky 1979)initial changesmdashhere the larger losses of beauty associatedwith the usage of a higher (vs lower) aesthetic productmdashshould be particularly jarring and lead to more negative af-fect (Frederick and Loewenstein 1999)

Importantly unlike in study 2 where we measured theamount consumed as well as post-consumption enjoymentin study 6A we hold usage constant in the higher andlower aesthetic conditions and hone in on the changes inbeauty with a longitudinal study design Specifically theobjective of study 6A is to extend prior work on the rela-tionship between beauty and pleasure by establishing itscorollarymdashthat the consumption of a higher (vs lower)aesthetic product will lead to greater perceived losses ofbeauty and that such decrements in beauty will in turnhave a negative influence on post-consumption affect Wemeasure this decrement by capturing aesthetic judgmentsimmediately before and after usage

Method

Participants and Procedure Four hundred sixteen par-ticipants were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk toparticipate in a 2 (aesthetics higher vs lower between) 2(aesthetic judgment before vs after usage within) mixed-design study in exchange for payment Six individuals par-ticipated in this study twice and four had missing data onthe focal dependent measures and were excluded from theanalysis yielding a final sample of 406 participants (54

female [11 did not report gender] median age frac14 30 ages18ndash76)

The procedure was similar to that of study 3 featuringthe same bakery scenario and stimuli but with several mod-ifications After participants were initially presented witheither the higher or lower aesthetic napkins following thespill they immediately completed two semantic differen-tial items of aesthetic evaluations for these unused napkinson seven-point scales ldquonot at all prettyvery prettyrdquo andldquonot at all uglyvery uglyrdquo (reverse-coded) which havebeen shown in prior work to capture aesthetic judgments(Reber Winkielman and Schwarz 1998 r frac14 47) Aftercompleting these baseline aesthetic judgment measuresparticipants proceeded with the scenario They were toldthey realized they would need to grab at least 10 napkins tocome close to cleaning up the spill and were subsequentlyshown a stack of unused napkins The scenario ended withan image of a bundle of napkins now drenched with cof-fee that were used to clean up the spill Additional detailsof the procedure are available in the web appendix

Immediately after reading the scenario participantscompleted the same set of aesthetic judgment items a sec-ond time this time rating the coffee-drenched napkinswhich served as a measure of post-usage aesthetic judg-ments Participants then indicated to what extent they ex-perienced each of the following negative emotions whilethey were using the napkins to clean up the spill stressedregretful bad afraid fearful sad sorry and guilty whichwe combined into an index of post-consumption negativeaffect (1 frac14 not at all 7 frac14 very much so afrac14 91)

Results and Discussion

We predicted that participants would experience greaternegative affect after using the higher (vs lower) aestheticnapkins an effect that would be driven by the larger decre-ments in beauty that stem from the consumption of higheraesthetic products

Emotions A one-way ANOVA on negative emotionsexperienced after consumption revealed that participantswho used the higher aesthetic floral napkins to clean up thespill felt more negative affect than those who used thelower aesthetic white napkins (Mhigher aesthetic frac14 305 vsMlower aesthetic frac14 246 F(1 404) frac14 1686 p lt 001)

Decrements in Beauty (Longitudinal) A 2 (aestheticshigher vs lower) 2 (timing before usage vs after usage)mixed ANOVA on aesthetic judgments yielded main ef-fects of both aesthetics (F(1 404) frac14 10652 p lt 001) andtiming (F(1 404) frac14 125629 p lt 001) which were quali-fied by a significant aesthetics timing interaction (F(1404) frac14 5302 p lt 001) Planned contrasts revealed thatwhereas the higher aesthetic napkins elicited more favor-able aesthetic judgments than the lower aesthetic napkinsbefore usage (Mhigher frac14 594 vs Mlower frac14 447 F(1 404)

14 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

frac14 15269 p lt 001) this difference was substantiallyreduced after usage (Mhigher frac14 237 vs Mlower frac14 211F(1 404) frac14 484 p frac14 03) Importantly and arguably mostcentral to our research the decrement in aesthetic ratingsthrough usage was significantly larger in the higher aes-thetic conditionmdashin fact 151 largermdashthan that observedin the lower aesthetic condition (ie a drop of 357 unitsvs a drop of 236 units)

Mediation Finally we are interested in whether decre-ments in aesthetic judgment emanating from product usageunderlie post-consumption affect Consistent with predic-tions mediation analysis (model 4 Hayes 2013) revealedthat the indirect effect of aesthetics on negative affectthrough changes in aesthetic judgment was significant (b frac1415 95 CI [04 29]) suggesting that product aestheticsaffected the experience of negative emotions through thelarger losses of beauty resulting from the consumption ofhigher aesthetic products

Discussion While past work has shown that aestheticsare inextricably linked with pleasure (Reber et al 2004Reimann et al 2010) study 6A extends this body of re-search by revealing that in the context of nondurable prod-ucts where consumption entails damaging product designnot only does the usage of higher (vs lower) aestheticproducts result in larger decrements in beauty but suchlosses also drive greater negative affect after consumptionNotably while we asked participants to assess the aestheticqualities of the napkins before and immediately after usageto more precisely capture the changes in beauty we ob-served we recognize that this design may have caused theaesthetic appeal of the napkins to be more salient prior toconsumption making its decrement therefore more pro-nounced after consumption Thus having established thatbeauty decrements resulting from aesthetic product usageunderlie post-consumption affect in study 6B we measurethis change in a less invasive manner after consumptionWe also integrate changes in beauty and effort inferencesinto emotional reactions linked to consumption

STUDY 6B TESTING THE FULLCONCEPTUAL MODEL FOR POST-

CONSUMPTION AFFECT

The goal of study 6B is to elucidate the drivers of post-consumption emotions while continuing to hold usage con-stant in both conditions thereby allowing us to test the fullconceptual model in a more controlled fashion As alludedto in study 6A the inherently lower consumption likeli-hood of higher aesthetic products could potentially resultin self-selection issues In study 6B we predict that partici-pants will experience more negative affect after using ahigher (vs lower) aesthetic product an effect driven in tan-dem by effort inferences as well as changes in beauty

Further we try to better understand consumersrsquo emotionalreactions after aesthetic product usage by not highlightingthe productrsquos aesthetic qualities beforehand Finally wemeasure implicit self-theories to examine whether onersquos in-herent degree of effort appreciation moderates post-consumption negative affect

Method

Participants and Procedure Four hundred participantswere recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk to partici-pate in a two-cell (aesthetics higher vs lower) between-subjects study in exchange for payment Ten individualsparticipated in this study twice and 17 had missing data onthe focal dependent measures and were excluded from theanalysis yielding a final sample of 373 participants (55female [two did not report gender] median age frac14 32 ages18ndash76)

The study design of study 6B was almost identical tothat of study 6A aside from several modifications Firstparticipants completed the same negative emotion indexfrom study 6A (afrac14 91) immediately after reading the sce-nario instead of after aesthetics judgment measures (whichwere not included in this study) Second instead of assess-ing aesthetic ratings at two separate points in time we uti-lized a new single cross-sectional measure to capturedecrements in beauty post-consumption ldquoBy using thenapkins it felt like I was turning something that was oncebeautiful into something uglyrdquo (1 frac14 strongly disagree 7 frac14strongly agree) Next to examine effort inferences as a par-allel driver of negative affect after consumption partici-pants completed the same effort inferences and effortdestruction measures from study 3 although these mea-sures are distinct from study 3 in that they were assessedafter usage had already taken place Finally participantscompleted the implicit self-theories scale

Results and Discussion

Emotions Replicating study 6A a one-way ANOVAon negative emotions revealed that participants who usedthe higher aesthetic floral napkins to clean up the spill feltmore negative affect than those who used the lower aestheticwhite napkins (Mhigher aesthetic frac14 313 vs Mlower aesthetic frac14283 F(1 371) frac14 394 p lt 05) Of note this main effectdid not interact with implicit self-theories (p gt 30) sug-gesting that both incremental and entity theorists experi-enced more negative affect after using the higher (vslower) aesthetic napkins to clean up the spill a finding werevisit in the discussion section

Decrements in Beauty (Cross-Sectional) A one-wayANOVA on changes in beauty indicated that the higheraesthetic napkin underwent greater decrements in beautythrough consumption (Mhigher frac14 263 vs Mlower frac14 177F(1 371) frac14 2671 p lt 001)

WU ET AL 15

Effort Inferences A one-way ANOVA on effort infer-ences indicated that participants ascribed greater effort tothe higher aesthetic napkins (Mhigher frac14 349 vs Mlower frac14287 F(1 371) frac14 1359 p lt 001)

Effort Destruction A one-way ANOVA on concernsabout effort destruction indicated that participants hadstronger concerns that effort had been destroyed in thehigher aesthetic condition (Mhigher frac14 262 vs Mlower frac14200 F(1 371) frac14 1355 p lt 001)

Mediation Finally we conducted two separate media-tion analyses one testing the path of product aesthetics decrements in beauty negative affect (model 4 Hayes2013) and the other testing the serial path of product aes-thetics effort inferences concerns about effort de-struction negative affect (model 6) Results from thefirst analysis revealed that the indirect effect of aestheticson negative affect through changes in beauty was signifi-cant (b frac14 37 95 CI [23 54]) suggesting that productaesthetics affected the experience of negative emotionsthrough larger decrements in beauty in the higher aestheticcondition Second the indirect effect of aesthetics on nega-tive affect through effort inferences and concerns about ef-fort destruction (in serial) was also significant (b frac14 1295 CI [06 23]) as was the indirect effect of aestheticson negative affect through effort destruction alone (b frac1411 95 CI [01 23])

Finally we also included beauty decrements effort in-ferences and effort destruction into the model as parallelmediators to gain greater understanding of the relativestrength of these drivers This analysis revealed that whenall three mediators were in the model the indirect effectthrough decrements in beauty remained significant (b frac1422 95 CI [11 36]) as did the indirect effect througheffort destruction (b frac14 15 95 CI [06 27]) Taken to-gether these results suggest that while concerns about ef-fort destruction continue to play a role in driving theemotional outcomes of aesthetic product usage the decre-ments in beauty that become evident only after an aestheticproduct has been visibly compromised through consump-tion also lead to negative affect

Discussion Study 6B which allowed us to examinethe entire post-consumption conceptual model revealedthat people who used higher (vs lower) aesthetic napkinssubsequently experienced greater negative affect an effectdriven by two processes operating in parallel concernsabout the destruction of effort and decrements in beauty Inother words the consumption experience was associatedwith more negative affect because the consumption processnot only involved the actual destruction of effort but italso took a beautiful product that was typified by pleasureand transformed it into something marked by displeasure

We should also note that we replicated the post-consumption findings with actual paper napkins in a lab

context In a separate study using study 5rsquos procedure par-ticipants watched a video and received a snack to eat alongwith a higher versus lower aesthetic napkin and then indi-cated how they felt about the consumption experienceParticipants who chose to use their higher aesthetic napkinreported feeling more negative affect relative to whosewho chose to use their lower aesthetic napkin (p frac14 04)and relative to those who did not use their higher aestheticnapkin (p lt 01) Thus aesthetic product usage increasednegative affect even when consumers could choose to ei-ther use the aesthetic product or not and when the aestheticproduct (the napkin) was tangential to the affect measurescollected which specifically pertained to the video-watching and snack-eating task Additional details areavailable in the web appendix

Though we provide evidence that effort inferences con-tinued to partially drive consumer responses to beautifulproducts after usage it is interesting to note that post-consumption affect was not moderated by the degree towhich effort is intrinsically appreciated (ie implicit self-theories) While unexpected we speculate that this may oc-cur because post-consumption enjoyment is not exclusivelydriven by effort inferences Since losses of beauty alsoplay a substantial role in shaping emotional outcomes afterconsumption the beauty decrements associated with aes-thetic product usage may have brought entity theorists to asimilar emotional state as incremental theorists resultingin everybody feeling worse off after consumption irrespec-tive of individual differences in effort appreciation Morebroadly since post-consumption affect appears to be multi-ply determined it is difficult to completely disentangle thenegative affect stemming from the destruction of effortfrom the negative affect stemming from decrements inbeauty Study 6B offers a distinct test of this conjecturesince it made usage (and hence losses of beauty) salientthrough images of visibly used napkins

GENERAL DISCUSSION

Across a series of laboratory and field studies using avariety of nondurable product categories and consumptionsituations we reveal the negative impact of enhanced prod-uct aesthetics on usage and post-consumption conse-quences First we document an inhibiting effect of productaesthetics on consumption behaviors for disposable andperishable products in both real-world (study 1) and lab(study 2) settings Next we shed light on the drivers of us-age likelihood using mediation (study 3) a context-basedboundary condition (study 4) and a theoretically derivedindividual difference moderator (study 5) thereby provid-ing convergent support for an underlying process based oneffort Finally in studies 6A and 6B we hold product us-age constant to elucidate the drivers of post-consumptionaffect and show that the decrements in beauty that

16 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

aesthetic products inherently undergo as a result of con-sumption combined with concerns that one has actuallydestroyed effort underlie these effects

Theoretical Contributions Our work makes severaltheoretical contributions First while prior research hasshown that consumers respond favorably to both productaesthetics and effort we believe we are the first to establisha causal relationship between these constructs We findthat highly aesthetic products can elicit greater perceptionsof effort regardless of whether this effort was exerted dur-ing product design physical production or both processesWe further reveal that these effort inferences are not lim-ited to handmade products such as perishable foods butalso apply to mass-produced products such as consumerpackaged disposable goods

Second while existing literature suggests that consumerpreferences should increase as a function of a productrsquos aes-thetic appeal the prevailing ways of assessing the impact ofaesthetics on consumer preference have been limited to pur-chase intentions product evaluations and choice (Hagtvedtand Patrick 2008 Raghubir and Greenleaf 2006 Reimannet al 2010 Townsend and Shu 2010) Surprisingly the role ofaesthetics after choice has received little empirical attention todate Despite the stimulating effect that enhanced product aes-thetics have on choice and pre-usage evaluations our resultssuggest that once beautiful products are acquired consumersmay be less likely to consume them because the higher infer-ences of effort attributed to their creation elicit stronger con-cerns that such effort would be destroyed during consumption

This research also shows that the impact of implicit self-theories on consumer behavior may be more pervasivethan previously thought While prior research in psychol-ogy has shown that incremental and entity theorists carrydissimilar beliefs about the value of their own effort(Dweck 2000) we provide support for the novel predictionthat beyond the recognition of personal effort implicitself-theories affect the extent to which consumers appreci-ate the effort that goes into the creation of aestheticallyappealing products

Finally contrary to the notion that enhanced product aes-thetics are always beneficial to consumption enjoyment ourwork reveals that usage of highly aesthetic disposable prod-ucts can actually lower overall enjoyment of the consumptionexperience through two separate pathways (1) by elicitingconcerns that one has actually destroyed effort and (2) bycompromising the beauty that typically characterizes aestheticproducts Thus we add to the literature on aesthetics andpleasure by showing how the consumption of highly aestheticproducts can result in larger losses of beauty and that suchdecrements in turn drive the relationship between aestheticproduct consumption and negative affect

More generally these findings speak to researchthat explores when and why the drivers of predicted andexperienced utility might diverge For instance

Thompson et al (2005) found that consumersrsquo initial desirefor product capability before purchase leads them to chooseproducts packed with features but their growing desire forproduct usability after usage leads them to ultimately prefersimpler products Similarly Lee and Tsai (2014) showedthat price promotions can stimulate sales but lower atten-tion during consumption which in turn reduces consump-tion enjoyment In the same vein despite the delightinitially elicited by the choice of beautiful products wedemonstrate that enhanced aesthetics have the ability tolater discourage usage and lower consumption enjoyment

Substantive Implications Our findings carry importantpractical implications as they pose an interesting dilemmato managers While conventional wisdom suggests that mar-keters should strive to invest the highest degree of effort intomaking their products look aesthetically pleasing at least tothe extent that company resources will allow our researchreveals that the story is not so simple Enhancing productaesthetics might positively affect initial attention interestand choice but should be considered with caution given thatsuch increased appeal could inhibit usage and reduce enjoy-ment relative to less aesthetically appealing productsRelatedly people likely consume highly aesthetic disposableproducts more slowly which could affect interpurchasetime Thus the pursuit of product aesthetics and improvedshort-term sales must be constantly balanced against theneed to encourage consumption ensure customer satisfac-tion and maintain long-term profitability Still certain prod-ucts such as beautiful candles and soaps may serve adecorative purpose in addition to their basic utilitarian func-tion and consequently may also carry intrinsic aestheticvalue Our recommendations are admittedly less straightfor-ward under such circumstances as consumers are able toderive utility from the productsrsquo enhanced aesthetics simplyby displaying them

Our results also have clear implications for managersand policy makers interested in promoting conservationand sustainable business practices A growing number ofretail and service establishments have been switching tounbleached paper products as the traditional bleachingprocess that removes imperfections and gives paper itswhite appearance also produces hazardous chemicals (egchlorine and dioxins) that are harmful to the environment(Evans 2010) While the transition to unbleached paperproducts has benefited the environment the results fromour investigation suggest the growing popularity of thistrend may be a double-edged sword To the extent thatunbleached paper products are considered less aestheticallyappealing consumers may show less restraint in usingthem leading to backfiring effects for conservation effortsPut another way the positive environmental impact of pro-ducing unbleached paper products could potentially be off-set by consumersrsquo reduced inhibition in consuming theseproducts Thus increasing the aesthetic appeal of products

WU ET AL 17

may actually be an effective way for companies to promoteenvironmentally sustainable behaviors even after incorpo-rating the increased cost of implementing such practices

Finally given that rising obesity rates are a major publichealth concern traced to increased consumption (Chandonand Wansink 2007) there has been burgeoning interest inthe various factors that shape consumer food choices (Corniland Chandon 2016 McFerran et al 2010 Scott et al 2008)The results of study 2 suggest that one way to curb overeat-ing might be to enhance the aesthetic presentation of foodproducts especially hedonic foods Of course additionalresearch is needed to better explore the impact of aestheticsin this important area given the counteracting effects thatfood aesthetics exert on consumption versus enjoyment

Limitations and Future Research While the current setof studies was designed to elucidate perceived effort as anunderlying mechanism of lower usage of aestheticallyappealing products we recognize that this phenomenonlike many is likely driven by multiple processes (FuchsSchreier and van Osselaer 2015) Indeed as evident in ourresearch consumption likelihood and consumption enjoy-ment each have distinct sets of drivers For instance whilewe accounted for cost across multiple studies and demon-strated that our effects held even after we controlled for theperceived price of the product we believe that cost maycertainly play a role in certain situations For example cer-tain highly aesthetic products elicit perceptions of luxury(Hagtvedt and Patrick 2008) and may consequently reduceconsumption because they appear ldquotoo expensive to userdquoand cost may even interact with aesthetics under certaincircumstances to impact consumption such that the infer-ences of effort typically ascribed to aesthetically appealingproducts could be mitigated if people are told that theywere extremely inexpensive

In addition classic research by Loewenstein (1987)showed that people often prefer to delay consumption ofenjoyable experiences It may be that people are averse toimmediately consuming a highly aesthetic product becausethey are able to derive more utility by savoring the experi-ence and postponing consumption Further as alluded to instudy 4 it is possible that anticipated decrements in beautymay play a larger role in shaping usage in other consump-tion contexts Thus while we focus on the role of effortinferences in driving lower usage of highly aesthetic prod-ucts we are cognizant of the fact that other mechanismslikely exist which would provide intriguing avenues forfurther investigation

It would also be interesting to examine whether the neg-ative influence of enhanced aesthetics would hold acrossdifferent consumption contexts That is are there situationswhere the present phenomenon would not emerge Indeedone could argue that service establishments such as upscalerestaurants and luxury resorts which regularly pampertheir guests with beautifully plated entrees and folded

towel animals would eventually be driven out of businessif the consumption of highly aesthetic products alwaysresulted in lower enjoyment We believe that whether theusage of highly aesthetic products is accompanied bydecreased consumption and increased negative affect willhinge on the nature of the consumption environment Priorresearch indicates that our surroundings are capable ofautomatically eliciting normative behaviors when situa-tional norms are well established (Aarts and Dijksterhuis2003) Extending this perspective it is possible that theeffects observed in this article may be relatively weakenedwhen consumption occurs in environments characterizedby strong expectations to engage in indulgent consumptionsuch as in a fancy restaurant or luxurious hotel

Relatedly it would be interesting to examine whethercalling attention to fact that the aesthetic product if leftunconsumed will face inevitable destruction could enhanceconsumption likelihood and enjoyment to some extent par-ticularly for perishable products such as food4 Indeedrecent research has shown that consumers display a strongaversion to waste and unused utility (Bolton and Alba2012) Thus future studies should examine whether theeffects documented in this article could be attenuated ifthe inevitable destruction of effort is made salient to con-sumers (eg the product will go bad be thrown away orsomebody else will consume the product even if they donot) In summary future work should explore situationswhere enhanced aesthetics might carry more weight in theutility function for the overall consumption experienceand subsequently increase consumption and boostenjoyment

Another area for future research would be to examinewhether the destruction of product aesthetics is an ldquoall ornothingrdquo event such that any amount of consumption (evena single bite of a cupcake) would be viewed as destroyingthe productrsquos overall beauty While our experimentaldesigns did not allow us to examine whether destruction is acontinuous versus discrete function of consumption it isworth nothing that we did document lower usage acrossvarying degrees of consumption (eg consumption was con-tinuous in study 2 but discrete in study 5) and we did findthat different levels of consumption still led to reducedenjoyment Nevertheless we believe this is an importantempirical question worth investigating in the future

Finally while we have limited our analysis to nondura-bles (perishable and disposable products specifically) anintriguing path would be to investigate the potential moder-ating role of product durability on usage likelihood andsubsequent enjoyment of highly aesthetic products It maybe that the relative durability of the aesthetic product couldaffect individualsrsquo ability or motivation to anticipate decre-ments in beauty before consumption has occurred whichwould have implications for usage likelihood For instance

4 We thank one of the anonymous reviewers for this suggestion

18 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

with big-ticket high-involvement purchases such as sleekfurniture (eg a beautiful new white sectional sofa) con-sumers may more readily anticipate losses of beauty sincethey will have to live with and encounter the product on adaily basis even after its original beauty has faded or beentarnished through repeated use This may explain why cov-ering new furniture with plastic was at one time a verycommon practice (DiSalvo 2009)

On the other hand for nondurable lower-involvementproducts such as those used in the current research perhapspeople do not have the motivation or ability to considershifts in aesthetic appeal before consumption Furtherproducts often vary in their degree of durabilitymdasha delicateembroidered blanket while by no means nondurable or dis-posable may begin to show visible signs of wear and tearsooner than a fleece blanket Although the present researchspecifically focused on perishable and single-use productsit would be worth examining when and how the degree ofdurability or even perceptions of fragility might shapedecisions to use beautiful products

In conclusion our research documents an inhibitingeffect of enhanced product aesthetics on consumption par-ticularly for disposable and consumable nondurable prod-ucts Although beautiful products have the ability topromote positive pre-usage evaluations and stimulatechoice our work indicates that consumers are subsequentlyless likely to use them and those who do use them ulti-mately experience higher negative affect and lower enjoy-ment In addition different processes underlie consumerresponses to highly aesthetic products depending onwhether or not consumption has taken place Thus we con-clude that while products may never be too pretty tochoose they can in fact be too pretty to use

DATA COLLECTION INFORMATION

All studies were designed and analyzed by the first authorunder the guidance of the other authors The data for study 1was collected at the Scottsdale Pure Barre studio in fall2015 by research assistants and employees under the super-vision of the first author Research assistants collected thedata for studies 2 and 5 under the supervision of the firstauthor at the W P Carey School of Business MarketingDepartment Behavioral Lab in spring 2015 The data for theconceptual replication (reported in the discussion of study6B) was collected by research assistants under the supervi-sion of the first author at the W P Carey School ofBusiness Marketing Department Behavioral Lab in summer2015 The data for study 4 (both the effort manipulation pre-test and the main study) and the correlational study examin-ing the relationship between implicit self-theories andappreciation for othersrsquo effort were collected by the firstauthor using Amazon Mechanical Turk in spring 2016 Thefirst author collected the data for the aesthetic appeal pretest

(described in appendix B) studies 3 6A and 6B usingAmazon Mechanical Turk in summer 2016 Lastly researchassistants collected the data for the correlational study exam-ining the relationship between aesthetics and perceivedeffort (described in the table in ldquoThe Role of Effort inInhibiting Usagerdquo) under the supervision of the first authorat the W P Carey School of Business MarketingDepartment Behavioral Lab in fall 2016

APPENDIX A

STUDY STIMULI

WU ET AL 19

REFERENCES

Aarts Henk and Ap Dijksterhuis (2003) ldquoThe Silence of theLibrary Environment Situational Norm and SocialBehaviorrdquo Journal of Personality and Social Psychology84 (1) 18ndash28

Aharon Itzhak Nancy Etcoff Dan Ariely Christopher F ChabrisEthan OrsquoConnor and Hans C Breiter (2001) ldquoBeautifulFaces Have Variable Reward Value fMRI and BehavioralEvidencerdquo Neuron 32 (3) 537ndash51

Alba Joseph W and Elanor F Williams (2013) ldquoPleasurePrinciples A Review of Research on HedonicConsumptionrdquo Journal of Consumer Psychology 23 (1)2ndash18

Belk Russell W (1988) ldquoPossessions and the Extended SelfrdquoJournal of Consumer Research 15 (2) 139ndash67

Bem Daryl J (1972) Self-Perception Theory Stanford CAStanford University Press

Berridge Kent C (2009) ldquolsquoLikingrsquo and lsquoWantingrsquo Food RewardsBrain Substrates and Roles in Eating Disordersrdquo Physiologyamp Behavior 97 (5) 537ndash50

Bloch Peter H (1995) ldquoSeeking the Ideal Form Product Designand Consumer Responserdquo Journal of Marketing 59 (July)16ndash29

Bloch Peter H Frederic F Brunel and Todd J Arnold (2003)ldquoIndividual Differences in the Centrality of Visual ProductAesthetics Concept and Measurementrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 29 (4) 551ndash65

Bolton Lisa E and Joseph W Alba (2012) ldquoWhen Less Is MoreConsumer Aversion to Unused Utilityrdquo Journal of ConsumerPsychology 22 (3) 369ndash83

Brehm Jack W (1966) A Theory of Psychological ReactanceNew York Academic Press

Broniarczyk Susan M and Joseph W Alba (1994) ldquoThe Role ofConsumersrsquo Intuitions in Inference Makingrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 21 (3) 393ndash407

Cabanac Michel (1971) ldquoPhysiological Role of PleasurerdquoScience 173 (4002) 1103ndash7

mdashmdashmdash (1979) ldquoSensory Pleasurerdquo Quarterly Review of Biology54 (1) 1ndash29

mdashmdashmdash (1985) ldquoPreferring for Pleasurerdquo American Journal ofClinical Nutrition 42 (5) 1151ndash5

Chandon Pierre and Brian Wansink (2007) ldquoThe Biasing HealthHalos of Fast Food Restaurant Health Claims Lower CalorieEstimates and Higher Side-Dish Consumption IntentionsrdquoJournal of Consumer Research 34 (3) 301ndash14

Cornil Yann and Pierre Chandon (2016) ldquoPleasure as a Substitutefor Size How Multisensory Imagery Can Make PeopleHappier with Smaller Food Portionsrdquo Journal of MarketingResearch 53 (5) 847ndash64

Cleveland William S (1984) ldquoGraphical Methods for DataPresentation Full Scale Breaks Dot Charts and MultibasedLoggingrdquo The American Statistician 38 (4) 270ndash80

DiSalvo David (2009) ldquoThe Psychology of Plastic CouchCoversrdquo httpsneuronarrativewordpresscom20090119the-psychology-of-plastic-couch-covers

Dixie Products (2015) ldquoDixie Ultra Moments Ultimate Hostrdquohttpswwwyoutubecomwatchvfrac14wsBBq9PsgVI

Dutton Denis (2009) The Art Instinct Beauty Pleasure ampHuman Evolution New York Oxford University Press

Dweck Carol S (2000) Self-Theories Their Role in MotivationPersonality and Development Philadelphia Psychology Press

Dweck Carol S and Ellen L Leggett (1988) ldquoA Social-CognitiveApproach to Motivation and Personalityrdquo PsychologicalReview 95 (2) 256ndash73

Evans Lindsay (2010) ldquoWhy Buy Unbleached Paperrdquo httpwwwbrighthubcomenvironmentgreen-livingarticles16299aspx

Festinger Leon (1957) A Theory of Cognitive DissonanceStanford CA Stanford University Press

Frederick Shane and George Loewenstein (1999) ldquoHedonicAdaptationrdquo in Scientific Perspectives on EnjoymentSuffering and Well-Being ed Daniel Kahneman Ed Dienerand Norbert Schwartz New York Russell Sage Foundation302ndash29

Fuchs Christoph Martin Schreier and Stijn MJ van Osselaer(2015) ldquoThe Handmade Effect Whatrsquos Love Got to Do withItrdquo Journal of Marketing 79 (2) 98ndash110

Hagtvedt Henrik and Vanessa M Patrick (2008) ldquoArt InfusionThe Influence of Visual Art on the Perception and Evaluationof Consumer Productsrdquo Journal of Marketing Research 45(3) 379ndash89

AESTHETIC APPEAL PRETEST FOR ALL STIMULI USED IN STUDIES

Higher aesthetic Lower aesthetic Comparison a

Toilet paper (study 1) 377 (146) 253 (155) t(128) frac14 ndash469 p lt 001 a frac14 94Cupcake (study 2) 556 (106) 305 (146) t(128) frac14 ndash1120 p lt 001 a frac14 96Napkin (studies 3 and 6) 465 (153) 230 (144) t(128) frac14 ndash903 p lt 001 a frac14 97Napkin (study 4) 332 (145) 262 (154) t(128) frac14 ndash266 p lt 01 a frac14 92Napkin (study 5) 458 (159) 234 (151) t(128) frac14 ndash823 p lt 001 a frac14 97

NOTEmdashStandard deviations are in parentheses

In a between-subjects pretest participants were asked to rate each product along the following dimensions beautiful pretty artistic and aesthetically pleasing

(1 frac14 not at all 7 frac14 very much) which formed our aesthetic appeal index

APPENDIX B

20 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

Hayes Andrew F (2013) ldquoPROCESS A VersatileComputational Tool for Observed Variable MediationModeration and Conditional Process Modelingrdquo workingpaper School of Communication and Department ofPsychology Ohio State University Columbus OH 43210

Heller Steve (2015) ldquoA Grocery Store Illusion Is Getting You toSpend More Moneyrdquo httpwwwbusinessinsidercoma-grocery-store-illusion-is-getting-you-to-spend-more-money-2015-8ixzz3ifsOLBfG

Hurling Robert and Richard Shepherd (2003) ldquoEating with YourEyes Effect of Appearance on Expectations of LikingrdquoAppetite 41 (2) 167ndash74

Hoegg JoAndrea Joseph W Alba and Darren W Dahl (2010)ldquoThe Good the Bad and the Ugly Influence of Aesthetics onProduct Feature Judgmentsrdquo Journal of ConsumerPsychology 20 (4) 419ndash30

Johnson Palmer O and Jerzy Neyman (1936) ldquoTests of CertainLinear Hypotheses and Their Applications to SomeEducational Problemsrdquo Statistical Research Memoirs 157ndash93

Kahneman Daniel and Amos Tversky (1979) ldquoProspect TheoryAn Analysis of Decision under Riskrdquo Econometrica 47 (2)263ndash91

Kampe Knut K W Chris D Frith Raymond J Dolan and UtaFrith (2001) ldquoPsychology Reward Value of Attractivenessand Gazerdquo Nature 413 (6856) 589

Kelley Harold H (1967) ldquoAttribution Theory in SocialPsychologyrdquo in Nebraska Symposium of Motivation Vol 15ed D Levine Lincoln University of Nebraska Press192ndash238

Kirmani Amna (1990) ldquoThe Effect of Perceived AdvertisingCosts on Brand Perceptionsrdquo Journal of Consumer Research17 (2) 160ndash71

Kirmani Amna Michelle P Lee and Carolyn Yoon (2004)ldquoProcedural Priming Effects on Spontaneous InferenceFormationrdquo Journal of Economic Psychology 25 (6)859ndash75

Kruger Justin Derrick Wirtz Leaf Van Boven and T WilliamAltermatt (2004) ldquoThe Effort Heuristicrdquo Journal ofExperimental Social Psychology 40 (1) 91ndash8

Lee Leonard and Claire I Tsai (2014) ldquoHow Price PromotionsInfluence Postpurchase Consumption Experience overTimerdquo Journal of Consumer Research 40 (5) 943ndash59

Levy Sheri R Steven J Stroessner and Carol S Dweck (1998)ldquoStereotype Formation and Endorsement The Role ofImplicit Theoriesrdquo Journal of Personality and SocialPsychology 74 (6) 1421ndash36

Lisjak Monika Andrea Bonezzi Soo Kim and Derek D Rucker(2015) ldquoPerils of Compensatory Consumption Within-Domain Compensation Undermines Subsequent Self-Regulationrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 41 (5)1186ndash203

Loewenstein George (1987) ldquoAnticipation and the Valuation ofDelayed Consumptionrdquo Economic Journal 97 (September)666ndash84

Maritain Jacques (1966) ldquoBeauty and Imitationrdquo in A ModernBook of Esthetics ed Melvin Rader New York HoltRinehart amp Winston 27ndash34

McFerran Brent Darren W Dahl Gavan J Fitzsimons andAndrea C Morales (2010) ldquoIrsquoll Have What Shersquos HavingEffects of Social Influence and Body Type on the FoodChoices of Othersrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 36 (6)915ndash29

Morales Andrea C (2005) ldquoGiving Firms an lsquoErsquo for EffortConsumer Responses to High-Effort Firmsrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 31 (4) 806ndash12

Moreau C Page Leff Bonney and Kelly B Herd (2011) ldquoItrsquos theThought (and the Effort) That Counts How Customizing forOthers Differs from Customizing for Oneselfrdquo Journal ofMarketing 75 (5) 120ndash33

Norton Michael I Daniel Mochon and Dan Ariely (2012) ldquoThelsquoIkearsquo Effect When Labor Leads to Loverdquo Journal ofConsumer Psychology 22 (July) 453ndash60

Page Christine and Paul M Herr (2002) ldquoAn Investigation ofthe Processes by Which Product Design and Brand StrengthInteract to Determine Initial Affect and QualityJudgmentsrdquo Journal of Consumer Psychology 12 (2)133ndash47

Raghubir Priya and Eric A Greenleaf (2006) ldquoRatios inProportion What Should the Shape of the Package BerdquoJournal of Marketing 70 (2) 95ndash107

Raghunathan Rajagopal Rebecca Walker Naylor and Wayne DHoyer (2006) ldquoThe Unhealthy frac14 Tasty Intuition and ItsEffects on Taste Inferences Enjoyment and Choice of FoodProductsrdquo Journal of Marketing 70 (4) 170ndash84

Reber Rolf Norbert Schwarz and Piotr Winkielman (2004)ldquoProcessing Fluency and Aesthetic Pleasure Is Beauty in thePerceiverrsquos Processing Experiencerdquo Personality and SocialPsychology Review 8 (4) 364ndash82

Reber Rolf Piotr Winkielman and Norbert Schwarz (1998)ldquoEffects of Perceptual Fluency on Affective JudgmentsrdquoPsychological Science 9 (1) 45ndash48

Reimann Martin Judith Zaichkowksy Carolin Neuhaus ThomasBender and Bernd Weber (2010) ldquoAesthetic PackageDesign A Behavioral Neural and PsychologicalInvestigationrdquo Journal of Consumer Psychology 20 (4)431ndash41

Santayana George (18961955) The Sense of Beauty New YorkDover

Scott Maura L Stephen M Nowlis Naomi Mandel and AndreaC Morales (2008) ldquoThe Effects of Reduced Food Size andPackage Size on the Consumption Behavior of Restrainedand Unrestrained Eatersrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 35(3) 391ndash405

Spencer Steven J Mark P Zanna and Geoffrey T Fong (2005)ldquoEstablishing a Causal Chain Why Experiments Are OftenMore Effective than Mediational Analyses in ExaminingPsychological Processesrdquo Journal of Personality and SocialPsychology 89 (6) 845ndash51

Spiller Stephen A Gavan J Fitzsimons John G Lynch Jr andGary H McClelland (2013) ldquoSpotlights Floodlights andthe Magic Number Zero Simple Effects Tests inModerated Regressionrdquo Journal of Marketing Research 50(2) 277ndash88

Thompson Debora V Rebecca W Hamilton and Roland T Rust(2005) ldquoFeature Fatigue When Product CapabilitiesBecome Too Much of a Good Thingrdquo Journal of MarketingResearch 42 (November) 431ndash42

Townsend Claudia and Suzanne B Shu (2010) ldquoWhen and HowAesthetics Influences Financial Decisionsrdquo Journal ofConsumer Psychology 20 (4) 452ndash58

Townsend Claudia and Sanjay Sood (2012) ldquoSelf-Affirmationthrough the Choice of Highly Aesthetic Productsrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 39 (2) 415ndash28

Veryzer Robert W and J Wesley Hutchinson (1998) ldquoTheInfluence of Unity and Prototypicality on Aesthetic

WU ET AL 21

Responses to New Product Designsrdquo Journal of ConsumerResearch 24 (4) 374ndash94

Wada Yuji Carlos Arce-Lopera Tomohiro Masuda AtsushiKimura Ippeita Dan Sho-ichi Goto Daisuke Tsuzuki andKatsunori Okajima (2010) ldquoInfluence of LuminanceDistribution on the Appetizingly Fresh Appearance ofCabbagerdquo Appetite 54 (2) 363ndash68

Weiner Bernard (2000) ldquoAttributional Thoughts and ConsumerBehaviorrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 27 (December)382ndash87

Witz Anne Chris Warhurst and Dennis Nickson (2003) ldquoTheLabour of Aesthetics and The Aesthetics of OrganizationrdquoOrganization 10 (1) 33ndash54

Yamamoto Mel and David R Lambert (1994) ldquoThe Impact ofProduct Aesthetics on the Evaluation of Industrial ProductsrdquoJournal of Product Innovation Management 11 (4) 309ndash24

Yang Sha and Priya Raghubir (2005) ldquoCan Bottles SpeakVolumes The Effect of Package Shape on How Much toBuyrdquo Journal of Retailing 81 (4) 269ndash82

22 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

  • ucx057-FN1
  • ucx057-FN2
  • ucx057-FN3
  • ucx057-FN4
  • app1
  • app2
  • ucx057-TF1
  • ucx057-TF2
Page 10: It’s Too Pretty to Use! When and How Enhanced Product ...gavan/bio/GJF_articles/...testing the prediction that aesthetic products can elicit greater perceptions of effort. In line

between-subjects study in exchange for payment Two in-dividuals participated in this study twice and six had miss-ing data on the dependent measures and were excludedfrom the analysis yielding a final sample of 252 partici-pants (44 female [five did not report gender] medianage frac14 31 ages 19ndash69)

Participants were presented with a guided visualizationscenario in which they imagined they were at a local bak-ery getting breakfast and doing work As they were work-ing they accidentally spilled coffee all over theirdocuments prompting them to look toward the counter tosee how they could clean up the spill We presented a situa-tion in which the destruction of the product paper napkinswas imminent to assess how such an outcome shapes pref-erences to consume aesthetically appealing productsParticipants were randomly assigned to either the higher orlower aesthetic condition Those in the higher aestheticcondition saw a stack of floral napkins at the counter toclean up the spill while those in the lower aesthetic condi-tion saw a stack of plain white napkins (see appendix Arow 3 for images) Additional details of the procedure areavailable in the web appendix Subsequently participantsindicated to what extent they would use the (floral orwhite) napkins to clean up the spill (1 frac14 definitely no 7 frac14definitely yes) how likely they would be to use the napkinsto clean up the spill (1 frac14 very unlikely 7 frac14 very likely)and how many napkins they would use to clean up the spill(1 frac14 none at all 7 frac14 very many) which formed our usagelikelihood index (afrac14 81) Next to examine effort infer-ences we asked participants how much effort they thoughtwent into making the napkins (1 frac14 none at all 7 frac14 quite abit) To examine concerns about effort destruction weasked participants to rate their agreement with the state-ment ldquoI felt like I was destroying someonersquos effort by usingthe napkinsrdquo (1 frac14 strongly disagree 7 frac14 stronglyagree) Finally to again show that inferred monetary valueis not driving our effects participants indicated how muchthey would be willing to pay for a pack of the napkins inthe scenario (ie dollar value)

Results and Discussion

We predicted that participants would be less likely touse the higher aesthetic napkins and that this effect wouldbe mediated in serial by effort inferences and concernsover destroying such effort

Usage Likelihood A one-way ANOVA on the usagelikelihood index indicated that participants were less likelyto use the higher aesthetic floral napkins to clean up thespill (Mhigher aesthetic frac14 581 vs Mlower aesthetic frac14 628 F(1250) frac14 1592 p lt 001) an effect that continues to holdeven when we controlled for willingness to pay for thenapkins (p lt 001)

Effort Inferences A one-way ANOVA on effort infer-ences indicated that participants ascribed greater effort to thehigher aesthetic napkins (Mhigher frac14 380 vs Mlower frac14 319F(1 250) frac14 753 p lt 01) even when we controlled for will-ingness to pay (p lt 02)

Effort Destruction A one-way ANOVA on concernsabout effort destruction indicated that participants hadstronger concerns effort would be destroyed in the higheraesthetic condition (Mhigher frac14 254 vs Mlower frac14 195 F(1250) frac14 837 p lt 01) Again this effect holds even whenwe controlled for willingness to pay (p lt 02)

Mediation We conducted a serial multiple mediatormodel (model 6 Hayes 2013) testing our proposed media-tion path where effort inferences and concerns about ef-fort destruction served as serial mediators productaesthetics effort inferences concerns about the de-struction of effort usage likelihood Consistent withour predictions the indirect effect of aesthetics on usagelikelihood through effort inferences and concerns abouteffort destruction was significant (b frac14 ndash03 95 CI [ndash09 ndash01]) In addition the indirect effect of aesthetics onusage likelihood through effort destruction alone was sig-nificant (b frac14 ndash04 95 CI [ndash14 ndash003]) suggesting thismediator works serially but also individually Consistentwith study 2 willingness to pay did not mediate usagelikelihood (b frac14 01 95 CI [ndash03 06]) providing fur-ther evidence that inferred monetary value was not drivingour effects In sum product aesthetics affected usage like-lihood through effort inferences and concerns that onewould be destroying this effort

Discussion In study 3 using a new subtler contextwe show that the greater perceptions of effort ascribed tothe creation of higher aesthetic napkins led to stronger con-cerns that such effort would inevitably be destroyed in theconsumption process which ultimately discouraged usageFurther we once again demonstrate that inferred monetaryvalue does not account for our results Next we manipulateeffort inferences directly to show that shifting the per-ceived effort required to make an aesthetic product willmitigate our focal effect

STUDY 4 THE MODERATING ROLE OFEFFORT INFERENCES

Given the underlying role of effort in inhibiting the con-sumption of highly aesthetic products it follows that this re-duced consumption should be attenuated if the beautifulproduct does not trigger such effort inferences in the firstplace Thus in study 4 we manipulated information aboutthe products to directly influence effort inferences comple-menting study 3 by providing process evidence through mod-eration (Spencer Zanna and Fong 2005) Notably unlikeother studies in the current article study 4 utilizes a

10 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

comparative design in which participants are presented withboth higher and lower aesthetic products at once and areasked to make a choice between them This design allowsus to extend the generalizability of our findings to contextswhere consumers are faced with products of differing levelsof aesthetic appeal and have to choose one to immediatelyconsume Moreover study 4 replaces floral napkins withturquoise napkins in the higher aesthetic condition therebyusing especially subtle aesthetic stimuli to reveal that evenin the absence of product design changes in aesthetic ap-peal through other means (eg color) can shape consump-tion decisions in the same manner

Finally study 4 helps us test the alternative explanationthat concerns over how the product will look after usageor anticipated decrements in the productrsquos beauty aloneare driving lower consumption likelihood independent ofeffort inferences If this is the case the likelihood of usingaesthetically appealing products should not differ as afunction of expended effort since consumers should al-ways be less likely to use a beautiful product irrespectiveof the effort involved in its creation However if consump-tion likelihood is indeed affected by inferred effort thenchanges in inferred effort should systematically impactconsumption likelihood a relationship we examine directlyin study 4

Method

Participants and Procedure Two hundred forty-sixparticipants were recruited from Amazon MechanicalTurk to participate in a two-cell (intervention conditionno information control vs higher aesthetics frac14 lower ef-fort) between-subjects study in exchange for paymentSeven people participated in this study twice and wereexcluded yielding a final sample of 239 participants (48female [six did not report gender] median age frac14 31 ages18ndash69)

Study 4 used the same guided visualization scenario asstudy 3 where participants imagined visiting their localbakery and accidentally spilling coffee while they wereworking However this time they saw two separatestacks of napkins they could use to clean up the spillThe napkins were turquoise (higher aesthetic option) orplain white (lower aesthetic option see appendix A row4 for images) and both napkin images were presented atonce Additional details are available in the webappendix

At this point participants in the control condition pro-ceeded directly to a choice task in which they indicated whichtype of napkin they would use to clean up the spill On theother hand participants in the higher aestheticsfrac14 lower effortcondition were first told that as they looked at the napkinsthey recalled that a friend who used to work for this bakeryhad told them that it actually takes less effort and time forcompanies to manufacture the blue napkins than it does to

make and bleach the white ones2 Next participants in thislower effort condition completed the choice task After theirchoice all participants indicated how much they thought thenapkins cost (1 frac14 very little 7 frac14 quite a lot)

Results and Discussion

Conceptually replicating prior studies in the controlcondition where no effort inferences were made salientparticipants were less likely to choose the higher aestheticblue napkins to clean up the spill (1983 blue vs8017white) However this lower usage likelihood was re-versed when the higher aesthetic blue napkins elicitedlower perceptions of effort (6356blue vs 3644white v2

(1) frac14 4707 (n frac14 239) p lt 001) Importantly the choiceeffects continue to hold when we control for perceived cost(p lt 001)

Discussion Study 4 offers convergent support for theproposed underlying process by showing that the reducedconsumption of highly aesthetic products is reversed whenthese products elicit lower effort inferences As revealedby the pretest (see footnote 2) in the control conditionwhere no effort information was made salient participantsascribed greater effort to the higher aesthetic blue napkinand were less likely to use it but when this blue napkinwas thought to require less effort to produce participantsbecame more likely to use it Notably unlike our priorstudies study 4 employed a comparative design in whichparticipants saw higher and lower aesthetic options at thesame time mirroring real life where consumers encountermultiple product offerings with differing aesthetic appealand have to choose one to use

These results also suggest that anticipated decrements inbeauty alone or concerns over what the aesthetic productwill look like after consumption are unlikely to inhibitconsumption Such projected losses of beauty are not evi-dent before consumption has occurred when the highlyaesthetic product is still in pristine beautiful condition Ifexpected drops in the aesthetic appeal of the product alonehad been responsible for driving reduced consumption in-dividuals would have been equally inhibited from using thehigher aesthetic napkin irrespective of effort inferencesSuch an alternative is inconsistent with the reversal in us-age likelihood we observed in the higher aesthetics frac14lower effort condition since the aesthetic appeal of the

2 A pretest confirmed the validity of study 4rsquos effort manipulationParticipants (n frac14 201) completed a 2 (aesthetics) 2 (effort interven-tion) between-subjects study where they read the same scenario butwere randomly assigned a napkin choice and asked to make effortinferences about the napkin Results revealed a significant interaction(p lt 001) Whereas in the control condition the higher aesthetic nap-kin elicited higher perceptions of effort (Mcontrol higher aesthetic frac14 391vs Mcontrol lower aesthetic frac14 335 p lt 04) this pattern reversed in thelow effort condition (Mlow effort higher aesthetic frac14 302 vs Mlow effort lower

aesthetic frac14 431 p lt 001) Procedural details and full results are avail-able in the web appendix

WU ET AL 11

napkins remained constant only the perceived effort hadchanged Thus we provide further evidence for the prem-ise that consumers strongly link aesthetics and effort andshow that for consumption to be reduced the highly aes-thetic product must signal higher effort in addition to itsaesthetic qualities

Notably while our results support the notion that antici-pated drops in beauty alone are insufficient to lead to a re-duction in consumption likelihood it is also worthmentioning that because effort and beauty are inextricablylinked constructs concerns over destroying effort mayshare to some extent overlapping variance with concernsover the imminent losses of beauty This suggests that inother contexts anticipated decrements in beauty may alsoplay a role in driving usage potentially for products of ex-treme aesthetic appeal that are more defined by theirbeauty as opposed to the colored napkins used hereNonetheless in the current context the results demonstratethat shifting perceptions about the amount of effort neededto create a higher aesthetic product is sufficient to over-come any inhibition to consume it

We next provide additional evidence for our conceptual-ization by investigating a theoretically driven individualdifference that affects the degree to which effort is inher-ently appreciated and by extension should influence deci-sions to use highly aesthetic products

STUDY 5 THE ROLE OF IMPLICIT SELF-THEORIES IN SHAPING USAGE

Based on our theory because the higher effort as-cribed to beautiful products underlies their lower likeli-hood of usage such a reduction should be moderated bythe degree to which effort is intrinsically valued or peo-plersquos implicit self-theories According to research on im-plicit self-theories entity theorists view their personalqualities as stable and unable to be enhanced by self-improvement while incremental theorists view thesequalities as flexible and able to be cultivated through la-bor and effort (Dweck 2000) Similarly entity theoriststend to view effort as ineffective and pointless while in-cremental theorists are more optimistic that their effortscarry intrinsic value and will eventually bear fruit(Dweck and Leggett 1988)

We propose that beyond the recognition of personal ef-fort implicit self-theories affect the extent to which con-sumers appreciate othersrsquo effort and by extension theeffort that goes into the creation of highly aesthetic prod-ucts To test this prediction we conducted a correlationalstudy examining the relationship between implicit self-theories and the propensity to appreciate effort-laden prod-ucts Participants (n frac14 134) first completed the implicitself-theories scale (Levy Stroessner and Dweck 1998)where higher (lower) scores indicate greater endorsement

of incremental (entity) self-theory Next they indicatedtheir agreement with five items reflecting appreciation forothersrsquo effort (eg I notice when people work really hardto create something3 all anchored at 1 frac14 strongly disagree7 frac14 strongly agree a frac14 91) We found a significant posi-tive correlation (r frac14 23 p lt 01) such that incrementallyoriented individuals were more likely to appreciate thingsthat reflect a great deal of effort

Thus based on this appreciation for othersrsquo effort in study5 we predict that incremental theorists will be less likely toconsume products that are highly aesthetic and by extensionladen with effort By contrast because entity theorists havelower intrinsic appreciation for effort they will be equallylikely to use a product regardless of its aesthetic appeal

Method

Participants and Procedure One hundred eighty-seven undergraduate students from a southwesternuniversity participated in a 2 (aesthetics higher vs lower) continuous (implicit self-theories) between-subjectsstudy in exchange for partial course credit Two partici-pants reported having a gluten allergy that prevented themfrom consuming the goldfish crackers accompanying thenapkins An additional 11 participants were excluded fromthe analysismdashone respondent participated in this studytwice and 10 had missing data on implicit self-theorieswhich we had measured in a separate presurvey severalweeks prior to the focal study Thus the final sample com-prised 174 participants (52 female [four did not reportgender] median age frac14 21 ages 18ndash41)

Study 5 employed the same cover story about pairingfoods with videos used in study 2 but this time usingPepperidge Farm goldfish crackers We chose these crack-ers because they are slightly messy to eatmdashpeople wouldwant to use a napkin but did not necessarily have to creat-ing an ideal context within which to test our hypothesesParticipants received an individual pack of goldfish crack-ers along with a paper napkin which was either decorativewith a white background (higher aesthetic condition) orplain white (lower aesthetic condition) (both 61=2 inchessquare see appendix A row 5 for images) Importantlythe experimenter gave no explicit instructions on what to dowith this napkin Of note in addition to the pretest assessingdifferent levels of aesthetic appeal between the two napkinsanother between-subjects pretest (n frac14 81) showed that partic-ipants liked the higher (vs lower) aesthetic napkin and its de-sign more (Mhigher aesthetic frac14 516 vs Mlower aesthetic frac14 365t(79) frac14 ndash516 p lt 001 r frac14 87) but both napkins were

3 The other items were (2) I really appreciate it when somebodytakes the time and effort to make something (3) I treasure somethingmore when I know a lot of effort has gone into creating it (4) I havean appreciation for products that reflect a great deal of effort on themakerrsquos part and (5) I value something more when I know it took alot of time and energy to produce

12 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

rated as equally versatile in their usage (Mhigher aesthetic frac14 580vs Mlower aesthetic frac14 591 t(79) frac14 47 p gt 60 a frac14 91)Additional pretest details are available in the web appendix

Participants were told to watch a 35 minute video onwildlife animals while they ate the crackers and that theywere free to eat as much or as little as they liked Once par-ticipants finished the video the experimenter collected thenapkin and any leftover crackers and recorded whether thenapkin had been used or not (0 frac14 no 1 frac14 yes) in anotherroom A napkin was coded as ldquousedrdquo if it showed any signsof usage (ie had any food stains on it looked crumpled orhad been used to spit out gum) and was coded as ldquounusedrdquoonly if it appeared untouched and in pristine condition mak-ing it a highly conservative test of our hypotheses To againensure that perceived cost was not influencing our focal ef-fects we asked participants how much they would be will-ing to pay for a pack of napkins (ie dollar value) Finallyparticipants completed a series of filler measures that as-sessed how interesting the video was and how much theyliked eating goldfish crackers in general

Results and Discussion

A 2 (aesthetics condition) continuous (implicit self-theories) logistic regression on napkin usage behavior(used yes no) was performed Regressing usage behavioron the aesthetics manipulation mean-centered levels ofimplicit self-theories and their interaction revealed a sig-nificant simple effect of aesthetics at the mean of implicitself-theories (b frac14 ndash37 Wald v2 frac14 460 p frac14 03) suchthat a smaller percentage of people used the napkin in the

higher aesthetic condition across all participants conceptu-ally replicating prior studies Importantly the interactionwas also significant (b frac14 ndash30 Wald v2 frac14 419 p frac14 04see figure 3) Notably this interaction continued to holdeven when we controlled for willingness to pay (p lt 04)We used the Johnson-Neyman technique to identify therange of implicit self-theories for which the simple effectof the aesthetics manipulation was significant where lowervalues imply an entity-oriented mindset while higher val-ues imply an incrementally oriented mindset We found asignificant reduction in usage of the higher aesthetic deco-rative (vs lower aesthetic white) paper napkin for anyvalue of implicit self-theories above 406 (at p lt 05) butnot for any value less than 406 In other words incremen-tal theorists were less likely to use a higher (vs lower) aes-thetic napkin whereas entity theorists were equally likelyto use a napkin regardless of its appearance

Discussion In study 5 we provide further evidence forour proposed mechanism by showing that implicit self-theories or consumersrsquo chronic appreciation for investedeffort shapes decisions to use an aesthetically pleasingproduct Incremental theorists who are more appreciativeof effort were less likely to use a higher aesthetic decora-tive napkin than a lower aesthetic plain white napkin butsuch effects were not observed among entity theorists whohave lower intrinsic appreciation for effort We have nowreliably established the inhibiting effect of product aes-thetics on consumption across multiple products and con-sumption contexts and provided convergent support for theunderlying mechanism In our final two studies we

FIGURE 3

AESTHETICS IMPLICIT SELF-THEORIES ON NAPKIN USAGE (STUDY 5)

WU ET AL 13

elucidate the drivers of post-consumption emotions whileholding usage constant thereby allowing us to hone in onpost-consumption consequences in a more controlledfashion since people are inherently less likely to usehigher aesthetic products which could potentially result inself-selection issues

STUDY 6A DECREMENTS IN BEAUTYAND POST-CONSUMPTION AFFECT

Recall in study 2 that when the cupcake was highly aes-thetic consumption enjoyment was lower among individ-uals most motivated to engage in consumption (ie hungryindividuals) an effect we propose is determined by twoprocesses working in tandem First we expect that the ef-fort inferences made prior to consumption will continue todrive emotional outcomes given the consumption processinvolves the actual destruction of effort Second and onlyevident post-consumption are the decrements in beautythat aesthetic products undergo when their aesthetic quali-ties are visibly compromised through usage Because beau-tiful products are inherently pleasurable (Reber et al 2004Reimann et al 2010) we predict that individuals will expe-rience less pleasure and more negative affect when theywitness highly aesthetic products undergo steeper drops inbeauty as a result of consumption Consistent with prospecttheoryrsquos value function (Kahneman and Tversky 1979)initial changesmdashhere the larger losses of beauty associatedwith the usage of a higher (vs lower) aesthetic productmdashshould be particularly jarring and lead to more negative af-fect (Frederick and Loewenstein 1999)

Importantly unlike in study 2 where we measured theamount consumed as well as post-consumption enjoymentin study 6A we hold usage constant in the higher andlower aesthetic conditions and hone in on the changes inbeauty with a longitudinal study design Specifically theobjective of study 6A is to extend prior work on the rela-tionship between beauty and pleasure by establishing itscorollarymdashthat the consumption of a higher (vs lower)aesthetic product will lead to greater perceived losses ofbeauty and that such decrements in beauty will in turnhave a negative influence on post-consumption affect Wemeasure this decrement by capturing aesthetic judgmentsimmediately before and after usage

Method

Participants and Procedure Four hundred sixteen par-ticipants were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk toparticipate in a 2 (aesthetics higher vs lower between) 2(aesthetic judgment before vs after usage within) mixed-design study in exchange for payment Six individuals par-ticipated in this study twice and four had missing data onthe focal dependent measures and were excluded from theanalysis yielding a final sample of 406 participants (54

female [11 did not report gender] median age frac14 30 ages18ndash76)

The procedure was similar to that of study 3 featuringthe same bakery scenario and stimuli but with several mod-ifications After participants were initially presented witheither the higher or lower aesthetic napkins following thespill they immediately completed two semantic differen-tial items of aesthetic evaluations for these unused napkinson seven-point scales ldquonot at all prettyvery prettyrdquo andldquonot at all uglyvery uglyrdquo (reverse-coded) which havebeen shown in prior work to capture aesthetic judgments(Reber Winkielman and Schwarz 1998 r frac14 47) Aftercompleting these baseline aesthetic judgment measuresparticipants proceeded with the scenario They were toldthey realized they would need to grab at least 10 napkins tocome close to cleaning up the spill and were subsequentlyshown a stack of unused napkins The scenario ended withan image of a bundle of napkins now drenched with cof-fee that were used to clean up the spill Additional detailsof the procedure are available in the web appendix

Immediately after reading the scenario participantscompleted the same set of aesthetic judgment items a sec-ond time this time rating the coffee-drenched napkinswhich served as a measure of post-usage aesthetic judg-ments Participants then indicated to what extent they ex-perienced each of the following negative emotions whilethey were using the napkins to clean up the spill stressedregretful bad afraid fearful sad sorry and guilty whichwe combined into an index of post-consumption negativeaffect (1 frac14 not at all 7 frac14 very much so afrac14 91)

Results and Discussion

We predicted that participants would experience greaternegative affect after using the higher (vs lower) aestheticnapkins an effect that would be driven by the larger decre-ments in beauty that stem from the consumption of higheraesthetic products

Emotions A one-way ANOVA on negative emotionsexperienced after consumption revealed that participantswho used the higher aesthetic floral napkins to clean up thespill felt more negative affect than those who used thelower aesthetic white napkins (Mhigher aesthetic frac14 305 vsMlower aesthetic frac14 246 F(1 404) frac14 1686 p lt 001)

Decrements in Beauty (Longitudinal) A 2 (aestheticshigher vs lower) 2 (timing before usage vs after usage)mixed ANOVA on aesthetic judgments yielded main ef-fects of both aesthetics (F(1 404) frac14 10652 p lt 001) andtiming (F(1 404) frac14 125629 p lt 001) which were quali-fied by a significant aesthetics timing interaction (F(1404) frac14 5302 p lt 001) Planned contrasts revealed thatwhereas the higher aesthetic napkins elicited more favor-able aesthetic judgments than the lower aesthetic napkinsbefore usage (Mhigher frac14 594 vs Mlower frac14 447 F(1 404)

14 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

frac14 15269 p lt 001) this difference was substantiallyreduced after usage (Mhigher frac14 237 vs Mlower frac14 211F(1 404) frac14 484 p frac14 03) Importantly and arguably mostcentral to our research the decrement in aesthetic ratingsthrough usage was significantly larger in the higher aes-thetic conditionmdashin fact 151 largermdashthan that observedin the lower aesthetic condition (ie a drop of 357 unitsvs a drop of 236 units)

Mediation Finally we are interested in whether decre-ments in aesthetic judgment emanating from product usageunderlie post-consumption affect Consistent with predic-tions mediation analysis (model 4 Hayes 2013) revealedthat the indirect effect of aesthetics on negative affectthrough changes in aesthetic judgment was significant (b frac1415 95 CI [04 29]) suggesting that product aestheticsaffected the experience of negative emotions through thelarger losses of beauty resulting from the consumption ofhigher aesthetic products

Discussion While past work has shown that aestheticsare inextricably linked with pleasure (Reber et al 2004Reimann et al 2010) study 6A extends this body of re-search by revealing that in the context of nondurable prod-ucts where consumption entails damaging product designnot only does the usage of higher (vs lower) aestheticproducts result in larger decrements in beauty but suchlosses also drive greater negative affect after consumptionNotably while we asked participants to assess the aestheticqualities of the napkins before and immediately after usageto more precisely capture the changes in beauty we ob-served we recognize that this design may have caused theaesthetic appeal of the napkins to be more salient prior toconsumption making its decrement therefore more pro-nounced after consumption Thus having established thatbeauty decrements resulting from aesthetic product usageunderlie post-consumption affect in study 6B we measurethis change in a less invasive manner after consumptionWe also integrate changes in beauty and effort inferencesinto emotional reactions linked to consumption

STUDY 6B TESTING THE FULLCONCEPTUAL MODEL FOR POST-

CONSUMPTION AFFECT

The goal of study 6B is to elucidate the drivers of post-consumption emotions while continuing to hold usage con-stant in both conditions thereby allowing us to test the fullconceptual model in a more controlled fashion As alludedto in study 6A the inherently lower consumption likeli-hood of higher aesthetic products could potentially resultin self-selection issues In study 6B we predict that partici-pants will experience more negative affect after using ahigher (vs lower) aesthetic product an effect driven in tan-dem by effort inferences as well as changes in beauty

Further we try to better understand consumersrsquo emotionalreactions after aesthetic product usage by not highlightingthe productrsquos aesthetic qualities beforehand Finally wemeasure implicit self-theories to examine whether onersquos in-herent degree of effort appreciation moderates post-consumption negative affect

Method

Participants and Procedure Four hundred participantswere recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk to partici-pate in a two-cell (aesthetics higher vs lower) between-subjects study in exchange for payment Ten individualsparticipated in this study twice and 17 had missing data onthe focal dependent measures and were excluded from theanalysis yielding a final sample of 373 participants (55female [two did not report gender] median age frac14 32 ages18ndash76)

The study design of study 6B was almost identical tothat of study 6A aside from several modifications Firstparticipants completed the same negative emotion indexfrom study 6A (afrac14 91) immediately after reading the sce-nario instead of after aesthetics judgment measures (whichwere not included in this study) Second instead of assess-ing aesthetic ratings at two separate points in time we uti-lized a new single cross-sectional measure to capturedecrements in beauty post-consumption ldquoBy using thenapkins it felt like I was turning something that was oncebeautiful into something uglyrdquo (1 frac14 strongly disagree 7 frac14strongly agree) Next to examine effort inferences as a par-allel driver of negative affect after consumption partici-pants completed the same effort inferences and effortdestruction measures from study 3 although these mea-sures are distinct from study 3 in that they were assessedafter usage had already taken place Finally participantscompleted the implicit self-theories scale

Results and Discussion

Emotions Replicating study 6A a one-way ANOVAon negative emotions revealed that participants who usedthe higher aesthetic floral napkins to clean up the spill feltmore negative affect than those who used the lower aestheticwhite napkins (Mhigher aesthetic frac14 313 vs Mlower aesthetic frac14283 F(1 371) frac14 394 p lt 05) Of note this main effectdid not interact with implicit self-theories (p gt 30) sug-gesting that both incremental and entity theorists experi-enced more negative affect after using the higher (vslower) aesthetic napkins to clean up the spill a finding werevisit in the discussion section

Decrements in Beauty (Cross-Sectional) A one-wayANOVA on changes in beauty indicated that the higheraesthetic napkin underwent greater decrements in beautythrough consumption (Mhigher frac14 263 vs Mlower frac14 177F(1 371) frac14 2671 p lt 001)

WU ET AL 15

Effort Inferences A one-way ANOVA on effort infer-ences indicated that participants ascribed greater effort tothe higher aesthetic napkins (Mhigher frac14 349 vs Mlower frac14287 F(1 371) frac14 1359 p lt 001)

Effort Destruction A one-way ANOVA on concernsabout effort destruction indicated that participants hadstronger concerns that effort had been destroyed in thehigher aesthetic condition (Mhigher frac14 262 vs Mlower frac14200 F(1 371) frac14 1355 p lt 001)

Mediation Finally we conducted two separate media-tion analyses one testing the path of product aesthetics decrements in beauty negative affect (model 4 Hayes2013) and the other testing the serial path of product aes-thetics effort inferences concerns about effort de-struction negative affect (model 6) Results from thefirst analysis revealed that the indirect effect of aestheticson negative affect through changes in beauty was signifi-cant (b frac14 37 95 CI [23 54]) suggesting that productaesthetics affected the experience of negative emotionsthrough larger decrements in beauty in the higher aestheticcondition Second the indirect effect of aesthetics on nega-tive affect through effort inferences and concerns about ef-fort destruction (in serial) was also significant (b frac14 1295 CI [06 23]) as was the indirect effect of aestheticson negative affect through effort destruction alone (b frac1411 95 CI [01 23])

Finally we also included beauty decrements effort in-ferences and effort destruction into the model as parallelmediators to gain greater understanding of the relativestrength of these drivers This analysis revealed that whenall three mediators were in the model the indirect effectthrough decrements in beauty remained significant (b frac1422 95 CI [11 36]) as did the indirect effect througheffort destruction (b frac14 15 95 CI [06 27]) Taken to-gether these results suggest that while concerns about ef-fort destruction continue to play a role in driving theemotional outcomes of aesthetic product usage the decre-ments in beauty that become evident only after an aestheticproduct has been visibly compromised through consump-tion also lead to negative affect

Discussion Study 6B which allowed us to examinethe entire post-consumption conceptual model revealedthat people who used higher (vs lower) aesthetic napkinssubsequently experienced greater negative affect an effectdriven by two processes operating in parallel concernsabout the destruction of effort and decrements in beauty Inother words the consumption experience was associatedwith more negative affect because the consumption processnot only involved the actual destruction of effort but italso took a beautiful product that was typified by pleasureand transformed it into something marked by displeasure

We should also note that we replicated the post-consumption findings with actual paper napkins in a lab

context In a separate study using study 5rsquos procedure par-ticipants watched a video and received a snack to eat alongwith a higher versus lower aesthetic napkin and then indi-cated how they felt about the consumption experienceParticipants who chose to use their higher aesthetic napkinreported feeling more negative affect relative to whosewho chose to use their lower aesthetic napkin (p frac14 04)and relative to those who did not use their higher aestheticnapkin (p lt 01) Thus aesthetic product usage increasednegative affect even when consumers could choose to ei-ther use the aesthetic product or not and when the aestheticproduct (the napkin) was tangential to the affect measurescollected which specifically pertained to the video-watching and snack-eating task Additional details areavailable in the web appendix

Though we provide evidence that effort inferences con-tinued to partially drive consumer responses to beautifulproducts after usage it is interesting to note that post-consumption affect was not moderated by the degree towhich effort is intrinsically appreciated (ie implicit self-theories) While unexpected we speculate that this may oc-cur because post-consumption enjoyment is not exclusivelydriven by effort inferences Since losses of beauty alsoplay a substantial role in shaping emotional outcomes afterconsumption the beauty decrements associated with aes-thetic product usage may have brought entity theorists to asimilar emotional state as incremental theorists resultingin everybody feeling worse off after consumption irrespec-tive of individual differences in effort appreciation Morebroadly since post-consumption affect appears to be multi-ply determined it is difficult to completely disentangle thenegative affect stemming from the destruction of effortfrom the negative affect stemming from decrements inbeauty Study 6B offers a distinct test of this conjecturesince it made usage (and hence losses of beauty) salientthrough images of visibly used napkins

GENERAL DISCUSSION

Across a series of laboratory and field studies using avariety of nondurable product categories and consumptionsituations we reveal the negative impact of enhanced prod-uct aesthetics on usage and post-consumption conse-quences First we document an inhibiting effect of productaesthetics on consumption behaviors for disposable andperishable products in both real-world (study 1) and lab(study 2) settings Next we shed light on the drivers of us-age likelihood using mediation (study 3) a context-basedboundary condition (study 4) and a theoretically derivedindividual difference moderator (study 5) thereby provid-ing convergent support for an underlying process based oneffort Finally in studies 6A and 6B we hold product us-age constant to elucidate the drivers of post-consumptionaffect and show that the decrements in beauty that

16 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

aesthetic products inherently undergo as a result of con-sumption combined with concerns that one has actuallydestroyed effort underlie these effects

Theoretical Contributions Our work makes severaltheoretical contributions First while prior research hasshown that consumers respond favorably to both productaesthetics and effort we believe we are the first to establisha causal relationship between these constructs We findthat highly aesthetic products can elicit greater perceptionsof effort regardless of whether this effort was exerted dur-ing product design physical production or both processesWe further reveal that these effort inferences are not lim-ited to handmade products such as perishable foods butalso apply to mass-produced products such as consumerpackaged disposable goods

Second while existing literature suggests that consumerpreferences should increase as a function of a productrsquos aes-thetic appeal the prevailing ways of assessing the impact ofaesthetics on consumer preference have been limited to pur-chase intentions product evaluations and choice (Hagtvedtand Patrick 2008 Raghubir and Greenleaf 2006 Reimannet al 2010 Townsend and Shu 2010) Surprisingly the role ofaesthetics after choice has received little empirical attention todate Despite the stimulating effect that enhanced product aes-thetics have on choice and pre-usage evaluations our resultssuggest that once beautiful products are acquired consumersmay be less likely to consume them because the higher infer-ences of effort attributed to their creation elicit stronger con-cerns that such effort would be destroyed during consumption

This research also shows that the impact of implicit self-theories on consumer behavior may be more pervasivethan previously thought While prior research in psychol-ogy has shown that incremental and entity theorists carrydissimilar beliefs about the value of their own effort(Dweck 2000) we provide support for the novel predictionthat beyond the recognition of personal effort implicitself-theories affect the extent to which consumers appreci-ate the effort that goes into the creation of aestheticallyappealing products

Finally contrary to the notion that enhanced product aes-thetics are always beneficial to consumption enjoyment ourwork reveals that usage of highly aesthetic disposable prod-ucts can actually lower overall enjoyment of the consumptionexperience through two separate pathways (1) by elicitingconcerns that one has actually destroyed effort and (2) bycompromising the beauty that typically characterizes aestheticproducts Thus we add to the literature on aesthetics andpleasure by showing how the consumption of highly aestheticproducts can result in larger losses of beauty and that suchdecrements in turn drive the relationship between aestheticproduct consumption and negative affect

More generally these findings speak to researchthat explores when and why the drivers of predicted andexperienced utility might diverge For instance

Thompson et al (2005) found that consumersrsquo initial desirefor product capability before purchase leads them to chooseproducts packed with features but their growing desire forproduct usability after usage leads them to ultimately prefersimpler products Similarly Lee and Tsai (2014) showedthat price promotions can stimulate sales but lower atten-tion during consumption which in turn reduces consump-tion enjoyment In the same vein despite the delightinitially elicited by the choice of beautiful products wedemonstrate that enhanced aesthetics have the ability tolater discourage usage and lower consumption enjoyment

Substantive Implications Our findings carry importantpractical implications as they pose an interesting dilemmato managers While conventional wisdom suggests that mar-keters should strive to invest the highest degree of effort intomaking their products look aesthetically pleasing at least tothe extent that company resources will allow our researchreveals that the story is not so simple Enhancing productaesthetics might positively affect initial attention interestand choice but should be considered with caution given thatsuch increased appeal could inhibit usage and reduce enjoy-ment relative to less aesthetically appealing productsRelatedly people likely consume highly aesthetic disposableproducts more slowly which could affect interpurchasetime Thus the pursuit of product aesthetics and improvedshort-term sales must be constantly balanced against theneed to encourage consumption ensure customer satisfac-tion and maintain long-term profitability Still certain prod-ucts such as beautiful candles and soaps may serve adecorative purpose in addition to their basic utilitarian func-tion and consequently may also carry intrinsic aestheticvalue Our recommendations are admittedly less straightfor-ward under such circumstances as consumers are able toderive utility from the productsrsquo enhanced aesthetics simplyby displaying them

Our results also have clear implications for managersand policy makers interested in promoting conservationand sustainable business practices A growing number ofretail and service establishments have been switching tounbleached paper products as the traditional bleachingprocess that removes imperfections and gives paper itswhite appearance also produces hazardous chemicals (egchlorine and dioxins) that are harmful to the environment(Evans 2010) While the transition to unbleached paperproducts has benefited the environment the results fromour investigation suggest the growing popularity of thistrend may be a double-edged sword To the extent thatunbleached paper products are considered less aestheticallyappealing consumers may show less restraint in usingthem leading to backfiring effects for conservation effortsPut another way the positive environmental impact of pro-ducing unbleached paper products could potentially be off-set by consumersrsquo reduced inhibition in consuming theseproducts Thus increasing the aesthetic appeal of products

WU ET AL 17

may actually be an effective way for companies to promoteenvironmentally sustainable behaviors even after incorpo-rating the increased cost of implementing such practices

Finally given that rising obesity rates are a major publichealth concern traced to increased consumption (Chandonand Wansink 2007) there has been burgeoning interest inthe various factors that shape consumer food choices (Corniland Chandon 2016 McFerran et al 2010 Scott et al 2008)The results of study 2 suggest that one way to curb overeat-ing might be to enhance the aesthetic presentation of foodproducts especially hedonic foods Of course additionalresearch is needed to better explore the impact of aestheticsin this important area given the counteracting effects thatfood aesthetics exert on consumption versus enjoyment

Limitations and Future Research While the current setof studies was designed to elucidate perceived effort as anunderlying mechanism of lower usage of aestheticallyappealing products we recognize that this phenomenonlike many is likely driven by multiple processes (FuchsSchreier and van Osselaer 2015) Indeed as evident in ourresearch consumption likelihood and consumption enjoy-ment each have distinct sets of drivers For instance whilewe accounted for cost across multiple studies and demon-strated that our effects held even after we controlled for theperceived price of the product we believe that cost maycertainly play a role in certain situations For example cer-tain highly aesthetic products elicit perceptions of luxury(Hagtvedt and Patrick 2008) and may consequently reduceconsumption because they appear ldquotoo expensive to userdquoand cost may even interact with aesthetics under certaincircumstances to impact consumption such that the infer-ences of effort typically ascribed to aesthetically appealingproducts could be mitigated if people are told that theywere extremely inexpensive

In addition classic research by Loewenstein (1987)showed that people often prefer to delay consumption ofenjoyable experiences It may be that people are averse toimmediately consuming a highly aesthetic product becausethey are able to derive more utility by savoring the experi-ence and postponing consumption Further as alluded to instudy 4 it is possible that anticipated decrements in beautymay play a larger role in shaping usage in other consump-tion contexts Thus while we focus on the role of effortinferences in driving lower usage of highly aesthetic prod-ucts we are cognizant of the fact that other mechanismslikely exist which would provide intriguing avenues forfurther investigation

It would also be interesting to examine whether the neg-ative influence of enhanced aesthetics would hold acrossdifferent consumption contexts That is are there situationswhere the present phenomenon would not emerge Indeedone could argue that service establishments such as upscalerestaurants and luxury resorts which regularly pampertheir guests with beautifully plated entrees and folded

towel animals would eventually be driven out of businessif the consumption of highly aesthetic products alwaysresulted in lower enjoyment We believe that whether theusage of highly aesthetic products is accompanied bydecreased consumption and increased negative affect willhinge on the nature of the consumption environment Priorresearch indicates that our surroundings are capable ofautomatically eliciting normative behaviors when situa-tional norms are well established (Aarts and Dijksterhuis2003) Extending this perspective it is possible that theeffects observed in this article may be relatively weakenedwhen consumption occurs in environments characterizedby strong expectations to engage in indulgent consumptionsuch as in a fancy restaurant or luxurious hotel

Relatedly it would be interesting to examine whethercalling attention to fact that the aesthetic product if leftunconsumed will face inevitable destruction could enhanceconsumption likelihood and enjoyment to some extent par-ticularly for perishable products such as food4 Indeedrecent research has shown that consumers display a strongaversion to waste and unused utility (Bolton and Alba2012) Thus future studies should examine whether theeffects documented in this article could be attenuated ifthe inevitable destruction of effort is made salient to con-sumers (eg the product will go bad be thrown away orsomebody else will consume the product even if they donot) In summary future work should explore situationswhere enhanced aesthetics might carry more weight in theutility function for the overall consumption experienceand subsequently increase consumption and boostenjoyment

Another area for future research would be to examinewhether the destruction of product aesthetics is an ldquoall ornothingrdquo event such that any amount of consumption (evena single bite of a cupcake) would be viewed as destroyingthe productrsquos overall beauty While our experimentaldesigns did not allow us to examine whether destruction is acontinuous versus discrete function of consumption it isworth nothing that we did document lower usage acrossvarying degrees of consumption (eg consumption was con-tinuous in study 2 but discrete in study 5) and we did findthat different levels of consumption still led to reducedenjoyment Nevertheless we believe this is an importantempirical question worth investigating in the future

Finally while we have limited our analysis to nondura-bles (perishable and disposable products specifically) anintriguing path would be to investigate the potential moder-ating role of product durability on usage likelihood andsubsequent enjoyment of highly aesthetic products It maybe that the relative durability of the aesthetic product couldaffect individualsrsquo ability or motivation to anticipate decre-ments in beauty before consumption has occurred whichwould have implications for usage likelihood For instance

4 We thank one of the anonymous reviewers for this suggestion

18 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

with big-ticket high-involvement purchases such as sleekfurniture (eg a beautiful new white sectional sofa) con-sumers may more readily anticipate losses of beauty sincethey will have to live with and encounter the product on adaily basis even after its original beauty has faded or beentarnished through repeated use This may explain why cov-ering new furniture with plastic was at one time a verycommon practice (DiSalvo 2009)

On the other hand for nondurable lower-involvementproducts such as those used in the current research perhapspeople do not have the motivation or ability to considershifts in aesthetic appeal before consumption Furtherproducts often vary in their degree of durabilitymdasha delicateembroidered blanket while by no means nondurable or dis-posable may begin to show visible signs of wear and tearsooner than a fleece blanket Although the present researchspecifically focused on perishable and single-use productsit would be worth examining when and how the degree ofdurability or even perceptions of fragility might shapedecisions to use beautiful products

In conclusion our research documents an inhibitingeffect of enhanced product aesthetics on consumption par-ticularly for disposable and consumable nondurable prod-ucts Although beautiful products have the ability topromote positive pre-usage evaluations and stimulatechoice our work indicates that consumers are subsequentlyless likely to use them and those who do use them ulti-mately experience higher negative affect and lower enjoy-ment In addition different processes underlie consumerresponses to highly aesthetic products depending onwhether or not consumption has taken place Thus we con-clude that while products may never be too pretty tochoose they can in fact be too pretty to use

DATA COLLECTION INFORMATION

All studies were designed and analyzed by the first authorunder the guidance of the other authors The data for study 1was collected at the Scottsdale Pure Barre studio in fall2015 by research assistants and employees under the super-vision of the first author Research assistants collected thedata for studies 2 and 5 under the supervision of the firstauthor at the W P Carey School of Business MarketingDepartment Behavioral Lab in spring 2015 The data for theconceptual replication (reported in the discussion of study6B) was collected by research assistants under the supervi-sion of the first author at the W P Carey School ofBusiness Marketing Department Behavioral Lab in summer2015 The data for study 4 (both the effort manipulation pre-test and the main study) and the correlational study examin-ing the relationship between implicit self-theories andappreciation for othersrsquo effort were collected by the firstauthor using Amazon Mechanical Turk in spring 2016 Thefirst author collected the data for the aesthetic appeal pretest

(described in appendix B) studies 3 6A and 6B usingAmazon Mechanical Turk in summer 2016 Lastly researchassistants collected the data for the correlational study exam-ining the relationship between aesthetics and perceivedeffort (described in the table in ldquoThe Role of Effort inInhibiting Usagerdquo) under the supervision of the first authorat the W P Carey School of Business MarketingDepartment Behavioral Lab in fall 2016

APPENDIX A

STUDY STIMULI

WU ET AL 19

REFERENCES

Aarts Henk and Ap Dijksterhuis (2003) ldquoThe Silence of theLibrary Environment Situational Norm and SocialBehaviorrdquo Journal of Personality and Social Psychology84 (1) 18ndash28

Aharon Itzhak Nancy Etcoff Dan Ariely Christopher F ChabrisEthan OrsquoConnor and Hans C Breiter (2001) ldquoBeautifulFaces Have Variable Reward Value fMRI and BehavioralEvidencerdquo Neuron 32 (3) 537ndash51

Alba Joseph W and Elanor F Williams (2013) ldquoPleasurePrinciples A Review of Research on HedonicConsumptionrdquo Journal of Consumer Psychology 23 (1)2ndash18

Belk Russell W (1988) ldquoPossessions and the Extended SelfrdquoJournal of Consumer Research 15 (2) 139ndash67

Bem Daryl J (1972) Self-Perception Theory Stanford CAStanford University Press

Berridge Kent C (2009) ldquolsquoLikingrsquo and lsquoWantingrsquo Food RewardsBrain Substrates and Roles in Eating Disordersrdquo Physiologyamp Behavior 97 (5) 537ndash50

Bloch Peter H (1995) ldquoSeeking the Ideal Form Product Designand Consumer Responserdquo Journal of Marketing 59 (July)16ndash29

Bloch Peter H Frederic F Brunel and Todd J Arnold (2003)ldquoIndividual Differences in the Centrality of Visual ProductAesthetics Concept and Measurementrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 29 (4) 551ndash65

Bolton Lisa E and Joseph W Alba (2012) ldquoWhen Less Is MoreConsumer Aversion to Unused Utilityrdquo Journal of ConsumerPsychology 22 (3) 369ndash83

Brehm Jack W (1966) A Theory of Psychological ReactanceNew York Academic Press

Broniarczyk Susan M and Joseph W Alba (1994) ldquoThe Role ofConsumersrsquo Intuitions in Inference Makingrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 21 (3) 393ndash407

Cabanac Michel (1971) ldquoPhysiological Role of PleasurerdquoScience 173 (4002) 1103ndash7

mdashmdashmdash (1979) ldquoSensory Pleasurerdquo Quarterly Review of Biology54 (1) 1ndash29

mdashmdashmdash (1985) ldquoPreferring for Pleasurerdquo American Journal ofClinical Nutrition 42 (5) 1151ndash5

Chandon Pierre and Brian Wansink (2007) ldquoThe Biasing HealthHalos of Fast Food Restaurant Health Claims Lower CalorieEstimates and Higher Side-Dish Consumption IntentionsrdquoJournal of Consumer Research 34 (3) 301ndash14

Cornil Yann and Pierre Chandon (2016) ldquoPleasure as a Substitutefor Size How Multisensory Imagery Can Make PeopleHappier with Smaller Food Portionsrdquo Journal of MarketingResearch 53 (5) 847ndash64

Cleveland William S (1984) ldquoGraphical Methods for DataPresentation Full Scale Breaks Dot Charts and MultibasedLoggingrdquo The American Statistician 38 (4) 270ndash80

DiSalvo David (2009) ldquoThe Psychology of Plastic CouchCoversrdquo httpsneuronarrativewordpresscom20090119the-psychology-of-plastic-couch-covers

Dixie Products (2015) ldquoDixie Ultra Moments Ultimate Hostrdquohttpswwwyoutubecomwatchvfrac14wsBBq9PsgVI

Dutton Denis (2009) The Art Instinct Beauty Pleasure ampHuman Evolution New York Oxford University Press

Dweck Carol S (2000) Self-Theories Their Role in MotivationPersonality and Development Philadelphia Psychology Press

Dweck Carol S and Ellen L Leggett (1988) ldquoA Social-CognitiveApproach to Motivation and Personalityrdquo PsychologicalReview 95 (2) 256ndash73

Evans Lindsay (2010) ldquoWhy Buy Unbleached Paperrdquo httpwwwbrighthubcomenvironmentgreen-livingarticles16299aspx

Festinger Leon (1957) A Theory of Cognitive DissonanceStanford CA Stanford University Press

Frederick Shane and George Loewenstein (1999) ldquoHedonicAdaptationrdquo in Scientific Perspectives on EnjoymentSuffering and Well-Being ed Daniel Kahneman Ed Dienerand Norbert Schwartz New York Russell Sage Foundation302ndash29

Fuchs Christoph Martin Schreier and Stijn MJ van Osselaer(2015) ldquoThe Handmade Effect Whatrsquos Love Got to Do withItrdquo Journal of Marketing 79 (2) 98ndash110

Hagtvedt Henrik and Vanessa M Patrick (2008) ldquoArt InfusionThe Influence of Visual Art on the Perception and Evaluationof Consumer Productsrdquo Journal of Marketing Research 45(3) 379ndash89

AESTHETIC APPEAL PRETEST FOR ALL STIMULI USED IN STUDIES

Higher aesthetic Lower aesthetic Comparison a

Toilet paper (study 1) 377 (146) 253 (155) t(128) frac14 ndash469 p lt 001 a frac14 94Cupcake (study 2) 556 (106) 305 (146) t(128) frac14 ndash1120 p lt 001 a frac14 96Napkin (studies 3 and 6) 465 (153) 230 (144) t(128) frac14 ndash903 p lt 001 a frac14 97Napkin (study 4) 332 (145) 262 (154) t(128) frac14 ndash266 p lt 01 a frac14 92Napkin (study 5) 458 (159) 234 (151) t(128) frac14 ndash823 p lt 001 a frac14 97

NOTEmdashStandard deviations are in parentheses

In a between-subjects pretest participants were asked to rate each product along the following dimensions beautiful pretty artistic and aesthetically pleasing

(1 frac14 not at all 7 frac14 very much) which formed our aesthetic appeal index

APPENDIX B

20 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

Hayes Andrew F (2013) ldquoPROCESS A VersatileComputational Tool for Observed Variable MediationModeration and Conditional Process Modelingrdquo workingpaper School of Communication and Department ofPsychology Ohio State University Columbus OH 43210

Heller Steve (2015) ldquoA Grocery Store Illusion Is Getting You toSpend More Moneyrdquo httpwwwbusinessinsidercoma-grocery-store-illusion-is-getting-you-to-spend-more-money-2015-8ixzz3ifsOLBfG

Hurling Robert and Richard Shepherd (2003) ldquoEating with YourEyes Effect of Appearance on Expectations of LikingrdquoAppetite 41 (2) 167ndash74

Hoegg JoAndrea Joseph W Alba and Darren W Dahl (2010)ldquoThe Good the Bad and the Ugly Influence of Aesthetics onProduct Feature Judgmentsrdquo Journal of ConsumerPsychology 20 (4) 419ndash30

Johnson Palmer O and Jerzy Neyman (1936) ldquoTests of CertainLinear Hypotheses and Their Applications to SomeEducational Problemsrdquo Statistical Research Memoirs 157ndash93

Kahneman Daniel and Amos Tversky (1979) ldquoProspect TheoryAn Analysis of Decision under Riskrdquo Econometrica 47 (2)263ndash91

Kampe Knut K W Chris D Frith Raymond J Dolan and UtaFrith (2001) ldquoPsychology Reward Value of Attractivenessand Gazerdquo Nature 413 (6856) 589

Kelley Harold H (1967) ldquoAttribution Theory in SocialPsychologyrdquo in Nebraska Symposium of Motivation Vol 15ed D Levine Lincoln University of Nebraska Press192ndash238

Kirmani Amna (1990) ldquoThe Effect of Perceived AdvertisingCosts on Brand Perceptionsrdquo Journal of Consumer Research17 (2) 160ndash71

Kirmani Amna Michelle P Lee and Carolyn Yoon (2004)ldquoProcedural Priming Effects on Spontaneous InferenceFormationrdquo Journal of Economic Psychology 25 (6)859ndash75

Kruger Justin Derrick Wirtz Leaf Van Boven and T WilliamAltermatt (2004) ldquoThe Effort Heuristicrdquo Journal ofExperimental Social Psychology 40 (1) 91ndash8

Lee Leonard and Claire I Tsai (2014) ldquoHow Price PromotionsInfluence Postpurchase Consumption Experience overTimerdquo Journal of Consumer Research 40 (5) 943ndash59

Levy Sheri R Steven J Stroessner and Carol S Dweck (1998)ldquoStereotype Formation and Endorsement The Role ofImplicit Theoriesrdquo Journal of Personality and SocialPsychology 74 (6) 1421ndash36

Lisjak Monika Andrea Bonezzi Soo Kim and Derek D Rucker(2015) ldquoPerils of Compensatory Consumption Within-Domain Compensation Undermines Subsequent Self-Regulationrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 41 (5)1186ndash203

Loewenstein George (1987) ldquoAnticipation and the Valuation ofDelayed Consumptionrdquo Economic Journal 97 (September)666ndash84

Maritain Jacques (1966) ldquoBeauty and Imitationrdquo in A ModernBook of Esthetics ed Melvin Rader New York HoltRinehart amp Winston 27ndash34

McFerran Brent Darren W Dahl Gavan J Fitzsimons andAndrea C Morales (2010) ldquoIrsquoll Have What Shersquos HavingEffects of Social Influence and Body Type on the FoodChoices of Othersrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 36 (6)915ndash29

Morales Andrea C (2005) ldquoGiving Firms an lsquoErsquo for EffortConsumer Responses to High-Effort Firmsrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 31 (4) 806ndash12

Moreau C Page Leff Bonney and Kelly B Herd (2011) ldquoItrsquos theThought (and the Effort) That Counts How Customizing forOthers Differs from Customizing for Oneselfrdquo Journal ofMarketing 75 (5) 120ndash33

Norton Michael I Daniel Mochon and Dan Ariely (2012) ldquoThelsquoIkearsquo Effect When Labor Leads to Loverdquo Journal ofConsumer Psychology 22 (July) 453ndash60

Page Christine and Paul M Herr (2002) ldquoAn Investigation ofthe Processes by Which Product Design and Brand StrengthInteract to Determine Initial Affect and QualityJudgmentsrdquo Journal of Consumer Psychology 12 (2)133ndash47

Raghubir Priya and Eric A Greenleaf (2006) ldquoRatios inProportion What Should the Shape of the Package BerdquoJournal of Marketing 70 (2) 95ndash107

Raghunathan Rajagopal Rebecca Walker Naylor and Wayne DHoyer (2006) ldquoThe Unhealthy frac14 Tasty Intuition and ItsEffects on Taste Inferences Enjoyment and Choice of FoodProductsrdquo Journal of Marketing 70 (4) 170ndash84

Reber Rolf Norbert Schwarz and Piotr Winkielman (2004)ldquoProcessing Fluency and Aesthetic Pleasure Is Beauty in thePerceiverrsquos Processing Experiencerdquo Personality and SocialPsychology Review 8 (4) 364ndash82

Reber Rolf Piotr Winkielman and Norbert Schwarz (1998)ldquoEffects of Perceptual Fluency on Affective JudgmentsrdquoPsychological Science 9 (1) 45ndash48

Reimann Martin Judith Zaichkowksy Carolin Neuhaus ThomasBender and Bernd Weber (2010) ldquoAesthetic PackageDesign A Behavioral Neural and PsychologicalInvestigationrdquo Journal of Consumer Psychology 20 (4)431ndash41

Santayana George (18961955) The Sense of Beauty New YorkDover

Scott Maura L Stephen M Nowlis Naomi Mandel and AndreaC Morales (2008) ldquoThe Effects of Reduced Food Size andPackage Size on the Consumption Behavior of Restrainedand Unrestrained Eatersrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 35(3) 391ndash405

Spencer Steven J Mark P Zanna and Geoffrey T Fong (2005)ldquoEstablishing a Causal Chain Why Experiments Are OftenMore Effective than Mediational Analyses in ExaminingPsychological Processesrdquo Journal of Personality and SocialPsychology 89 (6) 845ndash51

Spiller Stephen A Gavan J Fitzsimons John G Lynch Jr andGary H McClelland (2013) ldquoSpotlights Floodlights andthe Magic Number Zero Simple Effects Tests inModerated Regressionrdquo Journal of Marketing Research 50(2) 277ndash88

Thompson Debora V Rebecca W Hamilton and Roland T Rust(2005) ldquoFeature Fatigue When Product CapabilitiesBecome Too Much of a Good Thingrdquo Journal of MarketingResearch 42 (November) 431ndash42

Townsend Claudia and Suzanne B Shu (2010) ldquoWhen and HowAesthetics Influences Financial Decisionsrdquo Journal ofConsumer Psychology 20 (4) 452ndash58

Townsend Claudia and Sanjay Sood (2012) ldquoSelf-Affirmationthrough the Choice of Highly Aesthetic Productsrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 39 (2) 415ndash28

Veryzer Robert W and J Wesley Hutchinson (1998) ldquoTheInfluence of Unity and Prototypicality on Aesthetic

WU ET AL 21

Responses to New Product Designsrdquo Journal of ConsumerResearch 24 (4) 374ndash94

Wada Yuji Carlos Arce-Lopera Tomohiro Masuda AtsushiKimura Ippeita Dan Sho-ichi Goto Daisuke Tsuzuki andKatsunori Okajima (2010) ldquoInfluence of LuminanceDistribution on the Appetizingly Fresh Appearance ofCabbagerdquo Appetite 54 (2) 363ndash68

Weiner Bernard (2000) ldquoAttributional Thoughts and ConsumerBehaviorrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 27 (December)382ndash87

Witz Anne Chris Warhurst and Dennis Nickson (2003) ldquoTheLabour of Aesthetics and The Aesthetics of OrganizationrdquoOrganization 10 (1) 33ndash54

Yamamoto Mel and David R Lambert (1994) ldquoThe Impact ofProduct Aesthetics on the Evaluation of Industrial ProductsrdquoJournal of Product Innovation Management 11 (4) 309ndash24

Yang Sha and Priya Raghubir (2005) ldquoCan Bottles SpeakVolumes The Effect of Package Shape on How Much toBuyrdquo Journal of Retailing 81 (4) 269ndash82

22 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

  • ucx057-FN1
  • ucx057-FN2
  • ucx057-FN3
  • ucx057-FN4
  • app1
  • app2
  • ucx057-TF1
  • ucx057-TF2
Page 11: It’s Too Pretty to Use! When and How Enhanced Product ...gavan/bio/GJF_articles/...testing the prediction that aesthetic products can elicit greater perceptions of effort. In line

comparative design in which participants are presented withboth higher and lower aesthetic products at once and areasked to make a choice between them This design allowsus to extend the generalizability of our findings to contextswhere consumers are faced with products of differing levelsof aesthetic appeal and have to choose one to immediatelyconsume Moreover study 4 replaces floral napkins withturquoise napkins in the higher aesthetic condition therebyusing especially subtle aesthetic stimuli to reveal that evenin the absence of product design changes in aesthetic ap-peal through other means (eg color) can shape consump-tion decisions in the same manner

Finally study 4 helps us test the alternative explanationthat concerns over how the product will look after usageor anticipated decrements in the productrsquos beauty aloneare driving lower consumption likelihood independent ofeffort inferences If this is the case the likelihood of usingaesthetically appealing products should not differ as afunction of expended effort since consumers should al-ways be less likely to use a beautiful product irrespectiveof the effort involved in its creation However if consump-tion likelihood is indeed affected by inferred effort thenchanges in inferred effort should systematically impactconsumption likelihood a relationship we examine directlyin study 4

Method

Participants and Procedure Two hundred forty-sixparticipants were recruited from Amazon MechanicalTurk to participate in a two-cell (intervention conditionno information control vs higher aesthetics frac14 lower ef-fort) between-subjects study in exchange for paymentSeven people participated in this study twice and wereexcluded yielding a final sample of 239 participants (48female [six did not report gender] median age frac14 31 ages18ndash69)

Study 4 used the same guided visualization scenario asstudy 3 where participants imagined visiting their localbakery and accidentally spilling coffee while they wereworking However this time they saw two separatestacks of napkins they could use to clean up the spillThe napkins were turquoise (higher aesthetic option) orplain white (lower aesthetic option see appendix A row4 for images) and both napkin images were presented atonce Additional details are available in the webappendix

At this point participants in the control condition pro-ceeded directly to a choice task in which they indicated whichtype of napkin they would use to clean up the spill On theother hand participants in the higher aestheticsfrac14 lower effortcondition were first told that as they looked at the napkinsthey recalled that a friend who used to work for this bakeryhad told them that it actually takes less effort and time forcompanies to manufacture the blue napkins than it does to

make and bleach the white ones2 Next participants in thislower effort condition completed the choice task After theirchoice all participants indicated how much they thought thenapkins cost (1 frac14 very little 7 frac14 quite a lot)

Results and Discussion

Conceptually replicating prior studies in the controlcondition where no effort inferences were made salientparticipants were less likely to choose the higher aestheticblue napkins to clean up the spill (1983 blue vs8017white) However this lower usage likelihood was re-versed when the higher aesthetic blue napkins elicitedlower perceptions of effort (6356blue vs 3644white v2

(1) frac14 4707 (n frac14 239) p lt 001) Importantly the choiceeffects continue to hold when we control for perceived cost(p lt 001)

Discussion Study 4 offers convergent support for theproposed underlying process by showing that the reducedconsumption of highly aesthetic products is reversed whenthese products elicit lower effort inferences As revealedby the pretest (see footnote 2) in the control conditionwhere no effort information was made salient participantsascribed greater effort to the higher aesthetic blue napkinand were less likely to use it but when this blue napkinwas thought to require less effort to produce participantsbecame more likely to use it Notably unlike our priorstudies study 4 employed a comparative design in whichparticipants saw higher and lower aesthetic options at thesame time mirroring real life where consumers encountermultiple product offerings with differing aesthetic appealand have to choose one to use

These results also suggest that anticipated decrements inbeauty alone or concerns over what the aesthetic productwill look like after consumption are unlikely to inhibitconsumption Such projected losses of beauty are not evi-dent before consumption has occurred when the highlyaesthetic product is still in pristine beautiful condition Ifexpected drops in the aesthetic appeal of the product alonehad been responsible for driving reduced consumption in-dividuals would have been equally inhibited from using thehigher aesthetic napkin irrespective of effort inferencesSuch an alternative is inconsistent with the reversal in us-age likelihood we observed in the higher aesthetics frac14lower effort condition since the aesthetic appeal of the

2 A pretest confirmed the validity of study 4rsquos effort manipulationParticipants (n frac14 201) completed a 2 (aesthetics) 2 (effort interven-tion) between-subjects study where they read the same scenario butwere randomly assigned a napkin choice and asked to make effortinferences about the napkin Results revealed a significant interaction(p lt 001) Whereas in the control condition the higher aesthetic nap-kin elicited higher perceptions of effort (Mcontrol higher aesthetic frac14 391vs Mcontrol lower aesthetic frac14 335 p lt 04) this pattern reversed in thelow effort condition (Mlow effort higher aesthetic frac14 302 vs Mlow effort lower

aesthetic frac14 431 p lt 001) Procedural details and full results are avail-able in the web appendix

WU ET AL 11

napkins remained constant only the perceived effort hadchanged Thus we provide further evidence for the prem-ise that consumers strongly link aesthetics and effort andshow that for consumption to be reduced the highly aes-thetic product must signal higher effort in addition to itsaesthetic qualities

Notably while our results support the notion that antici-pated drops in beauty alone are insufficient to lead to a re-duction in consumption likelihood it is also worthmentioning that because effort and beauty are inextricablylinked constructs concerns over destroying effort mayshare to some extent overlapping variance with concernsover the imminent losses of beauty This suggests that inother contexts anticipated decrements in beauty may alsoplay a role in driving usage potentially for products of ex-treme aesthetic appeal that are more defined by theirbeauty as opposed to the colored napkins used hereNonetheless in the current context the results demonstratethat shifting perceptions about the amount of effort neededto create a higher aesthetic product is sufficient to over-come any inhibition to consume it

We next provide additional evidence for our conceptual-ization by investigating a theoretically driven individualdifference that affects the degree to which effort is inher-ently appreciated and by extension should influence deci-sions to use highly aesthetic products

STUDY 5 THE ROLE OF IMPLICIT SELF-THEORIES IN SHAPING USAGE

Based on our theory because the higher effort as-cribed to beautiful products underlies their lower likeli-hood of usage such a reduction should be moderated bythe degree to which effort is intrinsically valued or peo-plersquos implicit self-theories According to research on im-plicit self-theories entity theorists view their personalqualities as stable and unable to be enhanced by self-improvement while incremental theorists view thesequalities as flexible and able to be cultivated through la-bor and effort (Dweck 2000) Similarly entity theoriststend to view effort as ineffective and pointless while in-cremental theorists are more optimistic that their effortscarry intrinsic value and will eventually bear fruit(Dweck and Leggett 1988)

We propose that beyond the recognition of personal ef-fort implicit self-theories affect the extent to which con-sumers appreciate othersrsquo effort and by extension theeffort that goes into the creation of highly aesthetic prod-ucts To test this prediction we conducted a correlationalstudy examining the relationship between implicit self-theories and the propensity to appreciate effort-laden prod-ucts Participants (n frac14 134) first completed the implicitself-theories scale (Levy Stroessner and Dweck 1998)where higher (lower) scores indicate greater endorsement

of incremental (entity) self-theory Next they indicatedtheir agreement with five items reflecting appreciation forothersrsquo effort (eg I notice when people work really hardto create something3 all anchored at 1 frac14 strongly disagree7 frac14 strongly agree a frac14 91) We found a significant posi-tive correlation (r frac14 23 p lt 01) such that incrementallyoriented individuals were more likely to appreciate thingsthat reflect a great deal of effort

Thus based on this appreciation for othersrsquo effort in study5 we predict that incremental theorists will be less likely toconsume products that are highly aesthetic and by extensionladen with effort By contrast because entity theorists havelower intrinsic appreciation for effort they will be equallylikely to use a product regardless of its aesthetic appeal

Method

Participants and Procedure One hundred eighty-seven undergraduate students from a southwesternuniversity participated in a 2 (aesthetics higher vs lower) continuous (implicit self-theories) between-subjectsstudy in exchange for partial course credit Two partici-pants reported having a gluten allergy that prevented themfrom consuming the goldfish crackers accompanying thenapkins An additional 11 participants were excluded fromthe analysismdashone respondent participated in this studytwice and 10 had missing data on implicit self-theorieswhich we had measured in a separate presurvey severalweeks prior to the focal study Thus the final sample com-prised 174 participants (52 female [four did not reportgender] median age frac14 21 ages 18ndash41)

Study 5 employed the same cover story about pairingfoods with videos used in study 2 but this time usingPepperidge Farm goldfish crackers We chose these crack-ers because they are slightly messy to eatmdashpeople wouldwant to use a napkin but did not necessarily have to creat-ing an ideal context within which to test our hypothesesParticipants received an individual pack of goldfish crack-ers along with a paper napkin which was either decorativewith a white background (higher aesthetic condition) orplain white (lower aesthetic condition) (both 61=2 inchessquare see appendix A row 5 for images) Importantlythe experimenter gave no explicit instructions on what to dowith this napkin Of note in addition to the pretest assessingdifferent levels of aesthetic appeal between the two napkinsanother between-subjects pretest (n frac14 81) showed that partic-ipants liked the higher (vs lower) aesthetic napkin and its de-sign more (Mhigher aesthetic frac14 516 vs Mlower aesthetic frac14 365t(79) frac14 ndash516 p lt 001 r frac14 87) but both napkins were

3 The other items were (2) I really appreciate it when somebodytakes the time and effort to make something (3) I treasure somethingmore when I know a lot of effort has gone into creating it (4) I havean appreciation for products that reflect a great deal of effort on themakerrsquos part and (5) I value something more when I know it took alot of time and energy to produce

12 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

rated as equally versatile in their usage (Mhigher aesthetic frac14 580vs Mlower aesthetic frac14 591 t(79) frac14 47 p gt 60 a frac14 91)Additional pretest details are available in the web appendix

Participants were told to watch a 35 minute video onwildlife animals while they ate the crackers and that theywere free to eat as much or as little as they liked Once par-ticipants finished the video the experimenter collected thenapkin and any leftover crackers and recorded whether thenapkin had been used or not (0 frac14 no 1 frac14 yes) in anotherroom A napkin was coded as ldquousedrdquo if it showed any signsof usage (ie had any food stains on it looked crumpled orhad been used to spit out gum) and was coded as ldquounusedrdquoonly if it appeared untouched and in pristine condition mak-ing it a highly conservative test of our hypotheses To againensure that perceived cost was not influencing our focal ef-fects we asked participants how much they would be will-ing to pay for a pack of napkins (ie dollar value) Finallyparticipants completed a series of filler measures that as-sessed how interesting the video was and how much theyliked eating goldfish crackers in general

Results and Discussion

A 2 (aesthetics condition) continuous (implicit self-theories) logistic regression on napkin usage behavior(used yes no) was performed Regressing usage behavioron the aesthetics manipulation mean-centered levels ofimplicit self-theories and their interaction revealed a sig-nificant simple effect of aesthetics at the mean of implicitself-theories (b frac14 ndash37 Wald v2 frac14 460 p frac14 03) suchthat a smaller percentage of people used the napkin in the

higher aesthetic condition across all participants conceptu-ally replicating prior studies Importantly the interactionwas also significant (b frac14 ndash30 Wald v2 frac14 419 p frac14 04see figure 3) Notably this interaction continued to holdeven when we controlled for willingness to pay (p lt 04)We used the Johnson-Neyman technique to identify therange of implicit self-theories for which the simple effectof the aesthetics manipulation was significant where lowervalues imply an entity-oriented mindset while higher val-ues imply an incrementally oriented mindset We found asignificant reduction in usage of the higher aesthetic deco-rative (vs lower aesthetic white) paper napkin for anyvalue of implicit self-theories above 406 (at p lt 05) butnot for any value less than 406 In other words incremen-tal theorists were less likely to use a higher (vs lower) aes-thetic napkin whereas entity theorists were equally likelyto use a napkin regardless of its appearance

Discussion In study 5 we provide further evidence forour proposed mechanism by showing that implicit self-theories or consumersrsquo chronic appreciation for investedeffort shapes decisions to use an aesthetically pleasingproduct Incremental theorists who are more appreciativeof effort were less likely to use a higher aesthetic decora-tive napkin than a lower aesthetic plain white napkin butsuch effects were not observed among entity theorists whohave lower intrinsic appreciation for effort We have nowreliably established the inhibiting effect of product aes-thetics on consumption across multiple products and con-sumption contexts and provided convergent support for theunderlying mechanism In our final two studies we

FIGURE 3

AESTHETICS IMPLICIT SELF-THEORIES ON NAPKIN USAGE (STUDY 5)

WU ET AL 13

elucidate the drivers of post-consumption emotions whileholding usage constant thereby allowing us to hone in onpost-consumption consequences in a more controlledfashion since people are inherently less likely to usehigher aesthetic products which could potentially result inself-selection issues

STUDY 6A DECREMENTS IN BEAUTYAND POST-CONSUMPTION AFFECT

Recall in study 2 that when the cupcake was highly aes-thetic consumption enjoyment was lower among individ-uals most motivated to engage in consumption (ie hungryindividuals) an effect we propose is determined by twoprocesses working in tandem First we expect that the ef-fort inferences made prior to consumption will continue todrive emotional outcomes given the consumption processinvolves the actual destruction of effort Second and onlyevident post-consumption are the decrements in beautythat aesthetic products undergo when their aesthetic quali-ties are visibly compromised through usage Because beau-tiful products are inherently pleasurable (Reber et al 2004Reimann et al 2010) we predict that individuals will expe-rience less pleasure and more negative affect when theywitness highly aesthetic products undergo steeper drops inbeauty as a result of consumption Consistent with prospecttheoryrsquos value function (Kahneman and Tversky 1979)initial changesmdashhere the larger losses of beauty associatedwith the usage of a higher (vs lower) aesthetic productmdashshould be particularly jarring and lead to more negative af-fect (Frederick and Loewenstein 1999)

Importantly unlike in study 2 where we measured theamount consumed as well as post-consumption enjoymentin study 6A we hold usage constant in the higher andlower aesthetic conditions and hone in on the changes inbeauty with a longitudinal study design Specifically theobjective of study 6A is to extend prior work on the rela-tionship between beauty and pleasure by establishing itscorollarymdashthat the consumption of a higher (vs lower)aesthetic product will lead to greater perceived losses ofbeauty and that such decrements in beauty will in turnhave a negative influence on post-consumption affect Wemeasure this decrement by capturing aesthetic judgmentsimmediately before and after usage

Method

Participants and Procedure Four hundred sixteen par-ticipants were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk toparticipate in a 2 (aesthetics higher vs lower between) 2(aesthetic judgment before vs after usage within) mixed-design study in exchange for payment Six individuals par-ticipated in this study twice and four had missing data onthe focal dependent measures and were excluded from theanalysis yielding a final sample of 406 participants (54

female [11 did not report gender] median age frac14 30 ages18ndash76)

The procedure was similar to that of study 3 featuringthe same bakery scenario and stimuli but with several mod-ifications After participants were initially presented witheither the higher or lower aesthetic napkins following thespill they immediately completed two semantic differen-tial items of aesthetic evaluations for these unused napkinson seven-point scales ldquonot at all prettyvery prettyrdquo andldquonot at all uglyvery uglyrdquo (reverse-coded) which havebeen shown in prior work to capture aesthetic judgments(Reber Winkielman and Schwarz 1998 r frac14 47) Aftercompleting these baseline aesthetic judgment measuresparticipants proceeded with the scenario They were toldthey realized they would need to grab at least 10 napkins tocome close to cleaning up the spill and were subsequentlyshown a stack of unused napkins The scenario ended withan image of a bundle of napkins now drenched with cof-fee that were used to clean up the spill Additional detailsof the procedure are available in the web appendix

Immediately after reading the scenario participantscompleted the same set of aesthetic judgment items a sec-ond time this time rating the coffee-drenched napkinswhich served as a measure of post-usage aesthetic judg-ments Participants then indicated to what extent they ex-perienced each of the following negative emotions whilethey were using the napkins to clean up the spill stressedregretful bad afraid fearful sad sorry and guilty whichwe combined into an index of post-consumption negativeaffect (1 frac14 not at all 7 frac14 very much so afrac14 91)

Results and Discussion

We predicted that participants would experience greaternegative affect after using the higher (vs lower) aestheticnapkins an effect that would be driven by the larger decre-ments in beauty that stem from the consumption of higheraesthetic products

Emotions A one-way ANOVA on negative emotionsexperienced after consumption revealed that participantswho used the higher aesthetic floral napkins to clean up thespill felt more negative affect than those who used thelower aesthetic white napkins (Mhigher aesthetic frac14 305 vsMlower aesthetic frac14 246 F(1 404) frac14 1686 p lt 001)

Decrements in Beauty (Longitudinal) A 2 (aestheticshigher vs lower) 2 (timing before usage vs after usage)mixed ANOVA on aesthetic judgments yielded main ef-fects of both aesthetics (F(1 404) frac14 10652 p lt 001) andtiming (F(1 404) frac14 125629 p lt 001) which were quali-fied by a significant aesthetics timing interaction (F(1404) frac14 5302 p lt 001) Planned contrasts revealed thatwhereas the higher aesthetic napkins elicited more favor-able aesthetic judgments than the lower aesthetic napkinsbefore usage (Mhigher frac14 594 vs Mlower frac14 447 F(1 404)

14 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

frac14 15269 p lt 001) this difference was substantiallyreduced after usage (Mhigher frac14 237 vs Mlower frac14 211F(1 404) frac14 484 p frac14 03) Importantly and arguably mostcentral to our research the decrement in aesthetic ratingsthrough usage was significantly larger in the higher aes-thetic conditionmdashin fact 151 largermdashthan that observedin the lower aesthetic condition (ie a drop of 357 unitsvs a drop of 236 units)

Mediation Finally we are interested in whether decre-ments in aesthetic judgment emanating from product usageunderlie post-consumption affect Consistent with predic-tions mediation analysis (model 4 Hayes 2013) revealedthat the indirect effect of aesthetics on negative affectthrough changes in aesthetic judgment was significant (b frac1415 95 CI [04 29]) suggesting that product aestheticsaffected the experience of negative emotions through thelarger losses of beauty resulting from the consumption ofhigher aesthetic products

Discussion While past work has shown that aestheticsare inextricably linked with pleasure (Reber et al 2004Reimann et al 2010) study 6A extends this body of re-search by revealing that in the context of nondurable prod-ucts where consumption entails damaging product designnot only does the usage of higher (vs lower) aestheticproducts result in larger decrements in beauty but suchlosses also drive greater negative affect after consumptionNotably while we asked participants to assess the aestheticqualities of the napkins before and immediately after usageto more precisely capture the changes in beauty we ob-served we recognize that this design may have caused theaesthetic appeal of the napkins to be more salient prior toconsumption making its decrement therefore more pro-nounced after consumption Thus having established thatbeauty decrements resulting from aesthetic product usageunderlie post-consumption affect in study 6B we measurethis change in a less invasive manner after consumptionWe also integrate changes in beauty and effort inferencesinto emotional reactions linked to consumption

STUDY 6B TESTING THE FULLCONCEPTUAL MODEL FOR POST-

CONSUMPTION AFFECT

The goal of study 6B is to elucidate the drivers of post-consumption emotions while continuing to hold usage con-stant in both conditions thereby allowing us to test the fullconceptual model in a more controlled fashion As alludedto in study 6A the inherently lower consumption likeli-hood of higher aesthetic products could potentially resultin self-selection issues In study 6B we predict that partici-pants will experience more negative affect after using ahigher (vs lower) aesthetic product an effect driven in tan-dem by effort inferences as well as changes in beauty

Further we try to better understand consumersrsquo emotionalreactions after aesthetic product usage by not highlightingthe productrsquos aesthetic qualities beforehand Finally wemeasure implicit self-theories to examine whether onersquos in-herent degree of effort appreciation moderates post-consumption negative affect

Method

Participants and Procedure Four hundred participantswere recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk to partici-pate in a two-cell (aesthetics higher vs lower) between-subjects study in exchange for payment Ten individualsparticipated in this study twice and 17 had missing data onthe focal dependent measures and were excluded from theanalysis yielding a final sample of 373 participants (55female [two did not report gender] median age frac14 32 ages18ndash76)

The study design of study 6B was almost identical tothat of study 6A aside from several modifications Firstparticipants completed the same negative emotion indexfrom study 6A (afrac14 91) immediately after reading the sce-nario instead of after aesthetics judgment measures (whichwere not included in this study) Second instead of assess-ing aesthetic ratings at two separate points in time we uti-lized a new single cross-sectional measure to capturedecrements in beauty post-consumption ldquoBy using thenapkins it felt like I was turning something that was oncebeautiful into something uglyrdquo (1 frac14 strongly disagree 7 frac14strongly agree) Next to examine effort inferences as a par-allel driver of negative affect after consumption partici-pants completed the same effort inferences and effortdestruction measures from study 3 although these mea-sures are distinct from study 3 in that they were assessedafter usage had already taken place Finally participantscompleted the implicit self-theories scale

Results and Discussion

Emotions Replicating study 6A a one-way ANOVAon negative emotions revealed that participants who usedthe higher aesthetic floral napkins to clean up the spill feltmore negative affect than those who used the lower aestheticwhite napkins (Mhigher aesthetic frac14 313 vs Mlower aesthetic frac14283 F(1 371) frac14 394 p lt 05) Of note this main effectdid not interact with implicit self-theories (p gt 30) sug-gesting that both incremental and entity theorists experi-enced more negative affect after using the higher (vslower) aesthetic napkins to clean up the spill a finding werevisit in the discussion section

Decrements in Beauty (Cross-Sectional) A one-wayANOVA on changes in beauty indicated that the higheraesthetic napkin underwent greater decrements in beautythrough consumption (Mhigher frac14 263 vs Mlower frac14 177F(1 371) frac14 2671 p lt 001)

WU ET AL 15

Effort Inferences A one-way ANOVA on effort infer-ences indicated that participants ascribed greater effort tothe higher aesthetic napkins (Mhigher frac14 349 vs Mlower frac14287 F(1 371) frac14 1359 p lt 001)

Effort Destruction A one-way ANOVA on concernsabout effort destruction indicated that participants hadstronger concerns that effort had been destroyed in thehigher aesthetic condition (Mhigher frac14 262 vs Mlower frac14200 F(1 371) frac14 1355 p lt 001)

Mediation Finally we conducted two separate media-tion analyses one testing the path of product aesthetics decrements in beauty negative affect (model 4 Hayes2013) and the other testing the serial path of product aes-thetics effort inferences concerns about effort de-struction negative affect (model 6) Results from thefirst analysis revealed that the indirect effect of aestheticson negative affect through changes in beauty was signifi-cant (b frac14 37 95 CI [23 54]) suggesting that productaesthetics affected the experience of negative emotionsthrough larger decrements in beauty in the higher aestheticcondition Second the indirect effect of aesthetics on nega-tive affect through effort inferences and concerns about ef-fort destruction (in serial) was also significant (b frac14 1295 CI [06 23]) as was the indirect effect of aestheticson negative affect through effort destruction alone (b frac1411 95 CI [01 23])

Finally we also included beauty decrements effort in-ferences and effort destruction into the model as parallelmediators to gain greater understanding of the relativestrength of these drivers This analysis revealed that whenall three mediators were in the model the indirect effectthrough decrements in beauty remained significant (b frac1422 95 CI [11 36]) as did the indirect effect througheffort destruction (b frac14 15 95 CI [06 27]) Taken to-gether these results suggest that while concerns about ef-fort destruction continue to play a role in driving theemotional outcomes of aesthetic product usage the decre-ments in beauty that become evident only after an aestheticproduct has been visibly compromised through consump-tion also lead to negative affect

Discussion Study 6B which allowed us to examinethe entire post-consumption conceptual model revealedthat people who used higher (vs lower) aesthetic napkinssubsequently experienced greater negative affect an effectdriven by two processes operating in parallel concernsabout the destruction of effort and decrements in beauty Inother words the consumption experience was associatedwith more negative affect because the consumption processnot only involved the actual destruction of effort but italso took a beautiful product that was typified by pleasureand transformed it into something marked by displeasure

We should also note that we replicated the post-consumption findings with actual paper napkins in a lab

context In a separate study using study 5rsquos procedure par-ticipants watched a video and received a snack to eat alongwith a higher versus lower aesthetic napkin and then indi-cated how they felt about the consumption experienceParticipants who chose to use their higher aesthetic napkinreported feeling more negative affect relative to whosewho chose to use their lower aesthetic napkin (p frac14 04)and relative to those who did not use their higher aestheticnapkin (p lt 01) Thus aesthetic product usage increasednegative affect even when consumers could choose to ei-ther use the aesthetic product or not and when the aestheticproduct (the napkin) was tangential to the affect measurescollected which specifically pertained to the video-watching and snack-eating task Additional details areavailable in the web appendix

Though we provide evidence that effort inferences con-tinued to partially drive consumer responses to beautifulproducts after usage it is interesting to note that post-consumption affect was not moderated by the degree towhich effort is intrinsically appreciated (ie implicit self-theories) While unexpected we speculate that this may oc-cur because post-consumption enjoyment is not exclusivelydriven by effort inferences Since losses of beauty alsoplay a substantial role in shaping emotional outcomes afterconsumption the beauty decrements associated with aes-thetic product usage may have brought entity theorists to asimilar emotional state as incremental theorists resultingin everybody feeling worse off after consumption irrespec-tive of individual differences in effort appreciation Morebroadly since post-consumption affect appears to be multi-ply determined it is difficult to completely disentangle thenegative affect stemming from the destruction of effortfrom the negative affect stemming from decrements inbeauty Study 6B offers a distinct test of this conjecturesince it made usage (and hence losses of beauty) salientthrough images of visibly used napkins

GENERAL DISCUSSION

Across a series of laboratory and field studies using avariety of nondurable product categories and consumptionsituations we reveal the negative impact of enhanced prod-uct aesthetics on usage and post-consumption conse-quences First we document an inhibiting effect of productaesthetics on consumption behaviors for disposable andperishable products in both real-world (study 1) and lab(study 2) settings Next we shed light on the drivers of us-age likelihood using mediation (study 3) a context-basedboundary condition (study 4) and a theoretically derivedindividual difference moderator (study 5) thereby provid-ing convergent support for an underlying process based oneffort Finally in studies 6A and 6B we hold product us-age constant to elucidate the drivers of post-consumptionaffect and show that the decrements in beauty that

16 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

aesthetic products inherently undergo as a result of con-sumption combined with concerns that one has actuallydestroyed effort underlie these effects

Theoretical Contributions Our work makes severaltheoretical contributions First while prior research hasshown that consumers respond favorably to both productaesthetics and effort we believe we are the first to establisha causal relationship between these constructs We findthat highly aesthetic products can elicit greater perceptionsof effort regardless of whether this effort was exerted dur-ing product design physical production or both processesWe further reveal that these effort inferences are not lim-ited to handmade products such as perishable foods butalso apply to mass-produced products such as consumerpackaged disposable goods

Second while existing literature suggests that consumerpreferences should increase as a function of a productrsquos aes-thetic appeal the prevailing ways of assessing the impact ofaesthetics on consumer preference have been limited to pur-chase intentions product evaluations and choice (Hagtvedtand Patrick 2008 Raghubir and Greenleaf 2006 Reimannet al 2010 Townsend and Shu 2010) Surprisingly the role ofaesthetics after choice has received little empirical attention todate Despite the stimulating effect that enhanced product aes-thetics have on choice and pre-usage evaluations our resultssuggest that once beautiful products are acquired consumersmay be less likely to consume them because the higher infer-ences of effort attributed to their creation elicit stronger con-cerns that such effort would be destroyed during consumption

This research also shows that the impact of implicit self-theories on consumer behavior may be more pervasivethan previously thought While prior research in psychol-ogy has shown that incremental and entity theorists carrydissimilar beliefs about the value of their own effort(Dweck 2000) we provide support for the novel predictionthat beyond the recognition of personal effort implicitself-theories affect the extent to which consumers appreci-ate the effort that goes into the creation of aestheticallyappealing products

Finally contrary to the notion that enhanced product aes-thetics are always beneficial to consumption enjoyment ourwork reveals that usage of highly aesthetic disposable prod-ucts can actually lower overall enjoyment of the consumptionexperience through two separate pathways (1) by elicitingconcerns that one has actually destroyed effort and (2) bycompromising the beauty that typically characterizes aestheticproducts Thus we add to the literature on aesthetics andpleasure by showing how the consumption of highly aestheticproducts can result in larger losses of beauty and that suchdecrements in turn drive the relationship between aestheticproduct consumption and negative affect

More generally these findings speak to researchthat explores when and why the drivers of predicted andexperienced utility might diverge For instance

Thompson et al (2005) found that consumersrsquo initial desirefor product capability before purchase leads them to chooseproducts packed with features but their growing desire forproduct usability after usage leads them to ultimately prefersimpler products Similarly Lee and Tsai (2014) showedthat price promotions can stimulate sales but lower atten-tion during consumption which in turn reduces consump-tion enjoyment In the same vein despite the delightinitially elicited by the choice of beautiful products wedemonstrate that enhanced aesthetics have the ability tolater discourage usage and lower consumption enjoyment

Substantive Implications Our findings carry importantpractical implications as they pose an interesting dilemmato managers While conventional wisdom suggests that mar-keters should strive to invest the highest degree of effort intomaking their products look aesthetically pleasing at least tothe extent that company resources will allow our researchreveals that the story is not so simple Enhancing productaesthetics might positively affect initial attention interestand choice but should be considered with caution given thatsuch increased appeal could inhibit usage and reduce enjoy-ment relative to less aesthetically appealing productsRelatedly people likely consume highly aesthetic disposableproducts more slowly which could affect interpurchasetime Thus the pursuit of product aesthetics and improvedshort-term sales must be constantly balanced against theneed to encourage consumption ensure customer satisfac-tion and maintain long-term profitability Still certain prod-ucts such as beautiful candles and soaps may serve adecorative purpose in addition to their basic utilitarian func-tion and consequently may also carry intrinsic aestheticvalue Our recommendations are admittedly less straightfor-ward under such circumstances as consumers are able toderive utility from the productsrsquo enhanced aesthetics simplyby displaying them

Our results also have clear implications for managersand policy makers interested in promoting conservationand sustainable business practices A growing number ofretail and service establishments have been switching tounbleached paper products as the traditional bleachingprocess that removes imperfections and gives paper itswhite appearance also produces hazardous chemicals (egchlorine and dioxins) that are harmful to the environment(Evans 2010) While the transition to unbleached paperproducts has benefited the environment the results fromour investigation suggest the growing popularity of thistrend may be a double-edged sword To the extent thatunbleached paper products are considered less aestheticallyappealing consumers may show less restraint in usingthem leading to backfiring effects for conservation effortsPut another way the positive environmental impact of pro-ducing unbleached paper products could potentially be off-set by consumersrsquo reduced inhibition in consuming theseproducts Thus increasing the aesthetic appeal of products

WU ET AL 17

may actually be an effective way for companies to promoteenvironmentally sustainable behaviors even after incorpo-rating the increased cost of implementing such practices

Finally given that rising obesity rates are a major publichealth concern traced to increased consumption (Chandonand Wansink 2007) there has been burgeoning interest inthe various factors that shape consumer food choices (Corniland Chandon 2016 McFerran et al 2010 Scott et al 2008)The results of study 2 suggest that one way to curb overeat-ing might be to enhance the aesthetic presentation of foodproducts especially hedonic foods Of course additionalresearch is needed to better explore the impact of aestheticsin this important area given the counteracting effects thatfood aesthetics exert on consumption versus enjoyment

Limitations and Future Research While the current setof studies was designed to elucidate perceived effort as anunderlying mechanism of lower usage of aestheticallyappealing products we recognize that this phenomenonlike many is likely driven by multiple processes (FuchsSchreier and van Osselaer 2015) Indeed as evident in ourresearch consumption likelihood and consumption enjoy-ment each have distinct sets of drivers For instance whilewe accounted for cost across multiple studies and demon-strated that our effects held even after we controlled for theperceived price of the product we believe that cost maycertainly play a role in certain situations For example cer-tain highly aesthetic products elicit perceptions of luxury(Hagtvedt and Patrick 2008) and may consequently reduceconsumption because they appear ldquotoo expensive to userdquoand cost may even interact with aesthetics under certaincircumstances to impact consumption such that the infer-ences of effort typically ascribed to aesthetically appealingproducts could be mitigated if people are told that theywere extremely inexpensive

In addition classic research by Loewenstein (1987)showed that people often prefer to delay consumption ofenjoyable experiences It may be that people are averse toimmediately consuming a highly aesthetic product becausethey are able to derive more utility by savoring the experi-ence and postponing consumption Further as alluded to instudy 4 it is possible that anticipated decrements in beautymay play a larger role in shaping usage in other consump-tion contexts Thus while we focus on the role of effortinferences in driving lower usage of highly aesthetic prod-ucts we are cognizant of the fact that other mechanismslikely exist which would provide intriguing avenues forfurther investigation

It would also be interesting to examine whether the neg-ative influence of enhanced aesthetics would hold acrossdifferent consumption contexts That is are there situationswhere the present phenomenon would not emerge Indeedone could argue that service establishments such as upscalerestaurants and luxury resorts which regularly pampertheir guests with beautifully plated entrees and folded

towel animals would eventually be driven out of businessif the consumption of highly aesthetic products alwaysresulted in lower enjoyment We believe that whether theusage of highly aesthetic products is accompanied bydecreased consumption and increased negative affect willhinge on the nature of the consumption environment Priorresearch indicates that our surroundings are capable ofautomatically eliciting normative behaviors when situa-tional norms are well established (Aarts and Dijksterhuis2003) Extending this perspective it is possible that theeffects observed in this article may be relatively weakenedwhen consumption occurs in environments characterizedby strong expectations to engage in indulgent consumptionsuch as in a fancy restaurant or luxurious hotel

Relatedly it would be interesting to examine whethercalling attention to fact that the aesthetic product if leftunconsumed will face inevitable destruction could enhanceconsumption likelihood and enjoyment to some extent par-ticularly for perishable products such as food4 Indeedrecent research has shown that consumers display a strongaversion to waste and unused utility (Bolton and Alba2012) Thus future studies should examine whether theeffects documented in this article could be attenuated ifthe inevitable destruction of effort is made salient to con-sumers (eg the product will go bad be thrown away orsomebody else will consume the product even if they donot) In summary future work should explore situationswhere enhanced aesthetics might carry more weight in theutility function for the overall consumption experienceand subsequently increase consumption and boostenjoyment

Another area for future research would be to examinewhether the destruction of product aesthetics is an ldquoall ornothingrdquo event such that any amount of consumption (evena single bite of a cupcake) would be viewed as destroyingthe productrsquos overall beauty While our experimentaldesigns did not allow us to examine whether destruction is acontinuous versus discrete function of consumption it isworth nothing that we did document lower usage acrossvarying degrees of consumption (eg consumption was con-tinuous in study 2 but discrete in study 5) and we did findthat different levels of consumption still led to reducedenjoyment Nevertheless we believe this is an importantempirical question worth investigating in the future

Finally while we have limited our analysis to nondura-bles (perishable and disposable products specifically) anintriguing path would be to investigate the potential moder-ating role of product durability on usage likelihood andsubsequent enjoyment of highly aesthetic products It maybe that the relative durability of the aesthetic product couldaffect individualsrsquo ability or motivation to anticipate decre-ments in beauty before consumption has occurred whichwould have implications for usage likelihood For instance

4 We thank one of the anonymous reviewers for this suggestion

18 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

with big-ticket high-involvement purchases such as sleekfurniture (eg a beautiful new white sectional sofa) con-sumers may more readily anticipate losses of beauty sincethey will have to live with and encounter the product on adaily basis even after its original beauty has faded or beentarnished through repeated use This may explain why cov-ering new furniture with plastic was at one time a verycommon practice (DiSalvo 2009)

On the other hand for nondurable lower-involvementproducts such as those used in the current research perhapspeople do not have the motivation or ability to considershifts in aesthetic appeal before consumption Furtherproducts often vary in their degree of durabilitymdasha delicateembroidered blanket while by no means nondurable or dis-posable may begin to show visible signs of wear and tearsooner than a fleece blanket Although the present researchspecifically focused on perishable and single-use productsit would be worth examining when and how the degree ofdurability or even perceptions of fragility might shapedecisions to use beautiful products

In conclusion our research documents an inhibitingeffect of enhanced product aesthetics on consumption par-ticularly for disposable and consumable nondurable prod-ucts Although beautiful products have the ability topromote positive pre-usage evaluations and stimulatechoice our work indicates that consumers are subsequentlyless likely to use them and those who do use them ulti-mately experience higher negative affect and lower enjoy-ment In addition different processes underlie consumerresponses to highly aesthetic products depending onwhether or not consumption has taken place Thus we con-clude that while products may never be too pretty tochoose they can in fact be too pretty to use

DATA COLLECTION INFORMATION

All studies were designed and analyzed by the first authorunder the guidance of the other authors The data for study 1was collected at the Scottsdale Pure Barre studio in fall2015 by research assistants and employees under the super-vision of the first author Research assistants collected thedata for studies 2 and 5 under the supervision of the firstauthor at the W P Carey School of Business MarketingDepartment Behavioral Lab in spring 2015 The data for theconceptual replication (reported in the discussion of study6B) was collected by research assistants under the supervi-sion of the first author at the W P Carey School ofBusiness Marketing Department Behavioral Lab in summer2015 The data for study 4 (both the effort manipulation pre-test and the main study) and the correlational study examin-ing the relationship between implicit self-theories andappreciation for othersrsquo effort were collected by the firstauthor using Amazon Mechanical Turk in spring 2016 Thefirst author collected the data for the aesthetic appeal pretest

(described in appendix B) studies 3 6A and 6B usingAmazon Mechanical Turk in summer 2016 Lastly researchassistants collected the data for the correlational study exam-ining the relationship between aesthetics and perceivedeffort (described in the table in ldquoThe Role of Effort inInhibiting Usagerdquo) under the supervision of the first authorat the W P Carey School of Business MarketingDepartment Behavioral Lab in fall 2016

APPENDIX A

STUDY STIMULI

WU ET AL 19

REFERENCES

Aarts Henk and Ap Dijksterhuis (2003) ldquoThe Silence of theLibrary Environment Situational Norm and SocialBehaviorrdquo Journal of Personality and Social Psychology84 (1) 18ndash28

Aharon Itzhak Nancy Etcoff Dan Ariely Christopher F ChabrisEthan OrsquoConnor and Hans C Breiter (2001) ldquoBeautifulFaces Have Variable Reward Value fMRI and BehavioralEvidencerdquo Neuron 32 (3) 537ndash51

Alba Joseph W and Elanor F Williams (2013) ldquoPleasurePrinciples A Review of Research on HedonicConsumptionrdquo Journal of Consumer Psychology 23 (1)2ndash18

Belk Russell W (1988) ldquoPossessions and the Extended SelfrdquoJournal of Consumer Research 15 (2) 139ndash67

Bem Daryl J (1972) Self-Perception Theory Stanford CAStanford University Press

Berridge Kent C (2009) ldquolsquoLikingrsquo and lsquoWantingrsquo Food RewardsBrain Substrates and Roles in Eating Disordersrdquo Physiologyamp Behavior 97 (5) 537ndash50

Bloch Peter H (1995) ldquoSeeking the Ideal Form Product Designand Consumer Responserdquo Journal of Marketing 59 (July)16ndash29

Bloch Peter H Frederic F Brunel and Todd J Arnold (2003)ldquoIndividual Differences in the Centrality of Visual ProductAesthetics Concept and Measurementrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 29 (4) 551ndash65

Bolton Lisa E and Joseph W Alba (2012) ldquoWhen Less Is MoreConsumer Aversion to Unused Utilityrdquo Journal of ConsumerPsychology 22 (3) 369ndash83

Brehm Jack W (1966) A Theory of Psychological ReactanceNew York Academic Press

Broniarczyk Susan M and Joseph W Alba (1994) ldquoThe Role ofConsumersrsquo Intuitions in Inference Makingrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 21 (3) 393ndash407

Cabanac Michel (1971) ldquoPhysiological Role of PleasurerdquoScience 173 (4002) 1103ndash7

mdashmdashmdash (1979) ldquoSensory Pleasurerdquo Quarterly Review of Biology54 (1) 1ndash29

mdashmdashmdash (1985) ldquoPreferring for Pleasurerdquo American Journal ofClinical Nutrition 42 (5) 1151ndash5

Chandon Pierre and Brian Wansink (2007) ldquoThe Biasing HealthHalos of Fast Food Restaurant Health Claims Lower CalorieEstimates and Higher Side-Dish Consumption IntentionsrdquoJournal of Consumer Research 34 (3) 301ndash14

Cornil Yann and Pierre Chandon (2016) ldquoPleasure as a Substitutefor Size How Multisensory Imagery Can Make PeopleHappier with Smaller Food Portionsrdquo Journal of MarketingResearch 53 (5) 847ndash64

Cleveland William S (1984) ldquoGraphical Methods for DataPresentation Full Scale Breaks Dot Charts and MultibasedLoggingrdquo The American Statistician 38 (4) 270ndash80

DiSalvo David (2009) ldquoThe Psychology of Plastic CouchCoversrdquo httpsneuronarrativewordpresscom20090119the-psychology-of-plastic-couch-covers

Dixie Products (2015) ldquoDixie Ultra Moments Ultimate Hostrdquohttpswwwyoutubecomwatchvfrac14wsBBq9PsgVI

Dutton Denis (2009) The Art Instinct Beauty Pleasure ampHuman Evolution New York Oxford University Press

Dweck Carol S (2000) Self-Theories Their Role in MotivationPersonality and Development Philadelphia Psychology Press

Dweck Carol S and Ellen L Leggett (1988) ldquoA Social-CognitiveApproach to Motivation and Personalityrdquo PsychologicalReview 95 (2) 256ndash73

Evans Lindsay (2010) ldquoWhy Buy Unbleached Paperrdquo httpwwwbrighthubcomenvironmentgreen-livingarticles16299aspx

Festinger Leon (1957) A Theory of Cognitive DissonanceStanford CA Stanford University Press

Frederick Shane and George Loewenstein (1999) ldquoHedonicAdaptationrdquo in Scientific Perspectives on EnjoymentSuffering and Well-Being ed Daniel Kahneman Ed Dienerand Norbert Schwartz New York Russell Sage Foundation302ndash29

Fuchs Christoph Martin Schreier and Stijn MJ van Osselaer(2015) ldquoThe Handmade Effect Whatrsquos Love Got to Do withItrdquo Journal of Marketing 79 (2) 98ndash110

Hagtvedt Henrik and Vanessa M Patrick (2008) ldquoArt InfusionThe Influence of Visual Art on the Perception and Evaluationof Consumer Productsrdquo Journal of Marketing Research 45(3) 379ndash89

AESTHETIC APPEAL PRETEST FOR ALL STIMULI USED IN STUDIES

Higher aesthetic Lower aesthetic Comparison a

Toilet paper (study 1) 377 (146) 253 (155) t(128) frac14 ndash469 p lt 001 a frac14 94Cupcake (study 2) 556 (106) 305 (146) t(128) frac14 ndash1120 p lt 001 a frac14 96Napkin (studies 3 and 6) 465 (153) 230 (144) t(128) frac14 ndash903 p lt 001 a frac14 97Napkin (study 4) 332 (145) 262 (154) t(128) frac14 ndash266 p lt 01 a frac14 92Napkin (study 5) 458 (159) 234 (151) t(128) frac14 ndash823 p lt 001 a frac14 97

NOTEmdashStandard deviations are in parentheses

In a between-subjects pretest participants were asked to rate each product along the following dimensions beautiful pretty artistic and aesthetically pleasing

(1 frac14 not at all 7 frac14 very much) which formed our aesthetic appeal index

APPENDIX B

20 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

Hayes Andrew F (2013) ldquoPROCESS A VersatileComputational Tool for Observed Variable MediationModeration and Conditional Process Modelingrdquo workingpaper School of Communication and Department ofPsychology Ohio State University Columbus OH 43210

Heller Steve (2015) ldquoA Grocery Store Illusion Is Getting You toSpend More Moneyrdquo httpwwwbusinessinsidercoma-grocery-store-illusion-is-getting-you-to-spend-more-money-2015-8ixzz3ifsOLBfG

Hurling Robert and Richard Shepherd (2003) ldquoEating with YourEyes Effect of Appearance on Expectations of LikingrdquoAppetite 41 (2) 167ndash74

Hoegg JoAndrea Joseph W Alba and Darren W Dahl (2010)ldquoThe Good the Bad and the Ugly Influence of Aesthetics onProduct Feature Judgmentsrdquo Journal of ConsumerPsychology 20 (4) 419ndash30

Johnson Palmer O and Jerzy Neyman (1936) ldquoTests of CertainLinear Hypotheses and Their Applications to SomeEducational Problemsrdquo Statistical Research Memoirs 157ndash93

Kahneman Daniel and Amos Tversky (1979) ldquoProspect TheoryAn Analysis of Decision under Riskrdquo Econometrica 47 (2)263ndash91

Kampe Knut K W Chris D Frith Raymond J Dolan and UtaFrith (2001) ldquoPsychology Reward Value of Attractivenessand Gazerdquo Nature 413 (6856) 589

Kelley Harold H (1967) ldquoAttribution Theory in SocialPsychologyrdquo in Nebraska Symposium of Motivation Vol 15ed D Levine Lincoln University of Nebraska Press192ndash238

Kirmani Amna (1990) ldquoThe Effect of Perceived AdvertisingCosts on Brand Perceptionsrdquo Journal of Consumer Research17 (2) 160ndash71

Kirmani Amna Michelle P Lee and Carolyn Yoon (2004)ldquoProcedural Priming Effects on Spontaneous InferenceFormationrdquo Journal of Economic Psychology 25 (6)859ndash75

Kruger Justin Derrick Wirtz Leaf Van Boven and T WilliamAltermatt (2004) ldquoThe Effort Heuristicrdquo Journal ofExperimental Social Psychology 40 (1) 91ndash8

Lee Leonard and Claire I Tsai (2014) ldquoHow Price PromotionsInfluence Postpurchase Consumption Experience overTimerdquo Journal of Consumer Research 40 (5) 943ndash59

Levy Sheri R Steven J Stroessner and Carol S Dweck (1998)ldquoStereotype Formation and Endorsement The Role ofImplicit Theoriesrdquo Journal of Personality and SocialPsychology 74 (6) 1421ndash36

Lisjak Monika Andrea Bonezzi Soo Kim and Derek D Rucker(2015) ldquoPerils of Compensatory Consumption Within-Domain Compensation Undermines Subsequent Self-Regulationrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 41 (5)1186ndash203

Loewenstein George (1987) ldquoAnticipation and the Valuation ofDelayed Consumptionrdquo Economic Journal 97 (September)666ndash84

Maritain Jacques (1966) ldquoBeauty and Imitationrdquo in A ModernBook of Esthetics ed Melvin Rader New York HoltRinehart amp Winston 27ndash34

McFerran Brent Darren W Dahl Gavan J Fitzsimons andAndrea C Morales (2010) ldquoIrsquoll Have What Shersquos HavingEffects of Social Influence and Body Type on the FoodChoices of Othersrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 36 (6)915ndash29

Morales Andrea C (2005) ldquoGiving Firms an lsquoErsquo for EffortConsumer Responses to High-Effort Firmsrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 31 (4) 806ndash12

Moreau C Page Leff Bonney and Kelly B Herd (2011) ldquoItrsquos theThought (and the Effort) That Counts How Customizing forOthers Differs from Customizing for Oneselfrdquo Journal ofMarketing 75 (5) 120ndash33

Norton Michael I Daniel Mochon and Dan Ariely (2012) ldquoThelsquoIkearsquo Effect When Labor Leads to Loverdquo Journal ofConsumer Psychology 22 (July) 453ndash60

Page Christine and Paul M Herr (2002) ldquoAn Investigation ofthe Processes by Which Product Design and Brand StrengthInteract to Determine Initial Affect and QualityJudgmentsrdquo Journal of Consumer Psychology 12 (2)133ndash47

Raghubir Priya and Eric A Greenleaf (2006) ldquoRatios inProportion What Should the Shape of the Package BerdquoJournal of Marketing 70 (2) 95ndash107

Raghunathan Rajagopal Rebecca Walker Naylor and Wayne DHoyer (2006) ldquoThe Unhealthy frac14 Tasty Intuition and ItsEffects on Taste Inferences Enjoyment and Choice of FoodProductsrdquo Journal of Marketing 70 (4) 170ndash84

Reber Rolf Norbert Schwarz and Piotr Winkielman (2004)ldquoProcessing Fluency and Aesthetic Pleasure Is Beauty in thePerceiverrsquos Processing Experiencerdquo Personality and SocialPsychology Review 8 (4) 364ndash82

Reber Rolf Piotr Winkielman and Norbert Schwarz (1998)ldquoEffects of Perceptual Fluency on Affective JudgmentsrdquoPsychological Science 9 (1) 45ndash48

Reimann Martin Judith Zaichkowksy Carolin Neuhaus ThomasBender and Bernd Weber (2010) ldquoAesthetic PackageDesign A Behavioral Neural and PsychologicalInvestigationrdquo Journal of Consumer Psychology 20 (4)431ndash41

Santayana George (18961955) The Sense of Beauty New YorkDover

Scott Maura L Stephen M Nowlis Naomi Mandel and AndreaC Morales (2008) ldquoThe Effects of Reduced Food Size andPackage Size on the Consumption Behavior of Restrainedand Unrestrained Eatersrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 35(3) 391ndash405

Spencer Steven J Mark P Zanna and Geoffrey T Fong (2005)ldquoEstablishing a Causal Chain Why Experiments Are OftenMore Effective than Mediational Analyses in ExaminingPsychological Processesrdquo Journal of Personality and SocialPsychology 89 (6) 845ndash51

Spiller Stephen A Gavan J Fitzsimons John G Lynch Jr andGary H McClelland (2013) ldquoSpotlights Floodlights andthe Magic Number Zero Simple Effects Tests inModerated Regressionrdquo Journal of Marketing Research 50(2) 277ndash88

Thompson Debora V Rebecca W Hamilton and Roland T Rust(2005) ldquoFeature Fatigue When Product CapabilitiesBecome Too Much of a Good Thingrdquo Journal of MarketingResearch 42 (November) 431ndash42

Townsend Claudia and Suzanne B Shu (2010) ldquoWhen and HowAesthetics Influences Financial Decisionsrdquo Journal ofConsumer Psychology 20 (4) 452ndash58

Townsend Claudia and Sanjay Sood (2012) ldquoSelf-Affirmationthrough the Choice of Highly Aesthetic Productsrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 39 (2) 415ndash28

Veryzer Robert W and J Wesley Hutchinson (1998) ldquoTheInfluence of Unity and Prototypicality on Aesthetic

WU ET AL 21

Responses to New Product Designsrdquo Journal of ConsumerResearch 24 (4) 374ndash94

Wada Yuji Carlos Arce-Lopera Tomohiro Masuda AtsushiKimura Ippeita Dan Sho-ichi Goto Daisuke Tsuzuki andKatsunori Okajima (2010) ldquoInfluence of LuminanceDistribution on the Appetizingly Fresh Appearance ofCabbagerdquo Appetite 54 (2) 363ndash68

Weiner Bernard (2000) ldquoAttributional Thoughts and ConsumerBehaviorrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 27 (December)382ndash87

Witz Anne Chris Warhurst and Dennis Nickson (2003) ldquoTheLabour of Aesthetics and The Aesthetics of OrganizationrdquoOrganization 10 (1) 33ndash54

Yamamoto Mel and David R Lambert (1994) ldquoThe Impact ofProduct Aesthetics on the Evaluation of Industrial ProductsrdquoJournal of Product Innovation Management 11 (4) 309ndash24

Yang Sha and Priya Raghubir (2005) ldquoCan Bottles SpeakVolumes The Effect of Package Shape on How Much toBuyrdquo Journal of Retailing 81 (4) 269ndash82

22 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

  • ucx057-FN1
  • ucx057-FN2
  • ucx057-FN3
  • ucx057-FN4
  • app1
  • app2
  • ucx057-TF1
  • ucx057-TF2
Page 12: It’s Too Pretty to Use! When and How Enhanced Product ...gavan/bio/GJF_articles/...testing the prediction that aesthetic products can elicit greater perceptions of effort. In line

napkins remained constant only the perceived effort hadchanged Thus we provide further evidence for the prem-ise that consumers strongly link aesthetics and effort andshow that for consumption to be reduced the highly aes-thetic product must signal higher effort in addition to itsaesthetic qualities

Notably while our results support the notion that antici-pated drops in beauty alone are insufficient to lead to a re-duction in consumption likelihood it is also worthmentioning that because effort and beauty are inextricablylinked constructs concerns over destroying effort mayshare to some extent overlapping variance with concernsover the imminent losses of beauty This suggests that inother contexts anticipated decrements in beauty may alsoplay a role in driving usage potentially for products of ex-treme aesthetic appeal that are more defined by theirbeauty as opposed to the colored napkins used hereNonetheless in the current context the results demonstratethat shifting perceptions about the amount of effort neededto create a higher aesthetic product is sufficient to over-come any inhibition to consume it

We next provide additional evidence for our conceptual-ization by investigating a theoretically driven individualdifference that affects the degree to which effort is inher-ently appreciated and by extension should influence deci-sions to use highly aesthetic products

STUDY 5 THE ROLE OF IMPLICIT SELF-THEORIES IN SHAPING USAGE

Based on our theory because the higher effort as-cribed to beautiful products underlies their lower likeli-hood of usage such a reduction should be moderated bythe degree to which effort is intrinsically valued or peo-plersquos implicit self-theories According to research on im-plicit self-theories entity theorists view their personalqualities as stable and unable to be enhanced by self-improvement while incremental theorists view thesequalities as flexible and able to be cultivated through la-bor and effort (Dweck 2000) Similarly entity theoriststend to view effort as ineffective and pointless while in-cremental theorists are more optimistic that their effortscarry intrinsic value and will eventually bear fruit(Dweck and Leggett 1988)

We propose that beyond the recognition of personal ef-fort implicit self-theories affect the extent to which con-sumers appreciate othersrsquo effort and by extension theeffort that goes into the creation of highly aesthetic prod-ucts To test this prediction we conducted a correlationalstudy examining the relationship between implicit self-theories and the propensity to appreciate effort-laden prod-ucts Participants (n frac14 134) first completed the implicitself-theories scale (Levy Stroessner and Dweck 1998)where higher (lower) scores indicate greater endorsement

of incremental (entity) self-theory Next they indicatedtheir agreement with five items reflecting appreciation forothersrsquo effort (eg I notice when people work really hardto create something3 all anchored at 1 frac14 strongly disagree7 frac14 strongly agree a frac14 91) We found a significant posi-tive correlation (r frac14 23 p lt 01) such that incrementallyoriented individuals were more likely to appreciate thingsthat reflect a great deal of effort

Thus based on this appreciation for othersrsquo effort in study5 we predict that incremental theorists will be less likely toconsume products that are highly aesthetic and by extensionladen with effort By contrast because entity theorists havelower intrinsic appreciation for effort they will be equallylikely to use a product regardless of its aesthetic appeal

Method

Participants and Procedure One hundred eighty-seven undergraduate students from a southwesternuniversity participated in a 2 (aesthetics higher vs lower) continuous (implicit self-theories) between-subjectsstudy in exchange for partial course credit Two partici-pants reported having a gluten allergy that prevented themfrom consuming the goldfish crackers accompanying thenapkins An additional 11 participants were excluded fromthe analysismdashone respondent participated in this studytwice and 10 had missing data on implicit self-theorieswhich we had measured in a separate presurvey severalweeks prior to the focal study Thus the final sample com-prised 174 participants (52 female [four did not reportgender] median age frac14 21 ages 18ndash41)

Study 5 employed the same cover story about pairingfoods with videos used in study 2 but this time usingPepperidge Farm goldfish crackers We chose these crack-ers because they are slightly messy to eatmdashpeople wouldwant to use a napkin but did not necessarily have to creat-ing an ideal context within which to test our hypothesesParticipants received an individual pack of goldfish crack-ers along with a paper napkin which was either decorativewith a white background (higher aesthetic condition) orplain white (lower aesthetic condition) (both 61=2 inchessquare see appendix A row 5 for images) Importantlythe experimenter gave no explicit instructions on what to dowith this napkin Of note in addition to the pretest assessingdifferent levels of aesthetic appeal between the two napkinsanother between-subjects pretest (n frac14 81) showed that partic-ipants liked the higher (vs lower) aesthetic napkin and its de-sign more (Mhigher aesthetic frac14 516 vs Mlower aesthetic frac14 365t(79) frac14 ndash516 p lt 001 r frac14 87) but both napkins were

3 The other items were (2) I really appreciate it when somebodytakes the time and effort to make something (3) I treasure somethingmore when I know a lot of effort has gone into creating it (4) I havean appreciation for products that reflect a great deal of effort on themakerrsquos part and (5) I value something more when I know it took alot of time and energy to produce

12 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

rated as equally versatile in their usage (Mhigher aesthetic frac14 580vs Mlower aesthetic frac14 591 t(79) frac14 47 p gt 60 a frac14 91)Additional pretest details are available in the web appendix

Participants were told to watch a 35 minute video onwildlife animals while they ate the crackers and that theywere free to eat as much or as little as they liked Once par-ticipants finished the video the experimenter collected thenapkin and any leftover crackers and recorded whether thenapkin had been used or not (0 frac14 no 1 frac14 yes) in anotherroom A napkin was coded as ldquousedrdquo if it showed any signsof usage (ie had any food stains on it looked crumpled orhad been used to spit out gum) and was coded as ldquounusedrdquoonly if it appeared untouched and in pristine condition mak-ing it a highly conservative test of our hypotheses To againensure that perceived cost was not influencing our focal ef-fects we asked participants how much they would be will-ing to pay for a pack of napkins (ie dollar value) Finallyparticipants completed a series of filler measures that as-sessed how interesting the video was and how much theyliked eating goldfish crackers in general

Results and Discussion

A 2 (aesthetics condition) continuous (implicit self-theories) logistic regression on napkin usage behavior(used yes no) was performed Regressing usage behavioron the aesthetics manipulation mean-centered levels ofimplicit self-theories and their interaction revealed a sig-nificant simple effect of aesthetics at the mean of implicitself-theories (b frac14 ndash37 Wald v2 frac14 460 p frac14 03) suchthat a smaller percentage of people used the napkin in the

higher aesthetic condition across all participants conceptu-ally replicating prior studies Importantly the interactionwas also significant (b frac14 ndash30 Wald v2 frac14 419 p frac14 04see figure 3) Notably this interaction continued to holdeven when we controlled for willingness to pay (p lt 04)We used the Johnson-Neyman technique to identify therange of implicit self-theories for which the simple effectof the aesthetics manipulation was significant where lowervalues imply an entity-oriented mindset while higher val-ues imply an incrementally oriented mindset We found asignificant reduction in usage of the higher aesthetic deco-rative (vs lower aesthetic white) paper napkin for anyvalue of implicit self-theories above 406 (at p lt 05) butnot for any value less than 406 In other words incremen-tal theorists were less likely to use a higher (vs lower) aes-thetic napkin whereas entity theorists were equally likelyto use a napkin regardless of its appearance

Discussion In study 5 we provide further evidence forour proposed mechanism by showing that implicit self-theories or consumersrsquo chronic appreciation for investedeffort shapes decisions to use an aesthetically pleasingproduct Incremental theorists who are more appreciativeof effort were less likely to use a higher aesthetic decora-tive napkin than a lower aesthetic plain white napkin butsuch effects were not observed among entity theorists whohave lower intrinsic appreciation for effort We have nowreliably established the inhibiting effect of product aes-thetics on consumption across multiple products and con-sumption contexts and provided convergent support for theunderlying mechanism In our final two studies we

FIGURE 3

AESTHETICS IMPLICIT SELF-THEORIES ON NAPKIN USAGE (STUDY 5)

WU ET AL 13

elucidate the drivers of post-consumption emotions whileholding usage constant thereby allowing us to hone in onpost-consumption consequences in a more controlledfashion since people are inherently less likely to usehigher aesthetic products which could potentially result inself-selection issues

STUDY 6A DECREMENTS IN BEAUTYAND POST-CONSUMPTION AFFECT

Recall in study 2 that when the cupcake was highly aes-thetic consumption enjoyment was lower among individ-uals most motivated to engage in consumption (ie hungryindividuals) an effect we propose is determined by twoprocesses working in tandem First we expect that the ef-fort inferences made prior to consumption will continue todrive emotional outcomes given the consumption processinvolves the actual destruction of effort Second and onlyevident post-consumption are the decrements in beautythat aesthetic products undergo when their aesthetic quali-ties are visibly compromised through usage Because beau-tiful products are inherently pleasurable (Reber et al 2004Reimann et al 2010) we predict that individuals will expe-rience less pleasure and more negative affect when theywitness highly aesthetic products undergo steeper drops inbeauty as a result of consumption Consistent with prospecttheoryrsquos value function (Kahneman and Tversky 1979)initial changesmdashhere the larger losses of beauty associatedwith the usage of a higher (vs lower) aesthetic productmdashshould be particularly jarring and lead to more negative af-fect (Frederick and Loewenstein 1999)

Importantly unlike in study 2 where we measured theamount consumed as well as post-consumption enjoymentin study 6A we hold usage constant in the higher andlower aesthetic conditions and hone in on the changes inbeauty with a longitudinal study design Specifically theobjective of study 6A is to extend prior work on the rela-tionship between beauty and pleasure by establishing itscorollarymdashthat the consumption of a higher (vs lower)aesthetic product will lead to greater perceived losses ofbeauty and that such decrements in beauty will in turnhave a negative influence on post-consumption affect Wemeasure this decrement by capturing aesthetic judgmentsimmediately before and after usage

Method

Participants and Procedure Four hundred sixteen par-ticipants were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk toparticipate in a 2 (aesthetics higher vs lower between) 2(aesthetic judgment before vs after usage within) mixed-design study in exchange for payment Six individuals par-ticipated in this study twice and four had missing data onthe focal dependent measures and were excluded from theanalysis yielding a final sample of 406 participants (54

female [11 did not report gender] median age frac14 30 ages18ndash76)

The procedure was similar to that of study 3 featuringthe same bakery scenario and stimuli but with several mod-ifications After participants were initially presented witheither the higher or lower aesthetic napkins following thespill they immediately completed two semantic differen-tial items of aesthetic evaluations for these unused napkinson seven-point scales ldquonot at all prettyvery prettyrdquo andldquonot at all uglyvery uglyrdquo (reverse-coded) which havebeen shown in prior work to capture aesthetic judgments(Reber Winkielman and Schwarz 1998 r frac14 47) Aftercompleting these baseline aesthetic judgment measuresparticipants proceeded with the scenario They were toldthey realized they would need to grab at least 10 napkins tocome close to cleaning up the spill and were subsequentlyshown a stack of unused napkins The scenario ended withan image of a bundle of napkins now drenched with cof-fee that were used to clean up the spill Additional detailsof the procedure are available in the web appendix

Immediately after reading the scenario participantscompleted the same set of aesthetic judgment items a sec-ond time this time rating the coffee-drenched napkinswhich served as a measure of post-usage aesthetic judg-ments Participants then indicated to what extent they ex-perienced each of the following negative emotions whilethey were using the napkins to clean up the spill stressedregretful bad afraid fearful sad sorry and guilty whichwe combined into an index of post-consumption negativeaffect (1 frac14 not at all 7 frac14 very much so afrac14 91)

Results and Discussion

We predicted that participants would experience greaternegative affect after using the higher (vs lower) aestheticnapkins an effect that would be driven by the larger decre-ments in beauty that stem from the consumption of higheraesthetic products

Emotions A one-way ANOVA on negative emotionsexperienced after consumption revealed that participantswho used the higher aesthetic floral napkins to clean up thespill felt more negative affect than those who used thelower aesthetic white napkins (Mhigher aesthetic frac14 305 vsMlower aesthetic frac14 246 F(1 404) frac14 1686 p lt 001)

Decrements in Beauty (Longitudinal) A 2 (aestheticshigher vs lower) 2 (timing before usage vs after usage)mixed ANOVA on aesthetic judgments yielded main ef-fects of both aesthetics (F(1 404) frac14 10652 p lt 001) andtiming (F(1 404) frac14 125629 p lt 001) which were quali-fied by a significant aesthetics timing interaction (F(1404) frac14 5302 p lt 001) Planned contrasts revealed thatwhereas the higher aesthetic napkins elicited more favor-able aesthetic judgments than the lower aesthetic napkinsbefore usage (Mhigher frac14 594 vs Mlower frac14 447 F(1 404)

14 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

frac14 15269 p lt 001) this difference was substantiallyreduced after usage (Mhigher frac14 237 vs Mlower frac14 211F(1 404) frac14 484 p frac14 03) Importantly and arguably mostcentral to our research the decrement in aesthetic ratingsthrough usage was significantly larger in the higher aes-thetic conditionmdashin fact 151 largermdashthan that observedin the lower aesthetic condition (ie a drop of 357 unitsvs a drop of 236 units)

Mediation Finally we are interested in whether decre-ments in aesthetic judgment emanating from product usageunderlie post-consumption affect Consistent with predic-tions mediation analysis (model 4 Hayes 2013) revealedthat the indirect effect of aesthetics on negative affectthrough changes in aesthetic judgment was significant (b frac1415 95 CI [04 29]) suggesting that product aestheticsaffected the experience of negative emotions through thelarger losses of beauty resulting from the consumption ofhigher aesthetic products

Discussion While past work has shown that aestheticsare inextricably linked with pleasure (Reber et al 2004Reimann et al 2010) study 6A extends this body of re-search by revealing that in the context of nondurable prod-ucts where consumption entails damaging product designnot only does the usage of higher (vs lower) aestheticproducts result in larger decrements in beauty but suchlosses also drive greater negative affect after consumptionNotably while we asked participants to assess the aestheticqualities of the napkins before and immediately after usageto more precisely capture the changes in beauty we ob-served we recognize that this design may have caused theaesthetic appeal of the napkins to be more salient prior toconsumption making its decrement therefore more pro-nounced after consumption Thus having established thatbeauty decrements resulting from aesthetic product usageunderlie post-consumption affect in study 6B we measurethis change in a less invasive manner after consumptionWe also integrate changes in beauty and effort inferencesinto emotional reactions linked to consumption

STUDY 6B TESTING THE FULLCONCEPTUAL MODEL FOR POST-

CONSUMPTION AFFECT

The goal of study 6B is to elucidate the drivers of post-consumption emotions while continuing to hold usage con-stant in both conditions thereby allowing us to test the fullconceptual model in a more controlled fashion As alludedto in study 6A the inherently lower consumption likeli-hood of higher aesthetic products could potentially resultin self-selection issues In study 6B we predict that partici-pants will experience more negative affect after using ahigher (vs lower) aesthetic product an effect driven in tan-dem by effort inferences as well as changes in beauty

Further we try to better understand consumersrsquo emotionalreactions after aesthetic product usage by not highlightingthe productrsquos aesthetic qualities beforehand Finally wemeasure implicit self-theories to examine whether onersquos in-herent degree of effort appreciation moderates post-consumption negative affect

Method

Participants and Procedure Four hundred participantswere recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk to partici-pate in a two-cell (aesthetics higher vs lower) between-subjects study in exchange for payment Ten individualsparticipated in this study twice and 17 had missing data onthe focal dependent measures and were excluded from theanalysis yielding a final sample of 373 participants (55female [two did not report gender] median age frac14 32 ages18ndash76)

The study design of study 6B was almost identical tothat of study 6A aside from several modifications Firstparticipants completed the same negative emotion indexfrom study 6A (afrac14 91) immediately after reading the sce-nario instead of after aesthetics judgment measures (whichwere not included in this study) Second instead of assess-ing aesthetic ratings at two separate points in time we uti-lized a new single cross-sectional measure to capturedecrements in beauty post-consumption ldquoBy using thenapkins it felt like I was turning something that was oncebeautiful into something uglyrdquo (1 frac14 strongly disagree 7 frac14strongly agree) Next to examine effort inferences as a par-allel driver of negative affect after consumption partici-pants completed the same effort inferences and effortdestruction measures from study 3 although these mea-sures are distinct from study 3 in that they were assessedafter usage had already taken place Finally participantscompleted the implicit self-theories scale

Results and Discussion

Emotions Replicating study 6A a one-way ANOVAon negative emotions revealed that participants who usedthe higher aesthetic floral napkins to clean up the spill feltmore negative affect than those who used the lower aestheticwhite napkins (Mhigher aesthetic frac14 313 vs Mlower aesthetic frac14283 F(1 371) frac14 394 p lt 05) Of note this main effectdid not interact with implicit self-theories (p gt 30) sug-gesting that both incremental and entity theorists experi-enced more negative affect after using the higher (vslower) aesthetic napkins to clean up the spill a finding werevisit in the discussion section

Decrements in Beauty (Cross-Sectional) A one-wayANOVA on changes in beauty indicated that the higheraesthetic napkin underwent greater decrements in beautythrough consumption (Mhigher frac14 263 vs Mlower frac14 177F(1 371) frac14 2671 p lt 001)

WU ET AL 15

Effort Inferences A one-way ANOVA on effort infer-ences indicated that participants ascribed greater effort tothe higher aesthetic napkins (Mhigher frac14 349 vs Mlower frac14287 F(1 371) frac14 1359 p lt 001)

Effort Destruction A one-way ANOVA on concernsabout effort destruction indicated that participants hadstronger concerns that effort had been destroyed in thehigher aesthetic condition (Mhigher frac14 262 vs Mlower frac14200 F(1 371) frac14 1355 p lt 001)

Mediation Finally we conducted two separate media-tion analyses one testing the path of product aesthetics decrements in beauty negative affect (model 4 Hayes2013) and the other testing the serial path of product aes-thetics effort inferences concerns about effort de-struction negative affect (model 6) Results from thefirst analysis revealed that the indirect effect of aestheticson negative affect through changes in beauty was signifi-cant (b frac14 37 95 CI [23 54]) suggesting that productaesthetics affected the experience of negative emotionsthrough larger decrements in beauty in the higher aestheticcondition Second the indirect effect of aesthetics on nega-tive affect through effort inferences and concerns about ef-fort destruction (in serial) was also significant (b frac14 1295 CI [06 23]) as was the indirect effect of aestheticson negative affect through effort destruction alone (b frac1411 95 CI [01 23])

Finally we also included beauty decrements effort in-ferences and effort destruction into the model as parallelmediators to gain greater understanding of the relativestrength of these drivers This analysis revealed that whenall three mediators were in the model the indirect effectthrough decrements in beauty remained significant (b frac1422 95 CI [11 36]) as did the indirect effect througheffort destruction (b frac14 15 95 CI [06 27]) Taken to-gether these results suggest that while concerns about ef-fort destruction continue to play a role in driving theemotional outcomes of aesthetic product usage the decre-ments in beauty that become evident only after an aestheticproduct has been visibly compromised through consump-tion also lead to negative affect

Discussion Study 6B which allowed us to examinethe entire post-consumption conceptual model revealedthat people who used higher (vs lower) aesthetic napkinssubsequently experienced greater negative affect an effectdriven by two processes operating in parallel concernsabout the destruction of effort and decrements in beauty Inother words the consumption experience was associatedwith more negative affect because the consumption processnot only involved the actual destruction of effort but italso took a beautiful product that was typified by pleasureand transformed it into something marked by displeasure

We should also note that we replicated the post-consumption findings with actual paper napkins in a lab

context In a separate study using study 5rsquos procedure par-ticipants watched a video and received a snack to eat alongwith a higher versus lower aesthetic napkin and then indi-cated how they felt about the consumption experienceParticipants who chose to use their higher aesthetic napkinreported feeling more negative affect relative to whosewho chose to use their lower aesthetic napkin (p frac14 04)and relative to those who did not use their higher aestheticnapkin (p lt 01) Thus aesthetic product usage increasednegative affect even when consumers could choose to ei-ther use the aesthetic product or not and when the aestheticproduct (the napkin) was tangential to the affect measurescollected which specifically pertained to the video-watching and snack-eating task Additional details areavailable in the web appendix

Though we provide evidence that effort inferences con-tinued to partially drive consumer responses to beautifulproducts after usage it is interesting to note that post-consumption affect was not moderated by the degree towhich effort is intrinsically appreciated (ie implicit self-theories) While unexpected we speculate that this may oc-cur because post-consumption enjoyment is not exclusivelydriven by effort inferences Since losses of beauty alsoplay a substantial role in shaping emotional outcomes afterconsumption the beauty decrements associated with aes-thetic product usage may have brought entity theorists to asimilar emotional state as incremental theorists resultingin everybody feeling worse off after consumption irrespec-tive of individual differences in effort appreciation Morebroadly since post-consumption affect appears to be multi-ply determined it is difficult to completely disentangle thenegative affect stemming from the destruction of effortfrom the negative affect stemming from decrements inbeauty Study 6B offers a distinct test of this conjecturesince it made usage (and hence losses of beauty) salientthrough images of visibly used napkins

GENERAL DISCUSSION

Across a series of laboratory and field studies using avariety of nondurable product categories and consumptionsituations we reveal the negative impact of enhanced prod-uct aesthetics on usage and post-consumption conse-quences First we document an inhibiting effect of productaesthetics on consumption behaviors for disposable andperishable products in both real-world (study 1) and lab(study 2) settings Next we shed light on the drivers of us-age likelihood using mediation (study 3) a context-basedboundary condition (study 4) and a theoretically derivedindividual difference moderator (study 5) thereby provid-ing convergent support for an underlying process based oneffort Finally in studies 6A and 6B we hold product us-age constant to elucidate the drivers of post-consumptionaffect and show that the decrements in beauty that

16 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

aesthetic products inherently undergo as a result of con-sumption combined with concerns that one has actuallydestroyed effort underlie these effects

Theoretical Contributions Our work makes severaltheoretical contributions First while prior research hasshown that consumers respond favorably to both productaesthetics and effort we believe we are the first to establisha causal relationship between these constructs We findthat highly aesthetic products can elicit greater perceptionsof effort regardless of whether this effort was exerted dur-ing product design physical production or both processesWe further reveal that these effort inferences are not lim-ited to handmade products such as perishable foods butalso apply to mass-produced products such as consumerpackaged disposable goods

Second while existing literature suggests that consumerpreferences should increase as a function of a productrsquos aes-thetic appeal the prevailing ways of assessing the impact ofaesthetics on consumer preference have been limited to pur-chase intentions product evaluations and choice (Hagtvedtand Patrick 2008 Raghubir and Greenleaf 2006 Reimannet al 2010 Townsend and Shu 2010) Surprisingly the role ofaesthetics after choice has received little empirical attention todate Despite the stimulating effect that enhanced product aes-thetics have on choice and pre-usage evaluations our resultssuggest that once beautiful products are acquired consumersmay be less likely to consume them because the higher infer-ences of effort attributed to their creation elicit stronger con-cerns that such effort would be destroyed during consumption

This research also shows that the impact of implicit self-theories on consumer behavior may be more pervasivethan previously thought While prior research in psychol-ogy has shown that incremental and entity theorists carrydissimilar beliefs about the value of their own effort(Dweck 2000) we provide support for the novel predictionthat beyond the recognition of personal effort implicitself-theories affect the extent to which consumers appreci-ate the effort that goes into the creation of aestheticallyappealing products

Finally contrary to the notion that enhanced product aes-thetics are always beneficial to consumption enjoyment ourwork reveals that usage of highly aesthetic disposable prod-ucts can actually lower overall enjoyment of the consumptionexperience through two separate pathways (1) by elicitingconcerns that one has actually destroyed effort and (2) bycompromising the beauty that typically characterizes aestheticproducts Thus we add to the literature on aesthetics andpleasure by showing how the consumption of highly aestheticproducts can result in larger losses of beauty and that suchdecrements in turn drive the relationship between aestheticproduct consumption and negative affect

More generally these findings speak to researchthat explores when and why the drivers of predicted andexperienced utility might diverge For instance

Thompson et al (2005) found that consumersrsquo initial desirefor product capability before purchase leads them to chooseproducts packed with features but their growing desire forproduct usability after usage leads them to ultimately prefersimpler products Similarly Lee and Tsai (2014) showedthat price promotions can stimulate sales but lower atten-tion during consumption which in turn reduces consump-tion enjoyment In the same vein despite the delightinitially elicited by the choice of beautiful products wedemonstrate that enhanced aesthetics have the ability tolater discourage usage and lower consumption enjoyment

Substantive Implications Our findings carry importantpractical implications as they pose an interesting dilemmato managers While conventional wisdom suggests that mar-keters should strive to invest the highest degree of effort intomaking their products look aesthetically pleasing at least tothe extent that company resources will allow our researchreveals that the story is not so simple Enhancing productaesthetics might positively affect initial attention interestand choice but should be considered with caution given thatsuch increased appeal could inhibit usage and reduce enjoy-ment relative to less aesthetically appealing productsRelatedly people likely consume highly aesthetic disposableproducts more slowly which could affect interpurchasetime Thus the pursuit of product aesthetics and improvedshort-term sales must be constantly balanced against theneed to encourage consumption ensure customer satisfac-tion and maintain long-term profitability Still certain prod-ucts such as beautiful candles and soaps may serve adecorative purpose in addition to their basic utilitarian func-tion and consequently may also carry intrinsic aestheticvalue Our recommendations are admittedly less straightfor-ward under such circumstances as consumers are able toderive utility from the productsrsquo enhanced aesthetics simplyby displaying them

Our results also have clear implications for managersand policy makers interested in promoting conservationand sustainable business practices A growing number ofretail and service establishments have been switching tounbleached paper products as the traditional bleachingprocess that removes imperfections and gives paper itswhite appearance also produces hazardous chemicals (egchlorine and dioxins) that are harmful to the environment(Evans 2010) While the transition to unbleached paperproducts has benefited the environment the results fromour investigation suggest the growing popularity of thistrend may be a double-edged sword To the extent thatunbleached paper products are considered less aestheticallyappealing consumers may show less restraint in usingthem leading to backfiring effects for conservation effortsPut another way the positive environmental impact of pro-ducing unbleached paper products could potentially be off-set by consumersrsquo reduced inhibition in consuming theseproducts Thus increasing the aesthetic appeal of products

WU ET AL 17

may actually be an effective way for companies to promoteenvironmentally sustainable behaviors even after incorpo-rating the increased cost of implementing such practices

Finally given that rising obesity rates are a major publichealth concern traced to increased consumption (Chandonand Wansink 2007) there has been burgeoning interest inthe various factors that shape consumer food choices (Corniland Chandon 2016 McFerran et al 2010 Scott et al 2008)The results of study 2 suggest that one way to curb overeat-ing might be to enhance the aesthetic presentation of foodproducts especially hedonic foods Of course additionalresearch is needed to better explore the impact of aestheticsin this important area given the counteracting effects thatfood aesthetics exert on consumption versus enjoyment

Limitations and Future Research While the current setof studies was designed to elucidate perceived effort as anunderlying mechanism of lower usage of aestheticallyappealing products we recognize that this phenomenonlike many is likely driven by multiple processes (FuchsSchreier and van Osselaer 2015) Indeed as evident in ourresearch consumption likelihood and consumption enjoy-ment each have distinct sets of drivers For instance whilewe accounted for cost across multiple studies and demon-strated that our effects held even after we controlled for theperceived price of the product we believe that cost maycertainly play a role in certain situations For example cer-tain highly aesthetic products elicit perceptions of luxury(Hagtvedt and Patrick 2008) and may consequently reduceconsumption because they appear ldquotoo expensive to userdquoand cost may even interact with aesthetics under certaincircumstances to impact consumption such that the infer-ences of effort typically ascribed to aesthetically appealingproducts could be mitigated if people are told that theywere extremely inexpensive

In addition classic research by Loewenstein (1987)showed that people often prefer to delay consumption ofenjoyable experiences It may be that people are averse toimmediately consuming a highly aesthetic product becausethey are able to derive more utility by savoring the experi-ence and postponing consumption Further as alluded to instudy 4 it is possible that anticipated decrements in beautymay play a larger role in shaping usage in other consump-tion contexts Thus while we focus on the role of effortinferences in driving lower usage of highly aesthetic prod-ucts we are cognizant of the fact that other mechanismslikely exist which would provide intriguing avenues forfurther investigation

It would also be interesting to examine whether the neg-ative influence of enhanced aesthetics would hold acrossdifferent consumption contexts That is are there situationswhere the present phenomenon would not emerge Indeedone could argue that service establishments such as upscalerestaurants and luxury resorts which regularly pampertheir guests with beautifully plated entrees and folded

towel animals would eventually be driven out of businessif the consumption of highly aesthetic products alwaysresulted in lower enjoyment We believe that whether theusage of highly aesthetic products is accompanied bydecreased consumption and increased negative affect willhinge on the nature of the consumption environment Priorresearch indicates that our surroundings are capable ofautomatically eliciting normative behaviors when situa-tional norms are well established (Aarts and Dijksterhuis2003) Extending this perspective it is possible that theeffects observed in this article may be relatively weakenedwhen consumption occurs in environments characterizedby strong expectations to engage in indulgent consumptionsuch as in a fancy restaurant or luxurious hotel

Relatedly it would be interesting to examine whethercalling attention to fact that the aesthetic product if leftunconsumed will face inevitable destruction could enhanceconsumption likelihood and enjoyment to some extent par-ticularly for perishable products such as food4 Indeedrecent research has shown that consumers display a strongaversion to waste and unused utility (Bolton and Alba2012) Thus future studies should examine whether theeffects documented in this article could be attenuated ifthe inevitable destruction of effort is made salient to con-sumers (eg the product will go bad be thrown away orsomebody else will consume the product even if they donot) In summary future work should explore situationswhere enhanced aesthetics might carry more weight in theutility function for the overall consumption experienceand subsequently increase consumption and boostenjoyment

Another area for future research would be to examinewhether the destruction of product aesthetics is an ldquoall ornothingrdquo event such that any amount of consumption (evena single bite of a cupcake) would be viewed as destroyingthe productrsquos overall beauty While our experimentaldesigns did not allow us to examine whether destruction is acontinuous versus discrete function of consumption it isworth nothing that we did document lower usage acrossvarying degrees of consumption (eg consumption was con-tinuous in study 2 but discrete in study 5) and we did findthat different levels of consumption still led to reducedenjoyment Nevertheless we believe this is an importantempirical question worth investigating in the future

Finally while we have limited our analysis to nondura-bles (perishable and disposable products specifically) anintriguing path would be to investigate the potential moder-ating role of product durability on usage likelihood andsubsequent enjoyment of highly aesthetic products It maybe that the relative durability of the aesthetic product couldaffect individualsrsquo ability or motivation to anticipate decre-ments in beauty before consumption has occurred whichwould have implications for usage likelihood For instance

4 We thank one of the anonymous reviewers for this suggestion

18 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

with big-ticket high-involvement purchases such as sleekfurniture (eg a beautiful new white sectional sofa) con-sumers may more readily anticipate losses of beauty sincethey will have to live with and encounter the product on adaily basis even after its original beauty has faded or beentarnished through repeated use This may explain why cov-ering new furniture with plastic was at one time a verycommon practice (DiSalvo 2009)

On the other hand for nondurable lower-involvementproducts such as those used in the current research perhapspeople do not have the motivation or ability to considershifts in aesthetic appeal before consumption Furtherproducts often vary in their degree of durabilitymdasha delicateembroidered blanket while by no means nondurable or dis-posable may begin to show visible signs of wear and tearsooner than a fleece blanket Although the present researchspecifically focused on perishable and single-use productsit would be worth examining when and how the degree ofdurability or even perceptions of fragility might shapedecisions to use beautiful products

In conclusion our research documents an inhibitingeffect of enhanced product aesthetics on consumption par-ticularly for disposable and consumable nondurable prod-ucts Although beautiful products have the ability topromote positive pre-usage evaluations and stimulatechoice our work indicates that consumers are subsequentlyless likely to use them and those who do use them ulti-mately experience higher negative affect and lower enjoy-ment In addition different processes underlie consumerresponses to highly aesthetic products depending onwhether or not consumption has taken place Thus we con-clude that while products may never be too pretty tochoose they can in fact be too pretty to use

DATA COLLECTION INFORMATION

All studies were designed and analyzed by the first authorunder the guidance of the other authors The data for study 1was collected at the Scottsdale Pure Barre studio in fall2015 by research assistants and employees under the super-vision of the first author Research assistants collected thedata for studies 2 and 5 under the supervision of the firstauthor at the W P Carey School of Business MarketingDepartment Behavioral Lab in spring 2015 The data for theconceptual replication (reported in the discussion of study6B) was collected by research assistants under the supervi-sion of the first author at the W P Carey School ofBusiness Marketing Department Behavioral Lab in summer2015 The data for study 4 (both the effort manipulation pre-test and the main study) and the correlational study examin-ing the relationship between implicit self-theories andappreciation for othersrsquo effort were collected by the firstauthor using Amazon Mechanical Turk in spring 2016 Thefirst author collected the data for the aesthetic appeal pretest

(described in appendix B) studies 3 6A and 6B usingAmazon Mechanical Turk in summer 2016 Lastly researchassistants collected the data for the correlational study exam-ining the relationship between aesthetics and perceivedeffort (described in the table in ldquoThe Role of Effort inInhibiting Usagerdquo) under the supervision of the first authorat the W P Carey School of Business MarketingDepartment Behavioral Lab in fall 2016

APPENDIX A

STUDY STIMULI

WU ET AL 19

REFERENCES

Aarts Henk and Ap Dijksterhuis (2003) ldquoThe Silence of theLibrary Environment Situational Norm and SocialBehaviorrdquo Journal of Personality and Social Psychology84 (1) 18ndash28

Aharon Itzhak Nancy Etcoff Dan Ariely Christopher F ChabrisEthan OrsquoConnor and Hans C Breiter (2001) ldquoBeautifulFaces Have Variable Reward Value fMRI and BehavioralEvidencerdquo Neuron 32 (3) 537ndash51

Alba Joseph W and Elanor F Williams (2013) ldquoPleasurePrinciples A Review of Research on HedonicConsumptionrdquo Journal of Consumer Psychology 23 (1)2ndash18

Belk Russell W (1988) ldquoPossessions and the Extended SelfrdquoJournal of Consumer Research 15 (2) 139ndash67

Bem Daryl J (1972) Self-Perception Theory Stanford CAStanford University Press

Berridge Kent C (2009) ldquolsquoLikingrsquo and lsquoWantingrsquo Food RewardsBrain Substrates and Roles in Eating Disordersrdquo Physiologyamp Behavior 97 (5) 537ndash50

Bloch Peter H (1995) ldquoSeeking the Ideal Form Product Designand Consumer Responserdquo Journal of Marketing 59 (July)16ndash29

Bloch Peter H Frederic F Brunel and Todd J Arnold (2003)ldquoIndividual Differences in the Centrality of Visual ProductAesthetics Concept and Measurementrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 29 (4) 551ndash65

Bolton Lisa E and Joseph W Alba (2012) ldquoWhen Less Is MoreConsumer Aversion to Unused Utilityrdquo Journal of ConsumerPsychology 22 (3) 369ndash83

Brehm Jack W (1966) A Theory of Psychological ReactanceNew York Academic Press

Broniarczyk Susan M and Joseph W Alba (1994) ldquoThe Role ofConsumersrsquo Intuitions in Inference Makingrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 21 (3) 393ndash407

Cabanac Michel (1971) ldquoPhysiological Role of PleasurerdquoScience 173 (4002) 1103ndash7

mdashmdashmdash (1979) ldquoSensory Pleasurerdquo Quarterly Review of Biology54 (1) 1ndash29

mdashmdashmdash (1985) ldquoPreferring for Pleasurerdquo American Journal ofClinical Nutrition 42 (5) 1151ndash5

Chandon Pierre and Brian Wansink (2007) ldquoThe Biasing HealthHalos of Fast Food Restaurant Health Claims Lower CalorieEstimates and Higher Side-Dish Consumption IntentionsrdquoJournal of Consumer Research 34 (3) 301ndash14

Cornil Yann and Pierre Chandon (2016) ldquoPleasure as a Substitutefor Size How Multisensory Imagery Can Make PeopleHappier with Smaller Food Portionsrdquo Journal of MarketingResearch 53 (5) 847ndash64

Cleveland William S (1984) ldquoGraphical Methods for DataPresentation Full Scale Breaks Dot Charts and MultibasedLoggingrdquo The American Statistician 38 (4) 270ndash80

DiSalvo David (2009) ldquoThe Psychology of Plastic CouchCoversrdquo httpsneuronarrativewordpresscom20090119the-psychology-of-plastic-couch-covers

Dixie Products (2015) ldquoDixie Ultra Moments Ultimate Hostrdquohttpswwwyoutubecomwatchvfrac14wsBBq9PsgVI

Dutton Denis (2009) The Art Instinct Beauty Pleasure ampHuman Evolution New York Oxford University Press

Dweck Carol S (2000) Self-Theories Their Role in MotivationPersonality and Development Philadelphia Psychology Press

Dweck Carol S and Ellen L Leggett (1988) ldquoA Social-CognitiveApproach to Motivation and Personalityrdquo PsychologicalReview 95 (2) 256ndash73

Evans Lindsay (2010) ldquoWhy Buy Unbleached Paperrdquo httpwwwbrighthubcomenvironmentgreen-livingarticles16299aspx

Festinger Leon (1957) A Theory of Cognitive DissonanceStanford CA Stanford University Press

Frederick Shane and George Loewenstein (1999) ldquoHedonicAdaptationrdquo in Scientific Perspectives on EnjoymentSuffering and Well-Being ed Daniel Kahneman Ed Dienerand Norbert Schwartz New York Russell Sage Foundation302ndash29

Fuchs Christoph Martin Schreier and Stijn MJ van Osselaer(2015) ldquoThe Handmade Effect Whatrsquos Love Got to Do withItrdquo Journal of Marketing 79 (2) 98ndash110

Hagtvedt Henrik and Vanessa M Patrick (2008) ldquoArt InfusionThe Influence of Visual Art on the Perception and Evaluationof Consumer Productsrdquo Journal of Marketing Research 45(3) 379ndash89

AESTHETIC APPEAL PRETEST FOR ALL STIMULI USED IN STUDIES

Higher aesthetic Lower aesthetic Comparison a

Toilet paper (study 1) 377 (146) 253 (155) t(128) frac14 ndash469 p lt 001 a frac14 94Cupcake (study 2) 556 (106) 305 (146) t(128) frac14 ndash1120 p lt 001 a frac14 96Napkin (studies 3 and 6) 465 (153) 230 (144) t(128) frac14 ndash903 p lt 001 a frac14 97Napkin (study 4) 332 (145) 262 (154) t(128) frac14 ndash266 p lt 01 a frac14 92Napkin (study 5) 458 (159) 234 (151) t(128) frac14 ndash823 p lt 001 a frac14 97

NOTEmdashStandard deviations are in parentheses

In a between-subjects pretest participants were asked to rate each product along the following dimensions beautiful pretty artistic and aesthetically pleasing

(1 frac14 not at all 7 frac14 very much) which formed our aesthetic appeal index

APPENDIX B

20 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

Hayes Andrew F (2013) ldquoPROCESS A VersatileComputational Tool for Observed Variable MediationModeration and Conditional Process Modelingrdquo workingpaper School of Communication and Department ofPsychology Ohio State University Columbus OH 43210

Heller Steve (2015) ldquoA Grocery Store Illusion Is Getting You toSpend More Moneyrdquo httpwwwbusinessinsidercoma-grocery-store-illusion-is-getting-you-to-spend-more-money-2015-8ixzz3ifsOLBfG

Hurling Robert and Richard Shepherd (2003) ldquoEating with YourEyes Effect of Appearance on Expectations of LikingrdquoAppetite 41 (2) 167ndash74

Hoegg JoAndrea Joseph W Alba and Darren W Dahl (2010)ldquoThe Good the Bad and the Ugly Influence of Aesthetics onProduct Feature Judgmentsrdquo Journal of ConsumerPsychology 20 (4) 419ndash30

Johnson Palmer O and Jerzy Neyman (1936) ldquoTests of CertainLinear Hypotheses and Their Applications to SomeEducational Problemsrdquo Statistical Research Memoirs 157ndash93

Kahneman Daniel and Amos Tversky (1979) ldquoProspect TheoryAn Analysis of Decision under Riskrdquo Econometrica 47 (2)263ndash91

Kampe Knut K W Chris D Frith Raymond J Dolan and UtaFrith (2001) ldquoPsychology Reward Value of Attractivenessand Gazerdquo Nature 413 (6856) 589

Kelley Harold H (1967) ldquoAttribution Theory in SocialPsychologyrdquo in Nebraska Symposium of Motivation Vol 15ed D Levine Lincoln University of Nebraska Press192ndash238

Kirmani Amna (1990) ldquoThe Effect of Perceived AdvertisingCosts on Brand Perceptionsrdquo Journal of Consumer Research17 (2) 160ndash71

Kirmani Amna Michelle P Lee and Carolyn Yoon (2004)ldquoProcedural Priming Effects on Spontaneous InferenceFormationrdquo Journal of Economic Psychology 25 (6)859ndash75

Kruger Justin Derrick Wirtz Leaf Van Boven and T WilliamAltermatt (2004) ldquoThe Effort Heuristicrdquo Journal ofExperimental Social Psychology 40 (1) 91ndash8

Lee Leonard and Claire I Tsai (2014) ldquoHow Price PromotionsInfluence Postpurchase Consumption Experience overTimerdquo Journal of Consumer Research 40 (5) 943ndash59

Levy Sheri R Steven J Stroessner and Carol S Dweck (1998)ldquoStereotype Formation and Endorsement The Role ofImplicit Theoriesrdquo Journal of Personality and SocialPsychology 74 (6) 1421ndash36

Lisjak Monika Andrea Bonezzi Soo Kim and Derek D Rucker(2015) ldquoPerils of Compensatory Consumption Within-Domain Compensation Undermines Subsequent Self-Regulationrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 41 (5)1186ndash203

Loewenstein George (1987) ldquoAnticipation and the Valuation ofDelayed Consumptionrdquo Economic Journal 97 (September)666ndash84

Maritain Jacques (1966) ldquoBeauty and Imitationrdquo in A ModernBook of Esthetics ed Melvin Rader New York HoltRinehart amp Winston 27ndash34

McFerran Brent Darren W Dahl Gavan J Fitzsimons andAndrea C Morales (2010) ldquoIrsquoll Have What Shersquos HavingEffects of Social Influence and Body Type on the FoodChoices of Othersrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 36 (6)915ndash29

Morales Andrea C (2005) ldquoGiving Firms an lsquoErsquo for EffortConsumer Responses to High-Effort Firmsrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 31 (4) 806ndash12

Moreau C Page Leff Bonney and Kelly B Herd (2011) ldquoItrsquos theThought (and the Effort) That Counts How Customizing forOthers Differs from Customizing for Oneselfrdquo Journal ofMarketing 75 (5) 120ndash33

Norton Michael I Daniel Mochon and Dan Ariely (2012) ldquoThelsquoIkearsquo Effect When Labor Leads to Loverdquo Journal ofConsumer Psychology 22 (July) 453ndash60

Page Christine and Paul M Herr (2002) ldquoAn Investigation ofthe Processes by Which Product Design and Brand StrengthInteract to Determine Initial Affect and QualityJudgmentsrdquo Journal of Consumer Psychology 12 (2)133ndash47

Raghubir Priya and Eric A Greenleaf (2006) ldquoRatios inProportion What Should the Shape of the Package BerdquoJournal of Marketing 70 (2) 95ndash107

Raghunathan Rajagopal Rebecca Walker Naylor and Wayne DHoyer (2006) ldquoThe Unhealthy frac14 Tasty Intuition and ItsEffects on Taste Inferences Enjoyment and Choice of FoodProductsrdquo Journal of Marketing 70 (4) 170ndash84

Reber Rolf Norbert Schwarz and Piotr Winkielman (2004)ldquoProcessing Fluency and Aesthetic Pleasure Is Beauty in thePerceiverrsquos Processing Experiencerdquo Personality and SocialPsychology Review 8 (4) 364ndash82

Reber Rolf Piotr Winkielman and Norbert Schwarz (1998)ldquoEffects of Perceptual Fluency on Affective JudgmentsrdquoPsychological Science 9 (1) 45ndash48

Reimann Martin Judith Zaichkowksy Carolin Neuhaus ThomasBender and Bernd Weber (2010) ldquoAesthetic PackageDesign A Behavioral Neural and PsychologicalInvestigationrdquo Journal of Consumer Psychology 20 (4)431ndash41

Santayana George (18961955) The Sense of Beauty New YorkDover

Scott Maura L Stephen M Nowlis Naomi Mandel and AndreaC Morales (2008) ldquoThe Effects of Reduced Food Size andPackage Size on the Consumption Behavior of Restrainedand Unrestrained Eatersrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 35(3) 391ndash405

Spencer Steven J Mark P Zanna and Geoffrey T Fong (2005)ldquoEstablishing a Causal Chain Why Experiments Are OftenMore Effective than Mediational Analyses in ExaminingPsychological Processesrdquo Journal of Personality and SocialPsychology 89 (6) 845ndash51

Spiller Stephen A Gavan J Fitzsimons John G Lynch Jr andGary H McClelland (2013) ldquoSpotlights Floodlights andthe Magic Number Zero Simple Effects Tests inModerated Regressionrdquo Journal of Marketing Research 50(2) 277ndash88

Thompson Debora V Rebecca W Hamilton and Roland T Rust(2005) ldquoFeature Fatigue When Product CapabilitiesBecome Too Much of a Good Thingrdquo Journal of MarketingResearch 42 (November) 431ndash42

Townsend Claudia and Suzanne B Shu (2010) ldquoWhen and HowAesthetics Influences Financial Decisionsrdquo Journal ofConsumer Psychology 20 (4) 452ndash58

Townsend Claudia and Sanjay Sood (2012) ldquoSelf-Affirmationthrough the Choice of Highly Aesthetic Productsrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 39 (2) 415ndash28

Veryzer Robert W and J Wesley Hutchinson (1998) ldquoTheInfluence of Unity and Prototypicality on Aesthetic

WU ET AL 21

Responses to New Product Designsrdquo Journal of ConsumerResearch 24 (4) 374ndash94

Wada Yuji Carlos Arce-Lopera Tomohiro Masuda AtsushiKimura Ippeita Dan Sho-ichi Goto Daisuke Tsuzuki andKatsunori Okajima (2010) ldquoInfluence of LuminanceDistribution on the Appetizingly Fresh Appearance ofCabbagerdquo Appetite 54 (2) 363ndash68

Weiner Bernard (2000) ldquoAttributional Thoughts and ConsumerBehaviorrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 27 (December)382ndash87

Witz Anne Chris Warhurst and Dennis Nickson (2003) ldquoTheLabour of Aesthetics and The Aesthetics of OrganizationrdquoOrganization 10 (1) 33ndash54

Yamamoto Mel and David R Lambert (1994) ldquoThe Impact ofProduct Aesthetics on the Evaluation of Industrial ProductsrdquoJournal of Product Innovation Management 11 (4) 309ndash24

Yang Sha and Priya Raghubir (2005) ldquoCan Bottles SpeakVolumes The Effect of Package Shape on How Much toBuyrdquo Journal of Retailing 81 (4) 269ndash82

22 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

  • ucx057-FN1
  • ucx057-FN2
  • ucx057-FN3
  • ucx057-FN4
  • app1
  • app2
  • ucx057-TF1
  • ucx057-TF2
Page 13: It’s Too Pretty to Use! When and How Enhanced Product ...gavan/bio/GJF_articles/...testing the prediction that aesthetic products can elicit greater perceptions of effort. In line

rated as equally versatile in their usage (Mhigher aesthetic frac14 580vs Mlower aesthetic frac14 591 t(79) frac14 47 p gt 60 a frac14 91)Additional pretest details are available in the web appendix

Participants were told to watch a 35 minute video onwildlife animals while they ate the crackers and that theywere free to eat as much or as little as they liked Once par-ticipants finished the video the experimenter collected thenapkin and any leftover crackers and recorded whether thenapkin had been used or not (0 frac14 no 1 frac14 yes) in anotherroom A napkin was coded as ldquousedrdquo if it showed any signsof usage (ie had any food stains on it looked crumpled orhad been used to spit out gum) and was coded as ldquounusedrdquoonly if it appeared untouched and in pristine condition mak-ing it a highly conservative test of our hypotheses To againensure that perceived cost was not influencing our focal ef-fects we asked participants how much they would be will-ing to pay for a pack of napkins (ie dollar value) Finallyparticipants completed a series of filler measures that as-sessed how interesting the video was and how much theyliked eating goldfish crackers in general

Results and Discussion

A 2 (aesthetics condition) continuous (implicit self-theories) logistic regression on napkin usage behavior(used yes no) was performed Regressing usage behavioron the aesthetics manipulation mean-centered levels ofimplicit self-theories and their interaction revealed a sig-nificant simple effect of aesthetics at the mean of implicitself-theories (b frac14 ndash37 Wald v2 frac14 460 p frac14 03) suchthat a smaller percentage of people used the napkin in the

higher aesthetic condition across all participants conceptu-ally replicating prior studies Importantly the interactionwas also significant (b frac14 ndash30 Wald v2 frac14 419 p frac14 04see figure 3) Notably this interaction continued to holdeven when we controlled for willingness to pay (p lt 04)We used the Johnson-Neyman technique to identify therange of implicit self-theories for which the simple effectof the aesthetics manipulation was significant where lowervalues imply an entity-oriented mindset while higher val-ues imply an incrementally oriented mindset We found asignificant reduction in usage of the higher aesthetic deco-rative (vs lower aesthetic white) paper napkin for anyvalue of implicit self-theories above 406 (at p lt 05) butnot for any value less than 406 In other words incremen-tal theorists were less likely to use a higher (vs lower) aes-thetic napkin whereas entity theorists were equally likelyto use a napkin regardless of its appearance

Discussion In study 5 we provide further evidence forour proposed mechanism by showing that implicit self-theories or consumersrsquo chronic appreciation for investedeffort shapes decisions to use an aesthetically pleasingproduct Incremental theorists who are more appreciativeof effort were less likely to use a higher aesthetic decora-tive napkin than a lower aesthetic plain white napkin butsuch effects were not observed among entity theorists whohave lower intrinsic appreciation for effort We have nowreliably established the inhibiting effect of product aes-thetics on consumption across multiple products and con-sumption contexts and provided convergent support for theunderlying mechanism In our final two studies we

FIGURE 3

AESTHETICS IMPLICIT SELF-THEORIES ON NAPKIN USAGE (STUDY 5)

WU ET AL 13

elucidate the drivers of post-consumption emotions whileholding usage constant thereby allowing us to hone in onpost-consumption consequences in a more controlledfashion since people are inherently less likely to usehigher aesthetic products which could potentially result inself-selection issues

STUDY 6A DECREMENTS IN BEAUTYAND POST-CONSUMPTION AFFECT

Recall in study 2 that when the cupcake was highly aes-thetic consumption enjoyment was lower among individ-uals most motivated to engage in consumption (ie hungryindividuals) an effect we propose is determined by twoprocesses working in tandem First we expect that the ef-fort inferences made prior to consumption will continue todrive emotional outcomes given the consumption processinvolves the actual destruction of effort Second and onlyevident post-consumption are the decrements in beautythat aesthetic products undergo when their aesthetic quali-ties are visibly compromised through usage Because beau-tiful products are inherently pleasurable (Reber et al 2004Reimann et al 2010) we predict that individuals will expe-rience less pleasure and more negative affect when theywitness highly aesthetic products undergo steeper drops inbeauty as a result of consumption Consistent with prospecttheoryrsquos value function (Kahneman and Tversky 1979)initial changesmdashhere the larger losses of beauty associatedwith the usage of a higher (vs lower) aesthetic productmdashshould be particularly jarring and lead to more negative af-fect (Frederick and Loewenstein 1999)

Importantly unlike in study 2 where we measured theamount consumed as well as post-consumption enjoymentin study 6A we hold usage constant in the higher andlower aesthetic conditions and hone in on the changes inbeauty with a longitudinal study design Specifically theobjective of study 6A is to extend prior work on the rela-tionship between beauty and pleasure by establishing itscorollarymdashthat the consumption of a higher (vs lower)aesthetic product will lead to greater perceived losses ofbeauty and that such decrements in beauty will in turnhave a negative influence on post-consumption affect Wemeasure this decrement by capturing aesthetic judgmentsimmediately before and after usage

Method

Participants and Procedure Four hundred sixteen par-ticipants were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk toparticipate in a 2 (aesthetics higher vs lower between) 2(aesthetic judgment before vs after usage within) mixed-design study in exchange for payment Six individuals par-ticipated in this study twice and four had missing data onthe focal dependent measures and were excluded from theanalysis yielding a final sample of 406 participants (54

female [11 did not report gender] median age frac14 30 ages18ndash76)

The procedure was similar to that of study 3 featuringthe same bakery scenario and stimuli but with several mod-ifications After participants were initially presented witheither the higher or lower aesthetic napkins following thespill they immediately completed two semantic differen-tial items of aesthetic evaluations for these unused napkinson seven-point scales ldquonot at all prettyvery prettyrdquo andldquonot at all uglyvery uglyrdquo (reverse-coded) which havebeen shown in prior work to capture aesthetic judgments(Reber Winkielman and Schwarz 1998 r frac14 47) Aftercompleting these baseline aesthetic judgment measuresparticipants proceeded with the scenario They were toldthey realized they would need to grab at least 10 napkins tocome close to cleaning up the spill and were subsequentlyshown a stack of unused napkins The scenario ended withan image of a bundle of napkins now drenched with cof-fee that were used to clean up the spill Additional detailsof the procedure are available in the web appendix

Immediately after reading the scenario participantscompleted the same set of aesthetic judgment items a sec-ond time this time rating the coffee-drenched napkinswhich served as a measure of post-usage aesthetic judg-ments Participants then indicated to what extent they ex-perienced each of the following negative emotions whilethey were using the napkins to clean up the spill stressedregretful bad afraid fearful sad sorry and guilty whichwe combined into an index of post-consumption negativeaffect (1 frac14 not at all 7 frac14 very much so afrac14 91)

Results and Discussion

We predicted that participants would experience greaternegative affect after using the higher (vs lower) aestheticnapkins an effect that would be driven by the larger decre-ments in beauty that stem from the consumption of higheraesthetic products

Emotions A one-way ANOVA on negative emotionsexperienced after consumption revealed that participantswho used the higher aesthetic floral napkins to clean up thespill felt more negative affect than those who used thelower aesthetic white napkins (Mhigher aesthetic frac14 305 vsMlower aesthetic frac14 246 F(1 404) frac14 1686 p lt 001)

Decrements in Beauty (Longitudinal) A 2 (aestheticshigher vs lower) 2 (timing before usage vs after usage)mixed ANOVA on aesthetic judgments yielded main ef-fects of both aesthetics (F(1 404) frac14 10652 p lt 001) andtiming (F(1 404) frac14 125629 p lt 001) which were quali-fied by a significant aesthetics timing interaction (F(1404) frac14 5302 p lt 001) Planned contrasts revealed thatwhereas the higher aesthetic napkins elicited more favor-able aesthetic judgments than the lower aesthetic napkinsbefore usage (Mhigher frac14 594 vs Mlower frac14 447 F(1 404)

14 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

frac14 15269 p lt 001) this difference was substantiallyreduced after usage (Mhigher frac14 237 vs Mlower frac14 211F(1 404) frac14 484 p frac14 03) Importantly and arguably mostcentral to our research the decrement in aesthetic ratingsthrough usage was significantly larger in the higher aes-thetic conditionmdashin fact 151 largermdashthan that observedin the lower aesthetic condition (ie a drop of 357 unitsvs a drop of 236 units)

Mediation Finally we are interested in whether decre-ments in aesthetic judgment emanating from product usageunderlie post-consumption affect Consistent with predic-tions mediation analysis (model 4 Hayes 2013) revealedthat the indirect effect of aesthetics on negative affectthrough changes in aesthetic judgment was significant (b frac1415 95 CI [04 29]) suggesting that product aestheticsaffected the experience of negative emotions through thelarger losses of beauty resulting from the consumption ofhigher aesthetic products

Discussion While past work has shown that aestheticsare inextricably linked with pleasure (Reber et al 2004Reimann et al 2010) study 6A extends this body of re-search by revealing that in the context of nondurable prod-ucts where consumption entails damaging product designnot only does the usage of higher (vs lower) aestheticproducts result in larger decrements in beauty but suchlosses also drive greater negative affect after consumptionNotably while we asked participants to assess the aestheticqualities of the napkins before and immediately after usageto more precisely capture the changes in beauty we ob-served we recognize that this design may have caused theaesthetic appeal of the napkins to be more salient prior toconsumption making its decrement therefore more pro-nounced after consumption Thus having established thatbeauty decrements resulting from aesthetic product usageunderlie post-consumption affect in study 6B we measurethis change in a less invasive manner after consumptionWe also integrate changes in beauty and effort inferencesinto emotional reactions linked to consumption

STUDY 6B TESTING THE FULLCONCEPTUAL MODEL FOR POST-

CONSUMPTION AFFECT

The goal of study 6B is to elucidate the drivers of post-consumption emotions while continuing to hold usage con-stant in both conditions thereby allowing us to test the fullconceptual model in a more controlled fashion As alludedto in study 6A the inherently lower consumption likeli-hood of higher aesthetic products could potentially resultin self-selection issues In study 6B we predict that partici-pants will experience more negative affect after using ahigher (vs lower) aesthetic product an effect driven in tan-dem by effort inferences as well as changes in beauty

Further we try to better understand consumersrsquo emotionalreactions after aesthetic product usage by not highlightingthe productrsquos aesthetic qualities beforehand Finally wemeasure implicit self-theories to examine whether onersquos in-herent degree of effort appreciation moderates post-consumption negative affect

Method

Participants and Procedure Four hundred participantswere recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk to partici-pate in a two-cell (aesthetics higher vs lower) between-subjects study in exchange for payment Ten individualsparticipated in this study twice and 17 had missing data onthe focal dependent measures and were excluded from theanalysis yielding a final sample of 373 participants (55female [two did not report gender] median age frac14 32 ages18ndash76)

The study design of study 6B was almost identical tothat of study 6A aside from several modifications Firstparticipants completed the same negative emotion indexfrom study 6A (afrac14 91) immediately after reading the sce-nario instead of after aesthetics judgment measures (whichwere not included in this study) Second instead of assess-ing aesthetic ratings at two separate points in time we uti-lized a new single cross-sectional measure to capturedecrements in beauty post-consumption ldquoBy using thenapkins it felt like I was turning something that was oncebeautiful into something uglyrdquo (1 frac14 strongly disagree 7 frac14strongly agree) Next to examine effort inferences as a par-allel driver of negative affect after consumption partici-pants completed the same effort inferences and effortdestruction measures from study 3 although these mea-sures are distinct from study 3 in that they were assessedafter usage had already taken place Finally participantscompleted the implicit self-theories scale

Results and Discussion

Emotions Replicating study 6A a one-way ANOVAon negative emotions revealed that participants who usedthe higher aesthetic floral napkins to clean up the spill feltmore negative affect than those who used the lower aestheticwhite napkins (Mhigher aesthetic frac14 313 vs Mlower aesthetic frac14283 F(1 371) frac14 394 p lt 05) Of note this main effectdid not interact with implicit self-theories (p gt 30) sug-gesting that both incremental and entity theorists experi-enced more negative affect after using the higher (vslower) aesthetic napkins to clean up the spill a finding werevisit in the discussion section

Decrements in Beauty (Cross-Sectional) A one-wayANOVA on changes in beauty indicated that the higheraesthetic napkin underwent greater decrements in beautythrough consumption (Mhigher frac14 263 vs Mlower frac14 177F(1 371) frac14 2671 p lt 001)

WU ET AL 15

Effort Inferences A one-way ANOVA on effort infer-ences indicated that participants ascribed greater effort tothe higher aesthetic napkins (Mhigher frac14 349 vs Mlower frac14287 F(1 371) frac14 1359 p lt 001)

Effort Destruction A one-way ANOVA on concernsabout effort destruction indicated that participants hadstronger concerns that effort had been destroyed in thehigher aesthetic condition (Mhigher frac14 262 vs Mlower frac14200 F(1 371) frac14 1355 p lt 001)

Mediation Finally we conducted two separate media-tion analyses one testing the path of product aesthetics decrements in beauty negative affect (model 4 Hayes2013) and the other testing the serial path of product aes-thetics effort inferences concerns about effort de-struction negative affect (model 6) Results from thefirst analysis revealed that the indirect effect of aestheticson negative affect through changes in beauty was signifi-cant (b frac14 37 95 CI [23 54]) suggesting that productaesthetics affected the experience of negative emotionsthrough larger decrements in beauty in the higher aestheticcondition Second the indirect effect of aesthetics on nega-tive affect through effort inferences and concerns about ef-fort destruction (in serial) was also significant (b frac14 1295 CI [06 23]) as was the indirect effect of aestheticson negative affect through effort destruction alone (b frac1411 95 CI [01 23])

Finally we also included beauty decrements effort in-ferences and effort destruction into the model as parallelmediators to gain greater understanding of the relativestrength of these drivers This analysis revealed that whenall three mediators were in the model the indirect effectthrough decrements in beauty remained significant (b frac1422 95 CI [11 36]) as did the indirect effect througheffort destruction (b frac14 15 95 CI [06 27]) Taken to-gether these results suggest that while concerns about ef-fort destruction continue to play a role in driving theemotional outcomes of aesthetic product usage the decre-ments in beauty that become evident only after an aestheticproduct has been visibly compromised through consump-tion also lead to negative affect

Discussion Study 6B which allowed us to examinethe entire post-consumption conceptual model revealedthat people who used higher (vs lower) aesthetic napkinssubsequently experienced greater negative affect an effectdriven by two processes operating in parallel concernsabout the destruction of effort and decrements in beauty Inother words the consumption experience was associatedwith more negative affect because the consumption processnot only involved the actual destruction of effort but italso took a beautiful product that was typified by pleasureand transformed it into something marked by displeasure

We should also note that we replicated the post-consumption findings with actual paper napkins in a lab

context In a separate study using study 5rsquos procedure par-ticipants watched a video and received a snack to eat alongwith a higher versus lower aesthetic napkin and then indi-cated how they felt about the consumption experienceParticipants who chose to use their higher aesthetic napkinreported feeling more negative affect relative to whosewho chose to use their lower aesthetic napkin (p frac14 04)and relative to those who did not use their higher aestheticnapkin (p lt 01) Thus aesthetic product usage increasednegative affect even when consumers could choose to ei-ther use the aesthetic product or not and when the aestheticproduct (the napkin) was tangential to the affect measurescollected which specifically pertained to the video-watching and snack-eating task Additional details areavailable in the web appendix

Though we provide evidence that effort inferences con-tinued to partially drive consumer responses to beautifulproducts after usage it is interesting to note that post-consumption affect was not moderated by the degree towhich effort is intrinsically appreciated (ie implicit self-theories) While unexpected we speculate that this may oc-cur because post-consumption enjoyment is not exclusivelydriven by effort inferences Since losses of beauty alsoplay a substantial role in shaping emotional outcomes afterconsumption the beauty decrements associated with aes-thetic product usage may have brought entity theorists to asimilar emotional state as incremental theorists resultingin everybody feeling worse off after consumption irrespec-tive of individual differences in effort appreciation Morebroadly since post-consumption affect appears to be multi-ply determined it is difficult to completely disentangle thenegative affect stemming from the destruction of effortfrom the negative affect stemming from decrements inbeauty Study 6B offers a distinct test of this conjecturesince it made usage (and hence losses of beauty) salientthrough images of visibly used napkins

GENERAL DISCUSSION

Across a series of laboratory and field studies using avariety of nondurable product categories and consumptionsituations we reveal the negative impact of enhanced prod-uct aesthetics on usage and post-consumption conse-quences First we document an inhibiting effect of productaesthetics on consumption behaviors for disposable andperishable products in both real-world (study 1) and lab(study 2) settings Next we shed light on the drivers of us-age likelihood using mediation (study 3) a context-basedboundary condition (study 4) and a theoretically derivedindividual difference moderator (study 5) thereby provid-ing convergent support for an underlying process based oneffort Finally in studies 6A and 6B we hold product us-age constant to elucidate the drivers of post-consumptionaffect and show that the decrements in beauty that

16 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

aesthetic products inherently undergo as a result of con-sumption combined with concerns that one has actuallydestroyed effort underlie these effects

Theoretical Contributions Our work makes severaltheoretical contributions First while prior research hasshown that consumers respond favorably to both productaesthetics and effort we believe we are the first to establisha causal relationship between these constructs We findthat highly aesthetic products can elicit greater perceptionsof effort regardless of whether this effort was exerted dur-ing product design physical production or both processesWe further reveal that these effort inferences are not lim-ited to handmade products such as perishable foods butalso apply to mass-produced products such as consumerpackaged disposable goods

Second while existing literature suggests that consumerpreferences should increase as a function of a productrsquos aes-thetic appeal the prevailing ways of assessing the impact ofaesthetics on consumer preference have been limited to pur-chase intentions product evaluations and choice (Hagtvedtand Patrick 2008 Raghubir and Greenleaf 2006 Reimannet al 2010 Townsend and Shu 2010) Surprisingly the role ofaesthetics after choice has received little empirical attention todate Despite the stimulating effect that enhanced product aes-thetics have on choice and pre-usage evaluations our resultssuggest that once beautiful products are acquired consumersmay be less likely to consume them because the higher infer-ences of effort attributed to their creation elicit stronger con-cerns that such effort would be destroyed during consumption

This research also shows that the impact of implicit self-theories on consumer behavior may be more pervasivethan previously thought While prior research in psychol-ogy has shown that incremental and entity theorists carrydissimilar beliefs about the value of their own effort(Dweck 2000) we provide support for the novel predictionthat beyond the recognition of personal effort implicitself-theories affect the extent to which consumers appreci-ate the effort that goes into the creation of aestheticallyappealing products

Finally contrary to the notion that enhanced product aes-thetics are always beneficial to consumption enjoyment ourwork reveals that usage of highly aesthetic disposable prod-ucts can actually lower overall enjoyment of the consumptionexperience through two separate pathways (1) by elicitingconcerns that one has actually destroyed effort and (2) bycompromising the beauty that typically characterizes aestheticproducts Thus we add to the literature on aesthetics andpleasure by showing how the consumption of highly aestheticproducts can result in larger losses of beauty and that suchdecrements in turn drive the relationship between aestheticproduct consumption and negative affect

More generally these findings speak to researchthat explores when and why the drivers of predicted andexperienced utility might diverge For instance

Thompson et al (2005) found that consumersrsquo initial desirefor product capability before purchase leads them to chooseproducts packed with features but their growing desire forproduct usability after usage leads them to ultimately prefersimpler products Similarly Lee and Tsai (2014) showedthat price promotions can stimulate sales but lower atten-tion during consumption which in turn reduces consump-tion enjoyment In the same vein despite the delightinitially elicited by the choice of beautiful products wedemonstrate that enhanced aesthetics have the ability tolater discourage usage and lower consumption enjoyment

Substantive Implications Our findings carry importantpractical implications as they pose an interesting dilemmato managers While conventional wisdom suggests that mar-keters should strive to invest the highest degree of effort intomaking their products look aesthetically pleasing at least tothe extent that company resources will allow our researchreveals that the story is not so simple Enhancing productaesthetics might positively affect initial attention interestand choice but should be considered with caution given thatsuch increased appeal could inhibit usage and reduce enjoy-ment relative to less aesthetically appealing productsRelatedly people likely consume highly aesthetic disposableproducts more slowly which could affect interpurchasetime Thus the pursuit of product aesthetics and improvedshort-term sales must be constantly balanced against theneed to encourage consumption ensure customer satisfac-tion and maintain long-term profitability Still certain prod-ucts such as beautiful candles and soaps may serve adecorative purpose in addition to their basic utilitarian func-tion and consequently may also carry intrinsic aestheticvalue Our recommendations are admittedly less straightfor-ward under such circumstances as consumers are able toderive utility from the productsrsquo enhanced aesthetics simplyby displaying them

Our results also have clear implications for managersand policy makers interested in promoting conservationand sustainable business practices A growing number ofretail and service establishments have been switching tounbleached paper products as the traditional bleachingprocess that removes imperfections and gives paper itswhite appearance also produces hazardous chemicals (egchlorine and dioxins) that are harmful to the environment(Evans 2010) While the transition to unbleached paperproducts has benefited the environment the results fromour investigation suggest the growing popularity of thistrend may be a double-edged sword To the extent thatunbleached paper products are considered less aestheticallyappealing consumers may show less restraint in usingthem leading to backfiring effects for conservation effortsPut another way the positive environmental impact of pro-ducing unbleached paper products could potentially be off-set by consumersrsquo reduced inhibition in consuming theseproducts Thus increasing the aesthetic appeal of products

WU ET AL 17

may actually be an effective way for companies to promoteenvironmentally sustainable behaviors even after incorpo-rating the increased cost of implementing such practices

Finally given that rising obesity rates are a major publichealth concern traced to increased consumption (Chandonand Wansink 2007) there has been burgeoning interest inthe various factors that shape consumer food choices (Corniland Chandon 2016 McFerran et al 2010 Scott et al 2008)The results of study 2 suggest that one way to curb overeat-ing might be to enhance the aesthetic presentation of foodproducts especially hedonic foods Of course additionalresearch is needed to better explore the impact of aestheticsin this important area given the counteracting effects thatfood aesthetics exert on consumption versus enjoyment

Limitations and Future Research While the current setof studies was designed to elucidate perceived effort as anunderlying mechanism of lower usage of aestheticallyappealing products we recognize that this phenomenonlike many is likely driven by multiple processes (FuchsSchreier and van Osselaer 2015) Indeed as evident in ourresearch consumption likelihood and consumption enjoy-ment each have distinct sets of drivers For instance whilewe accounted for cost across multiple studies and demon-strated that our effects held even after we controlled for theperceived price of the product we believe that cost maycertainly play a role in certain situations For example cer-tain highly aesthetic products elicit perceptions of luxury(Hagtvedt and Patrick 2008) and may consequently reduceconsumption because they appear ldquotoo expensive to userdquoand cost may even interact with aesthetics under certaincircumstances to impact consumption such that the infer-ences of effort typically ascribed to aesthetically appealingproducts could be mitigated if people are told that theywere extremely inexpensive

In addition classic research by Loewenstein (1987)showed that people often prefer to delay consumption ofenjoyable experiences It may be that people are averse toimmediately consuming a highly aesthetic product becausethey are able to derive more utility by savoring the experi-ence and postponing consumption Further as alluded to instudy 4 it is possible that anticipated decrements in beautymay play a larger role in shaping usage in other consump-tion contexts Thus while we focus on the role of effortinferences in driving lower usage of highly aesthetic prod-ucts we are cognizant of the fact that other mechanismslikely exist which would provide intriguing avenues forfurther investigation

It would also be interesting to examine whether the neg-ative influence of enhanced aesthetics would hold acrossdifferent consumption contexts That is are there situationswhere the present phenomenon would not emerge Indeedone could argue that service establishments such as upscalerestaurants and luxury resorts which regularly pampertheir guests with beautifully plated entrees and folded

towel animals would eventually be driven out of businessif the consumption of highly aesthetic products alwaysresulted in lower enjoyment We believe that whether theusage of highly aesthetic products is accompanied bydecreased consumption and increased negative affect willhinge on the nature of the consumption environment Priorresearch indicates that our surroundings are capable ofautomatically eliciting normative behaviors when situa-tional norms are well established (Aarts and Dijksterhuis2003) Extending this perspective it is possible that theeffects observed in this article may be relatively weakenedwhen consumption occurs in environments characterizedby strong expectations to engage in indulgent consumptionsuch as in a fancy restaurant or luxurious hotel

Relatedly it would be interesting to examine whethercalling attention to fact that the aesthetic product if leftunconsumed will face inevitable destruction could enhanceconsumption likelihood and enjoyment to some extent par-ticularly for perishable products such as food4 Indeedrecent research has shown that consumers display a strongaversion to waste and unused utility (Bolton and Alba2012) Thus future studies should examine whether theeffects documented in this article could be attenuated ifthe inevitable destruction of effort is made salient to con-sumers (eg the product will go bad be thrown away orsomebody else will consume the product even if they donot) In summary future work should explore situationswhere enhanced aesthetics might carry more weight in theutility function for the overall consumption experienceand subsequently increase consumption and boostenjoyment

Another area for future research would be to examinewhether the destruction of product aesthetics is an ldquoall ornothingrdquo event such that any amount of consumption (evena single bite of a cupcake) would be viewed as destroyingthe productrsquos overall beauty While our experimentaldesigns did not allow us to examine whether destruction is acontinuous versus discrete function of consumption it isworth nothing that we did document lower usage acrossvarying degrees of consumption (eg consumption was con-tinuous in study 2 but discrete in study 5) and we did findthat different levels of consumption still led to reducedenjoyment Nevertheless we believe this is an importantempirical question worth investigating in the future

Finally while we have limited our analysis to nondura-bles (perishable and disposable products specifically) anintriguing path would be to investigate the potential moder-ating role of product durability on usage likelihood andsubsequent enjoyment of highly aesthetic products It maybe that the relative durability of the aesthetic product couldaffect individualsrsquo ability or motivation to anticipate decre-ments in beauty before consumption has occurred whichwould have implications for usage likelihood For instance

4 We thank one of the anonymous reviewers for this suggestion

18 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

with big-ticket high-involvement purchases such as sleekfurniture (eg a beautiful new white sectional sofa) con-sumers may more readily anticipate losses of beauty sincethey will have to live with and encounter the product on adaily basis even after its original beauty has faded or beentarnished through repeated use This may explain why cov-ering new furniture with plastic was at one time a verycommon practice (DiSalvo 2009)

On the other hand for nondurable lower-involvementproducts such as those used in the current research perhapspeople do not have the motivation or ability to considershifts in aesthetic appeal before consumption Furtherproducts often vary in their degree of durabilitymdasha delicateembroidered blanket while by no means nondurable or dis-posable may begin to show visible signs of wear and tearsooner than a fleece blanket Although the present researchspecifically focused on perishable and single-use productsit would be worth examining when and how the degree ofdurability or even perceptions of fragility might shapedecisions to use beautiful products

In conclusion our research documents an inhibitingeffect of enhanced product aesthetics on consumption par-ticularly for disposable and consumable nondurable prod-ucts Although beautiful products have the ability topromote positive pre-usage evaluations and stimulatechoice our work indicates that consumers are subsequentlyless likely to use them and those who do use them ulti-mately experience higher negative affect and lower enjoy-ment In addition different processes underlie consumerresponses to highly aesthetic products depending onwhether or not consumption has taken place Thus we con-clude that while products may never be too pretty tochoose they can in fact be too pretty to use

DATA COLLECTION INFORMATION

All studies were designed and analyzed by the first authorunder the guidance of the other authors The data for study 1was collected at the Scottsdale Pure Barre studio in fall2015 by research assistants and employees under the super-vision of the first author Research assistants collected thedata for studies 2 and 5 under the supervision of the firstauthor at the W P Carey School of Business MarketingDepartment Behavioral Lab in spring 2015 The data for theconceptual replication (reported in the discussion of study6B) was collected by research assistants under the supervi-sion of the first author at the W P Carey School ofBusiness Marketing Department Behavioral Lab in summer2015 The data for study 4 (both the effort manipulation pre-test and the main study) and the correlational study examin-ing the relationship between implicit self-theories andappreciation for othersrsquo effort were collected by the firstauthor using Amazon Mechanical Turk in spring 2016 Thefirst author collected the data for the aesthetic appeal pretest

(described in appendix B) studies 3 6A and 6B usingAmazon Mechanical Turk in summer 2016 Lastly researchassistants collected the data for the correlational study exam-ining the relationship between aesthetics and perceivedeffort (described in the table in ldquoThe Role of Effort inInhibiting Usagerdquo) under the supervision of the first authorat the W P Carey School of Business MarketingDepartment Behavioral Lab in fall 2016

APPENDIX A

STUDY STIMULI

WU ET AL 19

REFERENCES

Aarts Henk and Ap Dijksterhuis (2003) ldquoThe Silence of theLibrary Environment Situational Norm and SocialBehaviorrdquo Journal of Personality and Social Psychology84 (1) 18ndash28

Aharon Itzhak Nancy Etcoff Dan Ariely Christopher F ChabrisEthan OrsquoConnor and Hans C Breiter (2001) ldquoBeautifulFaces Have Variable Reward Value fMRI and BehavioralEvidencerdquo Neuron 32 (3) 537ndash51

Alba Joseph W and Elanor F Williams (2013) ldquoPleasurePrinciples A Review of Research on HedonicConsumptionrdquo Journal of Consumer Psychology 23 (1)2ndash18

Belk Russell W (1988) ldquoPossessions and the Extended SelfrdquoJournal of Consumer Research 15 (2) 139ndash67

Bem Daryl J (1972) Self-Perception Theory Stanford CAStanford University Press

Berridge Kent C (2009) ldquolsquoLikingrsquo and lsquoWantingrsquo Food RewardsBrain Substrates and Roles in Eating Disordersrdquo Physiologyamp Behavior 97 (5) 537ndash50

Bloch Peter H (1995) ldquoSeeking the Ideal Form Product Designand Consumer Responserdquo Journal of Marketing 59 (July)16ndash29

Bloch Peter H Frederic F Brunel and Todd J Arnold (2003)ldquoIndividual Differences in the Centrality of Visual ProductAesthetics Concept and Measurementrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 29 (4) 551ndash65

Bolton Lisa E and Joseph W Alba (2012) ldquoWhen Less Is MoreConsumer Aversion to Unused Utilityrdquo Journal of ConsumerPsychology 22 (3) 369ndash83

Brehm Jack W (1966) A Theory of Psychological ReactanceNew York Academic Press

Broniarczyk Susan M and Joseph W Alba (1994) ldquoThe Role ofConsumersrsquo Intuitions in Inference Makingrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 21 (3) 393ndash407

Cabanac Michel (1971) ldquoPhysiological Role of PleasurerdquoScience 173 (4002) 1103ndash7

mdashmdashmdash (1979) ldquoSensory Pleasurerdquo Quarterly Review of Biology54 (1) 1ndash29

mdashmdashmdash (1985) ldquoPreferring for Pleasurerdquo American Journal ofClinical Nutrition 42 (5) 1151ndash5

Chandon Pierre and Brian Wansink (2007) ldquoThe Biasing HealthHalos of Fast Food Restaurant Health Claims Lower CalorieEstimates and Higher Side-Dish Consumption IntentionsrdquoJournal of Consumer Research 34 (3) 301ndash14

Cornil Yann and Pierre Chandon (2016) ldquoPleasure as a Substitutefor Size How Multisensory Imagery Can Make PeopleHappier with Smaller Food Portionsrdquo Journal of MarketingResearch 53 (5) 847ndash64

Cleveland William S (1984) ldquoGraphical Methods for DataPresentation Full Scale Breaks Dot Charts and MultibasedLoggingrdquo The American Statistician 38 (4) 270ndash80

DiSalvo David (2009) ldquoThe Psychology of Plastic CouchCoversrdquo httpsneuronarrativewordpresscom20090119the-psychology-of-plastic-couch-covers

Dixie Products (2015) ldquoDixie Ultra Moments Ultimate Hostrdquohttpswwwyoutubecomwatchvfrac14wsBBq9PsgVI

Dutton Denis (2009) The Art Instinct Beauty Pleasure ampHuman Evolution New York Oxford University Press

Dweck Carol S (2000) Self-Theories Their Role in MotivationPersonality and Development Philadelphia Psychology Press

Dweck Carol S and Ellen L Leggett (1988) ldquoA Social-CognitiveApproach to Motivation and Personalityrdquo PsychologicalReview 95 (2) 256ndash73

Evans Lindsay (2010) ldquoWhy Buy Unbleached Paperrdquo httpwwwbrighthubcomenvironmentgreen-livingarticles16299aspx

Festinger Leon (1957) A Theory of Cognitive DissonanceStanford CA Stanford University Press

Frederick Shane and George Loewenstein (1999) ldquoHedonicAdaptationrdquo in Scientific Perspectives on EnjoymentSuffering and Well-Being ed Daniel Kahneman Ed Dienerand Norbert Schwartz New York Russell Sage Foundation302ndash29

Fuchs Christoph Martin Schreier and Stijn MJ van Osselaer(2015) ldquoThe Handmade Effect Whatrsquos Love Got to Do withItrdquo Journal of Marketing 79 (2) 98ndash110

Hagtvedt Henrik and Vanessa M Patrick (2008) ldquoArt InfusionThe Influence of Visual Art on the Perception and Evaluationof Consumer Productsrdquo Journal of Marketing Research 45(3) 379ndash89

AESTHETIC APPEAL PRETEST FOR ALL STIMULI USED IN STUDIES

Higher aesthetic Lower aesthetic Comparison a

Toilet paper (study 1) 377 (146) 253 (155) t(128) frac14 ndash469 p lt 001 a frac14 94Cupcake (study 2) 556 (106) 305 (146) t(128) frac14 ndash1120 p lt 001 a frac14 96Napkin (studies 3 and 6) 465 (153) 230 (144) t(128) frac14 ndash903 p lt 001 a frac14 97Napkin (study 4) 332 (145) 262 (154) t(128) frac14 ndash266 p lt 01 a frac14 92Napkin (study 5) 458 (159) 234 (151) t(128) frac14 ndash823 p lt 001 a frac14 97

NOTEmdashStandard deviations are in parentheses

In a between-subjects pretest participants were asked to rate each product along the following dimensions beautiful pretty artistic and aesthetically pleasing

(1 frac14 not at all 7 frac14 very much) which formed our aesthetic appeal index

APPENDIX B

20 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

Hayes Andrew F (2013) ldquoPROCESS A VersatileComputational Tool for Observed Variable MediationModeration and Conditional Process Modelingrdquo workingpaper School of Communication and Department ofPsychology Ohio State University Columbus OH 43210

Heller Steve (2015) ldquoA Grocery Store Illusion Is Getting You toSpend More Moneyrdquo httpwwwbusinessinsidercoma-grocery-store-illusion-is-getting-you-to-spend-more-money-2015-8ixzz3ifsOLBfG

Hurling Robert and Richard Shepherd (2003) ldquoEating with YourEyes Effect of Appearance on Expectations of LikingrdquoAppetite 41 (2) 167ndash74

Hoegg JoAndrea Joseph W Alba and Darren W Dahl (2010)ldquoThe Good the Bad and the Ugly Influence of Aesthetics onProduct Feature Judgmentsrdquo Journal of ConsumerPsychology 20 (4) 419ndash30

Johnson Palmer O and Jerzy Neyman (1936) ldquoTests of CertainLinear Hypotheses and Their Applications to SomeEducational Problemsrdquo Statistical Research Memoirs 157ndash93

Kahneman Daniel and Amos Tversky (1979) ldquoProspect TheoryAn Analysis of Decision under Riskrdquo Econometrica 47 (2)263ndash91

Kampe Knut K W Chris D Frith Raymond J Dolan and UtaFrith (2001) ldquoPsychology Reward Value of Attractivenessand Gazerdquo Nature 413 (6856) 589

Kelley Harold H (1967) ldquoAttribution Theory in SocialPsychologyrdquo in Nebraska Symposium of Motivation Vol 15ed D Levine Lincoln University of Nebraska Press192ndash238

Kirmani Amna (1990) ldquoThe Effect of Perceived AdvertisingCosts on Brand Perceptionsrdquo Journal of Consumer Research17 (2) 160ndash71

Kirmani Amna Michelle P Lee and Carolyn Yoon (2004)ldquoProcedural Priming Effects on Spontaneous InferenceFormationrdquo Journal of Economic Psychology 25 (6)859ndash75

Kruger Justin Derrick Wirtz Leaf Van Boven and T WilliamAltermatt (2004) ldquoThe Effort Heuristicrdquo Journal ofExperimental Social Psychology 40 (1) 91ndash8

Lee Leonard and Claire I Tsai (2014) ldquoHow Price PromotionsInfluence Postpurchase Consumption Experience overTimerdquo Journal of Consumer Research 40 (5) 943ndash59

Levy Sheri R Steven J Stroessner and Carol S Dweck (1998)ldquoStereotype Formation and Endorsement The Role ofImplicit Theoriesrdquo Journal of Personality and SocialPsychology 74 (6) 1421ndash36

Lisjak Monika Andrea Bonezzi Soo Kim and Derek D Rucker(2015) ldquoPerils of Compensatory Consumption Within-Domain Compensation Undermines Subsequent Self-Regulationrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 41 (5)1186ndash203

Loewenstein George (1987) ldquoAnticipation and the Valuation ofDelayed Consumptionrdquo Economic Journal 97 (September)666ndash84

Maritain Jacques (1966) ldquoBeauty and Imitationrdquo in A ModernBook of Esthetics ed Melvin Rader New York HoltRinehart amp Winston 27ndash34

McFerran Brent Darren W Dahl Gavan J Fitzsimons andAndrea C Morales (2010) ldquoIrsquoll Have What Shersquos HavingEffects of Social Influence and Body Type on the FoodChoices of Othersrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 36 (6)915ndash29

Morales Andrea C (2005) ldquoGiving Firms an lsquoErsquo for EffortConsumer Responses to High-Effort Firmsrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 31 (4) 806ndash12

Moreau C Page Leff Bonney and Kelly B Herd (2011) ldquoItrsquos theThought (and the Effort) That Counts How Customizing forOthers Differs from Customizing for Oneselfrdquo Journal ofMarketing 75 (5) 120ndash33

Norton Michael I Daniel Mochon and Dan Ariely (2012) ldquoThelsquoIkearsquo Effect When Labor Leads to Loverdquo Journal ofConsumer Psychology 22 (July) 453ndash60

Page Christine and Paul M Herr (2002) ldquoAn Investigation ofthe Processes by Which Product Design and Brand StrengthInteract to Determine Initial Affect and QualityJudgmentsrdquo Journal of Consumer Psychology 12 (2)133ndash47

Raghubir Priya and Eric A Greenleaf (2006) ldquoRatios inProportion What Should the Shape of the Package BerdquoJournal of Marketing 70 (2) 95ndash107

Raghunathan Rajagopal Rebecca Walker Naylor and Wayne DHoyer (2006) ldquoThe Unhealthy frac14 Tasty Intuition and ItsEffects on Taste Inferences Enjoyment and Choice of FoodProductsrdquo Journal of Marketing 70 (4) 170ndash84

Reber Rolf Norbert Schwarz and Piotr Winkielman (2004)ldquoProcessing Fluency and Aesthetic Pleasure Is Beauty in thePerceiverrsquos Processing Experiencerdquo Personality and SocialPsychology Review 8 (4) 364ndash82

Reber Rolf Piotr Winkielman and Norbert Schwarz (1998)ldquoEffects of Perceptual Fluency on Affective JudgmentsrdquoPsychological Science 9 (1) 45ndash48

Reimann Martin Judith Zaichkowksy Carolin Neuhaus ThomasBender and Bernd Weber (2010) ldquoAesthetic PackageDesign A Behavioral Neural and PsychologicalInvestigationrdquo Journal of Consumer Psychology 20 (4)431ndash41

Santayana George (18961955) The Sense of Beauty New YorkDover

Scott Maura L Stephen M Nowlis Naomi Mandel and AndreaC Morales (2008) ldquoThe Effects of Reduced Food Size andPackage Size on the Consumption Behavior of Restrainedand Unrestrained Eatersrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 35(3) 391ndash405

Spencer Steven J Mark P Zanna and Geoffrey T Fong (2005)ldquoEstablishing a Causal Chain Why Experiments Are OftenMore Effective than Mediational Analyses in ExaminingPsychological Processesrdquo Journal of Personality and SocialPsychology 89 (6) 845ndash51

Spiller Stephen A Gavan J Fitzsimons John G Lynch Jr andGary H McClelland (2013) ldquoSpotlights Floodlights andthe Magic Number Zero Simple Effects Tests inModerated Regressionrdquo Journal of Marketing Research 50(2) 277ndash88

Thompson Debora V Rebecca W Hamilton and Roland T Rust(2005) ldquoFeature Fatigue When Product CapabilitiesBecome Too Much of a Good Thingrdquo Journal of MarketingResearch 42 (November) 431ndash42

Townsend Claudia and Suzanne B Shu (2010) ldquoWhen and HowAesthetics Influences Financial Decisionsrdquo Journal ofConsumer Psychology 20 (4) 452ndash58

Townsend Claudia and Sanjay Sood (2012) ldquoSelf-Affirmationthrough the Choice of Highly Aesthetic Productsrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 39 (2) 415ndash28

Veryzer Robert W and J Wesley Hutchinson (1998) ldquoTheInfluence of Unity and Prototypicality on Aesthetic

WU ET AL 21

Responses to New Product Designsrdquo Journal of ConsumerResearch 24 (4) 374ndash94

Wada Yuji Carlos Arce-Lopera Tomohiro Masuda AtsushiKimura Ippeita Dan Sho-ichi Goto Daisuke Tsuzuki andKatsunori Okajima (2010) ldquoInfluence of LuminanceDistribution on the Appetizingly Fresh Appearance ofCabbagerdquo Appetite 54 (2) 363ndash68

Weiner Bernard (2000) ldquoAttributional Thoughts and ConsumerBehaviorrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 27 (December)382ndash87

Witz Anne Chris Warhurst and Dennis Nickson (2003) ldquoTheLabour of Aesthetics and The Aesthetics of OrganizationrdquoOrganization 10 (1) 33ndash54

Yamamoto Mel and David R Lambert (1994) ldquoThe Impact ofProduct Aesthetics on the Evaluation of Industrial ProductsrdquoJournal of Product Innovation Management 11 (4) 309ndash24

Yang Sha and Priya Raghubir (2005) ldquoCan Bottles SpeakVolumes The Effect of Package Shape on How Much toBuyrdquo Journal of Retailing 81 (4) 269ndash82

22 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

  • ucx057-FN1
  • ucx057-FN2
  • ucx057-FN3
  • ucx057-FN4
  • app1
  • app2
  • ucx057-TF1
  • ucx057-TF2
Page 14: It’s Too Pretty to Use! When and How Enhanced Product ...gavan/bio/GJF_articles/...testing the prediction that aesthetic products can elicit greater perceptions of effort. In line

elucidate the drivers of post-consumption emotions whileholding usage constant thereby allowing us to hone in onpost-consumption consequences in a more controlledfashion since people are inherently less likely to usehigher aesthetic products which could potentially result inself-selection issues

STUDY 6A DECREMENTS IN BEAUTYAND POST-CONSUMPTION AFFECT

Recall in study 2 that when the cupcake was highly aes-thetic consumption enjoyment was lower among individ-uals most motivated to engage in consumption (ie hungryindividuals) an effect we propose is determined by twoprocesses working in tandem First we expect that the ef-fort inferences made prior to consumption will continue todrive emotional outcomes given the consumption processinvolves the actual destruction of effort Second and onlyevident post-consumption are the decrements in beautythat aesthetic products undergo when their aesthetic quali-ties are visibly compromised through usage Because beau-tiful products are inherently pleasurable (Reber et al 2004Reimann et al 2010) we predict that individuals will expe-rience less pleasure and more negative affect when theywitness highly aesthetic products undergo steeper drops inbeauty as a result of consumption Consistent with prospecttheoryrsquos value function (Kahneman and Tversky 1979)initial changesmdashhere the larger losses of beauty associatedwith the usage of a higher (vs lower) aesthetic productmdashshould be particularly jarring and lead to more negative af-fect (Frederick and Loewenstein 1999)

Importantly unlike in study 2 where we measured theamount consumed as well as post-consumption enjoymentin study 6A we hold usage constant in the higher andlower aesthetic conditions and hone in on the changes inbeauty with a longitudinal study design Specifically theobjective of study 6A is to extend prior work on the rela-tionship between beauty and pleasure by establishing itscorollarymdashthat the consumption of a higher (vs lower)aesthetic product will lead to greater perceived losses ofbeauty and that such decrements in beauty will in turnhave a negative influence on post-consumption affect Wemeasure this decrement by capturing aesthetic judgmentsimmediately before and after usage

Method

Participants and Procedure Four hundred sixteen par-ticipants were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk toparticipate in a 2 (aesthetics higher vs lower between) 2(aesthetic judgment before vs after usage within) mixed-design study in exchange for payment Six individuals par-ticipated in this study twice and four had missing data onthe focal dependent measures and were excluded from theanalysis yielding a final sample of 406 participants (54

female [11 did not report gender] median age frac14 30 ages18ndash76)

The procedure was similar to that of study 3 featuringthe same bakery scenario and stimuli but with several mod-ifications After participants were initially presented witheither the higher or lower aesthetic napkins following thespill they immediately completed two semantic differen-tial items of aesthetic evaluations for these unused napkinson seven-point scales ldquonot at all prettyvery prettyrdquo andldquonot at all uglyvery uglyrdquo (reverse-coded) which havebeen shown in prior work to capture aesthetic judgments(Reber Winkielman and Schwarz 1998 r frac14 47) Aftercompleting these baseline aesthetic judgment measuresparticipants proceeded with the scenario They were toldthey realized they would need to grab at least 10 napkins tocome close to cleaning up the spill and were subsequentlyshown a stack of unused napkins The scenario ended withan image of a bundle of napkins now drenched with cof-fee that were used to clean up the spill Additional detailsof the procedure are available in the web appendix

Immediately after reading the scenario participantscompleted the same set of aesthetic judgment items a sec-ond time this time rating the coffee-drenched napkinswhich served as a measure of post-usage aesthetic judg-ments Participants then indicated to what extent they ex-perienced each of the following negative emotions whilethey were using the napkins to clean up the spill stressedregretful bad afraid fearful sad sorry and guilty whichwe combined into an index of post-consumption negativeaffect (1 frac14 not at all 7 frac14 very much so afrac14 91)

Results and Discussion

We predicted that participants would experience greaternegative affect after using the higher (vs lower) aestheticnapkins an effect that would be driven by the larger decre-ments in beauty that stem from the consumption of higheraesthetic products

Emotions A one-way ANOVA on negative emotionsexperienced after consumption revealed that participantswho used the higher aesthetic floral napkins to clean up thespill felt more negative affect than those who used thelower aesthetic white napkins (Mhigher aesthetic frac14 305 vsMlower aesthetic frac14 246 F(1 404) frac14 1686 p lt 001)

Decrements in Beauty (Longitudinal) A 2 (aestheticshigher vs lower) 2 (timing before usage vs after usage)mixed ANOVA on aesthetic judgments yielded main ef-fects of both aesthetics (F(1 404) frac14 10652 p lt 001) andtiming (F(1 404) frac14 125629 p lt 001) which were quali-fied by a significant aesthetics timing interaction (F(1404) frac14 5302 p lt 001) Planned contrasts revealed thatwhereas the higher aesthetic napkins elicited more favor-able aesthetic judgments than the lower aesthetic napkinsbefore usage (Mhigher frac14 594 vs Mlower frac14 447 F(1 404)

14 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

frac14 15269 p lt 001) this difference was substantiallyreduced after usage (Mhigher frac14 237 vs Mlower frac14 211F(1 404) frac14 484 p frac14 03) Importantly and arguably mostcentral to our research the decrement in aesthetic ratingsthrough usage was significantly larger in the higher aes-thetic conditionmdashin fact 151 largermdashthan that observedin the lower aesthetic condition (ie a drop of 357 unitsvs a drop of 236 units)

Mediation Finally we are interested in whether decre-ments in aesthetic judgment emanating from product usageunderlie post-consumption affect Consistent with predic-tions mediation analysis (model 4 Hayes 2013) revealedthat the indirect effect of aesthetics on negative affectthrough changes in aesthetic judgment was significant (b frac1415 95 CI [04 29]) suggesting that product aestheticsaffected the experience of negative emotions through thelarger losses of beauty resulting from the consumption ofhigher aesthetic products

Discussion While past work has shown that aestheticsare inextricably linked with pleasure (Reber et al 2004Reimann et al 2010) study 6A extends this body of re-search by revealing that in the context of nondurable prod-ucts where consumption entails damaging product designnot only does the usage of higher (vs lower) aestheticproducts result in larger decrements in beauty but suchlosses also drive greater negative affect after consumptionNotably while we asked participants to assess the aestheticqualities of the napkins before and immediately after usageto more precisely capture the changes in beauty we ob-served we recognize that this design may have caused theaesthetic appeal of the napkins to be more salient prior toconsumption making its decrement therefore more pro-nounced after consumption Thus having established thatbeauty decrements resulting from aesthetic product usageunderlie post-consumption affect in study 6B we measurethis change in a less invasive manner after consumptionWe also integrate changes in beauty and effort inferencesinto emotional reactions linked to consumption

STUDY 6B TESTING THE FULLCONCEPTUAL MODEL FOR POST-

CONSUMPTION AFFECT

The goal of study 6B is to elucidate the drivers of post-consumption emotions while continuing to hold usage con-stant in both conditions thereby allowing us to test the fullconceptual model in a more controlled fashion As alludedto in study 6A the inherently lower consumption likeli-hood of higher aesthetic products could potentially resultin self-selection issues In study 6B we predict that partici-pants will experience more negative affect after using ahigher (vs lower) aesthetic product an effect driven in tan-dem by effort inferences as well as changes in beauty

Further we try to better understand consumersrsquo emotionalreactions after aesthetic product usage by not highlightingthe productrsquos aesthetic qualities beforehand Finally wemeasure implicit self-theories to examine whether onersquos in-herent degree of effort appreciation moderates post-consumption negative affect

Method

Participants and Procedure Four hundred participantswere recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk to partici-pate in a two-cell (aesthetics higher vs lower) between-subjects study in exchange for payment Ten individualsparticipated in this study twice and 17 had missing data onthe focal dependent measures and were excluded from theanalysis yielding a final sample of 373 participants (55female [two did not report gender] median age frac14 32 ages18ndash76)

The study design of study 6B was almost identical tothat of study 6A aside from several modifications Firstparticipants completed the same negative emotion indexfrom study 6A (afrac14 91) immediately after reading the sce-nario instead of after aesthetics judgment measures (whichwere not included in this study) Second instead of assess-ing aesthetic ratings at two separate points in time we uti-lized a new single cross-sectional measure to capturedecrements in beauty post-consumption ldquoBy using thenapkins it felt like I was turning something that was oncebeautiful into something uglyrdquo (1 frac14 strongly disagree 7 frac14strongly agree) Next to examine effort inferences as a par-allel driver of negative affect after consumption partici-pants completed the same effort inferences and effortdestruction measures from study 3 although these mea-sures are distinct from study 3 in that they were assessedafter usage had already taken place Finally participantscompleted the implicit self-theories scale

Results and Discussion

Emotions Replicating study 6A a one-way ANOVAon negative emotions revealed that participants who usedthe higher aesthetic floral napkins to clean up the spill feltmore negative affect than those who used the lower aestheticwhite napkins (Mhigher aesthetic frac14 313 vs Mlower aesthetic frac14283 F(1 371) frac14 394 p lt 05) Of note this main effectdid not interact with implicit self-theories (p gt 30) sug-gesting that both incremental and entity theorists experi-enced more negative affect after using the higher (vslower) aesthetic napkins to clean up the spill a finding werevisit in the discussion section

Decrements in Beauty (Cross-Sectional) A one-wayANOVA on changes in beauty indicated that the higheraesthetic napkin underwent greater decrements in beautythrough consumption (Mhigher frac14 263 vs Mlower frac14 177F(1 371) frac14 2671 p lt 001)

WU ET AL 15

Effort Inferences A one-way ANOVA on effort infer-ences indicated that participants ascribed greater effort tothe higher aesthetic napkins (Mhigher frac14 349 vs Mlower frac14287 F(1 371) frac14 1359 p lt 001)

Effort Destruction A one-way ANOVA on concernsabout effort destruction indicated that participants hadstronger concerns that effort had been destroyed in thehigher aesthetic condition (Mhigher frac14 262 vs Mlower frac14200 F(1 371) frac14 1355 p lt 001)

Mediation Finally we conducted two separate media-tion analyses one testing the path of product aesthetics decrements in beauty negative affect (model 4 Hayes2013) and the other testing the serial path of product aes-thetics effort inferences concerns about effort de-struction negative affect (model 6) Results from thefirst analysis revealed that the indirect effect of aestheticson negative affect through changes in beauty was signifi-cant (b frac14 37 95 CI [23 54]) suggesting that productaesthetics affected the experience of negative emotionsthrough larger decrements in beauty in the higher aestheticcondition Second the indirect effect of aesthetics on nega-tive affect through effort inferences and concerns about ef-fort destruction (in serial) was also significant (b frac14 1295 CI [06 23]) as was the indirect effect of aestheticson negative affect through effort destruction alone (b frac1411 95 CI [01 23])

Finally we also included beauty decrements effort in-ferences and effort destruction into the model as parallelmediators to gain greater understanding of the relativestrength of these drivers This analysis revealed that whenall three mediators were in the model the indirect effectthrough decrements in beauty remained significant (b frac1422 95 CI [11 36]) as did the indirect effect througheffort destruction (b frac14 15 95 CI [06 27]) Taken to-gether these results suggest that while concerns about ef-fort destruction continue to play a role in driving theemotional outcomes of aesthetic product usage the decre-ments in beauty that become evident only after an aestheticproduct has been visibly compromised through consump-tion also lead to negative affect

Discussion Study 6B which allowed us to examinethe entire post-consumption conceptual model revealedthat people who used higher (vs lower) aesthetic napkinssubsequently experienced greater negative affect an effectdriven by two processes operating in parallel concernsabout the destruction of effort and decrements in beauty Inother words the consumption experience was associatedwith more negative affect because the consumption processnot only involved the actual destruction of effort but italso took a beautiful product that was typified by pleasureand transformed it into something marked by displeasure

We should also note that we replicated the post-consumption findings with actual paper napkins in a lab

context In a separate study using study 5rsquos procedure par-ticipants watched a video and received a snack to eat alongwith a higher versus lower aesthetic napkin and then indi-cated how they felt about the consumption experienceParticipants who chose to use their higher aesthetic napkinreported feeling more negative affect relative to whosewho chose to use their lower aesthetic napkin (p frac14 04)and relative to those who did not use their higher aestheticnapkin (p lt 01) Thus aesthetic product usage increasednegative affect even when consumers could choose to ei-ther use the aesthetic product or not and when the aestheticproduct (the napkin) was tangential to the affect measurescollected which specifically pertained to the video-watching and snack-eating task Additional details areavailable in the web appendix

Though we provide evidence that effort inferences con-tinued to partially drive consumer responses to beautifulproducts after usage it is interesting to note that post-consumption affect was not moderated by the degree towhich effort is intrinsically appreciated (ie implicit self-theories) While unexpected we speculate that this may oc-cur because post-consumption enjoyment is not exclusivelydriven by effort inferences Since losses of beauty alsoplay a substantial role in shaping emotional outcomes afterconsumption the beauty decrements associated with aes-thetic product usage may have brought entity theorists to asimilar emotional state as incremental theorists resultingin everybody feeling worse off after consumption irrespec-tive of individual differences in effort appreciation Morebroadly since post-consumption affect appears to be multi-ply determined it is difficult to completely disentangle thenegative affect stemming from the destruction of effortfrom the negative affect stemming from decrements inbeauty Study 6B offers a distinct test of this conjecturesince it made usage (and hence losses of beauty) salientthrough images of visibly used napkins

GENERAL DISCUSSION

Across a series of laboratory and field studies using avariety of nondurable product categories and consumptionsituations we reveal the negative impact of enhanced prod-uct aesthetics on usage and post-consumption conse-quences First we document an inhibiting effect of productaesthetics on consumption behaviors for disposable andperishable products in both real-world (study 1) and lab(study 2) settings Next we shed light on the drivers of us-age likelihood using mediation (study 3) a context-basedboundary condition (study 4) and a theoretically derivedindividual difference moderator (study 5) thereby provid-ing convergent support for an underlying process based oneffort Finally in studies 6A and 6B we hold product us-age constant to elucidate the drivers of post-consumptionaffect and show that the decrements in beauty that

16 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

aesthetic products inherently undergo as a result of con-sumption combined with concerns that one has actuallydestroyed effort underlie these effects

Theoretical Contributions Our work makes severaltheoretical contributions First while prior research hasshown that consumers respond favorably to both productaesthetics and effort we believe we are the first to establisha causal relationship between these constructs We findthat highly aesthetic products can elicit greater perceptionsof effort regardless of whether this effort was exerted dur-ing product design physical production or both processesWe further reveal that these effort inferences are not lim-ited to handmade products such as perishable foods butalso apply to mass-produced products such as consumerpackaged disposable goods

Second while existing literature suggests that consumerpreferences should increase as a function of a productrsquos aes-thetic appeal the prevailing ways of assessing the impact ofaesthetics on consumer preference have been limited to pur-chase intentions product evaluations and choice (Hagtvedtand Patrick 2008 Raghubir and Greenleaf 2006 Reimannet al 2010 Townsend and Shu 2010) Surprisingly the role ofaesthetics after choice has received little empirical attention todate Despite the stimulating effect that enhanced product aes-thetics have on choice and pre-usage evaluations our resultssuggest that once beautiful products are acquired consumersmay be less likely to consume them because the higher infer-ences of effort attributed to their creation elicit stronger con-cerns that such effort would be destroyed during consumption

This research also shows that the impact of implicit self-theories on consumer behavior may be more pervasivethan previously thought While prior research in psychol-ogy has shown that incremental and entity theorists carrydissimilar beliefs about the value of their own effort(Dweck 2000) we provide support for the novel predictionthat beyond the recognition of personal effort implicitself-theories affect the extent to which consumers appreci-ate the effort that goes into the creation of aestheticallyappealing products

Finally contrary to the notion that enhanced product aes-thetics are always beneficial to consumption enjoyment ourwork reveals that usage of highly aesthetic disposable prod-ucts can actually lower overall enjoyment of the consumptionexperience through two separate pathways (1) by elicitingconcerns that one has actually destroyed effort and (2) bycompromising the beauty that typically characterizes aestheticproducts Thus we add to the literature on aesthetics andpleasure by showing how the consumption of highly aestheticproducts can result in larger losses of beauty and that suchdecrements in turn drive the relationship between aestheticproduct consumption and negative affect

More generally these findings speak to researchthat explores when and why the drivers of predicted andexperienced utility might diverge For instance

Thompson et al (2005) found that consumersrsquo initial desirefor product capability before purchase leads them to chooseproducts packed with features but their growing desire forproduct usability after usage leads them to ultimately prefersimpler products Similarly Lee and Tsai (2014) showedthat price promotions can stimulate sales but lower atten-tion during consumption which in turn reduces consump-tion enjoyment In the same vein despite the delightinitially elicited by the choice of beautiful products wedemonstrate that enhanced aesthetics have the ability tolater discourage usage and lower consumption enjoyment

Substantive Implications Our findings carry importantpractical implications as they pose an interesting dilemmato managers While conventional wisdom suggests that mar-keters should strive to invest the highest degree of effort intomaking their products look aesthetically pleasing at least tothe extent that company resources will allow our researchreveals that the story is not so simple Enhancing productaesthetics might positively affect initial attention interestand choice but should be considered with caution given thatsuch increased appeal could inhibit usage and reduce enjoy-ment relative to less aesthetically appealing productsRelatedly people likely consume highly aesthetic disposableproducts more slowly which could affect interpurchasetime Thus the pursuit of product aesthetics and improvedshort-term sales must be constantly balanced against theneed to encourage consumption ensure customer satisfac-tion and maintain long-term profitability Still certain prod-ucts such as beautiful candles and soaps may serve adecorative purpose in addition to their basic utilitarian func-tion and consequently may also carry intrinsic aestheticvalue Our recommendations are admittedly less straightfor-ward under such circumstances as consumers are able toderive utility from the productsrsquo enhanced aesthetics simplyby displaying them

Our results also have clear implications for managersand policy makers interested in promoting conservationand sustainable business practices A growing number ofretail and service establishments have been switching tounbleached paper products as the traditional bleachingprocess that removes imperfections and gives paper itswhite appearance also produces hazardous chemicals (egchlorine and dioxins) that are harmful to the environment(Evans 2010) While the transition to unbleached paperproducts has benefited the environment the results fromour investigation suggest the growing popularity of thistrend may be a double-edged sword To the extent thatunbleached paper products are considered less aestheticallyappealing consumers may show less restraint in usingthem leading to backfiring effects for conservation effortsPut another way the positive environmental impact of pro-ducing unbleached paper products could potentially be off-set by consumersrsquo reduced inhibition in consuming theseproducts Thus increasing the aesthetic appeal of products

WU ET AL 17

may actually be an effective way for companies to promoteenvironmentally sustainable behaviors even after incorpo-rating the increased cost of implementing such practices

Finally given that rising obesity rates are a major publichealth concern traced to increased consumption (Chandonand Wansink 2007) there has been burgeoning interest inthe various factors that shape consumer food choices (Corniland Chandon 2016 McFerran et al 2010 Scott et al 2008)The results of study 2 suggest that one way to curb overeat-ing might be to enhance the aesthetic presentation of foodproducts especially hedonic foods Of course additionalresearch is needed to better explore the impact of aestheticsin this important area given the counteracting effects thatfood aesthetics exert on consumption versus enjoyment

Limitations and Future Research While the current setof studies was designed to elucidate perceived effort as anunderlying mechanism of lower usage of aestheticallyappealing products we recognize that this phenomenonlike many is likely driven by multiple processes (FuchsSchreier and van Osselaer 2015) Indeed as evident in ourresearch consumption likelihood and consumption enjoy-ment each have distinct sets of drivers For instance whilewe accounted for cost across multiple studies and demon-strated that our effects held even after we controlled for theperceived price of the product we believe that cost maycertainly play a role in certain situations For example cer-tain highly aesthetic products elicit perceptions of luxury(Hagtvedt and Patrick 2008) and may consequently reduceconsumption because they appear ldquotoo expensive to userdquoand cost may even interact with aesthetics under certaincircumstances to impact consumption such that the infer-ences of effort typically ascribed to aesthetically appealingproducts could be mitigated if people are told that theywere extremely inexpensive

In addition classic research by Loewenstein (1987)showed that people often prefer to delay consumption ofenjoyable experiences It may be that people are averse toimmediately consuming a highly aesthetic product becausethey are able to derive more utility by savoring the experi-ence and postponing consumption Further as alluded to instudy 4 it is possible that anticipated decrements in beautymay play a larger role in shaping usage in other consump-tion contexts Thus while we focus on the role of effortinferences in driving lower usage of highly aesthetic prod-ucts we are cognizant of the fact that other mechanismslikely exist which would provide intriguing avenues forfurther investigation

It would also be interesting to examine whether the neg-ative influence of enhanced aesthetics would hold acrossdifferent consumption contexts That is are there situationswhere the present phenomenon would not emerge Indeedone could argue that service establishments such as upscalerestaurants and luxury resorts which regularly pampertheir guests with beautifully plated entrees and folded

towel animals would eventually be driven out of businessif the consumption of highly aesthetic products alwaysresulted in lower enjoyment We believe that whether theusage of highly aesthetic products is accompanied bydecreased consumption and increased negative affect willhinge on the nature of the consumption environment Priorresearch indicates that our surroundings are capable ofautomatically eliciting normative behaviors when situa-tional norms are well established (Aarts and Dijksterhuis2003) Extending this perspective it is possible that theeffects observed in this article may be relatively weakenedwhen consumption occurs in environments characterizedby strong expectations to engage in indulgent consumptionsuch as in a fancy restaurant or luxurious hotel

Relatedly it would be interesting to examine whethercalling attention to fact that the aesthetic product if leftunconsumed will face inevitable destruction could enhanceconsumption likelihood and enjoyment to some extent par-ticularly for perishable products such as food4 Indeedrecent research has shown that consumers display a strongaversion to waste and unused utility (Bolton and Alba2012) Thus future studies should examine whether theeffects documented in this article could be attenuated ifthe inevitable destruction of effort is made salient to con-sumers (eg the product will go bad be thrown away orsomebody else will consume the product even if they donot) In summary future work should explore situationswhere enhanced aesthetics might carry more weight in theutility function for the overall consumption experienceand subsequently increase consumption and boostenjoyment

Another area for future research would be to examinewhether the destruction of product aesthetics is an ldquoall ornothingrdquo event such that any amount of consumption (evena single bite of a cupcake) would be viewed as destroyingthe productrsquos overall beauty While our experimentaldesigns did not allow us to examine whether destruction is acontinuous versus discrete function of consumption it isworth nothing that we did document lower usage acrossvarying degrees of consumption (eg consumption was con-tinuous in study 2 but discrete in study 5) and we did findthat different levels of consumption still led to reducedenjoyment Nevertheless we believe this is an importantempirical question worth investigating in the future

Finally while we have limited our analysis to nondura-bles (perishable and disposable products specifically) anintriguing path would be to investigate the potential moder-ating role of product durability on usage likelihood andsubsequent enjoyment of highly aesthetic products It maybe that the relative durability of the aesthetic product couldaffect individualsrsquo ability or motivation to anticipate decre-ments in beauty before consumption has occurred whichwould have implications for usage likelihood For instance

4 We thank one of the anonymous reviewers for this suggestion

18 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

with big-ticket high-involvement purchases such as sleekfurniture (eg a beautiful new white sectional sofa) con-sumers may more readily anticipate losses of beauty sincethey will have to live with and encounter the product on adaily basis even after its original beauty has faded or beentarnished through repeated use This may explain why cov-ering new furniture with plastic was at one time a verycommon practice (DiSalvo 2009)

On the other hand for nondurable lower-involvementproducts such as those used in the current research perhapspeople do not have the motivation or ability to considershifts in aesthetic appeal before consumption Furtherproducts often vary in their degree of durabilitymdasha delicateembroidered blanket while by no means nondurable or dis-posable may begin to show visible signs of wear and tearsooner than a fleece blanket Although the present researchspecifically focused on perishable and single-use productsit would be worth examining when and how the degree ofdurability or even perceptions of fragility might shapedecisions to use beautiful products

In conclusion our research documents an inhibitingeffect of enhanced product aesthetics on consumption par-ticularly for disposable and consumable nondurable prod-ucts Although beautiful products have the ability topromote positive pre-usage evaluations and stimulatechoice our work indicates that consumers are subsequentlyless likely to use them and those who do use them ulti-mately experience higher negative affect and lower enjoy-ment In addition different processes underlie consumerresponses to highly aesthetic products depending onwhether or not consumption has taken place Thus we con-clude that while products may never be too pretty tochoose they can in fact be too pretty to use

DATA COLLECTION INFORMATION

All studies were designed and analyzed by the first authorunder the guidance of the other authors The data for study 1was collected at the Scottsdale Pure Barre studio in fall2015 by research assistants and employees under the super-vision of the first author Research assistants collected thedata for studies 2 and 5 under the supervision of the firstauthor at the W P Carey School of Business MarketingDepartment Behavioral Lab in spring 2015 The data for theconceptual replication (reported in the discussion of study6B) was collected by research assistants under the supervi-sion of the first author at the W P Carey School ofBusiness Marketing Department Behavioral Lab in summer2015 The data for study 4 (both the effort manipulation pre-test and the main study) and the correlational study examin-ing the relationship between implicit self-theories andappreciation for othersrsquo effort were collected by the firstauthor using Amazon Mechanical Turk in spring 2016 Thefirst author collected the data for the aesthetic appeal pretest

(described in appendix B) studies 3 6A and 6B usingAmazon Mechanical Turk in summer 2016 Lastly researchassistants collected the data for the correlational study exam-ining the relationship between aesthetics and perceivedeffort (described in the table in ldquoThe Role of Effort inInhibiting Usagerdquo) under the supervision of the first authorat the W P Carey School of Business MarketingDepartment Behavioral Lab in fall 2016

APPENDIX A

STUDY STIMULI

WU ET AL 19

REFERENCES

Aarts Henk and Ap Dijksterhuis (2003) ldquoThe Silence of theLibrary Environment Situational Norm and SocialBehaviorrdquo Journal of Personality and Social Psychology84 (1) 18ndash28

Aharon Itzhak Nancy Etcoff Dan Ariely Christopher F ChabrisEthan OrsquoConnor and Hans C Breiter (2001) ldquoBeautifulFaces Have Variable Reward Value fMRI and BehavioralEvidencerdquo Neuron 32 (3) 537ndash51

Alba Joseph W and Elanor F Williams (2013) ldquoPleasurePrinciples A Review of Research on HedonicConsumptionrdquo Journal of Consumer Psychology 23 (1)2ndash18

Belk Russell W (1988) ldquoPossessions and the Extended SelfrdquoJournal of Consumer Research 15 (2) 139ndash67

Bem Daryl J (1972) Self-Perception Theory Stanford CAStanford University Press

Berridge Kent C (2009) ldquolsquoLikingrsquo and lsquoWantingrsquo Food RewardsBrain Substrates and Roles in Eating Disordersrdquo Physiologyamp Behavior 97 (5) 537ndash50

Bloch Peter H (1995) ldquoSeeking the Ideal Form Product Designand Consumer Responserdquo Journal of Marketing 59 (July)16ndash29

Bloch Peter H Frederic F Brunel and Todd J Arnold (2003)ldquoIndividual Differences in the Centrality of Visual ProductAesthetics Concept and Measurementrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 29 (4) 551ndash65

Bolton Lisa E and Joseph W Alba (2012) ldquoWhen Less Is MoreConsumer Aversion to Unused Utilityrdquo Journal of ConsumerPsychology 22 (3) 369ndash83

Brehm Jack W (1966) A Theory of Psychological ReactanceNew York Academic Press

Broniarczyk Susan M and Joseph W Alba (1994) ldquoThe Role ofConsumersrsquo Intuitions in Inference Makingrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 21 (3) 393ndash407

Cabanac Michel (1971) ldquoPhysiological Role of PleasurerdquoScience 173 (4002) 1103ndash7

mdashmdashmdash (1979) ldquoSensory Pleasurerdquo Quarterly Review of Biology54 (1) 1ndash29

mdashmdashmdash (1985) ldquoPreferring for Pleasurerdquo American Journal ofClinical Nutrition 42 (5) 1151ndash5

Chandon Pierre and Brian Wansink (2007) ldquoThe Biasing HealthHalos of Fast Food Restaurant Health Claims Lower CalorieEstimates and Higher Side-Dish Consumption IntentionsrdquoJournal of Consumer Research 34 (3) 301ndash14

Cornil Yann and Pierre Chandon (2016) ldquoPleasure as a Substitutefor Size How Multisensory Imagery Can Make PeopleHappier with Smaller Food Portionsrdquo Journal of MarketingResearch 53 (5) 847ndash64

Cleveland William S (1984) ldquoGraphical Methods for DataPresentation Full Scale Breaks Dot Charts and MultibasedLoggingrdquo The American Statistician 38 (4) 270ndash80

DiSalvo David (2009) ldquoThe Psychology of Plastic CouchCoversrdquo httpsneuronarrativewordpresscom20090119the-psychology-of-plastic-couch-covers

Dixie Products (2015) ldquoDixie Ultra Moments Ultimate Hostrdquohttpswwwyoutubecomwatchvfrac14wsBBq9PsgVI

Dutton Denis (2009) The Art Instinct Beauty Pleasure ampHuman Evolution New York Oxford University Press

Dweck Carol S (2000) Self-Theories Their Role in MotivationPersonality and Development Philadelphia Psychology Press

Dweck Carol S and Ellen L Leggett (1988) ldquoA Social-CognitiveApproach to Motivation and Personalityrdquo PsychologicalReview 95 (2) 256ndash73

Evans Lindsay (2010) ldquoWhy Buy Unbleached Paperrdquo httpwwwbrighthubcomenvironmentgreen-livingarticles16299aspx

Festinger Leon (1957) A Theory of Cognitive DissonanceStanford CA Stanford University Press

Frederick Shane and George Loewenstein (1999) ldquoHedonicAdaptationrdquo in Scientific Perspectives on EnjoymentSuffering and Well-Being ed Daniel Kahneman Ed Dienerand Norbert Schwartz New York Russell Sage Foundation302ndash29

Fuchs Christoph Martin Schreier and Stijn MJ van Osselaer(2015) ldquoThe Handmade Effect Whatrsquos Love Got to Do withItrdquo Journal of Marketing 79 (2) 98ndash110

Hagtvedt Henrik and Vanessa M Patrick (2008) ldquoArt InfusionThe Influence of Visual Art on the Perception and Evaluationof Consumer Productsrdquo Journal of Marketing Research 45(3) 379ndash89

AESTHETIC APPEAL PRETEST FOR ALL STIMULI USED IN STUDIES

Higher aesthetic Lower aesthetic Comparison a

Toilet paper (study 1) 377 (146) 253 (155) t(128) frac14 ndash469 p lt 001 a frac14 94Cupcake (study 2) 556 (106) 305 (146) t(128) frac14 ndash1120 p lt 001 a frac14 96Napkin (studies 3 and 6) 465 (153) 230 (144) t(128) frac14 ndash903 p lt 001 a frac14 97Napkin (study 4) 332 (145) 262 (154) t(128) frac14 ndash266 p lt 01 a frac14 92Napkin (study 5) 458 (159) 234 (151) t(128) frac14 ndash823 p lt 001 a frac14 97

NOTEmdashStandard deviations are in parentheses

In a between-subjects pretest participants were asked to rate each product along the following dimensions beautiful pretty artistic and aesthetically pleasing

(1 frac14 not at all 7 frac14 very much) which formed our aesthetic appeal index

APPENDIX B

20 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

Hayes Andrew F (2013) ldquoPROCESS A VersatileComputational Tool for Observed Variable MediationModeration and Conditional Process Modelingrdquo workingpaper School of Communication and Department ofPsychology Ohio State University Columbus OH 43210

Heller Steve (2015) ldquoA Grocery Store Illusion Is Getting You toSpend More Moneyrdquo httpwwwbusinessinsidercoma-grocery-store-illusion-is-getting-you-to-spend-more-money-2015-8ixzz3ifsOLBfG

Hurling Robert and Richard Shepherd (2003) ldquoEating with YourEyes Effect of Appearance on Expectations of LikingrdquoAppetite 41 (2) 167ndash74

Hoegg JoAndrea Joseph W Alba and Darren W Dahl (2010)ldquoThe Good the Bad and the Ugly Influence of Aesthetics onProduct Feature Judgmentsrdquo Journal of ConsumerPsychology 20 (4) 419ndash30

Johnson Palmer O and Jerzy Neyman (1936) ldquoTests of CertainLinear Hypotheses and Their Applications to SomeEducational Problemsrdquo Statistical Research Memoirs 157ndash93

Kahneman Daniel and Amos Tversky (1979) ldquoProspect TheoryAn Analysis of Decision under Riskrdquo Econometrica 47 (2)263ndash91

Kampe Knut K W Chris D Frith Raymond J Dolan and UtaFrith (2001) ldquoPsychology Reward Value of Attractivenessand Gazerdquo Nature 413 (6856) 589

Kelley Harold H (1967) ldquoAttribution Theory in SocialPsychologyrdquo in Nebraska Symposium of Motivation Vol 15ed D Levine Lincoln University of Nebraska Press192ndash238

Kirmani Amna (1990) ldquoThe Effect of Perceived AdvertisingCosts on Brand Perceptionsrdquo Journal of Consumer Research17 (2) 160ndash71

Kirmani Amna Michelle P Lee and Carolyn Yoon (2004)ldquoProcedural Priming Effects on Spontaneous InferenceFormationrdquo Journal of Economic Psychology 25 (6)859ndash75

Kruger Justin Derrick Wirtz Leaf Van Boven and T WilliamAltermatt (2004) ldquoThe Effort Heuristicrdquo Journal ofExperimental Social Psychology 40 (1) 91ndash8

Lee Leonard and Claire I Tsai (2014) ldquoHow Price PromotionsInfluence Postpurchase Consumption Experience overTimerdquo Journal of Consumer Research 40 (5) 943ndash59

Levy Sheri R Steven J Stroessner and Carol S Dweck (1998)ldquoStereotype Formation and Endorsement The Role ofImplicit Theoriesrdquo Journal of Personality and SocialPsychology 74 (6) 1421ndash36

Lisjak Monika Andrea Bonezzi Soo Kim and Derek D Rucker(2015) ldquoPerils of Compensatory Consumption Within-Domain Compensation Undermines Subsequent Self-Regulationrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 41 (5)1186ndash203

Loewenstein George (1987) ldquoAnticipation and the Valuation ofDelayed Consumptionrdquo Economic Journal 97 (September)666ndash84

Maritain Jacques (1966) ldquoBeauty and Imitationrdquo in A ModernBook of Esthetics ed Melvin Rader New York HoltRinehart amp Winston 27ndash34

McFerran Brent Darren W Dahl Gavan J Fitzsimons andAndrea C Morales (2010) ldquoIrsquoll Have What Shersquos HavingEffects of Social Influence and Body Type on the FoodChoices of Othersrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 36 (6)915ndash29

Morales Andrea C (2005) ldquoGiving Firms an lsquoErsquo for EffortConsumer Responses to High-Effort Firmsrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 31 (4) 806ndash12

Moreau C Page Leff Bonney and Kelly B Herd (2011) ldquoItrsquos theThought (and the Effort) That Counts How Customizing forOthers Differs from Customizing for Oneselfrdquo Journal ofMarketing 75 (5) 120ndash33

Norton Michael I Daniel Mochon and Dan Ariely (2012) ldquoThelsquoIkearsquo Effect When Labor Leads to Loverdquo Journal ofConsumer Psychology 22 (July) 453ndash60

Page Christine and Paul M Herr (2002) ldquoAn Investigation ofthe Processes by Which Product Design and Brand StrengthInteract to Determine Initial Affect and QualityJudgmentsrdquo Journal of Consumer Psychology 12 (2)133ndash47

Raghubir Priya and Eric A Greenleaf (2006) ldquoRatios inProportion What Should the Shape of the Package BerdquoJournal of Marketing 70 (2) 95ndash107

Raghunathan Rajagopal Rebecca Walker Naylor and Wayne DHoyer (2006) ldquoThe Unhealthy frac14 Tasty Intuition and ItsEffects on Taste Inferences Enjoyment and Choice of FoodProductsrdquo Journal of Marketing 70 (4) 170ndash84

Reber Rolf Norbert Schwarz and Piotr Winkielman (2004)ldquoProcessing Fluency and Aesthetic Pleasure Is Beauty in thePerceiverrsquos Processing Experiencerdquo Personality and SocialPsychology Review 8 (4) 364ndash82

Reber Rolf Piotr Winkielman and Norbert Schwarz (1998)ldquoEffects of Perceptual Fluency on Affective JudgmentsrdquoPsychological Science 9 (1) 45ndash48

Reimann Martin Judith Zaichkowksy Carolin Neuhaus ThomasBender and Bernd Weber (2010) ldquoAesthetic PackageDesign A Behavioral Neural and PsychologicalInvestigationrdquo Journal of Consumer Psychology 20 (4)431ndash41

Santayana George (18961955) The Sense of Beauty New YorkDover

Scott Maura L Stephen M Nowlis Naomi Mandel and AndreaC Morales (2008) ldquoThe Effects of Reduced Food Size andPackage Size on the Consumption Behavior of Restrainedand Unrestrained Eatersrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 35(3) 391ndash405

Spencer Steven J Mark P Zanna and Geoffrey T Fong (2005)ldquoEstablishing a Causal Chain Why Experiments Are OftenMore Effective than Mediational Analyses in ExaminingPsychological Processesrdquo Journal of Personality and SocialPsychology 89 (6) 845ndash51

Spiller Stephen A Gavan J Fitzsimons John G Lynch Jr andGary H McClelland (2013) ldquoSpotlights Floodlights andthe Magic Number Zero Simple Effects Tests inModerated Regressionrdquo Journal of Marketing Research 50(2) 277ndash88

Thompson Debora V Rebecca W Hamilton and Roland T Rust(2005) ldquoFeature Fatigue When Product CapabilitiesBecome Too Much of a Good Thingrdquo Journal of MarketingResearch 42 (November) 431ndash42

Townsend Claudia and Suzanne B Shu (2010) ldquoWhen and HowAesthetics Influences Financial Decisionsrdquo Journal ofConsumer Psychology 20 (4) 452ndash58

Townsend Claudia and Sanjay Sood (2012) ldquoSelf-Affirmationthrough the Choice of Highly Aesthetic Productsrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 39 (2) 415ndash28

Veryzer Robert W and J Wesley Hutchinson (1998) ldquoTheInfluence of Unity and Prototypicality on Aesthetic

WU ET AL 21

Responses to New Product Designsrdquo Journal of ConsumerResearch 24 (4) 374ndash94

Wada Yuji Carlos Arce-Lopera Tomohiro Masuda AtsushiKimura Ippeita Dan Sho-ichi Goto Daisuke Tsuzuki andKatsunori Okajima (2010) ldquoInfluence of LuminanceDistribution on the Appetizingly Fresh Appearance ofCabbagerdquo Appetite 54 (2) 363ndash68

Weiner Bernard (2000) ldquoAttributional Thoughts and ConsumerBehaviorrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 27 (December)382ndash87

Witz Anne Chris Warhurst and Dennis Nickson (2003) ldquoTheLabour of Aesthetics and The Aesthetics of OrganizationrdquoOrganization 10 (1) 33ndash54

Yamamoto Mel and David R Lambert (1994) ldquoThe Impact ofProduct Aesthetics on the Evaluation of Industrial ProductsrdquoJournal of Product Innovation Management 11 (4) 309ndash24

Yang Sha and Priya Raghubir (2005) ldquoCan Bottles SpeakVolumes The Effect of Package Shape on How Much toBuyrdquo Journal of Retailing 81 (4) 269ndash82

22 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

  • ucx057-FN1
  • ucx057-FN2
  • ucx057-FN3
  • ucx057-FN4
  • app1
  • app2
  • ucx057-TF1
  • ucx057-TF2
Page 15: It’s Too Pretty to Use! When and How Enhanced Product ...gavan/bio/GJF_articles/...testing the prediction that aesthetic products can elicit greater perceptions of effort. In line

frac14 15269 p lt 001) this difference was substantiallyreduced after usage (Mhigher frac14 237 vs Mlower frac14 211F(1 404) frac14 484 p frac14 03) Importantly and arguably mostcentral to our research the decrement in aesthetic ratingsthrough usage was significantly larger in the higher aes-thetic conditionmdashin fact 151 largermdashthan that observedin the lower aesthetic condition (ie a drop of 357 unitsvs a drop of 236 units)

Mediation Finally we are interested in whether decre-ments in aesthetic judgment emanating from product usageunderlie post-consumption affect Consistent with predic-tions mediation analysis (model 4 Hayes 2013) revealedthat the indirect effect of aesthetics on negative affectthrough changes in aesthetic judgment was significant (b frac1415 95 CI [04 29]) suggesting that product aestheticsaffected the experience of negative emotions through thelarger losses of beauty resulting from the consumption ofhigher aesthetic products

Discussion While past work has shown that aestheticsare inextricably linked with pleasure (Reber et al 2004Reimann et al 2010) study 6A extends this body of re-search by revealing that in the context of nondurable prod-ucts where consumption entails damaging product designnot only does the usage of higher (vs lower) aestheticproducts result in larger decrements in beauty but suchlosses also drive greater negative affect after consumptionNotably while we asked participants to assess the aestheticqualities of the napkins before and immediately after usageto more precisely capture the changes in beauty we ob-served we recognize that this design may have caused theaesthetic appeal of the napkins to be more salient prior toconsumption making its decrement therefore more pro-nounced after consumption Thus having established thatbeauty decrements resulting from aesthetic product usageunderlie post-consumption affect in study 6B we measurethis change in a less invasive manner after consumptionWe also integrate changes in beauty and effort inferencesinto emotional reactions linked to consumption

STUDY 6B TESTING THE FULLCONCEPTUAL MODEL FOR POST-

CONSUMPTION AFFECT

The goal of study 6B is to elucidate the drivers of post-consumption emotions while continuing to hold usage con-stant in both conditions thereby allowing us to test the fullconceptual model in a more controlled fashion As alludedto in study 6A the inherently lower consumption likeli-hood of higher aesthetic products could potentially resultin self-selection issues In study 6B we predict that partici-pants will experience more negative affect after using ahigher (vs lower) aesthetic product an effect driven in tan-dem by effort inferences as well as changes in beauty

Further we try to better understand consumersrsquo emotionalreactions after aesthetic product usage by not highlightingthe productrsquos aesthetic qualities beforehand Finally wemeasure implicit self-theories to examine whether onersquos in-herent degree of effort appreciation moderates post-consumption negative affect

Method

Participants and Procedure Four hundred participantswere recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk to partici-pate in a two-cell (aesthetics higher vs lower) between-subjects study in exchange for payment Ten individualsparticipated in this study twice and 17 had missing data onthe focal dependent measures and were excluded from theanalysis yielding a final sample of 373 participants (55female [two did not report gender] median age frac14 32 ages18ndash76)

The study design of study 6B was almost identical tothat of study 6A aside from several modifications Firstparticipants completed the same negative emotion indexfrom study 6A (afrac14 91) immediately after reading the sce-nario instead of after aesthetics judgment measures (whichwere not included in this study) Second instead of assess-ing aesthetic ratings at two separate points in time we uti-lized a new single cross-sectional measure to capturedecrements in beauty post-consumption ldquoBy using thenapkins it felt like I was turning something that was oncebeautiful into something uglyrdquo (1 frac14 strongly disagree 7 frac14strongly agree) Next to examine effort inferences as a par-allel driver of negative affect after consumption partici-pants completed the same effort inferences and effortdestruction measures from study 3 although these mea-sures are distinct from study 3 in that they were assessedafter usage had already taken place Finally participantscompleted the implicit self-theories scale

Results and Discussion

Emotions Replicating study 6A a one-way ANOVAon negative emotions revealed that participants who usedthe higher aesthetic floral napkins to clean up the spill feltmore negative affect than those who used the lower aestheticwhite napkins (Mhigher aesthetic frac14 313 vs Mlower aesthetic frac14283 F(1 371) frac14 394 p lt 05) Of note this main effectdid not interact with implicit self-theories (p gt 30) sug-gesting that both incremental and entity theorists experi-enced more negative affect after using the higher (vslower) aesthetic napkins to clean up the spill a finding werevisit in the discussion section

Decrements in Beauty (Cross-Sectional) A one-wayANOVA on changes in beauty indicated that the higheraesthetic napkin underwent greater decrements in beautythrough consumption (Mhigher frac14 263 vs Mlower frac14 177F(1 371) frac14 2671 p lt 001)

WU ET AL 15

Effort Inferences A one-way ANOVA on effort infer-ences indicated that participants ascribed greater effort tothe higher aesthetic napkins (Mhigher frac14 349 vs Mlower frac14287 F(1 371) frac14 1359 p lt 001)

Effort Destruction A one-way ANOVA on concernsabout effort destruction indicated that participants hadstronger concerns that effort had been destroyed in thehigher aesthetic condition (Mhigher frac14 262 vs Mlower frac14200 F(1 371) frac14 1355 p lt 001)

Mediation Finally we conducted two separate media-tion analyses one testing the path of product aesthetics decrements in beauty negative affect (model 4 Hayes2013) and the other testing the serial path of product aes-thetics effort inferences concerns about effort de-struction negative affect (model 6) Results from thefirst analysis revealed that the indirect effect of aestheticson negative affect through changes in beauty was signifi-cant (b frac14 37 95 CI [23 54]) suggesting that productaesthetics affected the experience of negative emotionsthrough larger decrements in beauty in the higher aestheticcondition Second the indirect effect of aesthetics on nega-tive affect through effort inferences and concerns about ef-fort destruction (in serial) was also significant (b frac14 1295 CI [06 23]) as was the indirect effect of aestheticson negative affect through effort destruction alone (b frac1411 95 CI [01 23])

Finally we also included beauty decrements effort in-ferences and effort destruction into the model as parallelmediators to gain greater understanding of the relativestrength of these drivers This analysis revealed that whenall three mediators were in the model the indirect effectthrough decrements in beauty remained significant (b frac1422 95 CI [11 36]) as did the indirect effect througheffort destruction (b frac14 15 95 CI [06 27]) Taken to-gether these results suggest that while concerns about ef-fort destruction continue to play a role in driving theemotional outcomes of aesthetic product usage the decre-ments in beauty that become evident only after an aestheticproduct has been visibly compromised through consump-tion also lead to negative affect

Discussion Study 6B which allowed us to examinethe entire post-consumption conceptual model revealedthat people who used higher (vs lower) aesthetic napkinssubsequently experienced greater negative affect an effectdriven by two processes operating in parallel concernsabout the destruction of effort and decrements in beauty Inother words the consumption experience was associatedwith more negative affect because the consumption processnot only involved the actual destruction of effort but italso took a beautiful product that was typified by pleasureand transformed it into something marked by displeasure

We should also note that we replicated the post-consumption findings with actual paper napkins in a lab

context In a separate study using study 5rsquos procedure par-ticipants watched a video and received a snack to eat alongwith a higher versus lower aesthetic napkin and then indi-cated how they felt about the consumption experienceParticipants who chose to use their higher aesthetic napkinreported feeling more negative affect relative to whosewho chose to use their lower aesthetic napkin (p frac14 04)and relative to those who did not use their higher aestheticnapkin (p lt 01) Thus aesthetic product usage increasednegative affect even when consumers could choose to ei-ther use the aesthetic product or not and when the aestheticproduct (the napkin) was tangential to the affect measurescollected which specifically pertained to the video-watching and snack-eating task Additional details areavailable in the web appendix

Though we provide evidence that effort inferences con-tinued to partially drive consumer responses to beautifulproducts after usage it is interesting to note that post-consumption affect was not moderated by the degree towhich effort is intrinsically appreciated (ie implicit self-theories) While unexpected we speculate that this may oc-cur because post-consumption enjoyment is not exclusivelydriven by effort inferences Since losses of beauty alsoplay a substantial role in shaping emotional outcomes afterconsumption the beauty decrements associated with aes-thetic product usage may have brought entity theorists to asimilar emotional state as incremental theorists resultingin everybody feeling worse off after consumption irrespec-tive of individual differences in effort appreciation Morebroadly since post-consumption affect appears to be multi-ply determined it is difficult to completely disentangle thenegative affect stemming from the destruction of effortfrom the negative affect stemming from decrements inbeauty Study 6B offers a distinct test of this conjecturesince it made usage (and hence losses of beauty) salientthrough images of visibly used napkins

GENERAL DISCUSSION

Across a series of laboratory and field studies using avariety of nondurable product categories and consumptionsituations we reveal the negative impact of enhanced prod-uct aesthetics on usage and post-consumption conse-quences First we document an inhibiting effect of productaesthetics on consumption behaviors for disposable andperishable products in both real-world (study 1) and lab(study 2) settings Next we shed light on the drivers of us-age likelihood using mediation (study 3) a context-basedboundary condition (study 4) and a theoretically derivedindividual difference moderator (study 5) thereby provid-ing convergent support for an underlying process based oneffort Finally in studies 6A and 6B we hold product us-age constant to elucidate the drivers of post-consumptionaffect and show that the decrements in beauty that

16 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

aesthetic products inherently undergo as a result of con-sumption combined with concerns that one has actuallydestroyed effort underlie these effects

Theoretical Contributions Our work makes severaltheoretical contributions First while prior research hasshown that consumers respond favorably to both productaesthetics and effort we believe we are the first to establisha causal relationship between these constructs We findthat highly aesthetic products can elicit greater perceptionsof effort regardless of whether this effort was exerted dur-ing product design physical production or both processesWe further reveal that these effort inferences are not lim-ited to handmade products such as perishable foods butalso apply to mass-produced products such as consumerpackaged disposable goods

Second while existing literature suggests that consumerpreferences should increase as a function of a productrsquos aes-thetic appeal the prevailing ways of assessing the impact ofaesthetics on consumer preference have been limited to pur-chase intentions product evaluations and choice (Hagtvedtand Patrick 2008 Raghubir and Greenleaf 2006 Reimannet al 2010 Townsend and Shu 2010) Surprisingly the role ofaesthetics after choice has received little empirical attention todate Despite the stimulating effect that enhanced product aes-thetics have on choice and pre-usage evaluations our resultssuggest that once beautiful products are acquired consumersmay be less likely to consume them because the higher infer-ences of effort attributed to their creation elicit stronger con-cerns that such effort would be destroyed during consumption

This research also shows that the impact of implicit self-theories on consumer behavior may be more pervasivethan previously thought While prior research in psychol-ogy has shown that incremental and entity theorists carrydissimilar beliefs about the value of their own effort(Dweck 2000) we provide support for the novel predictionthat beyond the recognition of personal effort implicitself-theories affect the extent to which consumers appreci-ate the effort that goes into the creation of aestheticallyappealing products

Finally contrary to the notion that enhanced product aes-thetics are always beneficial to consumption enjoyment ourwork reveals that usage of highly aesthetic disposable prod-ucts can actually lower overall enjoyment of the consumptionexperience through two separate pathways (1) by elicitingconcerns that one has actually destroyed effort and (2) bycompromising the beauty that typically characterizes aestheticproducts Thus we add to the literature on aesthetics andpleasure by showing how the consumption of highly aestheticproducts can result in larger losses of beauty and that suchdecrements in turn drive the relationship between aestheticproduct consumption and negative affect

More generally these findings speak to researchthat explores when and why the drivers of predicted andexperienced utility might diverge For instance

Thompson et al (2005) found that consumersrsquo initial desirefor product capability before purchase leads them to chooseproducts packed with features but their growing desire forproduct usability after usage leads them to ultimately prefersimpler products Similarly Lee and Tsai (2014) showedthat price promotions can stimulate sales but lower atten-tion during consumption which in turn reduces consump-tion enjoyment In the same vein despite the delightinitially elicited by the choice of beautiful products wedemonstrate that enhanced aesthetics have the ability tolater discourage usage and lower consumption enjoyment

Substantive Implications Our findings carry importantpractical implications as they pose an interesting dilemmato managers While conventional wisdom suggests that mar-keters should strive to invest the highest degree of effort intomaking their products look aesthetically pleasing at least tothe extent that company resources will allow our researchreveals that the story is not so simple Enhancing productaesthetics might positively affect initial attention interestand choice but should be considered with caution given thatsuch increased appeal could inhibit usage and reduce enjoy-ment relative to less aesthetically appealing productsRelatedly people likely consume highly aesthetic disposableproducts more slowly which could affect interpurchasetime Thus the pursuit of product aesthetics and improvedshort-term sales must be constantly balanced against theneed to encourage consumption ensure customer satisfac-tion and maintain long-term profitability Still certain prod-ucts such as beautiful candles and soaps may serve adecorative purpose in addition to their basic utilitarian func-tion and consequently may also carry intrinsic aestheticvalue Our recommendations are admittedly less straightfor-ward under such circumstances as consumers are able toderive utility from the productsrsquo enhanced aesthetics simplyby displaying them

Our results also have clear implications for managersand policy makers interested in promoting conservationand sustainable business practices A growing number ofretail and service establishments have been switching tounbleached paper products as the traditional bleachingprocess that removes imperfections and gives paper itswhite appearance also produces hazardous chemicals (egchlorine and dioxins) that are harmful to the environment(Evans 2010) While the transition to unbleached paperproducts has benefited the environment the results fromour investigation suggest the growing popularity of thistrend may be a double-edged sword To the extent thatunbleached paper products are considered less aestheticallyappealing consumers may show less restraint in usingthem leading to backfiring effects for conservation effortsPut another way the positive environmental impact of pro-ducing unbleached paper products could potentially be off-set by consumersrsquo reduced inhibition in consuming theseproducts Thus increasing the aesthetic appeal of products

WU ET AL 17

may actually be an effective way for companies to promoteenvironmentally sustainable behaviors even after incorpo-rating the increased cost of implementing such practices

Finally given that rising obesity rates are a major publichealth concern traced to increased consumption (Chandonand Wansink 2007) there has been burgeoning interest inthe various factors that shape consumer food choices (Corniland Chandon 2016 McFerran et al 2010 Scott et al 2008)The results of study 2 suggest that one way to curb overeat-ing might be to enhance the aesthetic presentation of foodproducts especially hedonic foods Of course additionalresearch is needed to better explore the impact of aestheticsin this important area given the counteracting effects thatfood aesthetics exert on consumption versus enjoyment

Limitations and Future Research While the current setof studies was designed to elucidate perceived effort as anunderlying mechanism of lower usage of aestheticallyappealing products we recognize that this phenomenonlike many is likely driven by multiple processes (FuchsSchreier and van Osselaer 2015) Indeed as evident in ourresearch consumption likelihood and consumption enjoy-ment each have distinct sets of drivers For instance whilewe accounted for cost across multiple studies and demon-strated that our effects held even after we controlled for theperceived price of the product we believe that cost maycertainly play a role in certain situations For example cer-tain highly aesthetic products elicit perceptions of luxury(Hagtvedt and Patrick 2008) and may consequently reduceconsumption because they appear ldquotoo expensive to userdquoand cost may even interact with aesthetics under certaincircumstances to impact consumption such that the infer-ences of effort typically ascribed to aesthetically appealingproducts could be mitigated if people are told that theywere extremely inexpensive

In addition classic research by Loewenstein (1987)showed that people often prefer to delay consumption ofenjoyable experiences It may be that people are averse toimmediately consuming a highly aesthetic product becausethey are able to derive more utility by savoring the experi-ence and postponing consumption Further as alluded to instudy 4 it is possible that anticipated decrements in beautymay play a larger role in shaping usage in other consump-tion contexts Thus while we focus on the role of effortinferences in driving lower usage of highly aesthetic prod-ucts we are cognizant of the fact that other mechanismslikely exist which would provide intriguing avenues forfurther investigation

It would also be interesting to examine whether the neg-ative influence of enhanced aesthetics would hold acrossdifferent consumption contexts That is are there situationswhere the present phenomenon would not emerge Indeedone could argue that service establishments such as upscalerestaurants and luxury resorts which regularly pampertheir guests with beautifully plated entrees and folded

towel animals would eventually be driven out of businessif the consumption of highly aesthetic products alwaysresulted in lower enjoyment We believe that whether theusage of highly aesthetic products is accompanied bydecreased consumption and increased negative affect willhinge on the nature of the consumption environment Priorresearch indicates that our surroundings are capable ofautomatically eliciting normative behaviors when situa-tional norms are well established (Aarts and Dijksterhuis2003) Extending this perspective it is possible that theeffects observed in this article may be relatively weakenedwhen consumption occurs in environments characterizedby strong expectations to engage in indulgent consumptionsuch as in a fancy restaurant or luxurious hotel

Relatedly it would be interesting to examine whethercalling attention to fact that the aesthetic product if leftunconsumed will face inevitable destruction could enhanceconsumption likelihood and enjoyment to some extent par-ticularly for perishable products such as food4 Indeedrecent research has shown that consumers display a strongaversion to waste and unused utility (Bolton and Alba2012) Thus future studies should examine whether theeffects documented in this article could be attenuated ifthe inevitable destruction of effort is made salient to con-sumers (eg the product will go bad be thrown away orsomebody else will consume the product even if they donot) In summary future work should explore situationswhere enhanced aesthetics might carry more weight in theutility function for the overall consumption experienceand subsequently increase consumption and boostenjoyment

Another area for future research would be to examinewhether the destruction of product aesthetics is an ldquoall ornothingrdquo event such that any amount of consumption (evena single bite of a cupcake) would be viewed as destroyingthe productrsquos overall beauty While our experimentaldesigns did not allow us to examine whether destruction is acontinuous versus discrete function of consumption it isworth nothing that we did document lower usage acrossvarying degrees of consumption (eg consumption was con-tinuous in study 2 but discrete in study 5) and we did findthat different levels of consumption still led to reducedenjoyment Nevertheless we believe this is an importantempirical question worth investigating in the future

Finally while we have limited our analysis to nondura-bles (perishable and disposable products specifically) anintriguing path would be to investigate the potential moder-ating role of product durability on usage likelihood andsubsequent enjoyment of highly aesthetic products It maybe that the relative durability of the aesthetic product couldaffect individualsrsquo ability or motivation to anticipate decre-ments in beauty before consumption has occurred whichwould have implications for usage likelihood For instance

4 We thank one of the anonymous reviewers for this suggestion

18 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

with big-ticket high-involvement purchases such as sleekfurniture (eg a beautiful new white sectional sofa) con-sumers may more readily anticipate losses of beauty sincethey will have to live with and encounter the product on adaily basis even after its original beauty has faded or beentarnished through repeated use This may explain why cov-ering new furniture with plastic was at one time a verycommon practice (DiSalvo 2009)

On the other hand for nondurable lower-involvementproducts such as those used in the current research perhapspeople do not have the motivation or ability to considershifts in aesthetic appeal before consumption Furtherproducts often vary in their degree of durabilitymdasha delicateembroidered blanket while by no means nondurable or dis-posable may begin to show visible signs of wear and tearsooner than a fleece blanket Although the present researchspecifically focused on perishable and single-use productsit would be worth examining when and how the degree ofdurability or even perceptions of fragility might shapedecisions to use beautiful products

In conclusion our research documents an inhibitingeffect of enhanced product aesthetics on consumption par-ticularly for disposable and consumable nondurable prod-ucts Although beautiful products have the ability topromote positive pre-usage evaluations and stimulatechoice our work indicates that consumers are subsequentlyless likely to use them and those who do use them ulti-mately experience higher negative affect and lower enjoy-ment In addition different processes underlie consumerresponses to highly aesthetic products depending onwhether or not consumption has taken place Thus we con-clude that while products may never be too pretty tochoose they can in fact be too pretty to use

DATA COLLECTION INFORMATION

All studies were designed and analyzed by the first authorunder the guidance of the other authors The data for study 1was collected at the Scottsdale Pure Barre studio in fall2015 by research assistants and employees under the super-vision of the first author Research assistants collected thedata for studies 2 and 5 under the supervision of the firstauthor at the W P Carey School of Business MarketingDepartment Behavioral Lab in spring 2015 The data for theconceptual replication (reported in the discussion of study6B) was collected by research assistants under the supervi-sion of the first author at the W P Carey School ofBusiness Marketing Department Behavioral Lab in summer2015 The data for study 4 (both the effort manipulation pre-test and the main study) and the correlational study examin-ing the relationship between implicit self-theories andappreciation for othersrsquo effort were collected by the firstauthor using Amazon Mechanical Turk in spring 2016 Thefirst author collected the data for the aesthetic appeal pretest

(described in appendix B) studies 3 6A and 6B usingAmazon Mechanical Turk in summer 2016 Lastly researchassistants collected the data for the correlational study exam-ining the relationship between aesthetics and perceivedeffort (described in the table in ldquoThe Role of Effort inInhibiting Usagerdquo) under the supervision of the first authorat the W P Carey School of Business MarketingDepartment Behavioral Lab in fall 2016

APPENDIX A

STUDY STIMULI

WU ET AL 19

REFERENCES

Aarts Henk and Ap Dijksterhuis (2003) ldquoThe Silence of theLibrary Environment Situational Norm and SocialBehaviorrdquo Journal of Personality and Social Psychology84 (1) 18ndash28

Aharon Itzhak Nancy Etcoff Dan Ariely Christopher F ChabrisEthan OrsquoConnor and Hans C Breiter (2001) ldquoBeautifulFaces Have Variable Reward Value fMRI and BehavioralEvidencerdquo Neuron 32 (3) 537ndash51

Alba Joseph W and Elanor F Williams (2013) ldquoPleasurePrinciples A Review of Research on HedonicConsumptionrdquo Journal of Consumer Psychology 23 (1)2ndash18

Belk Russell W (1988) ldquoPossessions and the Extended SelfrdquoJournal of Consumer Research 15 (2) 139ndash67

Bem Daryl J (1972) Self-Perception Theory Stanford CAStanford University Press

Berridge Kent C (2009) ldquolsquoLikingrsquo and lsquoWantingrsquo Food RewardsBrain Substrates and Roles in Eating Disordersrdquo Physiologyamp Behavior 97 (5) 537ndash50

Bloch Peter H (1995) ldquoSeeking the Ideal Form Product Designand Consumer Responserdquo Journal of Marketing 59 (July)16ndash29

Bloch Peter H Frederic F Brunel and Todd J Arnold (2003)ldquoIndividual Differences in the Centrality of Visual ProductAesthetics Concept and Measurementrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 29 (4) 551ndash65

Bolton Lisa E and Joseph W Alba (2012) ldquoWhen Less Is MoreConsumer Aversion to Unused Utilityrdquo Journal of ConsumerPsychology 22 (3) 369ndash83

Brehm Jack W (1966) A Theory of Psychological ReactanceNew York Academic Press

Broniarczyk Susan M and Joseph W Alba (1994) ldquoThe Role ofConsumersrsquo Intuitions in Inference Makingrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 21 (3) 393ndash407

Cabanac Michel (1971) ldquoPhysiological Role of PleasurerdquoScience 173 (4002) 1103ndash7

mdashmdashmdash (1979) ldquoSensory Pleasurerdquo Quarterly Review of Biology54 (1) 1ndash29

mdashmdashmdash (1985) ldquoPreferring for Pleasurerdquo American Journal ofClinical Nutrition 42 (5) 1151ndash5

Chandon Pierre and Brian Wansink (2007) ldquoThe Biasing HealthHalos of Fast Food Restaurant Health Claims Lower CalorieEstimates and Higher Side-Dish Consumption IntentionsrdquoJournal of Consumer Research 34 (3) 301ndash14

Cornil Yann and Pierre Chandon (2016) ldquoPleasure as a Substitutefor Size How Multisensory Imagery Can Make PeopleHappier with Smaller Food Portionsrdquo Journal of MarketingResearch 53 (5) 847ndash64

Cleveland William S (1984) ldquoGraphical Methods for DataPresentation Full Scale Breaks Dot Charts and MultibasedLoggingrdquo The American Statistician 38 (4) 270ndash80

DiSalvo David (2009) ldquoThe Psychology of Plastic CouchCoversrdquo httpsneuronarrativewordpresscom20090119the-psychology-of-plastic-couch-covers

Dixie Products (2015) ldquoDixie Ultra Moments Ultimate Hostrdquohttpswwwyoutubecomwatchvfrac14wsBBq9PsgVI

Dutton Denis (2009) The Art Instinct Beauty Pleasure ampHuman Evolution New York Oxford University Press

Dweck Carol S (2000) Self-Theories Their Role in MotivationPersonality and Development Philadelphia Psychology Press

Dweck Carol S and Ellen L Leggett (1988) ldquoA Social-CognitiveApproach to Motivation and Personalityrdquo PsychologicalReview 95 (2) 256ndash73

Evans Lindsay (2010) ldquoWhy Buy Unbleached Paperrdquo httpwwwbrighthubcomenvironmentgreen-livingarticles16299aspx

Festinger Leon (1957) A Theory of Cognitive DissonanceStanford CA Stanford University Press

Frederick Shane and George Loewenstein (1999) ldquoHedonicAdaptationrdquo in Scientific Perspectives on EnjoymentSuffering and Well-Being ed Daniel Kahneman Ed Dienerand Norbert Schwartz New York Russell Sage Foundation302ndash29

Fuchs Christoph Martin Schreier and Stijn MJ van Osselaer(2015) ldquoThe Handmade Effect Whatrsquos Love Got to Do withItrdquo Journal of Marketing 79 (2) 98ndash110

Hagtvedt Henrik and Vanessa M Patrick (2008) ldquoArt InfusionThe Influence of Visual Art on the Perception and Evaluationof Consumer Productsrdquo Journal of Marketing Research 45(3) 379ndash89

AESTHETIC APPEAL PRETEST FOR ALL STIMULI USED IN STUDIES

Higher aesthetic Lower aesthetic Comparison a

Toilet paper (study 1) 377 (146) 253 (155) t(128) frac14 ndash469 p lt 001 a frac14 94Cupcake (study 2) 556 (106) 305 (146) t(128) frac14 ndash1120 p lt 001 a frac14 96Napkin (studies 3 and 6) 465 (153) 230 (144) t(128) frac14 ndash903 p lt 001 a frac14 97Napkin (study 4) 332 (145) 262 (154) t(128) frac14 ndash266 p lt 01 a frac14 92Napkin (study 5) 458 (159) 234 (151) t(128) frac14 ndash823 p lt 001 a frac14 97

NOTEmdashStandard deviations are in parentheses

In a between-subjects pretest participants were asked to rate each product along the following dimensions beautiful pretty artistic and aesthetically pleasing

(1 frac14 not at all 7 frac14 very much) which formed our aesthetic appeal index

APPENDIX B

20 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

Hayes Andrew F (2013) ldquoPROCESS A VersatileComputational Tool for Observed Variable MediationModeration and Conditional Process Modelingrdquo workingpaper School of Communication and Department ofPsychology Ohio State University Columbus OH 43210

Heller Steve (2015) ldquoA Grocery Store Illusion Is Getting You toSpend More Moneyrdquo httpwwwbusinessinsidercoma-grocery-store-illusion-is-getting-you-to-spend-more-money-2015-8ixzz3ifsOLBfG

Hurling Robert and Richard Shepherd (2003) ldquoEating with YourEyes Effect of Appearance on Expectations of LikingrdquoAppetite 41 (2) 167ndash74

Hoegg JoAndrea Joseph W Alba and Darren W Dahl (2010)ldquoThe Good the Bad and the Ugly Influence of Aesthetics onProduct Feature Judgmentsrdquo Journal of ConsumerPsychology 20 (4) 419ndash30

Johnson Palmer O and Jerzy Neyman (1936) ldquoTests of CertainLinear Hypotheses and Their Applications to SomeEducational Problemsrdquo Statistical Research Memoirs 157ndash93

Kahneman Daniel and Amos Tversky (1979) ldquoProspect TheoryAn Analysis of Decision under Riskrdquo Econometrica 47 (2)263ndash91

Kampe Knut K W Chris D Frith Raymond J Dolan and UtaFrith (2001) ldquoPsychology Reward Value of Attractivenessand Gazerdquo Nature 413 (6856) 589

Kelley Harold H (1967) ldquoAttribution Theory in SocialPsychologyrdquo in Nebraska Symposium of Motivation Vol 15ed D Levine Lincoln University of Nebraska Press192ndash238

Kirmani Amna (1990) ldquoThe Effect of Perceived AdvertisingCosts on Brand Perceptionsrdquo Journal of Consumer Research17 (2) 160ndash71

Kirmani Amna Michelle P Lee and Carolyn Yoon (2004)ldquoProcedural Priming Effects on Spontaneous InferenceFormationrdquo Journal of Economic Psychology 25 (6)859ndash75

Kruger Justin Derrick Wirtz Leaf Van Boven and T WilliamAltermatt (2004) ldquoThe Effort Heuristicrdquo Journal ofExperimental Social Psychology 40 (1) 91ndash8

Lee Leonard and Claire I Tsai (2014) ldquoHow Price PromotionsInfluence Postpurchase Consumption Experience overTimerdquo Journal of Consumer Research 40 (5) 943ndash59

Levy Sheri R Steven J Stroessner and Carol S Dweck (1998)ldquoStereotype Formation and Endorsement The Role ofImplicit Theoriesrdquo Journal of Personality and SocialPsychology 74 (6) 1421ndash36

Lisjak Monika Andrea Bonezzi Soo Kim and Derek D Rucker(2015) ldquoPerils of Compensatory Consumption Within-Domain Compensation Undermines Subsequent Self-Regulationrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 41 (5)1186ndash203

Loewenstein George (1987) ldquoAnticipation and the Valuation ofDelayed Consumptionrdquo Economic Journal 97 (September)666ndash84

Maritain Jacques (1966) ldquoBeauty and Imitationrdquo in A ModernBook of Esthetics ed Melvin Rader New York HoltRinehart amp Winston 27ndash34

McFerran Brent Darren W Dahl Gavan J Fitzsimons andAndrea C Morales (2010) ldquoIrsquoll Have What Shersquos HavingEffects of Social Influence and Body Type on the FoodChoices of Othersrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 36 (6)915ndash29

Morales Andrea C (2005) ldquoGiving Firms an lsquoErsquo for EffortConsumer Responses to High-Effort Firmsrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 31 (4) 806ndash12

Moreau C Page Leff Bonney and Kelly B Herd (2011) ldquoItrsquos theThought (and the Effort) That Counts How Customizing forOthers Differs from Customizing for Oneselfrdquo Journal ofMarketing 75 (5) 120ndash33

Norton Michael I Daniel Mochon and Dan Ariely (2012) ldquoThelsquoIkearsquo Effect When Labor Leads to Loverdquo Journal ofConsumer Psychology 22 (July) 453ndash60

Page Christine and Paul M Herr (2002) ldquoAn Investigation ofthe Processes by Which Product Design and Brand StrengthInteract to Determine Initial Affect and QualityJudgmentsrdquo Journal of Consumer Psychology 12 (2)133ndash47

Raghubir Priya and Eric A Greenleaf (2006) ldquoRatios inProportion What Should the Shape of the Package BerdquoJournal of Marketing 70 (2) 95ndash107

Raghunathan Rajagopal Rebecca Walker Naylor and Wayne DHoyer (2006) ldquoThe Unhealthy frac14 Tasty Intuition and ItsEffects on Taste Inferences Enjoyment and Choice of FoodProductsrdquo Journal of Marketing 70 (4) 170ndash84

Reber Rolf Norbert Schwarz and Piotr Winkielman (2004)ldquoProcessing Fluency and Aesthetic Pleasure Is Beauty in thePerceiverrsquos Processing Experiencerdquo Personality and SocialPsychology Review 8 (4) 364ndash82

Reber Rolf Piotr Winkielman and Norbert Schwarz (1998)ldquoEffects of Perceptual Fluency on Affective JudgmentsrdquoPsychological Science 9 (1) 45ndash48

Reimann Martin Judith Zaichkowksy Carolin Neuhaus ThomasBender and Bernd Weber (2010) ldquoAesthetic PackageDesign A Behavioral Neural and PsychologicalInvestigationrdquo Journal of Consumer Psychology 20 (4)431ndash41

Santayana George (18961955) The Sense of Beauty New YorkDover

Scott Maura L Stephen M Nowlis Naomi Mandel and AndreaC Morales (2008) ldquoThe Effects of Reduced Food Size andPackage Size on the Consumption Behavior of Restrainedand Unrestrained Eatersrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 35(3) 391ndash405

Spencer Steven J Mark P Zanna and Geoffrey T Fong (2005)ldquoEstablishing a Causal Chain Why Experiments Are OftenMore Effective than Mediational Analyses in ExaminingPsychological Processesrdquo Journal of Personality and SocialPsychology 89 (6) 845ndash51

Spiller Stephen A Gavan J Fitzsimons John G Lynch Jr andGary H McClelland (2013) ldquoSpotlights Floodlights andthe Magic Number Zero Simple Effects Tests inModerated Regressionrdquo Journal of Marketing Research 50(2) 277ndash88

Thompson Debora V Rebecca W Hamilton and Roland T Rust(2005) ldquoFeature Fatigue When Product CapabilitiesBecome Too Much of a Good Thingrdquo Journal of MarketingResearch 42 (November) 431ndash42

Townsend Claudia and Suzanne B Shu (2010) ldquoWhen and HowAesthetics Influences Financial Decisionsrdquo Journal ofConsumer Psychology 20 (4) 452ndash58

Townsend Claudia and Sanjay Sood (2012) ldquoSelf-Affirmationthrough the Choice of Highly Aesthetic Productsrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 39 (2) 415ndash28

Veryzer Robert W and J Wesley Hutchinson (1998) ldquoTheInfluence of Unity and Prototypicality on Aesthetic

WU ET AL 21

Responses to New Product Designsrdquo Journal of ConsumerResearch 24 (4) 374ndash94

Wada Yuji Carlos Arce-Lopera Tomohiro Masuda AtsushiKimura Ippeita Dan Sho-ichi Goto Daisuke Tsuzuki andKatsunori Okajima (2010) ldquoInfluence of LuminanceDistribution on the Appetizingly Fresh Appearance ofCabbagerdquo Appetite 54 (2) 363ndash68

Weiner Bernard (2000) ldquoAttributional Thoughts and ConsumerBehaviorrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 27 (December)382ndash87

Witz Anne Chris Warhurst and Dennis Nickson (2003) ldquoTheLabour of Aesthetics and The Aesthetics of OrganizationrdquoOrganization 10 (1) 33ndash54

Yamamoto Mel and David R Lambert (1994) ldquoThe Impact ofProduct Aesthetics on the Evaluation of Industrial ProductsrdquoJournal of Product Innovation Management 11 (4) 309ndash24

Yang Sha and Priya Raghubir (2005) ldquoCan Bottles SpeakVolumes The Effect of Package Shape on How Much toBuyrdquo Journal of Retailing 81 (4) 269ndash82

22 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

  • ucx057-FN1
  • ucx057-FN2
  • ucx057-FN3
  • ucx057-FN4
  • app1
  • app2
  • ucx057-TF1
  • ucx057-TF2
Page 16: It’s Too Pretty to Use! When and How Enhanced Product ...gavan/bio/GJF_articles/...testing the prediction that aesthetic products can elicit greater perceptions of effort. In line

Effort Inferences A one-way ANOVA on effort infer-ences indicated that participants ascribed greater effort tothe higher aesthetic napkins (Mhigher frac14 349 vs Mlower frac14287 F(1 371) frac14 1359 p lt 001)

Effort Destruction A one-way ANOVA on concernsabout effort destruction indicated that participants hadstronger concerns that effort had been destroyed in thehigher aesthetic condition (Mhigher frac14 262 vs Mlower frac14200 F(1 371) frac14 1355 p lt 001)

Mediation Finally we conducted two separate media-tion analyses one testing the path of product aesthetics decrements in beauty negative affect (model 4 Hayes2013) and the other testing the serial path of product aes-thetics effort inferences concerns about effort de-struction negative affect (model 6) Results from thefirst analysis revealed that the indirect effect of aestheticson negative affect through changes in beauty was signifi-cant (b frac14 37 95 CI [23 54]) suggesting that productaesthetics affected the experience of negative emotionsthrough larger decrements in beauty in the higher aestheticcondition Second the indirect effect of aesthetics on nega-tive affect through effort inferences and concerns about ef-fort destruction (in serial) was also significant (b frac14 1295 CI [06 23]) as was the indirect effect of aestheticson negative affect through effort destruction alone (b frac1411 95 CI [01 23])

Finally we also included beauty decrements effort in-ferences and effort destruction into the model as parallelmediators to gain greater understanding of the relativestrength of these drivers This analysis revealed that whenall three mediators were in the model the indirect effectthrough decrements in beauty remained significant (b frac1422 95 CI [11 36]) as did the indirect effect througheffort destruction (b frac14 15 95 CI [06 27]) Taken to-gether these results suggest that while concerns about ef-fort destruction continue to play a role in driving theemotional outcomes of aesthetic product usage the decre-ments in beauty that become evident only after an aestheticproduct has been visibly compromised through consump-tion also lead to negative affect

Discussion Study 6B which allowed us to examinethe entire post-consumption conceptual model revealedthat people who used higher (vs lower) aesthetic napkinssubsequently experienced greater negative affect an effectdriven by two processes operating in parallel concernsabout the destruction of effort and decrements in beauty Inother words the consumption experience was associatedwith more negative affect because the consumption processnot only involved the actual destruction of effort but italso took a beautiful product that was typified by pleasureand transformed it into something marked by displeasure

We should also note that we replicated the post-consumption findings with actual paper napkins in a lab

context In a separate study using study 5rsquos procedure par-ticipants watched a video and received a snack to eat alongwith a higher versus lower aesthetic napkin and then indi-cated how they felt about the consumption experienceParticipants who chose to use their higher aesthetic napkinreported feeling more negative affect relative to whosewho chose to use their lower aesthetic napkin (p frac14 04)and relative to those who did not use their higher aestheticnapkin (p lt 01) Thus aesthetic product usage increasednegative affect even when consumers could choose to ei-ther use the aesthetic product or not and when the aestheticproduct (the napkin) was tangential to the affect measurescollected which specifically pertained to the video-watching and snack-eating task Additional details areavailable in the web appendix

Though we provide evidence that effort inferences con-tinued to partially drive consumer responses to beautifulproducts after usage it is interesting to note that post-consumption affect was not moderated by the degree towhich effort is intrinsically appreciated (ie implicit self-theories) While unexpected we speculate that this may oc-cur because post-consumption enjoyment is not exclusivelydriven by effort inferences Since losses of beauty alsoplay a substantial role in shaping emotional outcomes afterconsumption the beauty decrements associated with aes-thetic product usage may have brought entity theorists to asimilar emotional state as incremental theorists resultingin everybody feeling worse off after consumption irrespec-tive of individual differences in effort appreciation Morebroadly since post-consumption affect appears to be multi-ply determined it is difficult to completely disentangle thenegative affect stemming from the destruction of effortfrom the negative affect stemming from decrements inbeauty Study 6B offers a distinct test of this conjecturesince it made usage (and hence losses of beauty) salientthrough images of visibly used napkins

GENERAL DISCUSSION

Across a series of laboratory and field studies using avariety of nondurable product categories and consumptionsituations we reveal the negative impact of enhanced prod-uct aesthetics on usage and post-consumption conse-quences First we document an inhibiting effect of productaesthetics on consumption behaviors for disposable andperishable products in both real-world (study 1) and lab(study 2) settings Next we shed light on the drivers of us-age likelihood using mediation (study 3) a context-basedboundary condition (study 4) and a theoretically derivedindividual difference moderator (study 5) thereby provid-ing convergent support for an underlying process based oneffort Finally in studies 6A and 6B we hold product us-age constant to elucidate the drivers of post-consumptionaffect and show that the decrements in beauty that

16 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

aesthetic products inherently undergo as a result of con-sumption combined with concerns that one has actuallydestroyed effort underlie these effects

Theoretical Contributions Our work makes severaltheoretical contributions First while prior research hasshown that consumers respond favorably to both productaesthetics and effort we believe we are the first to establisha causal relationship between these constructs We findthat highly aesthetic products can elicit greater perceptionsof effort regardless of whether this effort was exerted dur-ing product design physical production or both processesWe further reveal that these effort inferences are not lim-ited to handmade products such as perishable foods butalso apply to mass-produced products such as consumerpackaged disposable goods

Second while existing literature suggests that consumerpreferences should increase as a function of a productrsquos aes-thetic appeal the prevailing ways of assessing the impact ofaesthetics on consumer preference have been limited to pur-chase intentions product evaluations and choice (Hagtvedtand Patrick 2008 Raghubir and Greenleaf 2006 Reimannet al 2010 Townsend and Shu 2010) Surprisingly the role ofaesthetics after choice has received little empirical attention todate Despite the stimulating effect that enhanced product aes-thetics have on choice and pre-usage evaluations our resultssuggest that once beautiful products are acquired consumersmay be less likely to consume them because the higher infer-ences of effort attributed to their creation elicit stronger con-cerns that such effort would be destroyed during consumption

This research also shows that the impact of implicit self-theories on consumer behavior may be more pervasivethan previously thought While prior research in psychol-ogy has shown that incremental and entity theorists carrydissimilar beliefs about the value of their own effort(Dweck 2000) we provide support for the novel predictionthat beyond the recognition of personal effort implicitself-theories affect the extent to which consumers appreci-ate the effort that goes into the creation of aestheticallyappealing products

Finally contrary to the notion that enhanced product aes-thetics are always beneficial to consumption enjoyment ourwork reveals that usage of highly aesthetic disposable prod-ucts can actually lower overall enjoyment of the consumptionexperience through two separate pathways (1) by elicitingconcerns that one has actually destroyed effort and (2) bycompromising the beauty that typically characterizes aestheticproducts Thus we add to the literature on aesthetics andpleasure by showing how the consumption of highly aestheticproducts can result in larger losses of beauty and that suchdecrements in turn drive the relationship between aestheticproduct consumption and negative affect

More generally these findings speak to researchthat explores when and why the drivers of predicted andexperienced utility might diverge For instance

Thompson et al (2005) found that consumersrsquo initial desirefor product capability before purchase leads them to chooseproducts packed with features but their growing desire forproduct usability after usage leads them to ultimately prefersimpler products Similarly Lee and Tsai (2014) showedthat price promotions can stimulate sales but lower atten-tion during consumption which in turn reduces consump-tion enjoyment In the same vein despite the delightinitially elicited by the choice of beautiful products wedemonstrate that enhanced aesthetics have the ability tolater discourage usage and lower consumption enjoyment

Substantive Implications Our findings carry importantpractical implications as they pose an interesting dilemmato managers While conventional wisdom suggests that mar-keters should strive to invest the highest degree of effort intomaking their products look aesthetically pleasing at least tothe extent that company resources will allow our researchreveals that the story is not so simple Enhancing productaesthetics might positively affect initial attention interestand choice but should be considered with caution given thatsuch increased appeal could inhibit usage and reduce enjoy-ment relative to less aesthetically appealing productsRelatedly people likely consume highly aesthetic disposableproducts more slowly which could affect interpurchasetime Thus the pursuit of product aesthetics and improvedshort-term sales must be constantly balanced against theneed to encourage consumption ensure customer satisfac-tion and maintain long-term profitability Still certain prod-ucts such as beautiful candles and soaps may serve adecorative purpose in addition to their basic utilitarian func-tion and consequently may also carry intrinsic aestheticvalue Our recommendations are admittedly less straightfor-ward under such circumstances as consumers are able toderive utility from the productsrsquo enhanced aesthetics simplyby displaying them

Our results also have clear implications for managersand policy makers interested in promoting conservationand sustainable business practices A growing number ofretail and service establishments have been switching tounbleached paper products as the traditional bleachingprocess that removes imperfections and gives paper itswhite appearance also produces hazardous chemicals (egchlorine and dioxins) that are harmful to the environment(Evans 2010) While the transition to unbleached paperproducts has benefited the environment the results fromour investigation suggest the growing popularity of thistrend may be a double-edged sword To the extent thatunbleached paper products are considered less aestheticallyappealing consumers may show less restraint in usingthem leading to backfiring effects for conservation effortsPut another way the positive environmental impact of pro-ducing unbleached paper products could potentially be off-set by consumersrsquo reduced inhibition in consuming theseproducts Thus increasing the aesthetic appeal of products

WU ET AL 17

may actually be an effective way for companies to promoteenvironmentally sustainable behaviors even after incorpo-rating the increased cost of implementing such practices

Finally given that rising obesity rates are a major publichealth concern traced to increased consumption (Chandonand Wansink 2007) there has been burgeoning interest inthe various factors that shape consumer food choices (Corniland Chandon 2016 McFerran et al 2010 Scott et al 2008)The results of study 2 suggest that one way to curb overeat-ing might be to enhance the aesthetic presentation of foodproducts especially hedonic foods Of course additionalresearch is needed to better explore the impact of aestheticsin this important area given the counteracting effects thatfood aesthetics exert on consumption versus enjoyment

Limitations and Future Research While the current setof studies was designed to elucidate perceived effort as anunderlying mechanism of lower usage of aestheticallyappealing products we recognize that this phenomenonlike many is likely driven by multiple processes (FuchsSchreier and van Osselaer 2015) Indeed as evident in ourresearch consumption likelihood and consumption enjoy-ment each have distinct sets of drivers For instance whilewe accounted for cost across multiple studies and demon-strated that our effects held even after we controlled for theperceived price of the product we believe that cost maycertainly play a role in certain situations For example cer-tain highly aesthetic products elicit perceptions of luxury(Hagtvedt and Patrick 2008) and may consequently reduceconsumption because they appear ldquotoo expensive to userdquoand cost may even interact with aesthetics under certaincircumstances to impact consumption such that the infer-ences of effort typically ascribed to aesthetically appealingproducts could be mitigated if people are told that theywere extremely inexpensive

In addition classic research by Loewenstein (1987)showed that people often prefer to delay consumption ofenjoyable experiences It may be that people are averse toimmediately consuming a highly aesthetic product becausethey are able to derive more utility by savoring the experi-ence and postponing consumption Further as alluded to instudy 4 it is possible that anticipated decrements in beautymay play a larger role in shaping usage in other consump-tion contexts Thus while we focus on the role of effortinferences in driving lower usage of highly aesthetic prod-ucts we are cognizant of the fact that other mechanismslikely exist which would provide intriguing avenues forfurther investigation

It would also be interesting to examine whether the neg-ative influence of enhanced aesthetics would hold acrossdifferent consumption contexts That is are there situationswhere the present phenomenon would not emerge Indeedone could argue that service establishments such as upscalerestaurants and luxury resorts which regularly pampertheir guests with beautifully plated entrees and folded

towel animals would eventually be driven out of businessif the consumption of highly aesthetic products alwaysresulted in lower enjoyment We believe that whether theusage of highly aesthetic products is accompanied bydecreased consumption and increased negative affect willhinge on the nature of the consumption environment Priorresearch indicates that our surroundings are capable ofautomatically eliciting normative behaviors when situa-tional norms are well established (Aarts and Dijksterhuis2003) Extending this perspective it is possible that theeffects observed in this article may be relatively weakenedwhen consumption occurs in environments characterizedby strong expectations to engage in indulgent consumptionsuch as in a fancy restaurant or luxurious hotel

Relatedly it would be interesting to examine whethercalling attention to fact that the aesthetic product if leftunconsumed will face inevitable destruction could enhanceconsumption likelihood and enjoyment to some extent par-ticularly for perishable products such as food4 Indeedrecent research has shown that consumers display a strongaversion to waste and unused utility (Bolton and Alba2012) Thus future studies should examine whether theeffects documented in this article could be attenuated ifthe inevitable destruction of effort is made salient to con-sumers (eg the product will go bad be thrown away orsomebody else will consume the product even if they donot) In summary future work should explore situationswhere enhanced aesthetics might carry more weight in theutility function for the overall consumption experienceand subsequently increase consumption and boostenjoyment

Another area for future research would be to examinewhether the destruction of product aesthetics is an ldquoall ornothingrdquo event such that any amount of consumption (evena single bite of a cupcake) would be viewed as destroyingthe productrsquos overall beauty While our experimentaldesigns did not allow us to examine whether destruction is acontinuous versus discrete function of consumption it isworth nothing that we did document lower usage acrossvarying degrees of consumption (eg consumption was con-tinuous in study 2 but discrete in study 5) and we did findthat different levels of consumption still led to reducedenjoyment Nevertheless we believe this is an importantempirical question worth investigating in the future

Finally while we have limited our analysis to nondura-bles (perishable and disposable products specifically) anintriguing path would be to investigate the potential moder-ating role of product durability on usage likelihood andsubsequent enjoyment of highly aesthetic products It maybe that the relative durability of the aesthetic product couldaffect individualsrsquo ability or motivation to anticipate decre-ments in beauty before consumption has occurred whichwould have implications for usage likelihood For instance

4 We thank one of the anonymous reviewers for this suggestion

18 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

with big-ticket high-involvement purchases such as sleekfurniture (eg a beautiful new white sectional sofa) con-sumers may more readily anticipate losses of beauty sincethey will have to live with and encounter the product on adaily basis even after its original beauty has faded or beentarnished through repeated use This may explain why cov-ering new furniture with plastic was at one time a verycommon practice (DiSalvo 2009)

On the other hand for nondurable lower-involvementproducts such as those used in the current research perhapspeople do not have the motivation or ability to considershifts in aesthetic appeal before consumption Furtherproducts often vary in their degree of durabilitymdasha delicateembroidered blanket while by no means nondurable or dis-posable may begin to show visible signs of wear and tearsooner than a fleece blanket Although the present researchspecifically focused on perishable and single-use productsit would be worth examining when and how the degree ofdurability or even perceptions of fragility might shapedecisions to use beautiful products

In conclusion our research documents an inhibitingeffect of enhanced product aesthetics on consumption par-ticularly for disposable and consumable nondurable prod-ucts Although beautiful products have the ability topromote positive pre-usage evaluations and stimulatechoice our work indicates that consumers are subsequentlyless likely to use them and those who do use them ulti-mately experience higher negative affect and lower enjoy-ment In addition different processes underlie consumerresponses to highly aesthetic products depending onwhether or not consumption has taken place Thus we con-clude that while products may never be too pretty tochoose they can in fact be too pretty to use

DATA COLLECTION INFORMATION

All studies were designed and analyzed by the first authorunder the guidance of the other authors The data for study 1was collected at the Scottsdale Pure Barre studio in fall2015 by research assistants and employees under the super-vision of the first author Research assistants collected thedata for studies 2 and 5 under the supervision of the firstauthor at the W P Carey School of Business MarketingDepartment Behavioral Lab in spring 2015 The data for theconceptual replication (reported in the discussion of study6B) was collected by research assistants under the supervi-sion of the first author at the W P Carey School ofBusiness Marketing Department Behavioral Lab in summer2015 The data for study 4 (both the effort manipulation pre-test and the main study) and the correlational study examin-ing the relationship between implicit self-theories andappreciation for othersrsquo effort were collected by the firstauthor using Amazon Mechanical Turk in spring 2016 Thefirst author collected the data for the aesthetic appeal pretest

(described in appendix B) studies 3 6A and 6B usingAmazon Mechanical Turk in summer 2016 Lastly researchassistants collected the data for the correlational study exam-ining the relationship between aesthetics and perceivedeffort (described in the table in ldquoThe Role of Effort inInhibiting Usagerdquo) under the supervision of the first authorat the W P Carey School of Business MarketingDepartment Behavioral Lab in fall 2016

APPENDIX A

STUDY STIMULI

WU ET AL 19

REFERENCES

Aarts Henk and Ap Dijksterhuis (2003) ldquoThe Silence of theLibrary Environment Situational Norm and SocialBehaviorrdquo Journal of Personality and Social Psychology84 (1) 18ndash28

Aharon Itzhak Nancy Etcoff Dan Ariely Christopher F ChabrisEthan OrsquoConnor and Hans C Breiter (2001) ldquoBeautifulFaces Have Variable Reward Value fMRI and BehavioralEvidencerdquo Neuron 32 (3) 537ndash51

Alba Joseph W and Elanor F Williams (2013) ldquoPleasurePrinciples A Review of Research on HedonicConsumptionrdquo Journal of Consumer Psychology 23 (1)2ndash18

Belk Russell W (1988) ldquoPossessions and the Extended SelfrdquoJournal of Consumer Research 15 (2) 139ndash67

Bem Daryl J (1972) Self-Perception Theory Stanford CAStanford University Press

Berridge Kent C (2009) ldquolsquoLikingrsquo and lsquoWantingrsquo Food RewardsBrain Substrates and Roles in Eating Disordersrdquo Physiologyamp Behavior 97 (5) 537ndash50

Bloch Peter H (1995) ldquoSeeking the Ideal Form Product Designand Consumer Responserdquo Journal of Marketing 59 (July)16ndash29

Bloch Peter H Frederic F Brunel and Todd J Arnold (2003)ldquoIndividual Differences in the Centrality of Visual ProductAesthetics Concept and Measurementrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 29 (4) 551ndash65

Bolton Lisa E and Joseph W Alba (2012) ldquoWhen Less Is MoreConsumer Aversion to Unused Utilityrdquo Journal of ConsumerPsychology 22 (3) 369ndash83

Brehm Jack W (1966) A Theory of Psychological ReactanceNew York Academic Press

Broniarczyk Susan M and Joseph W Alba (1994) ldquoThe Role ofConsumersrsquo Intuitions in Inference Makingrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 21 (3) 393ndash407

Cabanac Michel (1971) ldquoPhysiological Role of PleasurerdquoScience 173 (4002) 1103ndash7

mdashmdashmdash (1979) ldquoSensory Pleasurerdquo Quarterly Review of Biology54 (1) 1ndash29

mdashmdashmdash (1985) ldquoPreferring for Pleasurerdquo American Journal ofClinical Nutrition 42 (5) 1151ndash5

Chandon Pierre and Brian Wansink (2007) ldquoThe Biasing HealthHalos of Fast Food Restaurant Health Claims Lower CalorieEstimates and Higher Side-Dish Consumption IntentionsrdquoJournal of Consumer Research 34 (3) 301ndash14

Cornil Yann and Pierre Chandon (2016) ldquoPleasure as a Substitutefor Size How Multisensory Imagery Can Make PeopleHappier with Smaller Food Portionsrdquo Journal of MarketingResearch 53 (5) 847ndash64

Cleveland William S (1984) ldquoGraphical Methods for DataPresentation Full Scale Breaks Dot Charts and MultibasedLoggingrdquo The American Statistician 38 (4) 270ndash80

DiSalvo David (2009) ldquoThe Psychology of Plastic CouchCoversrdquo httpsneuronarrativewordpresscom20090119the-psychology-of-plastic-couch-covers

Dixie Products (2015) ldquoDixie Ultra Moments Ultimate Hostrdquohttpswwwyoutubecomwatchvfrac14wsBBq9PsgVI

Dutton Denis (2009) The Art Instinct Beauty Pleasure ampHuman Evolution New York Oxford University Press

Dweck Carol S (2000) Self-Theories Their Role in MotivationPersonality and Development Philadelphia Psychology Press

Dweck Carol S and Ellen L Leggett (1988) ldquoA Social-CognitiveApproach to Motivation and Personalityrdquo PsychologicalReview 95 (2) 256ndash73

Evans Lindsay (2010) ldquoWhy Buy Unbleached Paperrdquo httpwwwbrighthubcomenvironmentgreen-livingarticles16299aspx

Festinger Leon (1957) A Theory of Cognitive DissonanceStanford CA Stanford University Press

Frederick Shane and George Loewenstein (1999) ldquoHedonicAdaptationrdquo in Scientific Perspectives on EnjoymentSuffering and Well-Being ed Daniel Kahneman Ed Dienerand Norbert Schwartz New York Russell Sage Foundation302ndash29

Fuchs Christoph Martin Schreier and Stijn MJ van Osselaer(2015) ldquoThe Handmade Effect Whatrsquos Love Got to Do withItrdquo Journal of Marketing 79 (2) 98ndash110

Hagtvedt Henrik and Vanessa M Patrick (2008) ldquoArt InfusionThe Influence of Visual Art on the Perception and Evaluationof Consumer Productsrdquo Journal of Marketing Research 45(3) 379ndash89

AESTHETIC APPEAL PRETEST FOR ALL STIMULI USED IN STUDIES

Higher aesthetic Lower aesthetic Comparison a

Toilet paper (study 1) 377 (146) 253 (155) t(128) frac14 ndash469 p lt 001 a frac14 94Cupcake (study 2) 556 (106) 305 (146) t(128) frac14 ndash1120 p lt 001 a frac14 96Napkin (studies 3 and 6) 465 (153) 230 (144) t(128) frac14 ndash903 p lt 001 a frac14 97Napkin (study 4) 332 (145) 262 (154) t(128) frac14 ndash266 p lt 01 a frac14 92Napkin (study 5) 458 (159) 234 (151) t(128) frac14 ndash823 p lt 001 a frac14 97

NOTEmdashStandard deviations are in parentheses

In a between-subjects pretest participants were asked to rate each product along the following dimensions beautiful pretty artistic and aesthetically pleasing

(1 frac14 not at all 7 frac14 very much) which formed our aesthetic appeal index

APPENDIX B

20 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

Hayes Andrew F (2013) ldquoPROCESS A VersatileComputational Tool for Observed Variable MediationModeration and Conditional Process Modelingrdquo workingpaper School of Communication and Department ofPsychology Ohio State University Columbus OH 43210

Heller Steve (2015) ldquoA Grocery Store Illusion Is Getting You toSpend More Moneyrdquo httpwwwbusinessinsidercoma-grocery-store-illusion-is-getting-you-to-spend-more-money-2015-8ixzz3ifsOLBfG

Hurling Robert and Richard Shepherd (2003) ldquoEating with YourEyes Effect of Appearance on Expectations of LikingrdquoAppetite 41 (2) 167ndash74

Hoegg JoAndrea Joseph W Alba and Darren W Dahl (2010)ldquoThe Good the Bad and the Ugly Influence of Aesthetics onProduct Feature Judgmentsrdquo Journal of ConsumerPsychology 20 (4) 419ndash30

Johnson Palmer O and Jerzy Neyman (1936) ldquoTests of CertainLinear Hypotheses and Their Applications to SomeEducational Problemsrdquo Statistical Research Memoirs 157ndash93

Kahneman Daniel and Amos Tversky (1979) ldquoProspect TheoryAn Analysis of Decision under Riskrdquo Econometrica 47 (2)263ndash91

Kampe Knut K W Chris D Frith Raymond J Dolan and UtaFrith (2001) ldquoPsychology Reward Value of Attractivenessand Gazerdquo Nature 413 (6856) 589

Kelley Harold H (1967) ldquoAttribution Theory in SocialPsychologyrdquo in Nebraska Symposium of Motivation Vol 15ed D Levine Lincoln University of Nebraska Press192ndash238

Kirmani Amna (1990) ldquoThe Effect of Perceived AdvertisingCosts on Brand Perceptionsrdquo Journal of Consumer Research17 (2) 160ndash71

Kirmani Amna Michelle P Lee and Carolyn Yoon (2004)ldquoProcedural Priming Effects on Spontaneous InferenceFormationrdquo Journal of Economic Psychology 25 (6)859ndash75

Kruger Justin Derrick Wirtz Leaf Van Boven and T WilliamAltermatt (2004) ldquoThe Effort Heuristicrdquo Journal ofExperimental Social Psychology 40 (1) 91ndash8

Lee Leonard and Claire I Tsai (2014) ldquoHow Price PromotionsInfluence Postpurchase Consumption Experience overTimerdquo Journal of Consumer Research 40 (5) 943ndash59

Levy Sheri R Steven J Stroessner and Carol S Dweck (1998)ldquoStereotype Formation and Endorsement The Role ofImplicit Theoriesrdquo Journal of Personality and SocialPsychology 74 (6) 1421ndash36

Lisjak Monika Andrea Bonezzi Soo Kim and Derek D Rucker(2015) ldquoPerils of Compensatory Consumption Within-Domain Compensation Undermines Subsequent Self-Regulationrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 41 (5)1186ndash203

Loewenstein George (1987) ldquoAnticipation and the Valuation ofDelayed Consumptionrdquo Economic Journal 97 (September)666ndash84

Maritain Jacques (1966) ldquoBeauty and Imitationrdquo in A ModernBook of Esthetics ed Melvin Rader New York HoltRinehart amp Winston 27ndash34

McFerran Brent Darren W Dahl Gavan J Fitzsimons andAndrea C Morales (2010) ldquoIrsquoll Have What Shersquos HavingEffects of Social Influence and Body Type on the FoodChoices of Othersrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 36 (6)915ndash29

Morales Andrea C (2005) ldquoGiving Firms an lsquoErsquo for EffortConsumer Responses to High-Effort Firmsrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 31 (4) 806ndash12

Moreau C Page Leff Bonney and Kelly B Herd (2011) ldquoItrsquos theThought (and the Effort) That Counts How Customizing forOthers Differs from Customizing for Oneselfrdquo Journal ofMarketing 75 (5) 120ndash33

Norton Michael I Daniel Mochon and Dan Ariely (2012) ldquoThelsquoIkearsquo Effect When Labor Leads to Loverdquo Journal ofConsumer Psychology 22 (July) 453ndash60

Page Christine and Paul M Herr (2002) ldquoAn Investigation ofthe Processes by Which Product Design and Brand StrengthInteract to Determine Initial Affect and QualityJudgmentsrdquo Journal of Consumer Psychology 12 (2)133ndash47

Raghubir Priya and Eric A Greenleaf (2006) ldquoRatios inProportion What Should the Shape of the Package BerdquoJournal of Marketing 70 (2) 95ndash107

Raghunathan Rajagopal Rebecca Walker Naylor and Wayne DHoyer (2006) ldquoThe Unhealthy frac14 Tasty Intuition and ItsEffects on Taste Inferences Enjoyment and Choice of FoodProductsrdquo Journal of Marketing 70 (4) 170ndash84

Reber Rolf Norbert Schwarz and Piotr Winkielman (2004)ldquoProcessing Fluency and Aesthetic Pleasure Is Beauty in thePerceiverrsquos Processing Experiencerdquo Personality and SocialPsychology Review 8 (4) 364ndash82

Reber Rolf Piotr Winkielman and Norbert Schwarz (1998)ldquoEffects of Perceptual Fluency on Affective JudgmentsrdquoPsychological Science 9 (1) 45ndash48

Reimann Martin Judith Zaichkowksy Carolin Neuhaus ThomasBender and Bernd Weber (2010) ldquoAesthetic PackageDesign A Behavioral Neural and PsychologicalInvestigationrdquo Journal of Consumer Psychology 20 (4)431ndash41

Santayana George (18961955) The Sense of Beauty New YorkDover

Scott Maura L Stephen M Nowlis Naomi Mandel and AndreaC Morales (2008) ldquoThe Effects of Reduced Food Size andPackage Size on the Consumption Behavior of Restrainedand Unrestrained Eatersrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 35(3) 391ndash405

Spencer Steven J Mark P Zanna and Geoffrey T Fong (2005)ldquoEstablishing a Causal Chain Why Experiments Are OftenMore Effective than Mediational Analyses in ExaminingPsychological Processesrdquo Journal of Personality and SocialPsychology 89 (6) 845ndash51

Spiller Stephen A Gavan J Fitzsimons John G Lynch Jr andGary H McClelland (2013) ldquoSpotlights Floodlights andthe Magic Number Zero Simple Effects Tests inModerated Regressionrdquo Journal of Marketing Research 50(2) 277ndash88

Thompson Debora V Rebecca W Hamilton and Roland T Rust(2005) ldquoFeature Fatigue When Product CapabilitiesBecome Too Much of a Good Thingrdquo Journal of MarketingResearch 42 (November) 431ndash42

Townsend Claudia and Suzanne B Shu (2010) ldquoWhen and HowAesthetics Influences Financial Decisionsrdquo Journal ofConsumer Psychology 20 (4) 452ndash58

Townsend Claudia and Sanjay Sood (2012) ldquoSelf-Affirmationthrough the Choice of Highly Aesthetic Productsrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 39 (2) 415ndash28

Veryzer Robert W and J Wesley Hutchinson (1998) ldquoTheInfluence of Unity and Prototypicality on Aesthetic

WU ET AL 21

Responses to New Product Designsrdquo Journal of ConsumerResearch 24 (4) 374ndash94

Wada Yuji Carlos Arce-Lopera Tomohiro Masuda AtsushiKimura Ippeita Dan Sho-ichi Goto Daisuke Tsuzuki andKatsunori Okajima (2010) ldquoInfluence of LuminanceDistribution on the Appetizingly Fresh Appearance ofCabbagerdquo Appetite 54 (2) 363ndash68

Weiner Bernard (2000) ldquoAttributional Thoughts and ConsumerBehaviorrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 27 (December)382ndash87

Witz Anne Chris Warhurst and Dennis Nickson (2003) ldquoTheLabour of Aesthetics and The Aesthetics of OrganizationrdquoOrganization 10 (1) 33ndash54

Yamamoto Mel and David R Lambert (1994) ldquoThe Impact ofProduct Aesthetics on the Evaluation of Industrial ProductsrdquoJournal of Product Innovation Management 11 (4) 309ndash24

Yang Sha and Priya Raghubir (2005) ldquoCan Bottles SpeakVolumes The Effect of Package Shape on How Much toBuyrdquo Journal of Retailing 81 (4) 269ndash82

22 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

  • ucx057-FN1
  • ucx057-FN2
  • ucx057-FN3
  • ucx057-FN4
  • app1
  • app2
  • ucx057-TF1
  • ucx057-TF2
Page 17: It’s Too Pretty to Use! When and How Enhanced Product ...gavan/bio/GJF_articles/...testing the prediction that aesthetic products can elicit greater perceptions of effort. In line

aesthetic products inherently undergo as a result of con-sumption combined with concerns that one has actuallydestroyed effort underlie these effects

Theoretical Contributions Our work makes severaltheoretical contributions First while prior research hasshown that consumers respond favorably to both productaesthetics and effort we believe we are the first to establisha causal relationship between these constructs We findthat highly aesthetic products can elicit greater perceptionsof effort regardless of whether this effort was exerted dur-ing product design physical production or both processesWe further reveal that these effort inferences are not lim-ited to handmade products such as perishable foods butalso apply to mass-produced products such as consumerpackaged disposable goods

Second while existing literature suggests that consumerpreferences should increase as a function of a productrsquos aes-thetic appeal the prevailing ways of assessing the impact ofaesthetics on consumer preference have been limited to pur-chase intentions product evaluations and choice (Hagtvedtand Patrick 2008 Raghubir and Greenleaf 2006 Reimannet al 2010 Townsend and Shu 2010) Surprisingly the role ofaesthetics after choice has received little empirical attention todate Despite the stimulating effect that enhanced product aes-thetics have on choice and pre-usage evaluations our resultssuggest that once beautiful products are acquired consumersmay be less likely to consume them because the higher infer-ences of effort attributed to their creation elicit stronger con-cerns that such effort would be destroyed during consumption

This research also shows that the impact of implicit self-theories on consumer behavior may be more pervasivethan previously thought While prior research in psychol-ogy has shown that incremental and entity theorists carrydissimilar beliefs about the value of their own effort(Dweck 2000) we provide support for the novel predictionthat beyond the recognition of personal effort implicitself-theories affect the extent to which consumers appreci-ate the effort that goes into the creation of aestheticallyappealing products

Finally contrary to the notion that enhanced product aes-thetics are always beneficial to consumption enjoyment ourwork reveals that usage of highly aesthetic disposable prod-ucts can actually lower overall enjoyment of the consumptionexperience through two separate pathways (1) by elicitingconcerns that one has actually destroyed effort and (2) bycompromising the beauty that typically characterizes aestheticproducts Thus we add to the literature on aesthetics andpleasure by showing how the consumption of highly aestheticproducts can result in larger losses of beauty and that suchdecrements in turn drive the relationship between aestheticproduct consumption and negative affect

More generally these findings speak to researchthat explores when and why the drivers of predicted andexperienced utility might diverge For instance

Thompson et al (2005) found that consumersrsquo initial desirefor product capability before purchase leads them to chooseproducts packed with features but their growing desire forproduct usability after usage leads them to ultimately prefersimpler products Similarly Lee and Tsai (2014) showedthat price promotions can stimulate sales but lower atten-tion during consumption which in turn reduces consump-tion enjoyment In the same vein despite the delightinitially elicited by the choice of beautiful products wedemonstrate that enhanced aesthetics have the ability tolater discourage usage and lower consumption enjoyment

Substantive Implications Our findings carry importantpractical implications as they pose an interesting dilemmato managers While conventional wisdom suggests that mar-keters should strive to invest the highest degree of effort intomaking their products look aesthetically pleasing at least tothe extent that company resources will allow our researchreveals that the story is not so simple Enhancing productaesthetics might positively affect initial attention interestand choice but should be considered with caution given thatsuch increased appeal could inhibit usage and reduce enjoy-ment relative to less aesthetically appealing productsRelatedly people likely consume highly aesthetic disposableproducts more slowly which could affect interpurchasetime Thus the pursuit of product aesthetics and improvedshort-term sales must be constantly balanced against theneed to encourage consumption ensure customer satisfac-tion and maintain long-term profitability Still certain prod-ucts such as beautiful candles and soaps may serve adecorative purpose in addition to their basic utilitarian func-tion and consequently may also carry intrinsic aestheticvalue Our recommendations are admittedly less straightfor-ward under such circumstances as consumers are able toderive utility from the productsrsquo enhanced aesthetics simplyby displaying them

Our results also have clear implications for managersand policy makers interested in promoting conservationand sustainable business practices A growing number ofretail and service establishments have been switching tounbleached paper products as the traditional bleachingprocess that removes imperfections and gives paper itswhite appearance also produces hazardous chemicals (egchlorine and dioxins) that are harmful to the environment(Evans 2010) While the transition to unbleached paperproducts has benefited the environment the results fromour investigation suggest the growing popularity of thistrend may be a double-edged sword To the extent thatunbleached paper products are considered less aestheticallyappealing consumers may show less restraint in usingthem leading to backfiring effects for conservation effortsPut another way the positive environmental impact of pro-ducing unbleached paper products could potentially be off-set by consumersrsquo reduced inhibition in consuming theseproducts Thus increasing the aesthetic appeal of products

WU ET AL 17

may actually be an effective way for companies to promoteenvironmentally sustainable behaviors even after incorpo-rating the increased cost of implementing such practices

Finally given that rising obesity rates are a major publichealth concern traced to increased consumption (Chandonand Wansink 2007) there has been burgeoning interest inthe various factors that shape consumer food choices (Corniland Chandon 2016 McFerran et al 2010 Scott et al 2008)The results of study 2 suggest that one way to curb overeat-ing might be to enhance the aesthetic presentation of foodproducts especially hedonic foods Of course additionalresearch is needed to better explore the impact of aestheticsin this important area given the counteracting effects thatfood aesthetics exert on consumption versus enjoyment

Limitations and Future Research While the current setof studies was designed to elucidate perceived effort as anunderlying mechanism of lower usage of aestheticallyappealing products we recognize that this phenomenonlike many is likely driven by multiple processes (FuchsSchreier and van Osselaer 2015) Indeed as evident in ourresearch consumption likelihood and consumption enjoy-ment each have distinct sets of drivers For instance whilewe accounted for cost across multiple studies and demon-strated that our effects held even after we controlled for theperceived price of the product we believe that cost maycertainly play a role in certain situations For example cer-tain highly aesthetic products elicit perceptions of luxury(Hagtvedt and Patrick 2008) and may consequently reduceconsumption because they appear ldquotoo expensive to userdquoand cost may even interact with aesthetics under certaincircumstances to impact consumption such that the infer-ences of effort typically ascribed to aesthetically appealingproducts could be mitigated if people are told that theywere extremely inexpensive

In addition classic research by Loewenstein (1987)showed that people often prefer to delay consumption ofenjoyable experiences It may be that people are averse toimmediately consuming a highly aesthetic product becausethey are able to derive more utility by savoring the experi-ence and postponing consumption Further as alluded to instudy 4 it is possible that anticipated decrements in beautymay play a larger role in shaping usage in other consump-tion contexts Thus while we focus on the role of effortinferences in driving lower usage of highly aesthetic prod-ucts we are cognizant of the fact that other mechanismslikely exist which would provide intriguing avenues forfurther investigation

It would also be interesting to examine whether the neg-ative influence of enhanced aesthetics would hold acrossdifferent consumption contexts That is are there situationswhere the present phenomenon would not emerge Indeedone could argue that service establishments such as upscalerestaurants and luxury resorts which regularly pampertheir guests with beautifully plated entrees and folded

towel animals would eventually be driven out of businessif the consumption of highly aesthetic products alwaysresulted in lower enjoyment We believe that whether theusage of highly aesthetic products is accompanied bydecreased consumption and increased negative affect willhinge on the nature of the consumption environment Priorresearch indicates that our surroundings are capable ofautomatically eliciting normative behaviors when situa-tional norms are well established (Aarts and Dijksterhuis2003) Extending this perspective it is possible that theeffects observed in this article may be relatively weakenedwhen consumption occurs in environments characterizedby strong expectations to engage in indulgent consumptionsuch as in a fancy restaurant or luxurious hotel

Relatedly it would be interesting to examine whethercalling attention to fact that the aesthetic product if leftunconsumed will face inevitable destruction could enhanceconsumption likelihood and enjoyment to some extent par-ticularly for perishable products such as food4 Indeedrecent research has shown that consumers display a strongaversion to waste and unused utility (Bolton and Alba2012) Thus future studies should examine whether theeffects documented in this article could be attenuated ifthe inevitable destruction of effort is made salient to con-sumers (eg the product will go bad be thrown away orsomebody else will consume the product even if they donot) In summary future work should explore situationswhere enhanced aesthetics might carry more weight in theutility function for the overall consumption experienceand subsequently increase consumption and boostenjoyment

Another area for future research would be to examinewhether the destruction of product aesthetics is an ldquoall ornothingrdquo event such that any amount of consumption (evena single bite of a cupcake) would be viewed as destroyingthe productrsquos overall beauty While our experimentaldesigns did not allow us to examine whether destruction is acontinuous versus discrete function of consumption it isworth nothing that we did document lower usage acrossvarying degrees of consumption (eg consumption was con-tinuous in study 2 but discrete in study 5) and we did findthat different levels of consumption still led to reducedenjoyment Nevertheless we believe this is an importantempirical question worth investigating in the future

Finally while we have limited our analysis to nondura-bles (perishable and disposable products specifically) anintriguing path would be to investigate the potential moder-ating role of product durability on usage likelihood andsubsequent enjoyment of highly aesthetic products It maybe that the relative durability of the aesthetic product couldaffect individualsrsquo ability or motivation to anticipate decre-ments in beauty before consumption has occurred whichwould have implications for usage likelihood For instance

4 We thank one of the anonymous reviewers for this suggestion

18 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

with big-ticket high-involvement purchases such as sleekfurniture (eg a beautiful new white sectional sofa) con-sumers may more readily anticipate losses of beauty sincethey will have to live with and encounter the product on adaily basis even after its original beauty has faded or beentarnished through repeated use This may explain why cov-ering new furniture with plastic was at one time a verycommon practice (DiSalvo 2009)

On the other hand for nondurable lower-involvementproducts such as those used in the current research perhapspeople do not have the motivation or ability to considershifts in aesthetic appeal before consumption Furtherproducts often vary in their degree of durabilitymdasha delicateembroidered blanket while by no means nondurable or dis-posable may begin to show visible signs of wear and tearsooner than a fleece blanket Although the present researchspecifically focused on perishable and single-use productsit would be worth examining when and how the degree ofdurability or even perceptions of fragility might shapedecisions to use beautiful products

In conclusion our research documents an inhibitingeffect of enhanced product aesthetics on consumption par-ticularly for disposable and consumable nondurable prod-ucts Although beautiful products have the ability topromote positive pre-usage evaluations and stimulatechoice our work indicates that consumers are subsequentlyless likely to use them and those who do use them ulti-mately experience higher negative affect and lower enjoy-ment In addition different processes underlie consumerresponses to highly aesthetic products depending onwhether or not consumption has taken place Thus we con-clude that while products may never be too pretty tochoose they can in fact be too pretty to use

DATA COLLECTION INFORMATION

All studies were designed and analyzed by the first authorunder the guidance of the other authors The data for study 1was collected at the Scottsdale Pure Barre studio in fall2015 by research assistants and employees under the super-vision of the first author Research assistants collected thedata for studies 2 and 5 under the supervision of the firstauthor at the W P Carey School of Business MarketingDepartment Behavioral Lab in spring 2015 The data for theconceptual replication (reported in the discussion of study6B) was collected by research assistants under the supervi-sion of the first author at the W P Carey School ofBusiness Marketing Department Behavioral Lab in summer2015 The data for study 4 (both the effort manipulation pre-test and the main study) and the correlational study examin-ing the relationship between implicit self-theories andappreciation for othersrsquo effort were collected by the firstauthor using Amazon Mechanical Turk in spring 2016 Thefirst author collected the data for the aesthetic appeal pretest

(described in appendix B) studies 3 6A and 6B usingAmazon Mechanical Turk in summer 2016 Lastly researchassistants collected the data for the correlational study exam-ining the relationship between aesthetics and perceivedeffort (described in the table in ldquoThe Role of Effort inInhibiting Usagerdquo) under the supervision of the first authorat the W P Carey School of Business MarketingDepartment Behavioral Lab in fall 2016

APPENDIX A

STUDY STIMULI

WU ET AL 19

REFERENCES

Aarts Henk and Ap Dijksterhuis (2003) ldquoThe Silence of theLibrary Environment Situational Norm and SocialBehaviorrdquo Journal of Personality and Social Psychology84 (1) 18ndash28

Aharon Itzhak Nancy Etcoff Dan Ariely Christopher F ChabrisEthan OrsquoConnor and Hans C Breiter (2001) ldquoBeautifulFaces Have Variable Reward Value fMRI and BehavioralEvidencerdquo Neuron 32 (3) 537ndash51

Alba Joseph W and Elanor F Williams (2013) ldquoPleasurePrinciples A Review of Research on HedonicConsumptionrdquo Journal of Consumer Psychology 23 (1)2ndash18

Belk Russell W (1988) ldquoPossessions and the Extended SelfrdquoJournal of Consumer Research 15 (2) 139ndash67

Bem Daryl J (1972) Self-Perception Theory Stanford CAStanford University Press

Berridge Kent C (2009) ldquolsquoLikingrsquo and lsquoWantingrsquo Food RewardsBrain Substrates and Roles in Eating Disordersrdquo Physiologyamp Behavior 97 (5) 537ndash50

Bloch Peter H (1995) ldquoSeeking the Ideal Form Product Designand Consumer Responserdquo Journal of Marketing 59 (July)16ndash29

Bloch Peter H Frederic F Brunel and Todd J Arnold (2003)ldquoIndividual Differences in the Centrality of Visual ProductAesthetics Concept and Measurementrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 29 (4) 551ndash65

Bolton Lisa E and Joseph W Alba (2012) ldquoWhen Less Is MoreConsumer Aversion to Unused Utilityrdquo Journal of ConsumerPsychology 22 (3) 369ndash83

Brehm Jack W (1966) A Theory of Psychological ReactanceNew York Academic Press

Broniarczyk Susan M and Joseph W Alba (1994) ldquoThe Role ofConsumersrsquo Intuitions in Inference Makingrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 21 (3) 393ndash407

Cabanac Michel (1971) ldquoPhysiological Role of PleasurerdquoScience 173 (4002) 1103ndash7

mdashmdashmdash (1979) ldquoSensory Pleasurerdquo Quarterly Review of Biology54 (1) 1ndash29

mdashmdashmdash (1985) ldquoPreferring for Pleasurerdquo American Journal ofClinical Nutrition 42 (5) 1151ndash5

Chandon Pierre and Brian Wansink (2007) ldquoThe Biasing HealthHalos of Fast Food Restaurant Health Claims Lower CalorieEstimates and Higher Side-Dish Consumption IntentionsrdquoJournal of Consumer Research 34 (3) 301ndash14

Cornil Yann and Pierre Chandon (2016) ldquoPleasure as a Substitutefor Size How Multisensory Imagery Can Make PeopleHappier with Smaller Food Portionsrdquo Journal of MarketingResearch 53 (5) 847ndash64

Cleveland William S (1984) ldquoGraphical Methods for DataPresentation Full Scale Breaks Dot Charts and MultibasedLoggingrdquo The American Statistician 38 (4) 270ndash80

DiSalvo David (2009) ldquoThe Psychology of Plastic CouchCoversrdquo httpsneuronarrativewordpresscom20090119the-psychology-of-plastic-couch-covers

Dixie Products (2015) ldquoDixie Ultra Moments Ultimate Hostrdquohttpswwwyoutubecomwatchvfrac14wsBBq9PsgVI

Dutton Denis (2009) The Art Instinct Beauty Pleasure ampHuman Evolution New York Oxford University Press

Dweck Carol S (2000) Self-Theories Their Role in MotivationPersonality and Development Philadelphia Psychology Press

Dweck Carol S and Ellen L Leggett (1988) ldquoA Social-CognitiveApproach to Motivation and Personalityrdquo PsychologicalReview 95 (2) 256ndash73

Evans Lindsay (2010) ldquoWhy Buy Unbleached Paperrdquo httpwwwbrighthubcomenvironmentgreen-livingarticles16299aspx

Festinger Leon (1957) A Theory of Cognitive DissonanceStanford CA Stanford University Press

Frederick Shane and George Loewenstein (1999) ldquoHedonicAdaptationrdquo in Scientific Perspectives on EnjoymentSuffering and Well-Being ed Daniel Kahneman Ed Dienerand Norbert Schwartz New York Russell Sage Foundation302ndash29

Fuchs Christoph Martin Schreier and Stijn MJ van Osselaer(2015) ldquoThe Handmade Effect Whatrsquos Love Got to Do withItrdquo Journal of Marketing 79 (2) 98ndash110

Hagtvedt Henrik and Vanessa M Patrick (2008) ldquoArt InfusionThe Influence of Visual Art on the Perception and Evaluationof Consumer Productsrdquo Journal of Marketing Research 45(3) 379ndash89

AESTHETIC APPEAL PRETEST FOR ALL STIMULI USED IN STUDIES

Higher aesthetic Lower aesthetic Comparison a

Toilet paper (study 1) 377 (146) 253 (155) t(128) frac14 ndash469 p lt 001 a frac14 94Cupcake (study 2) 556 (106) 305 (146) t(128) frac14 ndash1120 p lt 001 a frac14 96Napkin (studies 3 and 6) 465 (153) 230 (144) t(128) frac14 ndash903 p lt 001 a frac14 97Napkin (study 4) 332 (145) 262 (154) t(128) frac14 ndash266 p lt 01 a frac14 92Napkin (study 5) 458 (159) 234 (151) t(128) frac14 ndash823 p lt 001 a frac14 97

NOTEmdashStandard deviations are in parentheses

In a between-subjects pretest participants were asked to rate each product along the following dimensions beautiful pretty artistic and aesthetically pleasing

(1 frac14 not at all 7 frac14 very much) which formed our aesthetic appeal index

APPENDIX B

20 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

Hayes Andrew F (2013) ldquoPROCESS A VersatileComputational Tool for Observed Variable MediationModeration and Conditional Process Modelingrdquo workingpaper School of Communication and Department ofPsychology Ohio State University Columbus OH 43210

Heller Steve (2015) ldquoA Grocery Store Illusion Is Getting You toSpend More Moneyrdquo httpwwwbusinessinsidercoma-grocery-store-illusion-is-getting-you-to-spend-more-money-2015-8ixzz3ifsOLBfG

Hurling Robert and Richard Shepherd (2003) ldquoEating with YourEyes Effect of Appearance on Expectations of LikingrdquoAppetite 41 (2) 167ndash74

Hoegg JoAndrea Joseph W Alba and Darren W Dahl (2010)ldquoThe Good the Bad and the Ugly Influence of Aesthetics onProduct Feature Judgmentsrdquo Journal of ConsumerPsychology 20 (4) 419ndash30

Johnson Palmer O and Jerzy Neyman (1936) ldquoTests of CertainLinear Hypotheses and Their Applications to SomeEducational Problemsrdquo Statistical Research Memoirs 157ndash93

Kahneman Daniel and Amos Tversky (1979) ldquoProspect TheoryAn Analysis of Decision under Riskrdquo Econometrica 47 (2)263ndash91

Kampe Knut K W Chris D Frith Raymond J Dolan and UtaFrith (2001) ldquoPsychology Reward Value of Attractivenessand Gazerdquo Nature 413 (6856) 589

Kelley Harold H (1967) ldquoAttribution Theory in SocialPsychologyrdquo in Nebraska Symposium of Motivation Vol 15ed D Levine Lincoln University of Nebraska Press192ndash238

Kirmani Amna (1990) ldquoThe Effect of Perceived AdvertisingCosts on Brand Perceptionsrdquo Journal of Consumer Research17 (2) 160ndash71

Kirmani Amna Michelle P Lee and Carolyn Yoon (2004)ldquoProcedural Priming Effects on Spontaneous InferenceFormationrdquo Journal of Economic Psychology 25 (6)859ndash75

Kruger Justin Derrick Wirtz Leaf Van Boven and T WilliamAltermatt (2004) ldquoThe Effort Heuristicrdquo Journal ofExperimental Social Psychology 40 (1) 91ndash8

Lee Leonard and Claire I Tsai (2014) ldquoHow Price PromotionsInfluence Postpurchase Consumption Experience overTimerdquo Journal of Consumer Research 40 (5) 943ndash59

Levy Sheri R Steven J Stroessner and Carol S Dweck (1998)ldquoStereotype Formation and Endorsement The Role ofImplicit Theoriesrdquo Journal of Personality and SocialPsychology 74 (6) 1421ndash36

Lisjak Monika Andrea Bonezzi Soo Kim and Derek D Rucker(2015) ldquoPerils of Compensatory Consumption Within-Domain Compensation Undermines Subsequent Self-Regulationrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 41 (5)1186ndash203

Loewenstein George (1987) ldquoAnticipation and the Valuation ofDelayed Consumptionrdquo Economic Journal 97 (September)666ndash84

Maritain Jacques (1966) ldquoBeauty and Imitationrdquo in A ModernBook of Esthetics ed Melvin Rader New York HoltRinehart amp Winston 27ndash34

McFerran Brent Darren W Dahl Gavan J Fitzsimons andAndrea C Morales (2010) ldquoIrsquoll Have What Shersquos HavingEffects of Social Influence and Body Type on the FoodChoices of Othersrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 36 (6)915ndash29

Morales Andrea C (2005) ldquoGiving Firms an lsquoErsquo for EffortConsumer Responses to High-Effort Firmsrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 31 (4) 806ndash12

Moreau C Page Leff Bonney and Kelly B Herd (2011) ldquoItrsquos theThought (and the Effort) That Counts How Customizing forOthers Differs from Customizing for Oneselfrdquo Journal ofMarketing 75 (5) 120ndash33

Norton Michael I Daniel Mochon and Dan Ariely (2012) ldquoThelsquoIkearsquo Effect When Labor Leads to Loverdquo Journal ofConsumer Psychology 22 (July) 453ndash60

Page Christine and Paul M Herr (2002) ldquoAn Investigation ofthe Processes by Which Product Design and Brand StrengthInteract to Determine Initial Affect and QualityJudgmentsrdquo Journal of Consumer Psychology 12 (2)133ndash47

Raghubir Priya and Eric A Greenleaf (2006) ldquoRatios inProportion What Should the Shape of the Package BerdquoJournal of Marketing 70 (2) 95ndash107

Raghunathan Rajagopal Rebecca Walker Naylor and Wayne DHoyer (2006) ldquoThe Unhealthy frac14 Tasty Intuition and ItsEffects on Taste Inferences Enjoyment and Choice of FoodProductsrdquo Journal of Marketing 70 (4) 170ndash84

Reber Rolf Norbert Schwarz and Piotr Winkielman (2004)ldquoProcessing Fluency and Aesthetic Pleasure Is Beauty in thePerceiverrsquos Processing Experiencerdquo Personality and SocialPsychology Review 8 (4) 364ndash82

Reber Rolf Piotr Winkielman and Norbert Schwarz (1998)ldquoEffects of Perceptual Fluency on Affective JudgmentsrdquoPsychological Science 9 (1) 45ndash48

Reimann Martin Judith Zaichkowksy Carolin Neuhaus ThomasBender and Bernd Weber (2010) ldquoAesthetic PackageDesign A Behavioral Neural and PsychologicalInvestigationrdquo Journal of Consumer Psychology 20 (4)431ndash41

Santayana George (18961955) The Sense of Beauty New YorkDover

Scott Maura L Stephen M Nowlis Naomi Mandel and AndreaC Morales (2008) ldquoThe Effects of Reduced Food Size andPackage Size on the Consumption Behavior of Restrainedand Unrestrained Eatersrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 35(3) 391ndash405

Spencer Steven J Mark P Zanna and Geoffrey T Fong (2005)ldquoEstablishing a Causal Chain Why Experiments Are OftenMore Effective than Mediational Analyses in ExaminingPsychological Processesrdquo Journal of Personality and SocialPsychology 89 (6) 845ndash51

Spiller Stephen A Gavan J Fitzsimons John G Lynch Jr andGary H McClelland (2013) ldquoSpotlights Floodlights andthe Magic Number Zero Simple Effects Tests inModerated Regressionrdquo Journal of Marketing Research 50(2) 277ndash88

Thompson Debora V Rebecca W Hamilton and Roland T Rust(2005) ldquoFeature Fatigue When Product CapabilitiesBecome Too Much of a Good Thingrdquo Journal of MarketingResearch 42 (November) 431ndash42

Townsend Claudia and Suzanne B Shu (2010) ldquoWhen and HowAesthetics Influences Financial Decisionsrdquo Journal ofConsumer Psychology 20 (4) 452ndash58

Townsend Claudia and Sanjay Sood (2012) ldquoSelf-Affirmationthrough the Choice of Highly Aesthetic Productsrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 39 (2) 415ndash28

Veryzer Robert W and J Wesley Hutchinson (1998) ldquoTheInfluence of Unity and Prototypicality on Aesthetic

WU ET AL 21

Responses to New Product Designsrdquo Journal of ConsumerResearch 24 (4) 374ndash94

Wada Yuji Carlos Arce-Lopera Tomohiro Masuda AtsushiKimura Ippeita Dan Sho-ichi Goto Daisuke Tsuzuki andKatsunori Okajima (2010) ldquoInfluence of LuminanceDistribution on the Appetizingly Fresh Appearance ofCabbagerdquo Appetite 54 (2) 363ndash68

Weiner Bernard (2000) ldquoAttributional Thoughts and ConsumerBehaviorrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 27 (December)382ndash87

Witz Anne Chris Warhurst and Dennis Nickson (2003) ldquoTheLabour of Aesthetics and The Aesthetics of OrganizationrdquoOrganization 10 (1) 33ndash54

Yamamoto Mel and David R Lambert (1994) ldquoThe Impact ofProduct Aesthetics on the Evaluation of Industrial ProductsrdquoJournal of Product Innovation Management 11 (4) 309ndash24

Yang Sha and Priya Raghubir (2005) ldquoCan Bottles SpeakVolumes The Effect of Package Shape on How Much toBuyrdquo Journal of Retailing 81 (4) 269ndash82

22 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

  • ucx057-FN1
  • ucx057-FN2
  • ucx057-FN3
  • ucx057-FN4
  • app1
  • app2
  • ucx057-TF1
  • ucx057-TF2
Page 18: It’s Too Pretty to Use! When and How Enhanced Product ...gavan/bio/GJF_articles/...testing the prediction that aesthetic products can elicit greater perceptions of effort. In line

may actually be an effective way for companies to promoteenvironmentally sustainable behaviors even after incorpo-rating the increased cost of implementing such practices

Finally given that rising obesity rates are a major publichealth concern traced to increased consumption (Chandonand Wansink 2007) there has been burgeoning interest inthe various factors that shape consumer food choices (Corniland Chandon 2016 McFerran et al 2010 Scott et al 2008)The results of study 2 suggest that one way to curb overeat-ing might be to enhance the aesthetic presentation of foodproducts especially hedonic foods Of course additionalresearch is needed to better explore the impact of aestheticsin this important area given the counteracting effects thatfood aesthetics exert on consumption versus enjoyment

Limitations and Future Research While the current setof studies was designed to elucidate perceived effort as anunderlying mechanism of lower usage of aestheticallyappealing products we recognize that this phenomenonlike many is likely driven by multiple processes (FuchsSchreier and van Osselaer 2015) Indeed as evident in ourresearch consumption likelihood and consumption enjoy-ment each have distinct sets of drivers For instance whilewe accounted for cost across multiple studies and demon-strated that our effects held even after we controlled for theperceived price of the product we believe that cost maycertainly play a role in certain situations For example cer-tain highly aesthetic products elicit perceptions of luxury(Hagtvedt and Patrick 2008) and may consequently reduceconsumption because they appear ldquotoo expensive to userdquoand cost may even interact with aesthetics under certaincircumstances to impact consumption such that the infer-ences of effort typically ascribed to aesthetically appealingproducts could be mitigated if people are told that theywere extremely inexpensive

In addition classic research by Loewenstein (1987)showed that people often prefer to delay consumption ofenjoyable experiences It may be that people are averse toimmediately consuming a highly aesthetic product becausethey are able to derive more utility by savoring the experi-ence and postponing consumption Further as alluded to instudy 4 it is possible that anticipated decrements in beautymay play a larger role in shaping usage in other consump-tion contexts Thus while we focus on the role of effortinferences in driving lower usage of highly aesthetic prod-ucts we are cognizant of the fact that other mechanismslikely exist which would provide intriguing avenues forfurther investigation

It would also be interesting to examine whether the neg-ative influence of enhanced aesthetics would hold acrossdifferent consumption contexts That is are there situationswhere the present phenomenon would not emerge Indeedone could argue that service establishments such as upscalerestaurants and luxury resorts which regularly pampertheir guests with beautifully plated entrees and folded

towel animals would eventually be driven out of businessif the consumption of highly aesthetic products alwaysresulted in lower enjoyment We believe that whether theusage of highly aesthetic products is accompanied bydecreased consumption and increased negative affect willhinge on the nature of the consumption environment Priorresearch indicates that our surroundings are capable ofautomatically eliciting normative behaviors when situa-tional norms are well established (Aarts and Dijksterhuis2003) Extending this perspective it is possible that theeffects observed in this article may be relatively weakenedwhen consumption occurs in environments characterizedby strong expectations to engage in indulgent consumptionsuch as in a fancy restaurant or luxurious hotel

Relatedly it would be interesting to examine whethercalling attention to fact that the aesthetic product if leftunconsumed will face inevitable destruction could enhanceconsumption likelihood and enjoyment to some extent par-ticularly for perishable products such as food4 Indeedrecent research has shown that consumers display a strongaversion to waste and unused utility (Bolton and Alba2012) Thus future studies should examine whether theeffects documented in this article could be attenuated ifthe inevitable destruction of effort is made salient to con-sumers (eg the product will go bad be thrown away orsomebody else will consume the product even if they donot) In summary future work should explore situationswhere enhanced aesthetics might carry more weight in theutility function for the overall consumption experienceand subsequently increase consumption and boostenjoyment

Another area for future research would be to examinewhether the destruction of product aesthetics is an ldquoall ornothingrdquo event such that any amount of consumption (evena single bite of a cupcake) would be viewed as destroyingthe productrsquos overall beauty While our experimentaldesigns did not allow us to examine whether destruction is acontinuous versus discrete function of consumption it isworth nothing that we did document lower usage acrossvarying degrees of consumption (eg consumption was con-tinuous in study 2 but discrete in study 5) and we did findthat different levels of consumption still led to reducedenjoyment Nevertheless we believe this is an importantempirical question worth investigating in the future

Finally while we have limited our analysis to nondura-bles (perishable and disposable products specifically) anintriguing path would be to investigate the potential moder-ating role of product durability on usage likelihood andsubsequent enjoyment of highly aesthetic products It maybe that the relative durability of the aesthetic product couldaffect individualsrsquo ability or motivation to anticipate decre-ments in beauty before consumption has occurred whichwould have implications for usage likelihood For instance

4 We thank one of the anonymous reviewers for this suggestion

18 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

with big-ticket high-involvement purchases such as sleekfurniture (eg a beautiful new white sectional sofa) con-sumers may more readily anticipate losses of beauty sincethey will have to live with and encounter the product on adaily basis even after its original beauty has faded or beentarnished through repeated use This may explain why cov-ering new furniture with plastic was at one time a verycommon practice (DiSalvo 2009)

On the other hand for nondurable lower-involvementproducts such as those used in the current research perhapspeople do not have the motivation or ability to considershifts in aesthetic appeal before consumption Furtherproducts often vary in their degree of durabilitymdasha delicateembroidered blanket while by no means nondurable or dis-posable may begin to show visible signs of wear and tearsooner than a fleece blanket Although the present researchspecifically focused on perishable and single-use productsit would be worth examining when and how the degree ofdurability or even perceptions of fragility might shapedecisions to use beautiful products

In conclusion our research documents an inhibitingeffect of enhanced product aesthetics on consumption par-ticularly for disposable and consumable nondurable prod-ucts Although beautiful products have the ability topromote positive pre-usage evaluations and stimulatechoice our work indicates that consumers are subsequentlyless likely to use them and those who do use them ulti-mately experience higher negative affect and lower enjoy-ment In addition different processes underlie consumerresponses to highly aesthetic products depending onwhether or not consumption has taken place Thus we con-clude that while products may never be too pretty tochoose they can in fact be too pretty to use

DATA COLLECTION INFORMATION

All studies were designed and analyzed by the first authorunder the guidance of the other authors The data for study 1was collected at the Scottsdale Pure Barre studio in fall2015 by research assistants and employees under the super-vision of the first author Research assistants collected thedata for studies 2 and 5 under the supervision of the firstauthor at the W P Carey School of Business MarketingDepartment Behavioral Lab in spring 2015 The data for theconceptual replication (reported in the discussion of study6B) was collected by research assistants under the supervi-sion of the first author at the W P Carey School ofBusiness Marketing Department Behavioral Lab in summer2015 The data for study 4 (both the effort manipulation pre-test and the main study) and the correlational study examin-ing the relationship between implicit self-theories andappreciation for othersrsquo effort were collected by the firstauthor using Amazon Mechanical Turk in spring 2016 Thefirst author collected the data for the aesthetic appeal pretest

(described in appendix B) studies 3 6A and 6B usingAmazon Mechanical Turk in summer 2016 Lastly researchassistants collected the data for the correlational study exam-ining the relationship between aesthetics and perceivedeffort (described in the table in ldquoThe Role of Effort inInhibiting Usagerdquo) under the supervision of the first authorat the W P Carey School of Business MarketingDepartment Behavioral Lab in fall 2016

APPENDIX A

STUDY STIMULI

WU ET AL 19

REFERENCES

Aarts Henk and Ap Dijksterhuis (2003) ldquoThe Silence of theLibrary Environment Situational Norm and SocialBehaviorrdquo Journal of Personality and Social Psychology84 (1) 18ndash28

Aharon Itzhak Nancy Etcoff Dan Ariely Christopher F ChabrisEthan OrsquoConnor and Hans C Breiter (2001) ldquoBeautifulFaces Have Variable Reward Value fMRI and BehavioralEvidencerdquo Neuron 32 (3) 537ndash51

Alba Joseph W and Elanor F Williams (2013) ldquoPleasurePrinciples A Review of Research on HedonicConsumptionrdquo Journal of Consumer Psychology 23 (1)2ndash18

Belk Russell W (1988) ldquoPossessions and the Extended SelfrdquoJournal of Consumer Research 15 (2) 139ndash67

Bem Daryl J (1972) Self-Perception Theory Stanford CAStanford University Press

Berridge Kent C (2009) ldquolsquoLikingrsquo and lsquoWantingrsquo Food RewardsBrain Substrates and Roles in Eating Disordersrdquo Physiologyamp Behavior 97 (5) 537ndash50

Bloch Peter H (1995) ldquoSeeking the Ideal Form Product Designand Consumer Responserdquo Journal of Marketing 59 (July)16ndash29

Bloch Peter H Frederic F Brunel and Todd J Arnold (2003)ldquoIndividual Differences in the Centrality of Visual ProductAesthetics Concept and Measurementrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 29 (4) 551ndash65

Bolton Lisa E and Joseph W Alba (2012) ldquoWhen Less Is MoreConsumer Aversion to Unused Utilityrdquo Journal of ConsumerPsychology 22 (3) 369ndash83

Brehm Jack W (1966) A Theory of Psychological ReactanceNew York Academic Press

Broniarczyk Susan M and Joseph W Alba (1994) ldquoThe Role ofConsumersrsquo Intuitions in Inference Makingrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 21 (3) 393ndash407

Cabanac Michel (1971) ldquoPhysiological Role of PleasurerdquoScience 173 (4002) 1103ndash7

mdashmdashmdash (1979) ldquoSensory Pleasurerdquo Quarterly Review of Biology54 (1) 1ndash29

mdashmdashmdash (1985) ldquoPreferring for Pleasurerdquo American Journal ofClinical Nutrition 42 (5) 1151ndash5

Chandon Pierre and Brian Wansink (2007) ldquoThe Biasing HealthHalos of Fast Food Restaurant Health Claims Lower CalorieEstimates and Higher Side-Dish Consumption IntentionsrdquoJournal of Consumer Research 34 (3) 301ndash14

Cornil Yann and Pierre Chandon (2016) ldquoPleasure as a Substitutefor Size How Multisensory Imagery Can Make PeopleHappier with Smaller Food Portionsrdquo Journal of MarketingResearch 53 (5) 847ndash64

Cleveland William S (1984) ldquoGraphical Methods for DataPresentation Full Scale Breaks Dot Charts and MultibasedLoggingrdquo The American Statistician 38 (4) 270ndash80

DiSalvo David (2009) ldquoThe Psychology of Plastic CouchCoversrdquo httpsneuronarrativewordpresscom20090119the-psychology-of-plastic-couch-covers

Dixie Products (2015) ldquoDixie Ultra Moments Ultimate Hostrdquohttpswwwyoutubecomwatchvfrac14wsBBq9PsgVI

Dutton Denis (2009) The Art Instinct Beauty Pleasure ampHuman Evolution New York Oxford University Press

Dweck Carol S (2000) Self-Theories Their Role in MotivationPersonality and Development Philadelphia Psychology Press

Dweck Carol S and Ellen L Leggett (1988) ldquoA Social-CognitiveApproach to Motivation and Personalityrdquo PsychologicalReview 95 (2) 256ndash73

Evans Lindsay (2010) ldquoWhy Buy Unbleached Paperrdquo httpwwwbrighthubcomenvironmentgreen-livingarticles16299aspx

Festinger Leon (1957) A Theory of Cognitive DissonanceStanford CA Stanford University Press

Frederick Shane and George Loewenstein (1999) ldquoHedonicAdaptationrdquo in Scientific Perspectives on EnjoymentSuffering and Well-Being ed Daniel Kahneman Ed Dienerand Norbert Schwartz New York Russell Sage Foundation302ndash29

Fuchs Christoph Martin Schreier and Stijn MJ van Osselaer(2015) ldquoThe Handmade Effect Whatrsquos Love Got to Do withItrdquo Journal of Marketing 79 (2) 98ndash110

Hagtvedt Henrik and Vanessa M Patrick (2008) ldquoArt InfusionThe Influence of Visual Art on the Perception and Evaluationof Consumer Productsrdquo Journal of Marketing Research 45(3) 379ndash89

AESTHETIC APPEAL PRETEST FOR ALL STIMULI USED IN STUDIES

Higher aesthetic Lower aesthetic Comparison a

Toilet paper (study 1) 377 (146) 253 (155) t(128) frac14 ndash469 p lt 001 a frac14 94Cupcake (study 2) 556 (106) 305 (146) t(128) frac14 ndash1120 p lt 001 a frac14 96Napkin (studies 3 and 6) 465 (153) 230 (144) t(128) frac14 ndash903 p lt 001 a frac14 97Napkin (study 4) 332 (145) 262 (154) t(128) frac14 ndash266 p lt 01 a frac14 92Napkin (study 5) 458 (159) 234 (151) t(128) frac14 ndash823 p lt 001 a frac14 97

NOTEmdashStandard deviations are in parentheses

In a between-subjects pretest participants were asked to rate each product along the following dimensions beautiful pretty artistic and aesthetically pleasing

(1 frac14 not at all 7 frac14 very much) which formed our aesthetic appeal index

APPENDIX B

20 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

Hayes Andrew F (2013) ldquoPROCESS A VersatileComputational Tool for Observed Variable MediationModeration and Conditional Process Modelingrdquo workingpaper School of Communication and Department ofPsychology Ohio State University Columbus OH 43210

Heller Steve (2015) ldquoA Grocery Store Illusion Is Getting You toSpend More Moneyrdquo httpwwwbusinessinsidercoma-grocery-store-illusion-is-getting-you-to-spend-more-money-2015-8ixzz3ifsOLBfG

Hurling Robert and Richard Shepherd (2003) ldquoEating with YourEyes Effect of Appearance on Expectations of LikingrdquoAppetite 41 (2) 167ndash74

Hoegg JoAndrea Joseph W Alba and Darren W Dahl (2010)ldquoThe Good the Bad and the Ugly Influence of Aesthetics onProduct Feature Judgmentsrdquo Journal of ConsumerPsychology 20 (4) 419ndash30

Johnson Palmer O and Jerzy Neyman (1936) ldquoTests of CertainLinear Hypotheses and Their Applications to SomeEducational Problemsrdquo Statistical Research Memoirs 157ndash93

Kahneman Daniel and Amos Tversky (1979) ldquoProspect TheoryAn Analysis of Decision under Riskrdquo Econometrica 47 (2)263ndash91

Kampe Knut K W Chris D Frith Raymond J Dolan and UtaFrith (2001) ldquoPsychology Reward Value of Attractivenessand Gazerdquo Nature 413 (6856) 589

Kelley Harold H (1967) ldquoAttribution Theory in SocialPsychologyrdquo in Nebraska Symposium of Motivation Vol 15ed D Levine Lincoln University of Nebraska Press192ndash238

Kirmani Amna (1990) ldquoThe Effect of Perceived AdvertisingCosts on Brand Perceptionsrdquo Journal of Consumer Research17 (2) 160ndash71

Kirmani Amna Michelle P Lee and Carolyn Yoon (2004)ldquoProcedural Priming Effects on Spontaneous InferenceFormationrdquo Journal of Economic Psychology 25 (6)859ndash75

Kruger Justin Derrick Wirtz Leaf Van Boven and T WilliamAltermatt (2004) ldquoThe Effort Heuristicrdquo Journal ofExperimental Social Psychology 40 (1) 91ndash8

Lee Leonard and Claire I Tsai (2014) ldquoHow Price PromotionsInfluence Postpurchase Consumption Experience overTimerdquo Journal of Consumer Research 40 (5) 943ndash59

Levy Sheri R Steven J Stroessner and Carol S Dweck (1998)ldquoStereotype Formation and Endorsement The Role ofImplicit Theoriesrdquo Journal of Personality and SocialPsychology 74 (6) 1421ndash36

Lisjak Monika Andrea Bonezzi Soo Kim and Derek D Rucker(2015) ldquoPerils of Compensatory Consumption Within-Domain Compensation Undermines Subsequent Self-Regulationrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 41 (5)1186ndash203

Loewenstein George (1987) ldquoAnticipation and the Valuation ofDelayed Consumptionrdquo Economic Journal 97 (September)666ndash84

Maritain Jacques (1966) ldquoBeauty and Imitationrdquo in A ModernBook of Esthetics ed Melvin Rader New York HoltRinehart amp Winston 27ndash34

McFerran Brent Darren W Dahl Gavan J Fitzsimons andAndrea C Morales (2010) ldquoIrsquoll Have What Shersquos HavingEffects of Social Influence and Body Type on the FoodChoices of Othersrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 36 (6)915ndash29

Morales Andrea C (2005) ldquoGiving Firms an lsquoErsquo for EffortConsumer Responses to High-Effort Firmsrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 31 (4) 806ndash12

Moreau C Page Leff Bonney and Kelly B Herd (2011) ldquoItrsquos theThought (and the Effort) That Counts How Customizing forOthers Differs from Customizing for Oneselfrdquo Journal ofMarketing 75 (5) 120ndash33

Norton Michael I Daniel Mochon and Dan Ariely (2012) ldquoThelsquoIkearsquo Effect When Labor Leads to Loverdquo Journal ofConsumer Psychology 22 (July) 453ndash60

Page Christine and Paul M Herr (2002) ldquoAn Investigation ofthe Processes by Which Product Design and Brand StrengthInteract to Determine Initial Affect and QualityJudgmentsrdquo Journal of Consumer Psychology 12 (2)133ndash47

Raghubir Priya and Eric A Greenleaf (2006) ldquoRatios inProportion What Should the Shape of the Package BerdquoJournal of Marketing 70 (2) 95ndash107

Raghunathan Rajagopal Rebecca Walker Naylor and Wayne DHoyer (2006) ldquoThe Unhealthy frac14 Tasty Intuition and ItsEffects on Taste Inferences Enjoyment and Choice of FoodProductsrdquo Journal of Marketing 70 (4) 170ndash84

Reber Rolf Norbert Schwarz and Piotr Winkielman (2004)ldquoProcessing Fluency and Aesthetic Pleasure Is Beauty in thePerceiverrsquos Processing Experiencerdquo Personality and SocialPsychology Review 8 (4) 364ndash82

Reber Rolf Piotr Winkielman and Norbert Schwarz (1998)ldquoEffects of Perceptual Fluency on Affective JudgmentsrdquoPsychological Science 9 (1) 45ndash48

Reimann Martin Judith Zaichkowksy Carolin Neuhaus ThomasBender and Bernd Weber (2010) ldquoAesthetic PackageDesign A Behavioral Neural and PsychologicalInvestigationrdquo Journal of Consumer Psychology 20 (4)431ndash41

Santayana George (18961955) The Sense of Beauty New YorkDover

Scott Maura L Stephen M Nowlis Naomi Mandel and AndreaC Morales (2008) ldquoThe Effects of Reduced Food Size andPackage Size on the Consumption Behavior of Restrainedand Unrestrained Eatersrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 35(3) 391ndash405

Spencer Steven J Mark P Zanna and Geoffrey T Fong (2005)ldquoEstablishing a Causal Chain Why Experiments Are OftenMore Effective than Mediational Analyses in ExaminingPsychological Processesrdquo Journal of Personality and SocialPsychology 89 (6) 845ndash51

Spiller Stephen A Gavan J Fitzsimons John G Lynch Jr andGary H McClelland (2013) ldquoSpotlights Floodlights andthe Magic Number Zero Simple Effects Tests inModerated Regressionrdquo Journal of Marketing Research 50(2) 277ndash88

Thompson Debora V Rebecca W Hamilton and Roland T Rust(2005) ldquoFeature Fatigue When Product CapabilitiesBecome Too Much of a Good Thingrdquo Journal of MarketingResearch 42 (November) 431ndash42

Townsend Claudia and Suzanne B Shu (2010) ldquoWhen and HowAesthetics Influences Financial Decisionsrdquo Journal ofConsumer Psychology 20 (4) 452ndash58

Townsend Claudia and Sanjay Sood (2012) ldquoSelf-Affirmationthrough the Choice of Highly Aesthetic Productsrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 39 (2) 415ndash28

Veryzer Robert W and J Wesley Hutchinson (1998) ldquoTheInfluence of Unity and Prototypicality on Aesthetic

WU ET AL 21

Responses to New Product Designsrdquo Journal of ConsumerResearch 24 (4) 374ndash94

Wada Yuji Carlos Arce-Lopera Tomohiro Masuda AtsushiKimura Ippeita Dan Sho-ichi Goto Daisuke Tsuzuki andKatsunori Okajima (2010) ldquoInfluence of LuminanceDistribution on the Appetizingly Fresh Appearance ofCabbagerdquo Appetite 54 (2) 363ndash68

Weiner Bernard (2000) ldquoAttributional Thoughts and ConsumerBehaviorrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 27 (December)382ndash87

Witz Anne Chris Warhurst and Dennis Nickson (2003) ldquoTheLabour of Aesthetics and The Aesthetics of OrganizationrdquoOrganization 10 (1) 33ndash54

Yamamoto Mel and David R Lambert (1994) ldquoThe Impact ofProduct Aesthetics on the Evaluation of Industrial ProductsrdquoJournal of Product Innovation Management 11 (4) 309ndash24

Yang Sha and Priya Raghubir (2005) ldquoCan Bottles SpeakVolumes The Effect of Package Shape on How Much toBuyrdquo Journal of Retailing 81 (4) 269ndash82

22 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

  • ucx057-FN1
  • ucx057-FN2
  • ucx057-FN3
  • ucx057-FN4
  • app1
  • app2
  • ucx057-TF1
  • ucx057-TF2
Page 19: It’s Too Pretty to Use! When and How Enhanced Product ...gavan/bio/GJF_articles/...testing the prediction that aesthetic products can elicit greater perceptions of effort. In line

with big-ticket high-involvement purchases such as sleekfurniture (eg a beautiful new white sectional sofa) con-sumers may more readily anticipate losses of beauty sincethey will have to live with and encounter the product on adaily basis even after its original beauty has faded or beentarnished through repeated use This may explain why cov-ering new furniture with plastic was at one time a verycommon practice (DiSalvo 2009)

On the other hand for nondurable lower-involvementproducts such as those used in the current research perhapspeople do not have the motivation or ability to considershifts in aesthetic appeal before consumption Furtherproducts often vary in their degree of durabilitymdasha delicateembroidered blanket while by no means nondurable or dis-posable may begin to show visible signs of wear and tearsooner than a fleece blanket Although the present researchspecifically focused on perishable and single-use productsit would be worth examining when and how the degree ofdurability or even perceptions of fragility might shapedecisions to use beautiful products

In conclusion our research documents an inhibitingeffect of enhanced product aesthetics on consumption par-ticularly for disposable and consumable nondurable prod-ucts Although beautiful products have the ability topromote positive pre-usage evaluations and stimulatechoice our work indicates that consumers are subsequentlyless likely to use them and those who do use them ulti-mately experience higher negative affect and lower enjoy-ment In addition different processes underlie consumerresponses to highly aesthetic products depending onwhether or not consumption has taken place Thus we con-clude that while products may never be too pretty tochoose they can in fact be too pretty to use

DATA COLLECTION INFORMATION

All studies were designed and analyzed by the first authorunder the guidance of the other authors The data for study 1was collected at the Scottsdale Pure Barre studio in fall2015 by research assistants and employees under the super-vision of the first author Research assistants collected thedata for studies 2 and 5 under the supervision of the firstauthor at the W P Carey School of Business MarketingDepartment Behavioral Lab in spring 2015 The data for theconceptual replication (reported in the discussion of study6B) was collected by research assistants under the supervi-sion of the first author at the W P Carey School ofBusiness Marketing Department Behavioral Lab in summer2015 The data for study 4 (both the effort manipulation pre-test and the main study) and the correlational study examin-ing the relationship between implicit self-theories andappreciation for othersrsquo effort were collected by the firstauthor using Amazon Mechanical Turk in spring 2016 Thefirst author collected the data for the aesthetic appeal pretest

(described in appendix B) studies 3 6A and 6B usingAmazon Mechanical Turk in summer 2016 Lastly researchassistants collected the data for the correlational study exam-ining the relationship between aesthetics and perceivedeffort (described in the table in ldquoThe Role of Effort inInhibiting Usagerdquo) under the supervision of the first authorat the W P Carey School of Business MarketingDepartment Behavioral Lab in fall 2016

APPENDIX A

STUDY STIMULI

WU ET AL 19

REFERENCES

Aarts Henk and Ap Dijksterhuis (2003) ldquoThe Silence of theLibrary Environment Situational Norm and SocialBehaviorrdquo Journal of Personality and Social Psychology84 (1) 18ndash28

Aharon Itzhak Nancy Etcoff Dan Ariely Christopher F ChabrisEthan OrsquoConnor and Hans C Breiter (2001) ldquoBeautifulFaces Have Variable Reward Value fMRI and BehavioralEvidencerdquo Neuron 32 (3) 537ndash51

Alba Joseph W and Elanor F Williams (2013) ldquoPleasurePrinciples A Review of Research on HedonicConsumptionrdquo Journal of Consumer Psychology 23 (1)2ndash18

Belk Russell W (1988) ldquoPossessions and the Extended SelfrdquoJournal of Consumer Research 15 (2) 139ndash67

Bem Daryl J (1972) Self-Perception Theory Stanford CAStanford University Press

Berridge Kent C (2009) ldquolsquoLikingrsquo and lsquoWantingrsquo Food RewardsBrain Substrates and Roles in Eating Disordersrdquo Physiologyamp Behavior 97 (5) 537ndash50

Bloch Peter H (1995) ldquoSeeking the Ideal Form Product Designand Consumer Responserdquo Journal of Marketing 59 (July)16ndash29

Bloch Peter H Frederic F Brunel and Todd J Arnold (2003)ldquoIndividual Differences in the Centrality of Visual ProductAesthetics Concept and Measurementrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 29 (4) 551ndash65

Bolton Lisa E and Joseph W Alba (2012) ldquoWhen Less Is MoreConsumer Aversion to Unused Utilityrdquo Journal of ConsumerPsychology 22 (3) 369ndash83

Brehm Jack W (1966) A Theory of Psychological ReactanceNew York Academic Press

Broniarczyk Susan M and Joseph W Alba (1994) ldquoThe Role ofConsumersrsquo Intuitions in Inference Makingrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 21 (3) 393ndash407

Cabanac Michel (1971) ldquoPhysiological Role of PleasurerdquoScience 173 (4002) 1103ndash7

mdashmdashmdash (1979) ldquoSensory Pleasurerdquo Quarterly Review of Biology54 (1) 1ndash29

mdashmdashmdash (1985) ldquoPreferring for Pleasurerdquo American Journal ofClinical Nutrition 42 (5) 1151ndash5

Chandon Pierre and Brian Wansink (2007) ldquoThe Biasing HealthHalos of Fast Food Restaurant Health Claims Lower CalorieEstimates and Higher Side-Dish Consumption IntentionsrdquoJournal of Consumer Research 34 (3) 301ndash14

Cornil Yann and Pierre Chandon (2016) ldquoPleasure as a Substitutefor Size How Multisensory Imagery Can Make PeopleHappier with Smaller Food Portionsrdquo Journal of MarketingResearch 53 (5) 847ndash64

Cleveland William S (1984) ldquoGraphical Methods for DataPresentation Full Scale Breaks Dot Charts and MultibasedLoggingrdquo The American Statistician 38 (4) 270ndash80

DiSalvo David (2009) ldquoThe Psychology of Plastic CouchCoversrdquo httpsneuronarrativewordpresscom20090119the-psychology-of-plastic-couch-covers

Dixie Products (2015) ldquoDixie Ultra Moments Ultimate Hostrdquohttpswwwyoutubecomwatchvfrac14wsBBq9PsgVI

Dutton Denis (2009) The Art Instinct Beauty Pleasure ampHuman Evolution New York Oxford University Press

Dweck Carol S (2000) Self-Theories Their Role in MotivationPersonality and Development Philadelphia Psychology Press

Dweck Carol S and Ellen L Leggett (1988) ldquoA Social-CognitiveApproach to Motivation and Personalityrdquo PsychologicalReview 95 (2) 256ndash73

Evans Lindsay (2010) ldquoWhy Buy Unbleached Paperrdquo httpwwwbrighthubcomenvironmentgreen-livingarticles16299aspx

Festinger Leon (1957) A Theory of Cognitive DissonanceStanford CA Stanford University Press

Frederick Shane and George Loewenstein (1999) ldquoHedonicAdaptationrdquo in Scientific Perspectives on EnjoymentSuffering and Well-Being ed Daniel Kahneman Ed Dienerand Norbert Schwartz New York Russell Sage Foundation302ndash29

Fuchs Christoph Martin Schreier and Stijn MJ van Osselaer(2015) ldquoThe Handmade Effect Whatrsquos Love Got to Do withItrdquo Journal of Marketing 79 (2) 98ndash110

Hagtvedt Henrik and Vanessa M Patrick (2008) ldquoArt InfusionThe Influence of Visual Art on the Perception and Evaluationof Consumer Productsrdquo Journal of Marketing Research 45(3) 379ndash89

AESTHETIC APPEAL PRETEST FOR ALL STIMULI USED IN STUDIES

Higher aesthetic Lower aesthetic Comparison a

Toilet paper (study 1) 377 (146) 253 (155) t(128) frac14 ndash469 p lt 001 a frac14 94Cupcake (study 2) 556 (106) 305 (146) t(128) frac14 ndash1120 p lt 001 a frac14 96Napkin (studies 3 and 6) 465 (153) 230 (144) t(128) frac14 ndash903 p lt 001 a frac14 97Napkin (study 4) 332 (145) 262 (154) t(128) frac14 ndash266 p lt 01 a frac14 92Napkin (study 5) 458 (159) 234 (151) t(128) frac14 ndash823 p lt 001 a frac14 97

NOTEmdashStandard deviations are in parentheses

In a between-subjects pretest participants were asked to rate each product along the following dimensions beautiful pretty artistic and aesthetically pleasing

(1 frac14 not at all 7 frac14 very much) which formed our aesthetic appeal index

APPENDIX B

20 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

Hayes Andrew F (2013) ldquoPROCESS A VersatileComputational Tool for Observed Variable MediationModeration and Conditional Process Modelingrdquo workingpaper School of Communication and Department ofPsychology Ohio State University Columbus OH 43210

Heller Steve (2015) ldquoA Grocery Store Illusion Is Getting You toSpend More Moneyrdquo httpwwwbusinessinsidercoma-grocery-store-illusion-is-getting-you-to-spend-more-money-2015-8ixzz3ifsOLBfG

Hurling Robert and Richard Shepherd (2003) ldquoEating with YourEyes Effect of Appearance on Expectations of LikingrdquoAppetite 41 (2) 167ndash74

Hoegg JoAndrea Joseph W Alba and Darren W Dahl (2010)ldquoThe Good the Bad and the Ugly Influence of Aesthetics onProduct Feature Judgmentsrdquo Journal of ConsumerPsychology 20 (4) 419ndash30

Johnson Palmer O and Jerzy Neyman (1936) ldquoTests of CertainLinear Hypotheses and Their Applications to SomeEducational Problemsrdquo Statistical Research Memoirs 157ndash93

Kahneman Daniel and Amos Tversky (1979) ldquoProspect TheoryAn Analysis of Decision under Riskrdquo Econometrica 47 (2)263ndash91

Kampe Knut K W Chris D Frith Raymond J Dolan and UtaFrith (2001) ldquoPsychology Reward Value of Attractivenessand Gazerdquo Nature 413 (6856) 589

Kelley Harold H (1967) ldquoAttribution Theory in SocialPsychologyrdquo in Nebraska Symposium of Motivation Vol 15ed D Levine Lincoln University of Nebraska Press192ndash238

Kirmani Amna (1990) ldquoThe Effect of Perceived AdvertisingCosts on Brand Perceptionsrdquo Journal of Consumer Research17 (2) 160ndash71

Kirmani Amna Michelle P Lee and Carolyn Yoon (2004)ldquoProcedural Priming Effects on Spontaneous InferenceFormationrdquo Journal of Economic Psychology 25 (6)859ndash75

Kruger Justin Derrick Wirtz Leaf Van Boven and T WilliamAltermatt (2004) ldquoThe Effort Heuristicrdquo Journal ofExperimental Social Psychology 40 (1) 91ndash8

Lee Leonard and Claire I Tsai (2014) ldquoHow Price PromotionsInfluence Postpurchase Consumption Experience overTimerdquo Journal of Consumer Research 40 (5) 943ndash59

Levy Sheri R Steven J Stroessner and Carol S Dweck (1998)ldquoStereotype Formation and Endorsement The Role ofImplicit Theoriesrdquo Journal of Personality and SocialPsychology 74 (6) 1421ndash36

Lisjak Monika Andrea Bonezzi Soo Kim and Derek D Rucker(2015) ldquoPerils of Compensatory Consumption Within-Domain Compensation Undermines Subsequent Self-Regulationrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 41 (5)1186ndash203

Loewenstein George (1987) ldquoAnticipation and the Valuation ofDelayed Consumptionrdquo Economic Journal 97 (September)666ndash84

Maritain Jacques (1966) ldquoBeauty and Imitationrdquo in A ModernBook of Esthetics ed Melvin Rader New York HoltRinehart amp Winston 27ndash34

McFerran Brent Darren W Dahl Gavan J Fitzsimons andAndrea C Morales (2010) ldquoIrsquoll Have What Shersquos HavingEffects of Social Influence and Body Type on the FoodChoices of Othersrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 36 (6)915ndash29

Morales Andrea C (2005) ldquoGiving Firms an lsquoErsquo for EffortConsumer Responses to High-Effort Firmsrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 31 (4) 806ndash12

Moreau C Page Leff Bonney and Kelly B Herd (2011) ldquoItrsquos theThought (and the Effort) That Counts How Customizing forOthers Differs from Customizing for Oneselfrdquo Journal ofMarketing 75 (5) 120ndash33

Norton Michael I Daniel Mochon and Dan Ariely (2012) ldquoThelsquoIkearsquo Effect When Labor Leads to Loverdquo Journal ofConsumer Psychology 22 (July) 453ndash60

Page Christine and Paul M Herr (2002) ldquoAn Investigation ofthe Processes by Which Product Design and Brand StrengthInteract to Determine Initial Affect and QualityJudgmentsrdquo Journal of Consumer Psychology 12 (2)133ndash47

Raghubir Priya and Eric A Greenleaf (2006) ldquoRatios inProportion What Should the Shape of the Package BerdquoJournal of Marketing 70 (2) 95ndash107

Raghunathan Rajagopal Rebecca Walker Naylor and Wayne DHoyer (2006) ldquoThe Unhealthy frac14 Tasty Intuition and ItsEffects on Taste Inferences Enjoyment and Choice of FoodProductsrdquo Journal of Marketing 70 (4) 170ndash84

Reber Rolf Norbert Schwarz and Piotr Winkielman (2004)ldquoProcessing Fluency and Aesthetic Pleasure Is Beauty in thePerceiverrsquos Processing Experiencerdquo Personality and SocialPsychology Review 8 (4) 364ndash82

Reber Rolf Piotr Winkielman and Norbert Schwarz (1998)ldquoEffects of Perceptual Fluency on Affective JudgmentsrdquoPsychological Science 9 (1) 45ndash48

Reimann Martin Judith Zaichkowksy Carolin Neuhaus ThomasBender and Bernd Weber (2010) ldquoAesthetic PackageDesign A Behavioral Neural and PsychologicalInvestigationrdquo Journal of Consumer Psychology 20 (4)431ndash41

Santayana George (18961955) The Sense of Beauty New YorkDover

Scott Maura L Stephen M Nowlis Naomi Mandel and AndreaC Morales (2008) ldquoThe Effects of Reduced Food Size andPackage Size on the Consumption Behavior of Restrainedand Unrestrained Eatersrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 35(3) 391ndash405

Spencer Steven J Mark P Zanna and Geoffrey T Fong (2005)ldquoEstablishing a Causal Chain Why Experiments Are OftenMore Effective than Mediational Analyses in ExaminingPsychological Processesrdquo Journal of Personality and SocialPsychology 89 (6) 845ndash51

Spiller Stephen A Gavan J Fitzsimons John G Lynch Jr andGary H McClelland (2013) ldquoSpotlights Floodlights andthe Magic Number Zero Simple Effects Tests inModerated Regressionrdquo Journal of Marketing Research 50(2) 277ndash88

Thompson Debora V Rebecca W Hamilton and Roland T Rust(2005) ldquoFeature Fatigue When Product CapabilitiesBecome Too Much of a Good Thingrdquo Journal of MarketingResearch 42 (November) 431ndash42

Townsend Claudia and Suzanne B Shu (2010) ldquoWhen and HowAesthetics Influences Financial Decisionsrdquo Journal ofConsumer Psychology 20 (4) 452ndash58

Townsend Claudia and Sanjay Sood (2012) ldquoSelf-Affirmationthrough the Choice of Highly Aesthetic Productsrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 39 (2) 415ndash28

Veryzer Robert W and J Wesley Hutchinson (1998) ldquoTheInfluence of Unity and Prototypicality on Aesthetic

WU ET AL 21

Responses to New Product Designsrdquo Journal of ConsumerResearch 24 (4) 374ndash94

Wada Yuji Carlos Arce-Lopera Tomohiro Masuda AtsushiKimura Ippeita Dan Sho-ichi Goto Daisuke Tsuzuki andKatsunori Okajima (2010) ldquoInfluence of LuminanceDistribution on the Appetizingly Fresh Appearance ofCabbagerdquo Appetite 54 (2) 363ndash68

Weiner Bernard (2000) ldquoAttributional Thoughts and ConsumerBehaviorrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 27 (December)382ndash87

Witz Anne Chris Warhurst and Dennis Nickson (2003) ldquoTheLabour of Aesthetics and The Aesthetics of OrganizationrdquoOrganization 10 (1) 33ndash54

Yamamoto Mel and David R Lambert (1994) ldquoThe Impact ofProduct Aesthetics on the Evaluation of Industrial ProductsrdquoJournal of Product Innovation Management 11 (4) 309ndash24

Yang Sha and Priya Raghubir (2005) ldquoCan Bottles SpeakVolumes The Effect of Package Shape on How Much toBuyrdquo Journal of Retailing 81 (4) 269ndash82

22 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

  • ucx057-FN1
  • ucx057-FN2
  • ucx057-FN3
  • ucx057-FN4
  • app1
  • app2
  • ucx057-TF1
  • ucx057-TF2
Page 20: It’s Too Pretty to Use! When and How Enhanced Product ...gavan/bio/GJF_articles/...testing the prediction that aesthetic products can elicit greater perceptions of effort. In line

REFERENCES

Aarts Henk and Ap Dijksterhuis (2003) ldquoThe Silence of theLibrary Environment Situational Norm and SocialBehaviorrdquo Journal of Personality and Social Psychology84 (1) 18ndash28

Aharon Itzhak Nancy Etcoff Dan Ariely Christopher F ChabrisEthan OrsquoConnor and Hans C Breiter (2001) ldquoBeautifulFaces Have Variable Reward Value fMRI and BehavioralEvidencerdquo Neuron 32 (3) 537ndash51

Alba Joseph W and Elanor F Williams (2013) ldquoPleasurePrinciples A Review of Research on HedonicConsumptionrdquo Journal of Consumer Psychology 23 (1)2ndash18

Belk Russell W (1988) ldquoPossessions and the Extended SelfrdquoJournal of Consumer Research 15 (2) 139ndash67

Bem Daryl J (1972) Self-Perception Theory Stanford CAStanford University Press

Berridge Kent C (2009) ldquolsquoLikingrsquo and lsquoWantingrsquo Food RewardsBrain Substrates and Roles in Eating Disordersrdquo Physiologyamp Behavior 97 (5) 537ndash50

Bloch Peter H (1995) ldquoSeeking the Ideal Form Product Designand Consumer Responserdquo Journal of Marketing 59 (July)16ndash29

Bloch Peter H Frederic F Brunel and Todd J Arnold (2003)ldquoIndividual Differences in the Centrality of Visual ProductAesthetics Concept and Measurementrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 29 (4) 551ndash65

Bolton Lisa E and Joseph W Alba (2012) ldquoWhen Less Is MoreConsumer Aversion to Unused Utilityrdquo Journal of ConsumerPsychology 22 (3) 369ndash83

Brehm Jack W (1966) A Theory of Psychological ReactanceNew York Academic Press

Broniarczyk Susan M and Joseph W Alba (1994) ldquoThe Role ofConsumersrsquo Intuitions in Inference Makingrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 21 (3) 393ndash407

Cabanac Michel (1971) ldquoPhysiological Role of PleasurerdquoScience 173 (4002) 1103ndash7

mdashmdashmdash (1979) ldquoSensory Pleasurerdquo Quarterly Review of Biology54 (1) 1ndash29

mdashmdashmdash (1985) ldquoPreferring for Pleasurerdquo American Journal ofClinical Nutrition 42 (5) 1151ndash5

Chandon Pierre and Brian Wansink (2007) ldquoThe Biasing HealthHalos of Fast Food Restaurant Health Claims Lower CalorieEstimates and Higher Side-Dish Consumption IntentionsrdquoJournal of Consumer Research 34 (3) 301ndash14

Cornil Yann and Pierre Chandon (2016) ldquoPleasure as a Substitutefor Size How Multisensory Imagery Can Make PeopleHappier with Smaller Food Portionsrdquo Journal of MarketingResearch 53 (5) 847ndash64

Cleveland William S (1984) ldquoGraphical Methods for DataPresentation Full Scale Breaks Dot Charts and MultibasedLoggingrdquo The American Statistician 38 (4) 270ndash80

DiSalvo David (2009) ldquoThe Psychology of Plastic CouchCoversrdquo httpsneuronarrativewordpresscom20090119the-psychology-of-plastic-couch-covers

Dixie Products (2015) ldquoDixie Ultra Moments Ultimate Hostrdquohttpswwwyoutubecomwatchvfrac14wsBBq9PsgVI

Dutton Denis (2009) The Art Instinct Beauty Pleasure ampHuman Evolution New York Oxford University Press

Dweck Carol S (2000) Self-Theories Their Role in MotivationPersonality and Development Philadelphia Psychology Press

Dweck Carol S and Ellen L Leggett (1988) ldquoA Social-CognitiveApproach to Motivation and Personalityrdquo PsychologicalReview 95 (2) 256ndash73

Evans Lindsay (2010) ldquoWhy Buy Unbleached Paperrdquo httpwwwbrighthubcomenvironmentgreen-livingarticles16299aspx

Festinger Leon (1957) A Theory of Cognitive DissonanceStanford CA Stanford University Press

Frederick Shane and George Loewenstein (1999) ldquoHedonicAdaptationrdquo in Scientific Perspectives on EnjoymentSuffering and Well-Being ed Daniel Kahneman Ed Dienerand Norbert Schwartz New York Russell Sage Foundation302ndash29

Fuchs Christoph Martin Schreier and Stijn MJ van Osselaer(2015) ldquoThe Handmade Effect Whatrsquos Love Got to Do withItrdquo Journal of Marketing 79 (2) 98ndash110

Hagtvedt Henrik and Vanessa M Patrick (2008) ldquoArt InfusionThe Influence of Visual Art on the Perception and Evaluationof Consumer Productsrdquo Journal of Marketing Research 45(3) 379ndash89

AESTHETIC APPEAL PRETEST FOR ALL STIMULI USED IN STUDIES

Higher aesthetic Lower aesthetic Comparison a

Toilet paper (study 1) 377 (146) 253 (155) t(128) frac14 ndash469 p lt 001 a frac14 94Cupcake (study 2) 556 (106) 305 (146) t(128) frac14 ndash1120 p lt 001 a frac14 96Napkin (studies 3 and 6) 465 (153) 230 (144) t(128) frac14 ndash903 p lt 001 a frac14 97Napkin (study 4) 332 (145) 262 (154) t(128) frac14 ndash266 p lt 01 a frac14 92Napkin (study 5) 458 (159) 234 (151) t(128) frac14 ndash823 p lt 001 a frac14 97

NOTEmdashStandard deviations are in parentheses

In a between-subjects pretest participants were asked to rate each product along the following dimensions beautiful pretty artistic and aesthetically pleasing

(1 frac14 not at all 7 frac14 very much) which formed our aesthetic appeal index

APPENDIX B

20 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

Hayes Andrew F (2013) ldquoPROCESS A VersatileComputational Tool for Observed Variable MediationModeration and Conditional Process Modelingrdquo workingpaper School of Communication and Department ofPsychology Ohio State University Columbus OH 43210

Heller Steve (2015) ldquoA Grocery Store Illusion Is Getting You toSpend More Moneyrdquo httpwwwbusinessinsidercoma-grocery-store-illusion-is-getting-you-to-spend-more-money-2015-8ixzz3ifsOLBfG

Hurling Robert and Richard Shepherd (2003) ldquoEating with YourEyes Effect of Appearance on Expectations of LikingrdquoAppetite 41 (2) 167ndash74

Hoegg JoAndrea Joseph W Alba and Darren W Dahl (2010)ldquoThe Good the Bad and the Ugly Influence of Aesthetics onProduct Feature Judgmentsrdquo Journal of ConsumerPsychology 20 (4) 419ndash30

Johnson Palmer O and Jerzy Neyman (1936) ldquoTests of CertainLinear Hypotheses and Their Applications to SomeEducational Problemsrdquo Statistical Research Memoirs 157ndash93

Kahneman Daniel and Amos Tversky (1979) ldquoProspect TheoryAn Analysis of Decision under Riskrdquo Econometrica 47 (2)263ndash91

Kampe Knut K W Chris D Frith Raymond J Dolan and UtaFrith (2001) ldquoPsychology Reward Value of Attractivenessand Gazerdquo Nature 413 (6856) 589

Kelley Harold H (1967) ldquoAttribution Theory in SocialPsychologyrdquo in Nebraska Symposium of Motivation Vol 15ed D Levine Lincoln University of Nebraska Press192ndash238

Kirmani Amna (1990) ldquoThe Effect of Perceived AdvertisingCosts on Brand Perceptionsrdquo Journal of Consumer Research17 (2) 160ndash71

Kirmani Amna Michelle P Lee and Carolyn Yoon (2004)ldquoProcedural Priming Effects on Spontaneous InferenceFormationrdquo Journal of Economic Psychology 25 (6)859ndash75

Kruger Justin Derrick Wirtz Leaf Van Boven and T WilliamAltermatt (2004) ldquoThe Effort Heuristicrdquo Journal ofExperimental Social Psychology 40 (1) 91ndash8

Lee Leonard and Claire I Tsai (2014) ldquoHow Price PromotionsInfluence Postpurchase Consumption Experience overTimerdquo Journal of Consumer Research 40 (5) 943ndash59

Levy Sheri R Steven J Stroessner and Carol S Dweck (1998)ldquoStereotype Formation and Endorsement The Role ofImplicit Theoriesrdquo Journal of Personality and SocialPsychology 74 (6) 1421ndash36

Lisjak Monika Andrea Bonezzi Soo Kim and Derek D Rucker(2015) ldquoPerils of Compensatory Consumption Within-Domain Compensation Undermines Subsequent Self-Regulationrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 41 (5)1186ndash203

Loewenstein George (1987) ldquoAnticipation and the Valuation ofDelayed Consumptionrdquo Economic Journal 97 (September)666ndash84

Maritain Jacques (1966) ldquoBeauty and Imitationrdquo in A ModernBook of Esthetics ed Melvin Rader New York HoltRinehart amp Winston 27ndash34

McFerran Brent Darren W Dahl Gavan J Fitzsimons andAndrea C Morales (2010) ldquoIrsquoll Have What Shersquos HavingEffects of Social Influence and Body Type on the FoodChoices of Othersrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 36 (6)915ndash29

Morales Andrea C (2005) ldquoGiving Firms an lsquoErsquo for EffortConsumer Responses to High-Effort Firmsrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 31 (4) 806ndash12

Moreau C Page Leff Bonney and Kelly B Herd (2011) ldquoItrsquos theThought (and the Effort) That Counts How Customizing forOthers Differs from Customizing for Oneselfrdquo Journal ofMarketing 75 (5) 120ndash33

Norton Michael I Daniel Mochon and Dan Ariely (2012) ldquoThelsquoIkearsquo Effect When Labor Leads to Loverdquo Journal ofConsumer Psychology 22 (July) 453ndash60

Page Christine and Paul M Herr (2002) ldquoAn Investigation ofthe Processes by Which Product Design and Brand StrengthInteract to Determine Initial Affect and QualityJudgmentsrdquo Journal of Consumer Psychology 12 (2)133ndash47

Raghubir Priya and Eric A Greenleaf (2006) ldquoRatios inProportion What Should the Shape of the Package BerdquoJournal of Marketing 70 (2) 95ndash107

Raghunathan Rajagopal Rebecca Walker Naylor and Wayne DHoyer (2006) ldquoThe Unhealthy frac14 Tasty Intuition and ItsEffects on Taste Inferences Enjoyment and Choice of FoodProductsrdquo Journal of Marketing 70 (4) 170ndash84

Reber Rolf Norbert Schwarz and Piotr Winkielman (2004)ldquoProcessing Fluency and Aesthetic Pleasure Is Beauty in thePerceiverrsquos Processing Experiencerdquo Personality and SocialPsychology Review 8 (4) 364ndash82

Reber Rolf Piotr Winkielman and Norbert Schwarz (1998)ldquoEffects of Perceptual Fluency on Affective JudgmentsrdquoPsychological Science 9 (1) 45ndash48

Reimann Martin Judith Zaichkowksy Carolin Neuhaus ThomasBender and Bernd Weber (2010) ldquoAesthetic PackageDesign A Behavioral Neural and PsychologicalInvestigationrdquo Journal of Consumer Psychology 20 (4)431ndash41

Santayana George (18961955) The Sense of Beauty New YorkDover

Scott Maura L Stephen M Nowlis Naomi Mandel and AndreaC Morales (2008) ldquoThe Effects of Reduced Food Size andPackage Size on the Consumption Behavior of Restrainedand Unrestrained Eatersrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 35(3) 391ndash405

Spencer Steven J Mark P Zanna and Geoffrey T Fong (2005)ldquoEstablishing a Causal Chain Why Experiments Are OftenMore Effective than Mediational Analyses in ExaminingPsychological Processesrdquo Journal of Personality and SocialPsychology 89 (6) 845ndash51

Spiller Stephen A Gavan J Fitzsimons John G Lynch Jr andGary H McClelland (2013) ldquoSpotlights Floodlights andthe Magic Number Zero Simple Effects Tests inModerated Regressionrdquo Journal of Marketing Research 50(2) 277ndash88

Thompson Debora V Rebecca W Hamilton and Roland T Rust(2005) ldquoFeature Fatigue When Product CapabilitiesBecome Too Much of a Good Thingrdquo Journal of MarketingResearch 42 (November) 431ndash42

Townsend Claudia and Suzanne B Shu (2010) ldquoWhen and HowAesthetics Influences Financial Decisionsrdquo Journal ofConsumer Psychology 20 (4) 452ndash58

Townsend Claudia and Sanjay Sood (2012) ldquoSelf-Affirmationthrough the Choice of Highly Aesthetic Productsrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 39 (2) 415ndash28

Veryzer Robert W and J Wesley Hutchinson (1998) ldquoTheInfluence of Unity and Prototypicality on Aesthetic

WU ET AL 21

Responses to New Product Designsrdquo Journal of ConsumerResearch 24 (4) 374ndash94

Wada Yuji Carlos Arce-Lopera Tomohiro Masuda AtsushiKimura Ippeita Dan Sho-ichi Goto Daisuke Tsuzuki andKatsunori Okajima (2010) ldquoInfluence of LuminanceDistribution on the Appetizingly Fresh Appearance ofCabbagerdquo Appetite 54 (2) 363ndash68

Weiner Bernard (2000) ldquoAttributional Thoughts and ConsumerBehaviorrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 27 (December)382ndash87

Witz Anne Chris Warhurst and Dennis Nickson (2003) ldquoTheLabour of Aesthetics and The Aesthetics of OrganizationrdquoOrganization 10 (1) 33ndash54

Yamamoto Mel and David R Lambert (1994) ldquoThe Impact ofProduct Aesthetics on the Evaluation of Industrial ProductsrdquoJournal of Product Innovation Management 11 (4) 309ndash24

Yang Sha and Priya Raghubir (2005) ldquoCan Bottles SpeakVolumes The Effect of Package Shape on How Much toBuyrdquo Journal of Retailing 81 (4) 269ndash82

22 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

  • ucx057-FN1
  • ucx057-FN2
  • ucx057-FN3
  • ucx057-FN4
  • app1
  • app2
  • ucx057-TF1
  • ucx057-TF2
Page 21: It’s Too Pretty to Use! When and How Enhanced Product ...gavan/bio/GJF_articles/...testing the prediction that aesthetic products can elicit greater perceptions of effort. In line

Hayes Andrew F (2013) ldquoPROCESS A VersatileComputational Tool for Observed Variable MediationModeration and Conditional Process Modelingrdquo workingpaper School of Communication and Department ofPsychology Ohio State University Columbus OH 43210

Heller Steve (2015) ldquoA Grocery Store Illusion Is Getting You toSpend More Moneyrdquo httpwwwbusinessinsidercoma-grocery-store-illusion-is-getting-you-to-spend-more-money-2015-8ixzz3ifsOLBfG

Hurling Robert and Richard Shepherd (2003) ldquoEating with YourEyes Effect of Appearance on Expectations of LikingrdquoAppetite 41 (2) 167ndash74

Hoegg JoAndrea Joseph W Alba and Darren W Dahl (2010)ldquoThe Good the Bad and the Ugly Influence of Aesthetics onProduct Feature Judgmentsrdquo Journal of ConsumerPsychology 20 (4) 419ndash30

Johnson Palmer O and Jerzy Neyman (1936) ldquoTests of CertainLinear Hypotheses and Their Applications to SomeEducational Problemsrdquo Statistical Research Memoirs 157ndash93

Kahneman Daniel and Amos Tversky (1979) ldquoProspect TheoryAn Analysis of Decision under Riskrdquo Econometrica 47 (2)263ndash91

Kampe Knut K W Chris D Frith Raymond J Dolan and UtaFrith (2001) ldquoPsychology Reward Value of Attractivenessand Gazerdquo Nature 413 (6856) 589

Kelley Harold H (1967) ldquoAttribution Theory in SocialPsychologyrdquo in Nebraska Symposium of Motivation Vol 15ed D Levine Lincoln University of Nebraska Press192ndash238

Kirmani Amna (1990) ldquoThe Effect of Perceived AdvertisingCosts on Brand Perceptionsrdquo Journal of Consumer Research17 (2) 160ndash71

Kirmani Amna Michelle P Lee and Carolyn Yoon (2004)ldquoProcedural Priming Effects on Spontaneous InferenceFormationrdquo Journal of Economic Psychology 25 (6)859ndash75

Kruger Justin Derrick Wirtz Leaf Van Boven and T WilliamAltermatt (2004) ldquoThe Effort Heuristicrdquo Journal ofExperimental Social Psychology 40 (1) 91ndash8

Lee Leonard and Claire I Tsai (2014) ldquoHow Price PromotionsInfluence Postpurchase Consumption Experience overTimerdquo Journal of Consumer Research 40 (5) 943ndash59

Levy Sheri R Steven J Stroessner and Carol S Dweck (1998)ldquoStereotype Formation and Endorsement The Role ofImplicit Theoriesrdquo Journal of Personality and SocialPsychology 74 (6) 1421ndash36

Lisjak Monika Andrea Bonezzi Soo Kim and Derek D Rucker(2015) ldquoPerils of Compensatory Consumption Within-Domain Compensation Undermines Subsequent Self-Regulationrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 41 (5)1186ndash203

Loewenstein George (1987) ldquoAnticipation and the Valuation ofDelayed Consumptionrdquo Economic Journal 97 (September)666ndash84

Maritain Jacques (1966) ldquoBeauty and Imitationrdquo in A ModernBook of Esthetics ed Melvin Rader New York HoltRinehart amp Winston 27ndash34

McFerran Brent Darren W Dahl Gavan J Fitzsimons andAndrea C Morales (2010) ldquoIrsquoll Have What Shersquos HavingEffects of Social Influence and Body Type on the FoodChoices of Othersrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 36 (6)915ndash29

Morales Andrea C (2005) ldquoGiving Firms an lsquoErsquo for EffortConsumer Responses to High-Effort Firmsrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 31 (4) 806ndash12

Moreau C Page Leff Bonney and Kelly B Herd (2011) ldquoItrsquos theThought (and the Effort) That Counts How Customizing forOthers Differs from Customizing for Oneselfrdquo Journal ofMarketing 75 (5) 120ndash33

Norton Michael I Daniel Mochon and Dan Ariely (2012) ldquoThelsquoIkearsquo Effect When Labor Leads to Loverdquo Journal ofConsumer Psychology 22 (July) 453ndash60

Page Christine and Paul M Herr (2002) ldquoAn Investigation ofthe Processes by Which Product Design and Brand StrengthInteract to Determine Initial Affect and QualityJudgmentsrdquo Journal of Consumer Psychology 12 (2)133ndash47

Raghubir Priya and Eric A Greenleaf (2006) ldquoRatios inProportion What Should the Shape of the Package BerdquoJournal of Marketing 70 (2) 95ndash107

Raghunathan Rajagopal Rebecca Walker Naylor and Wayne DHoyer (2006) ldquoThe Unhealthy frac14 Tasty Intuition and ItsEffects on Taste Inferences Enjoyment and Choice of FoodProductsrdquo Journal of Marketing 70 (4) 170ndash84

Reber Rolf Norbert Schwarz and Piotr Winkielman (2004)ldquoProcessing Fluency and Aesthetic Pleasure Is Beauty in thePerceiverrsquos Processing Experiencerdquo Personality and SocialPsychology Review 8 (4) 364ndash82

Reber Rolf Piotr Winkielman and Norbert Schwarz (1998)ldquoEffects of Perceptual Fluency on Affective JudgmentsrdquoPsychological Science 9 (1) 45ndash48

Reimann Martin Judith Zaichkowksy Carolin Neuhaus ThomasBender and Bernd Weber (2010) ldquoAesthetic PackageDesign A Behavioral Neural and PsychologicalInvestigationrdquo Journal of Consumer Psychology 20 (4)431ndash41

Santayana George (18961955) The Sense of Beauty New YorkDover

Scott Maura L Stephen M Nowlis Naomi Mandel and AndreaC Morales (2008) ldquoThe Effects of Reduced Food Size andPackage Size on the Consumption Behavior of Restrainedand Unrestrained Eatersrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 35(3) 391ndash405

Spencer Steven J Mark P Zanna and Geoffrey T Fong (2005)ldquoEstablishing a Causal Chain Why Experiments Are OftenMore Effective than Mediational Analyses in ExaminingPsychological Processesrdquo Journal of Personality and SocialPsychology 89 (6) 845ndash51

Spiller Stephen A Gavan J Fitzsimons John G Lynch Jr andGary H McClelland (2013) ldquoSpotlights Floodlights andthe Magic Number Zero Simple Effects Tests inModerated Regressionrdquo Journal of Marketing Research 50(2) 277ndash88

Thompson Debora V Rebecca W Hamilton and Roland T Rust(2005) ldquoFeature Fatigue When Product CapabilitiesBecome Too Much of a Good Thingrdquo Journal of MarketingResearch 42 (November) 431ndash42

Townsend Claudia and Suzanne B Shu (2010) ldquoWhen and HowAesthetics Influences Financial Decisionsrdquo Journal ofConsumer Psychology 20 (4) 452ndash58

Townsend Claudia and Sanjay Sood (2012) ldquoSelf-Affirmationthrough the Choice of Highly Aesthetic Productsrdquo Journal ofConsumer Research 39 (2) 415ndash28

Veryzer Robert W and J Wesley Hutchinson (1998) ldquoTheInfluence of Unity and Prototypicality on Aesthetic

WU ET AL 21

Responses to New Product Designsrdquo Journal of ConsumerResearch 24 (4) 374ndash94

Wada Yuji Carlos Arce-Lopera Tomohiro Masuda AtsushiKimura Ippeita Dan Sho-ichi Goto Daisuke Tsuzuki andKatsunori Okajima (2010) ldquoInfluence of LuminanceDistribution on the Appetizingly Fresh Appearance ofCabbagerdquo Appetite 54 (2) 363ndash68

Weiner Bernard (2000) ldquoAttributional Thoughts and ConsumerBehaviorrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 27 (December)382ndash87

Witz Anne Chris Warhurst and Dennis Nickson (2003) ldquoTheLabour of Aesthetics and The Aesthetics of OrganizationrdquoOrganization 10 (1) 33ndash54

Yamamoto Mel and David R Lambert (1994) ldquoThe Impact ofProduct Aesthetics on the Evaluation of Industrial ProductsrdquoJournal of Product Innovation Management 11 (4) 309ndash24

Yang Sha and Priya Raghubir (2005) ldquoCan Bottles SpeakVolumes The Effect of Package Shape on How Much toBuyrdquo Journal of Retailing 81 (4) 269ndash82

22 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

  • ucx057-FN1
  • ucx057-FN2
  • ucx057-FN3
  • ucx057-FN4
  • app1
  • app2
  • ucx057-TF1
  • ucx057-TF2
Page 22: It’s Too Pretty to Use! When and How Enhanced Product ...gavan/bio/GJF_articles/...testing the prediction that aesthetic products can elicit greater perceptions of effort. In line

Responses to New Product Designsrdquo Journal of ConsumerResearch 24 (4) 374ndash94

Wada Yuji Carlos Arce-Lopera Tomohiro Masuda AtsushiKimura Ippeita Dan Sho-ichi Goto Daisuke Tsuzuki andKatsunori Okajima (2010) ldquoInfluence of LuminanceDistribution on the Appetizingly Fresh Appearance ofCabbagerdquo Appetite 54 (2) 363ndash68

Weiner Bernard (2000) ldquoAttributional Thoughts and ConsumerBehaviorrdquo Journal of Consumer Research 27 (December)382ndash87

Witz Anne Chris Warhurst and Dennis Nickson (2003) ldquoTheLabour of Aesthetics and The Aesthetics of OrganizationrdquoOrganization 10 (1) 33ndash54

Yamamoto Mel and David R Lambert (1994) ldquoThe Impact ofProduct Aesthetics on the Evaluation of Industrial ProductsrdquoJournal of Product Innovation Management 11 (4) 309ndash24

Yang Sha and Priya Raghubir (2005) ldquoCan Bottles SpeakVolumes The Effect of Package Shape on How Much toBuyrdquo Journal of Retailing 81 (4) 269ndash82

22 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

  • ucx057-FN1
  • ucx057-FN2
  • ucx057-FN3
  • ucx057-FN4
  • app1
  • app2
  • ucx057-TF1
  • ucx057-TF2