When What You Might Have Purchased Misguides You: Dysfunctional Counterfactual Thinking in Consumer Affect and Cognition
"The last two studies focus on cognitive consequences of CFT. In Study 4, the contents of CFT produced by two different conditional framings (""X % discount if you buy no more than three"" vs. ""X % discount if you buy no less than three"") are found to be diametrically opposite, although participants in both conditions in parallel think about better counterfactual alternatives. Regardless of the contrary nature of the two restrictions, participants in both conditions based the purchase quantity decision in large part on CFT, and rationalized the purchase quantity by attributing it to the presence of the restriction. Study 5 demonstrates that the outcome valence of the purchase, mediated by CFT, influences causal attribution. The results from Study 5 also indicate that CFT does not only shape the cognitive evaluation of the retailer at which one made a purchase, but also the evaluation of the other retailer that one did not visit. The dysfunctional aspects of CFT-triggered attribution are discussed."
University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign
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University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign