Cracking the consumers' code: A framework for understanding the artificial intelligence-consumer interface.

This review presents a framework for understanding how consumers respond to artificial intelligence (AI) and related technologies, such as robots, algorithms, or chatbots. Drawing on a systematic review of the literature (N = 111), we describe how AI technologies influence a variety of consumer-relevant outcomes, including consumer satisfaction and the propensity to rely on AI. We also highlight the important role that consumer characteristics along with contextual characteristics (i.e., the micro and macro context) play in shaping the AI-consumer interaction. We then discuss novel theoretical perspectives that could shed light on the psychological processes triggered by AI-consumer interactions. We conclude by adopting a meta-scientific perspective and discussing how AI may change the process of scientific discovery.

How social perceptions influence consumption for self, for others, and within the broader system.

This article builds an organizing framework for understanding how social perceptions influence consumption at three levels: consumption for self, consumption for others, and consumption within the broader system. At each level, social others play a distinct role in individuals' consumption behaviors, from passive observers to active agents. Importantly, consumption at each of these levels is characterized by common tensions and misperceptions, which sometimes undermine individuals' consumption choices, outcomes, and intent. We describe some of the tensions and explore how individuals navigate them. At the end, we discuss how the proposed framework offers exciting opportunities for future research.

Compensatory routes to object attachment.

This review presents a new typology of compensatory consumption strategies as a means to understand how self-discrepancies influence compensatory object attachment. We differentiate compensatory consumption strategies based on three types of benefits they may provide (functional, symbolic, and hedonic), and we conceptualize these benefits as assets (or liabilities) that can influence object attachment. We present theoretical arguments for the typology, and then we address each strategy with a definition, empirical evidence, and theoretical foundations. We conclude with a discussion of future opportunities for research at the intersection of compensatory consumption and object attachment.

When a threat to the brand is a threat to the self: the importance of brand identification and implicit self-esteem in predicting defensiveness.

This research examines how people respond when a commercial brand they identify with is threatened. Across four studies, the authors found that among participants who identified with a brand, a threat to the brand elicited the same responses as a threat to the self. Specifically, participants with low implicit self-esteem defended the brand when the self was activated, unlike their high implicit self-esteem counterparts. In addition, brand defense was reduced when individuals had the opportunity to affirm a valued aspect of their self-concept. These findings suggest that when a brand that people identify with is threatened, they may defend the brand to preserve the integrity of the self. More broadly, these findings are consistent with the notion that brands may be included into the extended self-concept, which supports William James's original ideas concerning the breadth and heterogeneity of the self.

Primed interference: the cognitive and behavioral costs of an incongruity between chronic and primed motivational orientations.

Research has shown that temporarily primed motivational orientations have essentially the same effects on how people pursue their goals as their chronic orientations. This article shows that, despite the interchangeability of temporary and chronic motivations, primed motivational orientations that are incongruent with chronic orientations create interference, requiring the deployment of cognitive resources and thus undermining performance on subsequent tasks that rely on these resources. Across 6 studies, we primed motivational orientations that were either congruent or incongruent with participants' chronic orientations and then assessed their performance on subsequent tasks that required cognitive resources. Consistent with the primed interference hypothesis, we found that incongruity between temporary and chronic motivational orientations undermined participants' (a) inhibition of incorrect but highly accessible responses, (b) mental arithmetic, (c) analytical reasoning, and (d) resistance to temptation. These results--which were observed following the activation of motivations for promotion or prevention (Studies 1-2 and 5-6), high or low need for belonging (Study 3), and high or low power orientations (Study 4)--illustrate the broad implications of holding incongruent chronic and primed orientations.