THE RECALL AND USE OF NARRATIVES AS DECLARATIVE AND PROCEDURAL CONSUMER KNOWLEDGE
1CHINESE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG, HONG KONG
2HONG KONG BAPTIST UNIVERSITY, HONG KONG
Schank and Abelson (1995) once claimed that all meaningful social information is in the form of stories that people acquire through experience, construct themselves, or communicate to others. This change is undoubtedly overstated. Nevertheless, an overwhelming proportion of our knowledge is in the form of narratives that we use to comprehend new experiences, to predict the future and explain the past, and to decide how to attain a desired goal. The representations of narratives in memory have been alternatively described as scripts, goal schemas, procedures, episode models, autobiographical memories, and event prototypes. Whatever the name that has been assigned to them, their role in comprehension, judgment and decision-making is incontrovertible.
Narratives are central ingredients of consumer information processing. Many advertisements stimulate recipients to construct a story of themselves using a product and derive pleasure from doing so. Donation appeals encourage recipients to imagine the situation from the perspective of the persons in need of help. Narratives also come into play in the processes that individuals use in construing the implications of the information they receive and the criteria they bring to bear on the decisions they make. In short, the activation and use of narrative-based knowledge in consumer information processing is pervasive, and so an understanding of how it comes into play is of obvious importance.
In this chapter, we consider the construction and use of two types of narratives. One type provides declarative knowledge about events and social experiences and is used as an informational basis for judgments and decisions. The other describes a procedure that might be used in construing implications of this knowledge. In some cases, the same mental representation might perform both functions. However, the conditions in which the representation is activated, and how the representation is used, can differ.
In the following pages, we first review the general structure of narratives in memory. We then describe representative research that exemplifies the ways in which each type of narrative comes into play in consumer information processing.
General Considerations
Conceptualizations of mental representation (Carlston & Smith, 1996; Wyer, 2007) are inherently metaphorical and should be evaluated on the basis of their utility and not their correspondence to the physiology of the brain. A particularly useful conceptualization in conveying the phenomena to be discussed in this chapter was proposed by Wyer and Radvansky (1999; see also Wyer, Adaval, & Colcombe, 2002; Wyer, 2004). According to this conceptualization, a narrative representation in memory consists of two or more frames, each depicting a discrete event in a temporally ordered sequence. The event depicted in each frame is temporally and spatially constrained; that is, it occurs in a specifiable (although not necessarily specified) time and place. Each frame (referred to by Wyer and Radvansky as an event model) is represented both verbally and visually. Thus, it is analogous to a “picture plus caption,” and a sequence of frames (an episode model) is akin to a “comic strip.”
Wyer and Radvansky’s conceptualization is stimulated in part by research on the effects of visual imagery on the comprehension of verbal information (e.g., Black, Turner, & Bower, 1979; Garnham, 1981; Glenberg, Meyer, & Lindem, 1987), the construction of mental models (Johnson-Laird, 1983; Radvansky & Zacks, 1991), and the role of narrative representations of knowledge on inferences (Pennington & Hastie, 1988, 1992; Schank & Abelson, 1995). The details of this conceptualization are beyond the scope of this chapter. However, a summary of its implications can be captured in six postulates.
Postulate 1. Narrative representations typically have a visual component. The verbal description of a sequence of events can elicit visual images spontaneously in the course of comprehending it. However, visual depictions of an event sequence are not coded verbally unless this coding is necessary in order to attain a specific objective that exists at the time.
(Wyer et al., 2002)
Thus, the statements “John got up from his chair, walked to the refrigerator and got a bottle of beer” may spontaneously elicit a vivid image of the sequence of acts described (Wyer & Radvansky, 1999). However, an observation of the sequence can be understood without transforming the events into semantic symbols.
Postulate 2. A narrative representation typically contains only the details that are necessary to comprehend the events to which it refers.
Thus, an image does not have all of the features that would be contained in a picture. On the other hand, the representation of an event that is formed from a verbal description could contain unmentioned features that are necessary to construct an image of it. Thus, the image formed from “the man entered a Chinese restaurant, ordered chicken fried rice, paid $15.95, and left” is unlikely to convey the man’s hair color. However, it might contain a representation of the man eating although this event was not mentioned. These added features, which are necessary in order to construct a narrative representation of the sequence of events as a whole, are likely to be recalled if the recipient is asked to reconstruct the sequence later on.
Postulate 3. Verbal information does not elicit an image spontaneously unless it is situationally and temporally constrained.
For example, the event described by “the lawyer bought a bicycle” necessarily occurred at a particular time and place and consequently might elicit a visual image. However, “the lawyer owns a bicycle” is not specific to a time and place and would not elicit an image spontaneously (Radvansky, Wyer, Curiel, & Lutz, 1997). That said, the construction of an image is not necessary to comprehend verbal information. In fact, individual differences exist in the spontaneous formation of visual images (Childers, Houston, & Heckler, 1985) and in the vividness with which they are constructed (Pham, Meyvis, & Zhou, 2000).
Postulate 4. The number of narratives that are formed from a given amount of information and the number of events that compose each narrative depend on their situational relatedness.
For example, “the lawyer bought a bicycle” and “the doctor bought a bicycle” may be integrated into a single representation as both could occur in the same physical location. However, “the lawyer bought a bicycle” and “the lawyer bought toothpaste,” which typically occur in different locations, would be represented separately (Radvansky et al., 1997; see also Wyer & Bodenhausen, 1985).
Postulate 5. Narrative representations can exist at different levels of abstractness.
One’s visit to a restaurant, for example, could be described in terms of the specific events that occurred during the visit or in terms of prototypic events that characterize restaurant visits in general. These representations can exist independently (Adaval & Wyer, 2004).
Postulate 6. When a narrative representation is formed from information about several different events, the comprehension of a given event and the visual image that is formed of it may depend on its consistency with the representations that are formed of other events in the sequence.
As our review will indicate, some of these postulates are more applicable to current research on consumer information processing than others. However, a consideration of consumer-related phenomena with reference to these postulates might open up new areas of research and theorizing that have not yet been explored.
Prototypes and Exemplars
Postulate 5 requires some elaboration. A person who ate dinner at Biaggi’s last Friday evening could retain a detailed representation of the events that occurred or, alternatively, could simply retain a prototypic representation of the general events that occurred (looking at the menu, ordering, eating, and paying). The question is, which is the case? Colcombe and Wyer (2002) found that when individuals imagine a sequence of events that occurs to an unknown person or to people in general, they typically comprehend it in terms of a prototype. When they imagine themselves or a close friend having the same experience, however, they comprehend it in terms of a similar experience they have had in the past. Thus, they might interpret an unknown person’s visit to McDonald’s in terms of a general “fast food restaurant” prototype, but are likely to interpret a close friend’s visit in terms of a recent experience they personally had at the restaurant.
The Effects of Narrative Construction on Memory
When information about a situation is conveyed visually, people whose only objective is to comprehend the situation are unlikely to encode it verbally (see Postulate 1). If they later have occasion to use the information, however, presumably they retrieve the representation they have formed and recode it in terms that are relevant to the goal they have at hand. Then, they might store this new representation in memory and later recall and use it as a basis for judgments and decisions without referring to the representation they had formed earlier.
This phenomenon is well documented when the information presented is verbal (Carlston, 1980; Higgins & Rholes, 1978; Srull & Wyer, 1980). However, similar effects are particularly apparent when information is conveyed visually. Participants in a study by Adaval and Wyer (2004) watched a 10-minute segment of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, describing a couple’s conversation and overt behavior after coming home from a party. Then, some participants wrote a description of what went on whereas others described their impressions of the protagonists. Finally, both these participants and control participants were given a recognition memory test of both audio clips of things the protagonists said and video frames of their nonverbal behavior.
All participants presumably formed a detailed representation of the movie at the time they viewed it. However, participants who described what went on apparently constructed an additional, abstract representation of both things the actors said and things they did and based their later recognition responses on this representation rather than on the one they had formed at the outset. Consequently, they were less accurate than control participants in recognizing both verbal statements and nonverbal behaviors. In contrast, participants who wrote about their impressions of the protagonists constructed a representation of what the protagonists said that did not include their nonverbal behaviors, which were largely irrelevant to these impressions. Consequently, their later recognition of protagonists’ verbal statements, which was based on this abstract representation, was inaccurate. However, their recognition of nonverbal behaviors, which had to be verified on the basis of the original representation they had formed, was as accurate as that of control participants.
These findings could have implications for the effects of product placement in advertising. If individuals watch a television program without any specific objective in mind, they may retain nonverbal features of the program and the protagonists’ incidental behaviors (e.g., using the advertised product) might be retained in the representation they form. However, if people watch it for the purpose of communicating about it to others, they are likely to form an abstract representation of the protagonists’ statements and behavior that does not include these incidental features and so product placements might have relatively little effect.
We now turn more specifically to the role of narrative representations in consumer behavior. Different considerations arise in conceptualizing the use of these representations as declarative knowledge and their use as knowledge about procedures for attaining cognitive and behavioral objectives. We consider each possibility.
The Role of Narratives as Declarative Knowledge
The assumption that narrative representations of information have both visual and verbal features calls attention to their interdependent effects on comprehension and judgment. Bransford and Johnson (1972) graphically demonstrated this interdependence. They found that a sequence of verbally described events that appeared to have no meaning was comprehended easily when accompanied by a picture that portrayed the relations among their elements.
These considerations come into play in two general conditions of relevance to consumer judgment. The first concerns the role of pictures in the processing of verbal information. The second concerns the effects of visual imagery on responses to this information.
The Role of Pictures in the Construction and Comprehension of Narratives
The use of pictures in advertising can facilitate the construction of a representation of the product being advertised. In addition, pictures can elicit positive affect that is attributed to the product, affecting its evaluation for reasons suggested by Schwarz and Clore (1983, 1996). That said, the effects of adding a picture to the verbal description of a product are surprisingly unclear (Costley & Brucks, 1992; Edell & Staelin, 1983; Miniard et al., 1991). Unnava and Burnkrant (1991), for example, found that pictures only had an impact on the recall of verbal product descriptions when the verbal information alone was unlikely to elicit a visual image of the product.
Pictures may only facilitate comprehension and judgment when they can be easily integrated into a narrative representation of the sequence of events being portrayed. When the information describes a number of ostensibly unrelated events, participants may construe the implications of each event separately, as implied by Postulate 4. However, the representation of these events may not always contain visual images (see Postulates 1 and 3). In this case, pictures may interfere with the piecemeal integration of these implications and decrease the information’s effectiveness. Adaval and her colleagues confirmed this possibility. In one study (Adaval & Wyer, 1998), participants received information about a vacation package containing verbal descriptions of the events that would occur. The descriptions were accompanied by pictures in some conditions but not in others. When the events were conveyed in the form of a narrative that indicated the sequence in which they would occur during the vacation trip, presenting pictures of the events increased evaluations of the vacation package. When the events were described in a list without providing an indication of their temporal relatedness, pictures decreased the information’s impact.
Other findings are also noteworthy. For example, a few of the events described on the vacation trip were mildly unfavorable (e.g., uncomfortable traveling, poor food, and accommodation, etc.). When these events were conveyed in a list, they had a negative impact on participants’ reactions to the vacation. When they were conveyed in a narrative, however, their impact was much less.
Similar effects occur when the narrative that recipients form pertains to others rather than to themselves. Participants in a second series of studies (Adaval, Isbell, & Wyer, 2007) received information about the activities of a political candidate over the course of his career. In some cases, the information was favorable and in other cases, it was predominantly unfavorable. When the events were conveyed in a temporally ordered narrative, accompanying them by pictures increased the extremity of participants’ evaluations of the candidate. When the events were described in a list, however, presenting pictures decreased the extremity of their evaluations.
Further considerations arise when pictures and verbal information must be combined. When the implications of a verbal message are clear, they can guide the processing of a picture that accompanies it (Edell & Staelin, 1983). Often, however, the implications of a verbal statement are more ambiguous and more difficult to identify than those of a picture (Edell & Staelin, 1983). In this case, recipients who receive both a picture and a verbal statement are likely to interpret the statement in a way that is consistent with implications of the picture that accompanies it. When all of the information is conveyed in pictures, however, its implications are less susceptible to differences in interpretation. Consequently, inconsistencies in these implications are more apparent.
Implications of this difference were identified in a study of the effectiveness of problem-solving ads (Hung & Wyer, 2008). The ads referred to (a) the problem, (b) a problem that would allegedly solve the problem, and (c) the nature of the solution. The problem and solution could be conveyed either visually or verbally. In an ad for the prevention of hair loss, for example, the problem was conveyed either by the statement, “hair loss is a problem for men” or a picture of a partially bald man, whereas the solution was conveyed by the statement, “hair loss is significantly reduced” or a picture of a man with a full head of hair. Recipients of the ad were expected to construe its implications with reference to a prototypic narrative of the effectiveness of the product being advertised.
When one component of the ad was pictured and the other was verbal, participants could interpret the more ambiguous verbal component in a way that was consistent with the picture, as Postulate 6 suggests. Consequently, they considered the ad to be plausible and evaluated the product favorably. When both components were pictured, however, participants could easily construe the literal implications of the ad. At the same time, they were more sensitive to the inconsistency of these implications to those of a previously formed narrative of the typical effects of the product and its implications. Consequently, they judged the ad’s claims to be exaggerated. Consequently, they evaluated the product less favorably than they did when one component of the ad was described verbally.
Narrative representations can often be stimulated by single pictures. A series of studies by Cian, Krishna, and Elder (2014) showed that logos that conveyed movement (e.g., an unbalanced seesaw) stimulated a disposition to move toward the brand and increased the favorableness of attitudes toward it. In a quite different paradigm (Sengupta & Gorn, 2002) participants viewed pictures of scenes that were strongly associated with a previously formed narrative in which the product was used (e.g., a Western scene showing the “Marlboro Man”). When a central feature of a scene was missing, participants filled it in on the basis of their priori knowledge of the narrative and this cognitive effort increased their memory for the brand being advertised (see Postulate 2).
The construction of images can influence behavioral intentions by facilitating motor simulation. Elder and Krishna (2012) showed that participants were more willing to purchase a product (e.g., a cup) when the picture of it was positioned in a manner that was consistent with participants’ use of the product by their dominant hand. Moreover, their liking for the product, which did not involve this mental simulation, was unaffected.
Image-Based Narratives Formed from Verbal Information
If people spontaneously form visual images of a situation that is described verbally, their processing of this information is likely to be similar in many respects to their processing of information conveyed in pictures. As noted earlier, however, not all individuals spontaneously form images on the basis of verbal information (Childers et al., 1985; Jiang & Wyer, 2009). Rather, they may integrate its semantic implications without constructing a narrative-based representation at all.
The influence of visual imagery in comprehension and memory has nevertheless been demonstrated in many studies (for a review, see Paivio 1969). To give but two examples, Bransford and Johnson (1972) found that single words (e.g., “parachute”) could cue visual images of the event described by apparently anomalous sentences (e.g., “The haystack was important because the cloth would rip”), facilitating their recall. Participants in a quite different study (Glenberg et al., 1987) read a story about a person, John. The story began with either the statement “John took off his sweatshirt and went jogging …” or the statement “John put on his sweatshirt and went jogging …” but otherwise was the same in all conditions. Participants were later given a recognition memory test for features of the story. Although the sweatshirt was never again mentioned after the first sentence of the story, participants in the second condition apparently formed a visual representation of John wearing the sweatshirt that persisted throughout the narrative. Consequently, they identified it more quickly in this condition than in the first.
The Effects of Perspective. Events can be described from different perspectives. When the integration of the events into a coherent narrative requires a shift in perspective this can increase the difficulty of comprehending them. This is true regardless of the modality in which the events are described. Black and colleagues (1979), for example, found that participants took less time to comprehend the statements, “Mary was reading in her room. John came in to talk to her” than the statements “Mary was reading in her room. John went in to talk to her.” This is presumably because individuals in reading the first statement formed a visual image of Mary from the perspective of someone in the room, and when an image of the event described in the second statement required a shift in perspective (to someone outside the room), more time was required to comprehend and integrate its implications into a representation of the situation as a whole.
Similar considerations arise in comprehending pictures. Participants in a study by Jiang, Adaval, Steinhart, and Wyer (2014) received an advertisement for a hotel consisting of four pictures. In some cases, the pictures described situations that could be imagined from a single perspective (either inside the hotel or outside) and in other cases, they elicited images from different perspectives. Participants who imagined the experience they would have if they visited the hotel evaluated the hotel less favorably in the second case than in the first. When participants’ goal was to acquire information about the hotel, however, they did not attempt to form a narrative-based representation. In this case, they perceived the pictures from different perspectives to be more informative and evaluated the hotel more favorably in this condition.
Effects of Vividness. The possibility that image-based representations of information have more impact than abstract, consensus information was suggested by Nisbett and Ross (1980). For example, a woman who is contemplating the purchase of a particular brand of dishwasher may be more influenced by her neighbor’s vivid account of her personal troubles with the brand than by information from Consumer Reports indicating that the brand is the most trouble-free of any on the market.
The effects of visual images that are formed in the course of comprehending information may depend on their vividness (Pham et al., 2000). Even when the features of an image are not relevant to judgments, their vividness can influence the accessibility of the narratives in which they are contained. Participants in a study by Reyes, Thompson and Bower (1980) read courtroom testimony about a drunk driving case in which the prosecution and defense testimony was described in either vivid, imageable terms (“bumped into a table and spilled guacamole dip on a white shag rug,” “jumped out of the way of a speeding shiny red Volkswagen”) or pallid terms (“bumped into a table and spilled a dish of food,” “jumped out of the way of a speeding car”). Participants who judged the defendant’s guilt immediately after reading the testimony were not influenced by the vividness of the information presented. When participants made a judgment after a delay of several days, however, they typically decided in favor of the side whose testimony had been described in more vivid terms. Thus, although the vividness of the features had nothing to do with its validity, it led events in the narrative of the situation they considered to be recalled more easily, increasing its influence as time went on.
The vividness of images can depend on situational factors. For example, people who are physically close to a verbal message are likely to form more vivid images of unmentioned implications it might have and, as a result, they believe that these implications are more likely to be true than would otherwise be the case (Huang, Jia, & Wyer, 2016). The vividness of representations that are formed from verbal information can also depend on the perspective from which they are constructed. Jiang and Wyer (2009) found that individuals with either a chronic or situationally induced disposition to form visual images when comprehending information reported more extreme emotional reactions to events when they were described from the perspective of someone at the location where the event occurred (e.g., “the terrorist came into the restaurant and shot three customers”) than when they were described from the perspective of someone at a different location (“the terrorist went into the restaurant …”).
Effects of Transportation. When information describes a situation that involves other persons, individuals can imagine the situation from either the perspective of themselves as observers or that of the persons involved in the situation itself. Green and Brock (2000, 2002; see also Escalas, 2004, 2007; Gerrig, 1994) found that when individuals who become “transported” into a narrative involving others and imagine themselves in the situation confronting the protagonists, they dissociate themselves from personal beliefs and opinions that might otherwise influence their reactions. Thus, transportation exerts an influence by reducing negative cognitive responses while increasing the strength of affective reactions (Green & Brock, 2000). Thus, individuals who become transported into a television commercial that conveys people enjoying their use of a product are less critical of the product’s features and consequently are more persuaded by it than they otherwise would be (Escalas, 2004; Escalas & Luce, 2004).
An ironic implication of these effects was identified by Wang and Calder (2006). They investigated the effect of being transported into the story being conveyed in a television program on reactions to the commercials that accompanied the story. When the commercials occurred at the end of the program, being transported into the story increased their effectiveness. When the commercials were presented in the middle of the program, however, they interrupted the narrative that viewers were constructing. In this case, being transported into the narrative decreased the commercials’ effectiveness.
Effects of Self-Referencing. The disposition to become transported into a narrative can often be induced by self-referencing (Escalas, 2007), that is, by encouraging recipients explicitly to imagine themselves in the situation portrayed and by describing the situation using personal pronouns (e.g., “Imagine that you are one of the victims …”). In some conditions, however, this strategy can backfire. Appeals for donations, for example, often encourage recipients to take the perspective of the persons in need of help and to imagine themselves experiencing the victims’ misfortune. If recipients are disposed to think of themselves as a potential donor at the time they read such an appeal, however, this perspective can conflict with the perspective from which the appeal is written. Then, the effectiveness of the appeal can decrease relative to conditions in which participants do not consider making a donation until after the appeal is read (Hung & Wyer, 2009).
Effects of Intrusions in Narrative Construction
As Postulate 2 implies, features that are not specified in the verbal descriptions of a sequence of events are likely to be added to the representation of the events when the features are necessary to form a visual image of them. If the representation is later retrieved and used as a basis for judgment, these features may be “recalled” as actually having been mentioned and may influence the judgments that are made.
This can even occur when the information is conveyed visually. In a study by Loftus and Palmer (1974), participants viewed a picture of an automobile accident, after which they were asked to estimate either how fast the car was going when it “hit the tree” or how fast it was going when it “smashed into the tree.” Later, participants recalled features of the picture they had seen. They were more likely to report seeing broken glass at the scene of the accident in the second case than in the first. Apparently, participants in answering the questions reconstructed the visual image they had initially formed in a way that conveyed more severe damage in the second case and this representation, rather than the original picture, was used as a basis for their memory.
This phenomenon has implications for the effects of deceptive advertising (Johar, 1995). For example, consumers who encounter an ad that asserts, “Product X tastes better” may infer that the statement implies that X tastes better than other products on the market. They may later recall that this had actually been stated, whereas the statement might simply mean that X tastes better than it used to taste.
Loftus and Palmer’s (1974) finding may exemplify a more general disposition to infer that the implications of a previously constructed narrative are true regardless of the conditions that gave rise to its construction. The “simulation heuristic” proposed by Tversky and Kahneman (1974) indicates that individuals who find it easy to construct a narrative representation of a hypothetical situation are more likely to believe that its implications are valid. Thus, Ross, Lepper, Strack, and Steinmetz (1977) asked individuals to read a clinical case study and then to explain why the patient after leaving therapy either committed suicide or donated a substantial amount of money to the Peace Corps. They were assured that neither the experimenter nor anyone else knew anything about the patient’s future life. Nevertheless, having constructed a narrative description of the events leading up to the outcome they had arbitrarily been asked to explain, participants predicted that this outcome was more likely to have occurred than outcomes they had not explained.
The Role of Other Sensory Components
Postulate 1 states that narrative representations typically have a visual component. Other sensory components, however, could also compose narrative representations. For example, suppose people form a mental representation of “John is sunbathing on a Miami beach. He lies down on the sand and enjoys the warm sunshine. He gulps a can of iced beer and then belches loudly.” In addition to a visual image, this story might elicit feelings of warmth, the taste of beer, and the sound of the belch.
When an ad causes attention to multiple sensory modalities, it could generate the implications of the ad that bear on those sensory modalities. For example, Elder and Krishna (2010) demonstrated that compared to an ad slogan for food that only focuses on taste, a multi-sensory slogan can elicit reactions in multiple sense modalities and therefore can lead to more extreme evaluations.
The Mental Representation of Procedural Knowledge
A very large proportion of the narrative-based knowledge we acquire and store in memory concerns how to do things. Virtually all behavior is goal-directed, although we are not always aware of all of the goals to which it may be relevant (Chartrand & Bargh, 2002; Custers & Aarts, 2005, 2010). Moreover, some behavior may be conditioned responses to a configuration of external and internal stimuli that happen to be accessible in memory at the time and may occur without awareness of the particular actions that are performed. For example, we are typically aware of walking or talking but might not be conscious of how fast we are doing so. Similarly, we might express an opinion with little consciousness of how we construct the statements we use in order to attain this objective. (In fact, we might be unable to reconstruct what we said verbatim even a short time after our utterance.) Likewise, we intentionally make a cup of tea but might not be conscious of the motor behavior we perform at each step in the sequence required to attain this objective.
Several conceptualizations of the antecedents and consequences of automatic behavior have been proposed (Dijksterhuis & Bargh, 2001; Strack & Deutsch, 2004; Wood & Neal, 2007; Wyer, Xu, & Shen, 2012). Wyer et al. (2012), for example, conceptualized the processes that underlie the elicitation of automatic behavior in terms of a production of the form “if [X], then [Y]” where [X] is a configuration of stimuli and [Y] is a sequence of cognitive or motor actions that are elicited automatically when [X] is experienced. A detailed discussion of this and other conceptualizations is beyond the scope of this chapter, however. Here, we focus on procedures that are deliberatively recalled and used in attaining a goal to which they are relevant. These procedures have the form of narratives similar to those discussed in the previous section.
The use of narratives as procedural knowledge cannot be discussed independently of their use as declarative knowledge. Many of the examples described in the previous section, concerning the effects of differences in the perspective from which these representations are formed, the role of visual imagery, and individual differences in the construction of images, all involve the use of different procedures in comprehending information and making inferences on the basis of it. However, a general conceptualization of how narrative representations of procedures are used is worth providing.
The Representation of Procedures in Memory
Our conceptualization of a procedure is similar to that proposed by Kruglanski et al. (2002). Like the narratives that compose declarative knowledge, procedures presumably consist of a series of frames, the terminal frame of which specifies a goal and the others of which denote the steps that lead to its attainment. Thus, the representation of “getting up in the morning” could consist of frames that refer to getting out of bed, brushing the teeth, getting dressed, making tea, and so on. Note that these frames do not denote actions per se. Rather, they denote subgoals that must be attained in order to attain the superordinate one. Thus, they describe procedures at a more specific level. “Making tea,” for example, a subgoal in the procedure for getting up in the morning, may be represented by frames that pertain to boiling water, putting a teabag in the cup, adding sugar, and so on. In effect, these frames also describe subgoals that are associated with procedures at a still more specific level. The pursuit of these subgoals typically involves conscious decisions to perform the steps that are necessary to their attainment. At the highest level of specificity, however, they may be part of the stimulus configuration [X] that activates a production of the sort noted earlier, eliciting behavior that is performed automatically.
The network of cognitive procedures that are activated in the course of pursuing a goal can be complex. This complexity is reflected in three factors noted by Kruglanski et al. (2002). First, procedures, like other narratives, can exist at different levels of generality. Thus, the actions involved in a specific situation (deciding which of two animals is larger, or deciding which of two products to buy) both exemplify a more general concept of “making a comparative judgment” and may be related through their common association with this concept.
Second, procedures can be relevant to the attainment of more than one goal. Counterarguing, for example, could be part of both a procedure for refuting a colleague’s opinion and a procedure for evaluating the implications of an advertisement. Finally, several procedures can often be used to attain the same goal. For example, deciding which product to purchase might be attained by comparing the products along common dimensions and choosing the one that is superior along the greater number of dimensions. However, it could also be attained by forming an impression of each product separately and comparing these overall impressions.
In combination, these factors have implications for the effect of goal-directed actions in one situation on the strategy that is used to attain quite different objectives in an unrelated situation. We first review representative studies that exemplify this phenomenon and then turn more generally to the role of narrative-based procedures in consumer and social behavior.
Effects of Behavioral Mindsets
The effect of goal-directed behavior in one situation on the strategies used to attain unrelated goals in a different situation may be governed by a behavioral mindset (Wyer & Xu, 2010). The term “mindset” is overused in the literature. Its use in the present context is restricted to conditions in which a behavior-related concept that is activated in one situation is applicable to behavior that can be used to attain a different goal in a later situation. As Postulate 5 suggests, procedures (like other narratives) exist in memory at different levels of abstractness. Thus, invoking a narrative-based procedure in one situation is likely to activate more general behavior-related concepts of the actions that compose it. These concepts, once accessible in memory, can then increase the likelihood that a procedure that exemplifies them is used in a later situation instead of alternative procedures that might be equally viable. Although these effects have been reviewed in detail elsewhere (Wyer et al., 2012; Wyer, Shen, & Xu, 2013), some examples may be worth summarizing here.
Shopping Momentum. A phenomenon of particular relevance to consumer behavior is the “shopping momentum” effect identified by Dhar, Huber, and Khan (2007). Participants at the start of an experiment were given an opportunity to purchase a pen for either a low price (in which case they typically accepted the offer) or a high price (in which case they typically rejected it). Later, they were given a chance to buy a keychain. Participants were more likely to purchase the keychain if they had bought the pen earlier than if they had refused.
The implications of this finding for marketing strategy are obvious. In many American supermarkets, fruits and vegetables are the first products that consumers encounter. Because most grocery shoppers purchase vegetables, the use of this marketing strategy may increase their likelihood of buying more expensive products they encounter later.
Comparative Judgments. Xu and Wyer (2007, 2008) found that stating a preference for one of two products in one situation activated a “which to choose” mindset that influenced their willingness to purchase one of two different products in a later situation without considering the option of buying nothing at all. Deciding which of two products to reject in an earlier situation can have the same effect. Still other studies showed that the mindset can be induced by comparing the physical attributes of animals (“e.g., which is larger, an elephant or a bear?”) and that the mindset can influence not only purchase intentions in a hypothetical situation but also the likelihood of purchasing one of several snacks that are on sale after the experiment.
Variety Seeking. In a study by Shen and Wyer (2010), participants were first asked questions about four animals (a dog, a tiger, a chicken, and a pig). In one case, the answer to each question differed (e.g., “which is the largest?,” “which is the most loyal?,” etc.) and in a second case, it was always the same (“which is the largest?,” “which is the most ferocious?,” etc.). Then, as part of an unrelated task, participants chose which of four types of tea they would like to drink over a four-day period. Participants chose a greater variety of tea in the first case than in the second.
Bolstering, Counterarguing and Counterfactual Thinking. Participants in a study by Xu and Wyer (2012) first listed their thoughts about a series of propositions with which they either agreed (i.e., “reading is good for the mind”) or disagreed (“reading is bad for the mind”). This activity presumably induced a “bolstering” mindset or a “counterarguing” mindset, respectively, that influenced participants’ responses to an advertisement they encountered later. Similarly, hearing a video-taped speech by a political candidate they either favored or opposed affected participants’ reactions to an ad for Toyota they encountered in a different context.
A somewhat related mindset was identified by Hirt, Kardes, and Markman (2004). They found that disposing individuals to think about alternative possibilities concerning which TV program would win an award induced a “counterfactual thinking” mindset that decreased the strength of their belief that their favored team would win the NBA playoffs. A similar mindset increased participants’ sensitivity to the disadvantages of pursuing an attractive goal (Kray & Galinsky, 2003).
Global and Local Processing. Individuals can respond to a complex stimulus either by analyzing its individual details or responding to it “globally” without focusing on the specific features that compose it. These responses can activate a “global” or “local” mindset that influences processing in other situations as well. Förster and Dannenberg (2010) summarize numerous examples. In this research, individuals are exposed to a set of stimuli each consisting of a large figure made up of small figures of a different type (e.g., a large “H” composed of smaller “T”s, or a square formed of an array of triangles) and are asked a series of trials to identify either the large figure or the small one. Individuals who have responded to the whole, relative to those who have focused on stimulus components, make longer estimates of psychological (e.g., geographical or temporal) distance between themselves and other stimuli (Liberman & Förster, 2009), and generate relatively more similarities than differences between television shows (Förster, 2009).
Acquisition. Mindsets can be activated by internally generated thoughts and dispositions as well as external demands. Xu, Schwarz, and Wyer (2015) found that when individuals were hungry at the time of the experiment, their desire to obtain food activated an “acquisition” mindset that influenced their desire to acquire nonfood products as well as food items. Moreover, although satiating hungry participants by giving them a taste test decreased their evaluation of food, their desire to acquire nonfood objects persisted (Xu, 2010).
Indirect Mindset Activation
In the studies described so far, mindsets were activated by inducing behavior in one situation that was directly related to the behavioral strategies that individuals decided to employ in a later situation. However, mindsets can also be induced by experiences that do not directly involve the behavior, but rather, activate concepts to which the behavior is related.
Dispositional and Implemental Mindsets. Well-known examples of these indirect effects are provided by Gollwitzer and his colleagues (Gollwitzer & Bayer, 1999; Gollwitzer, Heckhausen, & Steller, 1990). Goal-directed activity often requires an initial decision of whether to pursue the goal and then, after the decision is made, a concern with how to attain it. Decision processes at the first stage may activate a “deliberative” mindset that involves a comparison of a broad range of alternatives along with uncertainty about which alternative is best. Processing at the second stage, however, activates an “implemental” mindset that requires a focus on a single goal and the procedure for attaining it. Consistent with this difference, individuals who have considered whether they would pursue a given objective in one situation report greater uncertainty about the judgments they make in a later situation than individuals who have considered how to attain their objective in the first task (Henderson, de Liver, & Gollwitzer, 2008).
Prevention and Promotion Focus. Studies of the impact of regulatory focus (Higgins, 1997, 1998) have identified differences in the disposition to focus on the positive consequences of a behavioral decision or, alternatively, the avoidance of negative consequences. The effects of these dispositions may be independent of the circumstances that give rise to them. For example, individuals are more likely to be promotion focused when they think about themselves alone than when they think of themselves as members of a group (Aaker & Lee, 2001; Briley & Wyer, 2002). These orientations can give rise to a promotion or prevention mindset, respectively, that influences decisions in unrelated situations. Briley and Wyer (2002) found that leading individuals to believe they were performing an initial task as members of a group rather than individually were more likely to make decisions in an unrelated situation that minimized the likelihood of receiving a negative outcome. Moreover, it increased their likelihood of choosing candies of different types as a reward for participating (thus minimizing the risk of making an “incorrect” choice).
Cultural Syndromes and Relational Thinking. The effects observed by Briley and Wyer (2002) may reflect more general dispositions to think of oneself as an individual or as part of a collective. This has further implications. Markus and Kitayama (1991) found that members of Western cultures are disposed to think of themselves as individuals whereas Asian cultural representatives are inclined to think of themselves as part of a collective. In addition to inducing a promotion or prevention focus, these dispositions could lead people to think about persons and objects either independently or in relation to one another. This disposition could also be either chronic (Nisbett, 2003; Nisbett, Peng, Choi, & Norenzayan, 2001) or situationally induced.
In this regard, Oyserman and Sorensen (2009) postulated the existence of individualistic and relational (collectivist) mindsets that can be activated by performing a task that involves the use of either first person singular pronouns (I, my, etc.) or first person plural pronouns (we, our, etc.). These mindsets, once activated, can increase a person’s sensitivity to the relative positions of physical objects in an array and memory for these positions later (Kühnen & Oyserman, 2002).
General Effects of Narrative-Based Procedures
The preceding studies provide only a few examples of the effect of activating procedures, either directly or indirectly, on behavior in other, unrelated situations. However, numerous other factors can give rise to the procedure that individuals employ in making a decision or pursuing a goal. Certain of these factors are worth noting.
Comparative versus Absolute Judgment Processes
Individuals who compare products could use two different strategies. On one hand, they might compute an evaluation of each product separately and then compare these overall evaluations. If the products are described along similar dimensions, however, they might determine the number of dimensions on which one alternative is superior to the other and base their decision on this criterion. The effects of these different processes have been investigated in studies of decoy effects (Huber, Payne, & Puto, 1982; Simonson, 1989). That is, if a direct comparison of one alternative to the other is nondiagnostic, but if one product alternative is superior to a third alternative and the other is not, participants may use this criterion as a sufficient basis for their choice (Simonson, 1989; Shafir, Simonson, & Tversky, 1993). However, if participants have already evaluated each alternative separately, they may base their judgments on this criterion instead (Park & Kim, 2005).
Other strategies also come into play when making comparative judgments. For example, when choice alternatives are similar along a dimension, people tend to ignore this dimension and base their judgments on a comparison of the attributes that remain (Brunner & Wänke, 2006; Dhar & Sherman, 1996; Wang & Wyer, 2002). However, the “canceled” attribute is also ignored when evaluating each alternative individually. Thus, for example, if two products have unique positive features but common negative features, the latter features are ignored and so both the preferred and the rejected alternative are later evaluated more favorably than they would be if the comparative judgment had not been made.
The Influence of Affect on Procedure Selection
People are typically unmotivated to use procedures that are more effortful than necessary. This tendency has implications for the impact of affect on procedural selection. Schwarz, Bless and Bohner (1991) find that people who feel happy base judgments on a superficial processing of the information available whereas unhappy people are more analytical. A qualification on this conclusion was identified by Martin, Ward, Achee, and Wyer (1993). They found that feeling happy decreased participants’ disposition to engage in extensive processing when they had the goal of making a good decision but increased this disposition when their goal was simply to enjoy themselves.
This has implications for individuals’ shopping behavior. Chen, Wyer, and Shen (2015) found that happy Internet shoppers searched for fewer alternative products than sad participants did when they had a purchase objective but searched for more alternatives than sad participants when their goal was to enjoy themselves. Moreover, male participants, who typically shop for a specific purpose, spent less time searching for options when they were happy, whereas females, who are more likely to shop for enjoyment, spent more time searching in this condition.
Self-Focused Attention
The procedure that participants employ when making product evaluations can also be influenced by the extent to which their attention is focused on the product being evaluated or on themselves. Participants may often evaluate a product by retrieving specific features of the product and computing a judgment on the basis of these features. When they are thinking about themselves, however, they may imagine how they might feel if they used the product and base their judgments on these feelings. A study by Hung and Wyer (2011) identified this difference. Participants evaluated a series of products that were typically used in either social situations (popcorn, beer) or relaxing, nonsocial ones (e.g., tea). This was done while they listened to incidental background music that was associated with either social or nonsocial situations. In control conditions, participants based their judgments on the products’ features and the music had little effect. In some cases, however, participants’ attention was drawn to themselves by placing them in front of a mirror. In this case, participants imagined themselves using the products in the situation activated by the music. Consequently, they evaluated social products more favorably when social music was playing, and nonsocial products more favorably when nonsocial music was playing, than they did otherwise.
Another effect of self-focused attention on the procedure used to make evaluations was identified by Hung and Wyer (2014). Hong-Kong Chinese participants received an appeal for donations to help victims of child trafficking. The appeal was accompanied by a picture of either an Asian child or an African one. Control participants apparently based their decisions on the victims’ need for help. However, drawing their attention to themselves led them to compare themselves to the victims. Consequently, it increased their help to Asian (in-group) children but decreased their help to African (out-group) children. A second study indicated that self-focused attention had analogous effects on consumers’ willingness to purchase a tennis racquet when an ad showed it being used by someone who was similar to them in sex or social status.
Concluding Remarks
As Schank and Abelson (1995) pointed out, the construction and use of narratives are central to the comprehension and communication of information. The research reviewed in this chapter exemplifies this centrality, conveying the use of narrative representations in memory not only as declarative knowledge about stimuli but also as procedures for arriving at judgments and decisions concerning these stimuli. Although the variety of phenomena that exemplify the role of narratives in information processing is extensive, the impact of these narratives is likely to be even more pervasive than our discussion implies. This is likely to become even clearer as consumer research and theory continues to develop.
Acknowledgment
The preparation of this article and much of the research cited was supported by GSF 452813 from the Research Grants Council, Hong Kong.
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