Relaxation increases monetary valuations

Michel Tuan Pham, Iris W. Hung, Gerald Gorn

Research output: Journal article publicationJournal articleAcademic researchpeer-review

36 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This research documents an intriguing empirical phenomenon whereby states of relaxation increase the monetary valuation of products. The authors demonstrate this phenomenon in six experiments involving two methods of inducing relaxation, a large number of products of different types, and various methods of assessing monetary valuation. In all six experiments, participants who were put into a relaxed affective state reported higher monetary valuations than participants who were put into an equally pleasant but less relaxed state. This effect seems to be caused by differences in relaxed and nonrelaxed people's mental construais of the value of the products. Specifically, compared with less relaxed people, relaxed people seem to represent the value of products at a higher level of abstraction, which increases their perceptions of these products' value. The phenomenon appears to reflect an inflation of value by relaxed people rather than a deflation of value by less relaxed people.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)814-826
Number of pages13
JournalJournal of Marketing Research
Volume48
Issue number5
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Oct 2011
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Construal levels
  • Emotions
  • Monetary valuations
  • Relaxation
  • Willingness to pay

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Business and International Management
  • Economics and Econometrics
  • Marketing

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Relaxation increases monetary valuations'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this