TY - JOUR
T1 - A triadic model of social motivations in pay-what-you-want decisions
AU - Lee, Saerom
AU - Baumgartner, Hans
AU - Pieters, Rik
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 the Association for Consumer Research. All rights reserved.
Copyright:
Copyright 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2020
Y1 - 2020
N2 - The authors propose a framework for understanding the interplay of the motivations driving consum-ers’ price decisions in pay-what-you-want (PWYW) contexts. A series of five studies demonstrate that consumers generally pay less than the suggested regular price because of economic self-interest, but they pay more than the minimum due to specific social motivations. In particular, social image signaling to other consumers and fairness toward the seller constrain narrow self-interest maximization. Furthermore, this research reveals how multiple motivations interact to influence consumers’ price decisions. Price decisions are impacted by social image signaling and the specific cues that the consumer receives from other consumers—when fairness concerns are not salient. Yet salient fairness universally raises the price paid and cannot readily be overridden by other social motivations. Taken together, this research provides new theoretical and managerial insights about price decisions in PWYW situations.
AB - The authors propose a framework for understanding the interplay of the motivations driving consum-ers’ price decisions in pay-what-you-want (PWYW) contexts. A series of five studies demonstrate that consumers generally pay less than the suggested regular price because of economic self-interest, but they pay more than the minimum due to specific social motivations. In particular, social image signaling to other consumers and fairness toward the seller constrain narrow self-interest maximization. Furthermore, this research reveals how multiple motivations interact to influence consumers’ price decisions. Price decisions are impacted by social image signaling and the specific cues that the consumer receives from other consumers—when fairness concerns are not salient. Yet salient fairness universally raises the price paid and cannot readily be overridden by other social motivations. Taken together, this research provides new theoretical and managerial insights about price decisions in PWYW situations.
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U2 - 10.1086/710243
DO - 10.1086/710243
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85098940202
JO - Journal of the Association for Consumer Research
JF - Journal of the Association for Consumer Research
SN - 2378-1815
ER -