IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jbrese/v170y2024ics0148296323007129.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Look for the signature: Using personal signatures as extrinsic cues promotes identity-congruent behavior

Author

Listed:
  • Kettle, Keri L.
  • Mantonakis, Antonia

Abstract

We investigate the novel premise that a personal signature – an individual’s own handwritten version of their name – can prime identities when used as an extrinsic cue. Evidence from seven studies, including two retail field experiments, shows that adding a personal signature as an extrinsic cue promotes identity-congruent behavior, and thus produces different effects on behavior depending on the consumer’s identity. For example, adding a personal signature to a product label leads to more favorable product evaluations among consumers with an associative identity, but less favorable evaluations among consumers with a dissociative identity. We pinpoint identity salience as the process underlying this phenomenon by showing that adding a personal signature as an extrinsic cue influences behavior in an identity-diagnostic context unrelated to the personal signature. We advance the consumer identity and extrinsic cues literatures, and we offer practical business implications.

Suggested Citation

  • Kettle, Keri L. & Mantonakis, Antonia, 2024. "Look for the signature: Using personal signatures as extrinsic cues promotes identity-congruent behavior," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 170(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:170:y:2024:i:c:s0148296323007129
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2023.114353
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296323007129
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jbusres.2023.114353?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:170:y:2024:i:c:s0148296323007129. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jbusres .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.