IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/jconrs/v34y2008i6p754-766.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Of Chameleons and Consumption: The Impact of Mimicry on Choice and Preferences

Author

Listed:
  • Robin J. Tanner
  • Rosellina Ferraro
  • Tanya L. Chartrand
  • James R. Bettman
  • Rick Van Baaren

Abstract

This article investigates the effect of mimicry on consumer product consumption and appraisal. We propose and test two paths via which mimicry may influence product preferences. In the mimicking consumer path, we suggest that individuals automatically mimic the consumption behaviors of other people and that such mimicry then affects preferences toward the product(s) consumed. In the mimicked consumer path, we argue that being mimicked leads to increased prosociality, which affects preferences for products presented in dyadic interactions. Three studies confirm the two paths and suggest that mimicry can indeed influence product preferences. (c) 2007 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc..

Suggested Citation

  • Robin J. Tanner & Rosellina Ferraro & Tanya L. Chartrand & James R. Bettman & Rick Van Baaren, 2008. "Of Chameleons and Consumption: The Impact of Mimicry on Choice and Preferences," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 34(6), pages 754-766, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:jconrs:v:34:y:2008:i:6:p:754-766
    DOI: 10.1086/522322
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/522322
    File Function: link to full text
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1086/522322?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.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Richerson, Rob & Mead, James A. & Li, Wenjing, 2020. "Evolutionary motives and food behavior modeling in romantic relationships," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 509-519.
    2. Nuttall, Peter & Arnold, Sally & Carless, Luke & Crockford, Lily & Finnamore, Katie & Frazier, Richard & Hill, Alicia, 2011. "Understanding music consumption through a tribal lens," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 152-159.
    3. Landsman, Vardit & Nitzan, Irit, 2020. "Cross-decision social effects in product adoption and defection decisions," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 213-235.
    4. Samson, Alain & Voyer, Benjamin G., 2012. "Two minds, three ways: dual system and dual process models in consumer psychology," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 47252, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    5. Khandeparkar, Kapil & Motiani, Manoj & Sharma, Amalesh, 2021. "Thank you for not smoking – A multi-method investigation to understand the effect of anti-smoking warnings in television programs," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 462-472.
    6. Lamberto Zollo, 2021. "The Consumers’ Emotional Dog Learns to Persuade Its Rational Tail: Toward a Social Intuitionist Framework of Ethical Consumption," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 168(2), pages 295-313, January.
    7. Michelle Andrews & Xueming Luo & Zheng Fang & Anindya Ghose, 2016. "Mobile Ad Effectiveness: Hyper-Contextual Targeting with Crowdedness," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 35(2), pages 218-233, March.
    8. Herrmann, Andreas & Rossberg, Nadja & Huber, Frank & Landwehr, Jan R. & Henkel, Sven, 2011. "The impact of mimicry on sales - Evidence from field and lab experiments," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 502-514, June.
    9. Wedel, Michel & Bigné, Enrique & Zhang, Jie, 2020. "Virtual and augmented reality: Advancing research in consumer marketing," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 443-465.
    10. Coelho, Filipe J. & Evanschitzky, Heiner & Sousa, Carlos M.P. & Olya, Hossein & Taheri, Babak, 2021. "Control mechanisms, management orientations, and the creativity of service employees: Symmetric and asymmetric modeling," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 753-764.
    11. Michael Thomas, 2019. "Was Television Responsible for a New Generation of Smokers?," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 46(4), pages 689-707.
    12. Pandelaere, Mario & Briers, Barbara & Dewitte, Siegfried & Warlop, Luk, 2010. "Better think before agreeing twice," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 133-141.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:oup:jconrs:v:34:y:2008:i:6:p:754-766. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/jcr .

    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.