A Triadic Model of Social Motivations in Pay-What-You-Want Decisions

The authors propose a framework for understanding the interplay of the motivations driving consumers’ 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.