How social perceptions influence consumption for self, for others, and within the broader system.

This article builds an organizing framework for understanding how social perceptions influence consumption at three levels: consumption for self, consumption for others, and consumption within the broader system. At each level, social others play a distinct role in individuals' consumption behaviors, from passive observers to active agents. Importantly, consumption at each of these levels is characterized by common tensions and misperceptions, which sometimes undermine individuals' consumption choices, outcomes, and intent. We describe some of the tensions and explore how individuals navigate them. At the end, we discuss how the proposed framework offers exciting opportunities for future research.

The psychology of luxury consumption.

This review synthesizes the latest advances in the psychology behind consumption of luxury objects and experiences to which people typically feel strongly attached. We discuss novel drivers, forms, and consequences of luxury consumption from recent research. We propose that the psychology of luxury consumption is governed by a set of tensions between what luxury means to the self and the external forces that define luxury consumption. These tensions shape consumer behavior, from the level of desire for luxury products and services, to the types of signals viewed as luxury and acquired and displayed as such, and to post-consumption consequences of consuming luxury. We discuss how this tension-based framework offers future opportunities for the study of the drivers, forms, and consequences of luxury consumption.

The effects of salience of the sound of food on consumption.

In order to promote their products, food marketers use labels (e.g., crunchy) to make salient the sound created by the food when it is eaten. Will merely making the sound of the food salient (without changing its actual sound) affect consumption? The extant literature is silent on this question. Addressing this gap, we propose that the mere salience of the food's sound can impact consumption. In three studies, we find that the salience of the food's sound increases consumption because it enhances consumers' auditory experience of the sound of food and increases taste evaluations. However, the salience of the food's sound decreases consumption when experience of the food's sound is impaired or when consumption monitoring is high. The paper's findings advance research on auditory perceptions of food, food labeling, and food consumption, and offer guidance on how to enhance enjoyment and prevent overeating of sound-salient food.

The accuracy of less: Natural bounds explain why quantity decreases are estimated more accurately than quantity increases.

Five studies show that people, including experts such as professional chefs, estimate quantity decreases more accurately than quantity increases. We argue that this asymmetry occurs because physical quantities cannot be negative. Consequently, there is a natural lower bound (zero) when estimating decreasing quantities but no upper bound when estimating increasing quantities, which can theoretically grow to infinity. As a result, the "accuracy of less" disappears (a) when a numerical or a natural upper bound is present when estimating quantity increases, or (b) when people are asked to estimate the (unbounded) ratio of change from 1 size to another for both increasing and decreasing quantities. Ruling out explanations related to loss aversion, symbolic number mapping, and the visual arrangement of the stimuli, we show that the "accuracy of less" influences choice and demonstrate its robustness in a meta-analysis that includes previously published results. Finally, we discuss how the "accuracy of less" may explain asymmetric reactions to the supersizing and downsizing of food portions, some instances of the endowment effect, and asymmetries in the perception of increases and decreases in physical and psychological distance. (PsycINFO Database Record

In the eye of the beholder: Visual biases in package and portion size perceptions.

As the sizes of food packages and portions have changed rapidly over the past decades, it has become crucial to understand how consumers perceive and respond to changes in size. Existing evidence suggests that consumers make errors when visually estimating package and portion sizes, and these errors significantly influence subsequent food choices and intake. We outline four visual biases (arising from the underestimation of increasing portion sizes, the dimensionality of the portion size change, labeling effects, and consumer affect) that shape consumers' perceptions of package and portion sizes. We discuss the causes of these biases, review their impact on food consumption decisions, and suggest concrete strategies to reduce them and to promote healthier eating. We conclude with a discussion of important theoretical and practical issues that should be addressed in the future.