PhD defense: Consumers Interpretation of Simulation Fluency.
On Wednesday 14 May Aleksander Sivertsen will hold a trial lecture on a prescribed topic and defend his thesis for the PhD degree at NHH.
02.05.2014 - Ed.
Appealing to consumers' imagination is an important element of effective marketing communication. In consumer settings, mental simulation refers to the process of imagining product or service experiences. Current research on mental simulation has concluded that the effects of mental simulation will be more positive if consumers find it easy to simulate the experience and less positive if consumers find it difficult to simulate the experience. This dissertation questions this conclusion. By combining insights from the literature on mental simulation and metacognitive experiences, the dissertation proposes that both fluent and disfluent mental simulations can have positive effects on consumers' evaluations, depending on how consumers interpret the metacognitive experience.
The results from three empirical studies support this proposition. When consumers use the fluency of their mental simulation to form evaluations, an interaction effect between simulation fluency and simulation patterns occur. When consumers simulate the process associated with a product experience, they evaluate the experience more positively when simulation fluency is high. In contrast, when consumers simulate the outcome of a product experience, they evaluate the experience more positively when simulation fluency is low. Mediation analysis reveals that the reason for this is that consumers apply different naive theories, depending on how they simulate, to make inferences from their experienced simulation fluency.
Title of the thesis:
Do We Really Like Things Better When They Are Easy To Imagine? An Exploration of How Consumers Interpret Simulation Fluency.
Prescribed topic for the trial lecture:
The role of fluency in consumer behavior: An overview with suggestions for future research.
Time of the trial lecture:
11:15 in Kristian Gerhard Jebsen Centre, NHH
Time and place for the defense:
13:15 in Kristian Gerhard Jebsen Centre, NHH
Members of the evaluation committee:
Chair: Professor Tor W. Andreassen, NHH Norwegian School of Economics
Professor Sara Rosengren, Stockholm School of Economics
Professor Bob Fennis, University of Groningen, School of Business
Supervising committee:
Professor Helge Thorbjørnsen, Department of Strategy and Management (NHH), principal supervisor
Contact:
aleksander.sivertsen@nhh.no
The trial lecture and thesis defense will be open to the public. Copies of the thesis will be available from: bib@nhh.no
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