Does thinking make it so? The role of counterfactual thinking

The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate consumer persuasion processes from three different perspectives in the context of consumer information processing research: automatic information processing, visual information processing, and postpurchase information processing.; Chapter 1 examines the potential theoretical and practical contributions thin slice judgments may offer to the study of retailing and consumer shopping behavior. I begin by defining thin slices and discussing them in the context of consumer information processing research. Then, I discuss how thin slice judgments are formed. Finally, I review the potential usefulness of thin slice judgments for retailing environments.; In Chapter 2, I present a model that describes how ad viewers process visual images. Then, I review a series of studies relevant to the issue of how the stylistic properties (e.g., camera angles and the cropping of images in ads) of ads impact ad viewers' evaluations of ads and products. The purpose of this chapter is to provide a systematic account detailing how the stylistic properties of visual images persuade.; Chapter 3 reports three studies exploring counterfactual thinking (CFT). CFT refers to the process of reflecting on past events and simulating alternative possible outcomes. Experiment 1 finds that after exposure to product dissatisfaction, CFT encourages high need for cognition (NFC) individuals to engage in downward CFT, resulting in more positive product evaluations. Low NFC individuals invoke upward CFT after exposure to product dissatisfaction, resulting in lower product evaluations. By contrast, after experiencing a satisfying purchase, respondents' product evaluations were unaffected by their processing propensity. Experiment 2 provides an extension of experiment 1 by replacing the CFT instruction with a neutral follow-up customer service survey and explores the process that underlies these effects. In experiment 3, besides the neutral version of the follow-up survey, used in experiment 2, two additional versions of surveys, serving to induce upward CFT and downward CFT respectively, were added. The purpose of this experiment is to examine how different follow-up surveys impact consumers' product evaluations. The predictions were supported.