ASSOCIATION FOR CONSUMER RESEARCH

Association for Consumer Research, University of Minnesota Duluth, 115 Chester Park, 31 West College Street Duluth, MN 55812

Full Disclosure: How Smartphones Enhance Consumer Self-Disclosure Shiri Melumad, University of Pennsylvania, USA Robert Meyer, University of Pennsylvania, USA

The effects of smartphone versus PC usage on consumer’s willingness to disclose personal information is explored. Analyses of large- scale field data show that user-generated content written on smartphones is more self-disclosing than that on PCs. Controlled lab experiments provide convergent evidence for this effect and explore its underlying mechanisms.

[to cite]: Shiri Melumad and Robert Meyer (2019) ,"Full Disclosure: How Smartphones Enhance Consumer Self-Disclosure", in NA - Advances in Consumer Research Volume 47, eds. Rajesh Bagchi, Lauren Block, and Leonard Lee, Duluth, MN : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 45-50.

[url]: http://www.acrwebsite.org/volumes/2550781/volumes/v47/NA-47

[copyright notice]: This work is copyrighted by The Association for Consumer Research. For permission to copy or use this work in whole or in part, please contact the Copyright Clearance Center at http://www.copyright.com/. The Modern Consumer: How New Technologies are Changing Consumer Behaviors and Interactions Chair: Shiri Melumad, University of Pennsylvania, USA

Paper #1: Technology-Mediated Innovation new technologies and humanization. Christian Hildebrand, Donna Melanie S. Brucks, Columbia University, USA Hoffman, and Tom Novak examine how the constricted nature of Jonathan Levav, Stanford University, USA verbal communication that typically marks consumers’ interactions with IoT devices (e.g., Amazon Alexa) acts to dehumanize such in- Paper #2: Full Disclosure: How Smartphones Enhance teractions, reducing consumers’ overall satisfaction with IoT experi- Consumer Self-Disclosure ences. Finally, the session concludes with work by Juliana Schroeder, Shiri Melumad, University of Pennsylvania, USA who explores a different aspect of humanization: that which arises Robert Meyer, University of Pennsylvania, USA when consumers engage in conflict via text or in person. She finds Paper #3: Dehumanization in the IoT: Experiential that while consumers turn to text-based communication in the belief Consequences of Syntactically Constricted Human-Machine that it will deflate conflict with an ideological opponent, such inter- Interaction action instead acts to dehumanize conversants and thus inflate the Christian Hildebrand, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland degree of conflict. Donna Hoffman, George Washington University, USA We believe that this session will contribute to the conference Tom Novak, George Washington University, USA by showcasing research on human-technology interactions, an in- Paper #4: Improving Civil Discourse: Speaking is a More creasingly important topic that spans disciplines such as psychology, Humanizing Form of Discourse Than Writing sociology, anthropology, and computer science. We hope that con- Juliana Schroeder, University of California, Berkeley, USA sumer researchers will play a major role in this field as it continues to develop, and that this session will illustrate the potential research SESSION OVERVIEW opportunities in this area. Recent years have witnessed a rapid expansion in the types of technologies that consumers use to browse, consume, make deci- Technology-Mediated Innovation sions, and communicate. As an example, 77% of the adult population in the United States now owns a smartphone (Pew Research Center EXTENDED ABSTRACT 2018), with the device being used not just for communication but The move to virtual teams is one of the most notable business also to perform almost all online activities. In addition, more than 20 trends of the last decade. 43% of people today work remotely (Gallup billion smart objects, such as Amazon Echo devices, are connected 2017), and 65% of firms now use distributed teams (Upwork 2018). to the (Howell 2017). These technological devices have even Underlying this shift to remote work are new technological advances become increasingly interconnected, with consumers using smart- that enable virtual collaboration, such as video-conferencing. The im- phones to operate their smart technologies and automate behaviors plicit presumption is that these technologies can replace face-to-face and decisions they used to make themselves. The consequences for interaction. In the present research, we test this assumption for one practitioners have been no less dramatic: whereas firms were once of the most important collaboration processes in marketing: creating mostly confined to in-person interactions with customers, these com- new products, where teams brainstorm nascent ideas and then select munications are now increasingly conducted through a constellation ideas to develop into proposals and/or prototypes. Importantly, these of textual, visual, and other virtual media. two tasks correspond to different psychological processes: while idea The goal of this special session is to shed light on a burgeoning generation leverages expansive, unregulated thinking (Nijstad and field of research on the psychological consequences of consumers’ Stroebe 2006), idea evaluation and selection benefits from analytical engagement with new technologies. The session will be comprised of and deliberative thinking (Amer, Campbell, and Hasher 2016). four papers that explore two central questions in this area: Does communicating in-person meaningfully differ from video- 1. How might new technologies be changing consumer behavior conferencing for these two processes of new product development? and decision-making? At first blush, it seems like the effect of communication modality 2. Under which conditions, and to what extent, are new technolo- should be quite trivial. Indeed, contingent on good internet connec- gies enhancing or harming consumer well-being? tion and high-resolution display, video-conferencing closely mimics in-person conversation: it is synchronous (unlike email) and reveals The first two papers in this session explore this first question. almost identical visual and audio information about the partner (un- Melanie Brucks and Jonathan Levav explore how video-conferenc- like phone calls). However, we propose that an important difference ing affects collaboration processes in new product development. lies in the shared environment: In-person teams share the entire room They find that while video conferencing curtails the number of new while, over video, teams only share the screen in front of them. Con- ideas generated, it facilitates identification of the best idea. Next, sequently, virtual teams should primarily look at the video screen, as Shiri Melumad and Robert Meyer investigate how consumers’ in- the majority of the room is not accessible to their partner. When vir- creased reliance on their smartphone may be affecting user-generated tual teams concentrate on the screen and filter out peripheral visual content in a way that has important policy implications. The authors stimuli, their visual attention is narrowed (Wade and 2005). find that consumers tend to disclose information that is more sensi- Drawing on research suggesting that cognitive states are sticky tive or personal when generating content on their smartphone versus (Luchins 1942) and are often recruited for other tasks once activat- PC. ed (Malkoc, Zauberman, and Bettman 2010; Moreau and Engeset The third and fourth papers then explore the second key ques- 2015), we posit that this narrow visual focus spills over into the new tion of the session, with a particular focus on the relationship between product development tasks and activates cognitive focus. Important- ly, the focused cognitive state among virtual groups should suppress Advances in Consumer Research 45 Volume 47, ©2019 46 / The Modern Consumer: How New Technologies are Changing Consumer Behaviors and Interactions the expansive thinking needed for idea generation but conversely quences: virtual interaction may undercut the value of collaborative bolster the analytical thinking used in idea selection. brainstorming but can be leveraged for evaluation and development. We conducted two lab studies and one field experiment to test this hypothesis. In the first lab study, 150 dyads generated creative Full Disclosure: How Smartphones Enhance Consumer uses for a frisbee for five minutes and then selected their most cre- Self-Disclosure ative idea for one minute. These tasks were incentive-compatible: each creative idea earned one raffle ticket for a $200 raffle and select- EXTENDED ABSTRACT ing the most creative idea (as scored by outside judges) earned five The past fifteen years have witnessed two transformative trends raffle tickets. Teams were randomly assigned to work together for in consumer markets: firms’ reliance on user-generated content as a these tasks either in-person or virtually (with their partner displayed means of gaining insights into consumer preferences, and the emer- via video across from them). Virtual teams generated significantly gence of the smartphone—rather than personal computer—as the fewer creative ideas (M = 6.17) than in-person teams (M = 7.36, p = primary platform on which this content is generated. In this research we explore a question that lies at the intersection of these two trends: .005), but selected ideas that were more creative (Mvirtual = 4.71, Min- might the transition away from PCs toward smartphones be altering person = 4.50, p = .043, controlling for the creativity of the top idea). We hypothesized that virtual communication affects new prod- what consumers reveal about themselves online? Using data from uct development because the constrained environment of the screen thousands of customer-generated online posts, as well as two con- fosters a focused cognitive state. In a second lab study, we explored trolled experiments, we offer evidence that it indeed might, and in a the proposed mechanism by having 150 dyads generate uses for way that has important implications for both firms and policymakers. bubble wrap either in-person or virtually in a room populated with We show that consumers tend to exhibit greater depth of disclosure props. We captured environmental focus in two ways. First, partici- when writing on their smartphone (vs. PC). pants recalled the props in the room, and second, we recorded and In particular, we propose that writing on one’s smartphone often extracted participants’ eye gaze throughout the task. If teams are lowers the barriers to revealing certain types of sensitive information more environmentally focused on the screen in the virtual condition, due both to its unique form characteristics as well as the emotional they should recall fewer objects in the room and their gaze should associations consumers tend to hold with their device. The first path- be more oriented towards their partner (the screen). Virtual teams way draws on social presence theory (e.g., Scheier and Carver 1983), again generated significantly fewer creative ideas (M = 7.55) than arguing that its smaller screen (vs. PC) more narrowly focus consum- in-person teams (M = 8.62, p = .020), but selected a more creative ers’ attention on the disclosure at hand and away from their external environment, something that fosters greater private self-awareness. idea overall (Mvirtual = 3.93, Min-person= 3.72, p = .081, controlling for the creativity of the actual top idea). Moreover, we found evidence This heightened private self-awareness, in turn, enhances consum- that indeed the environmental focus was more constrained in the vir- ers’ depth of disclosure on the device (e.g., Derlega, et al. 1993 Join- tual condition. Virtual teams remembered significantly fewer props son 2001). The second pathway posits that consumers tend to associ- in the room (M = 3.88) than in-person teams (M = 4.77, p = .009), ate their smartphones with more positive, intimate activities (e.g., texting with friends, entertaining themselves), which—combined and virtual teams looked significantly more at their partner (Mvirtual with the fact that the device is virtually always with them—leads = 102.90 seconds, Min-person= 65.10 seconds, p < .001) and less at the smartphones to represent a general source of psychological comfort surrounding room (Mvirtual = 8.32 seconds, Min-person= 26.11 seconds, p < .001). Importantly, gaze mediated the effect of communication for many consumers, which further drivers depth of disclosure on the modality on idea generation (95% CIs: [-1.29, -.12]). device (e.g., Chaiken et al. 1976; Forgas 2011). The lab results suggest that merely being in the same room as We test the main hypothesized effect as well as its underlying your partner (vs. communicating virtually) changes how the pro- mechanisms across four studies. In the first two field studies we cesses of idea generation and selection unfold. However, in order to tested for differences in depth of self-disclosure across devices by make recommendations to firms, we wanted to test these effects in drawing on a corpus of 369,161 Tweets referencing different “trend- the field with domain experts who are invested in the outcome, know ing hashtags” (Study 1), and 61,643 restaurant reviews posted on their partners, and regularly use the virtual technology in distributed TripAdvisor.com (Study 2). Depth of disclosure was measured using teams. To do this, we ran an ideation workshop where 308 Nokia en- both automated natural-language processing tools and human judg- gineers generated ideas for an hour and then selected and developed es. For the automated analysis we measured the relative presence one idea for 45 minutes either in person or over video-conferencing. of linguistic markers that had been found in previous research to At the end of the workshop, the teams submitted their developed pro- be associated with greater self-disclosure, including use of first-per- posals, and experts within Nokia evaluated the submissions. Because son pronouns, references to family and friends, and more authentic the experts only evaluated the submitted idea, to capture selection writing styles (e.g., Davis and Brock 1975; Houghton and Joinson accuracy, we instructed teams to evaluate their own idea after it was 2012). To collect human judgments we recruited MTurk participants submitted using the same criteria the company experts used. Teams to judge the depth of disclosure (measured as the index of four items who are more accurate in their evaluation should better match the on a seven-point scale) in a subset of 4,485 Tweets (Study 1) and experts. Replicating the lab, we find that engineers who worked to- 10,185 restaurant reviews (Study 2). gether virtually (M = 7.88) generated fewer ideas than in person (M = The results confirmed that consumers generated content that 9.10, p = .009). In addition, we find that there is a smaller difference was more self-disclosing on their smartphones than on their PCs. For between the teams’ self-evaluation and the experts’ evaluation (thus example, across seven topical domains (e.g., news, entertainment), Tweets were more likely to have been written on a smartphone if they the evaluation was more accurate) among virtual teams (diffvirtual = were written in a more disclosing, authentic style (M =28.73 .99, diffin-person = 1.25, p = .039). Smartphone We are facing unprecedented levels of virtual communication vs. MPC=21.49; F(1, 369148)=235.30, p<.001), and were perceived among consumers and within firms. While seemingly interchange- by human judges as more self-disclosing (MSmartphone=3.25 vs. able with face-to-face interaction, our studies suggest that these MPC=3.07; F(1, 7821)=41.32, p<.001).These results were conceptu- communication technologies have important psychological conse- ally replicated in the substantively different domain of TripAdvisor, Advances in Consumer Research (Volume 47) / 47 where restaurant reviews written by customers on their smartphones and Netzer 2010). With 100 million digital voice assistants installed were not only more disclosing based on automated measures and hu- in consumers’ home worldwide in 2018, voice-based interfaces are man judgments, but were also viewed as more persuasive by outside transforming how humans search, shop, and automate the tasks in readers (MSmartphone=4.97 vs. MPC=4.78; F(1, 9861)=36.62, p<.001). their daily lives. The next two experimental studies tested the hypothesized Research on the impact of voice-based interaction modalities on mechanism underlying the effect: that engagement with one’s smart- consumers is both scarce and predominantly concerned with design, phone (vs. PC) focuses users more on the disclosure and, in turn, security, or general technology-acceptance issues rather than with heightens private self-awareness, and also elicits greater feelings the consequences for consumer behavior. Specifically, the majority of psychological comfort. In Study 3, 714 members of a Qualtrics of prior work on voice-based or “conversational” interfaces has pri- panel were randomly assigned to use their smartphone or their PC to marily examined either factors related to design feature optimization write about an upsetting personal experience. After completing this, (Ghosh and Pherwani 2015), security (Diao et al. 2014)such as cam- participants were asked to use the same device to respond to a series era, microphone and GPS. These approaches get data from sensors of questions measuring the proposed drivers of the effect: degree of directly and need corresponding sensor invoking permissions. This focus on the disclosure task, private self-awareness, and psychologi- paper presents a novel approach (GVS-Attack, or general user ac- cal comfort. ceptance (Portet et al. 2013)this calls for techno- logical solutions Consistent with the prior results, descriptions written by par- that suit their specific needs and capabili- ties. The SWEET-HOME ticipants on their smartphones were rated by MTurk judges as project aims at developing a new user friendly technology for home displaying greater depth of disclosure than those written on PCs automation based on voice command. This paper reports a user

(MSmartphone = 4.51 vs. MPC = 4.17; F(1, 3401)=16.97, p<.001). Criti- evaluation assessing the acceptance and fear of this new technology. cally, a mediation analysis confirmed a significant positive effect Eight healthy persons between 71 and 88 years old, 7 relatives (child, of smartphone (vs. PC) use on degree of focus (b =.05; grandchild or friend. Device→Focus t=2.35, p<.001), a significant positive path from focus to private The current work takes a different route and explores whether self-awareness (b =2.14; t=2.29, p<.001), and a signifi- the input or task initiation modality (i.e., the words consumers are Focus→PrivateSA cant positive path from private self-awareness to depth of disclosure required to use to command the conversational interface) can sys- (b =.05; t=2.37, p<.001). Likewise, the analysis sup- tematically alter consumers’ subjective task experience and their PrivateSA→Disclosure ported the parallel positive path from smartphone (vs. PC) to psy- underlying attributions toward the interface. Building on recent chological comfort (b =.05; t=2.06, p<.001), and a positive conceptual foundations of consumer-smart-object experiences dur- Device→Comfort path from comfort to depth of disclosure (standardized b ing IoT interactions (Hoffman and Novak 2018; Novak and Hoffman Comfort→Disclosure =.09; t=3.78, p<.001). Finally, the results showed a significant to- 2018), we examine how constricted task initiation modalities during tal indirect effect of smartphone (vs. PC) use on depth of disclosure human-object interaction can evoke more negative task experiences, through the parallel paths of focus, private self-awareness, and psy- more negative attributions toward the voice-based assistant, and chological comfort (total indirect effect:b =.01; t=2.81, p=.008). even systematic changes in the vocal expressions consumers make In the final experiment we replicate these findings among a when they issue spoken commands. different form of consumer disclosure. Mirroring the procedure of To explore whether and how variation in task initiation modali- Study 3, 1,389 Qualtrics participants were again randomly assigned ties affects consumers’ task experiences, we recruited 100 partici- to complete the study on their smartphone or PC and this time were pants for a laboratory study in exchange for monetary compensation asked to describe a product purchase they considered to be private (MAge=24.27, SDAge=6.28, 51% females). At the outset of the study, or embarrassing. The main dependent measure was now whether we assessed participants’ baseline vocal features using an established participants complied with the request or opted out of doing so. Par- reading task from prior work in bioacoustics (Kempster et al. 2009; ticipants then responded to the same measures of focus, private self- e.g. “The blue spot is on the key again.”). Next, participants were awareness, and psychological comfort as in Study 3. randomly assigned to either a constricted versus non-constricted task The results conceptually replicate those of Study 3, both for initiation modality condition. In both conditions, participants were willingness to describe the product and depth of disclosure in the asked to state a set of eleven commands that required them to engage descriptions (conditional on compliance). For example, whereas in a turn-taking exercise with Amazon Alexa. The two conditions 89% of participants who responded on their smartphones were will- differed systematically in the level of constriction: In the constrict- ing to discuss the embarrassing product, 84% were willing to do so ed modality condition participants received eleven commands that on their PC (Chi-square 6.88, p=.009). Likewise, the descriptions required a syntactically shortened form of interaction (e.g. “Alexa, provided by those who complied were more disclosing when written length of marathon.”). In the non-constricted condition, participants on smartphones versus PCs (human judgments: MSmartphone=4.83 vs. received the same substantive commands but all were phrased in

MPC=4.70; F(1, 4741)=13.41, p<.001). terms of a more natural conversation (e.g. “Alexa, can you tell me the length of a marathon?”). All commands were pretested to guaran- Dehumanization in the IoT: tee they led to identical responses of the voice assistant independent Experiential Consequences of Syntactically Constricted of task initiation modality. Next, participants were asked to rate: the Human-Machine Interaction perceived naturalness of the interaction (“The interaction with this

interface felt …. natural / robotic(r) / lacking depth (r)”, αnatural=.79), EXTENDED ABSTRACT their overall task enjoyment (“This task was a lot of fun”), attribu- The use of natural language and voice-based interfaces gradu- tions of competence (“This system is … an expert / competent / pro- ally transforms how consumers interact with firms (Hirschberg and ficient”, compα =.81) and warmth (“This system is … compassionate

Manning 2015). Voice-based interfaces as a new interaction para- / sympathetic / warm”, αwarmth=.85). Finally, they responded to a set digm between human consumers and Internet of Things (IoT) de- of demographic questions. The audio data of the baseline reading vices like Amazon Alexa, Home or Siri has been declared task and the object-interaction task was recorded using an external the “next operating system in commerce” (Feldman, Goldenberg, BlueYeti microphone with a predefined sampling rate of 44100 HZ. 48 / The Modern Consumer: How New Technologies are Changing Consumer Behaviors and Interactions

Processing of all audio data and extraction of vocal features at the Exacerbating this problem, some evidence suggests that people participant level was done using the seewave and tuneR packages in are withdrawing from conversations with opposing party members. R (Sueur, Aubin, and Simonis 2008). In 2016, just 6% of Americans reported having “many” close friends As predicted, the results revealed that the constricted task from the opposing party. Moreover, may increase ideo- initiation led participants to perceive the voice-assistant interac- logical “echo chambers” in which people only interact with those tion as significantly less natural (MConstrict=3.70, MNonconstrict=4.43; who share their opinions. t(98)=2.654, p<.01). Participants in the constricted task condition What’s the solution? Many organizations are currently trying also enjoyed the task significantly less than the non-constricted con- to encourage civil and respectful conversation among people who dition (MRestrict=4.18, MNonRestrict=4.96; t(98)=1.675, p=.09). A media- disagree, so that they can exchange their opinions and resolve differ- tion analysis also confirmed that the effect on task enjoyment was ences. For example, Living Room Conversations, founded in 2010, offset after controlling for the effect of perceived naturalness on task “encourages conversation with those with whom we may not agree… enjoyment (5000 bootstrap resamples; CI95%=[.07;.94]), indicating to increase understanding and reveal common ground.” Another ex- full mediation. Greater perceived naturalness was also a key factor ample is Pnyka, founded in 2017, a communication platform that in predicting greater attributions of both competence (βNatural=.36, “bridges divided communities by using respectful interactions.” But t(98)=3.83, p<.001) and warmth (βNatural=.74, t(98)=8.60, p<.001). A a major difference in how organizations are pursuing this solution is series of Davidson MacKinnon tests for non-nested models further that some of them host conversations online (e.g., Pnyka) whereas revealed that including the fitted values of the attribution - dimen others insist on hosting only in-person or video-chat conversations sions (competence and warmth) led to a significant improvement of (e.g., Living Room Conversations). model fit (θNatural+Fitted(CompWarmthModel) = .92, t = 4.413, p<.001) whereas This provokes an important psychological question: How does including the fitted values of naturalness only model did not further the communication of a conversation influence the civility improve the fit of the model (θCompWarmth+Fitted(NaturaModel) = .17, t = 0.575, of the discourse? The extant literature suggests that spoken (versus p>.56), indicating that the attributions toward the system (evoked written) conversation may increase civility for at least three reasons: through perceptions of a more natural task experience) led to the first, the paralinguistic cues in voice provide insight into a commu- increased task enjoyment. nicator’s thoughts and feelings (Schroeder & Epley, 2015, 2016; The task-initiation manipulation also significantly altered par- Schroeder, Kardas, & Epley, 2017), second, speaking is a more syn- ticipants’ vocal expressions. We find that constricted (vs. non-con- chronous and “richer” medium (Daft & Lengel, 1984), and third, stricted) task initiation led to an increase in sound pressure levels speaking includes more back-channeling (i.e., feedback that conveys relative to the baseline measure of the reading task (t(98)=10.917, understanding; Tollins & Fox Tree, 2014, 2016). p<.001) and the between-subjects comparison of the object-interac- To test whether lay individuals share this intuition, two ini- tion task (MRestrict=8.9052, MNonRestrict=8.9044; t(98)=3.242, p<.01). tial experiments (Exps. 1 & 2; n=800) asked people to predict how Similarly, constricted versus non-constricted task initiation also sig- having a ten-minute conversation with an ideological opponent via nificantly increased participants’ vocal entropy relative to the base- video-chat, phone, or writing (three conditions, within-subjects de- line measure (t(98)=13.819, p<.001) and during the object-interac- sign) would change their assessments of the opponent and their ex- tion task (MRestrict=.69, MNonRestrict=.66; t(98)=4.167, p<.001). These periences. Predictors tended to believe that the written conversations findings suggest that constricting the structure of the task causes in- would be more civil—more shared understanding, less conflict, and dividuals to engage in a higher pitch and less fluent (or even “mecha- more enjoyable (ps<.01)—compared to phone or video-chat conver- nistic”) vocal expression during speech formation. This change in in- sations (ps<.01), although they expected no differences in how much dividuals’ vocal features was also reflected in a significant, negative they would perceive their opponent (i.e., how thoughtful, compe- correlation between perceptions of naturalness and vocal entropy tent, and reasonable the opponent seemed) or change their own at- (r(98)=-.64, p<.001), confirming that the less fluent vocal expression titudes across conditions (ps>.250). Overall, predictors reported a was also associated with lower task enjoyment. Robustness tests to strong preference to write (M=80%) compared to talk or video-chat explore boundary conditions also support our main hypotheses, but (M=20%). are not reported here in the interest of space. We next tested whether these beliefs are correct in five more To our knowledge, this is the first work documenting that alter- experiments. Experiments 3-6 each utilized a similar procedure ing the input modality of how consumers interact with smart objects whereby participants were matched based on disagreement accord- systematically affects their IoT experience. We provide evidence ing to pre-selected controversial topics, engaged in a 6 to 12 minute that altering the required input to initiate a conversation with smart conversation (depending on the experiment) with an ideological op- objects provokes systematic changes in terms of objective phonetic ponent, and then reported conversation civility—humanization of vocal changes and, more importantly, consumers’ subjective experi- their conversation-partner, attitude change, felt understanding, and ences. conflict—in a post-conversation survey. In Experiment 3 (n=358), pairs interacted either by video-chat- Improving Civil Discourse: Speaking is a More Civil ting, speaking (audio-only), or writing (three between-subjects con- Form of Discourse Than Writing ditions). Contrary to the predictions in Exps. 1-2, these participants reported engaging in more civil interactions with their partner when EXTENDED ABSTRACT video-chatting or speaking versus writing (ps<.01), but there was no Political intolerance in the United States is at record levels. Ac- difference in civility between video-chatting or speaking p( >.250). cording to the Pew Research Center, in 2014 members of both po- Because participants produce about twice as many words in litical parties were more than twice as likely to report that the other spoken versus written conversations, Experiment 4 (n=796) next party is a “threat to the nation’s well-being,” compared to 1994. In- manipulated how long pairs conversed in a 2(speaking vs. writing) creasingly, people don’t just disagree; they also distrust, dislike, and x 2(6-minute vs. 12-minute conversations) between-pair design. We even despise those who the world differently. replicated the effects from Exp. 3 such that the conversations were generally more civil when speaking (vs. writing), regardless of how Advances in Consumer Research (Volume 47) / 49 much time they spent conversing. There was no effect of time on any Luchins, Abraham S. (1942), “Mechanization in Problem Solving,” outcome variable. Psychological Monographs, 54(6). Experiment 5 (n=396) attempted to control for synchronicity Malkoc, Selin A., Gal Zauberman, and James R. Bettman (2010), between communication-media by using a 2(speaking vs. writing) x “Unstuck From the Concrete: Carryover Effects of Abstract 2(dialogue vs. monologue) between-pair design. The dialogue condi- Mindsets in Intertemporal Preferences,” Organizational tion used the same procedure from Exps. 3 and 4 but the monologue Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 113(2), 112–26. condition only allowed pairs to exchange opinions once. Results re- Moreau, Page C. and Marit Gundersen Engeset (2015), “The vealed that, even in the monologue condition, spoken conversations Downstream Consequences of Problem-Solving Mindsets: were more civil than written conversations (i.e., more positive im- How Playing with Legos Influences Creativity,” Journal of pressions partner, more felt understanding, less conflict). This effect Marketing Research, 53(30), 18-30. of communication-medium also replicated in the dialogue condition Nijstad, Bernard A. and Wolfgang Stroebe (2006), “How the Group such that there was no statistical interaction between communication Affects the Mind: a Cognitive Model of Idea Generation in medium and synchronicity condition. A main effect of synchronic- Groups,” Personality and Social Psychology Review, 10(3), ity condition also emerged; there was greater civility overall in the 186–213. dialogue (vs. monologue) condition. Upwork (2018) “Future Workforce Report.” (February 2019) To further examine what is changing in the spoken versus writ- [available at: https://www.upwork.com/i/future-workforce/ ten conversations, we asked 400 online observers to read transcrip- fw/2018/] tions of the spoken or written “long” conversations from Exp. 2 (92 Wade, Nicholas and Benjamin W. Tatler (2005). The moving tablet conversations total). Each observer reviewed just one conversation of the eye: The origins of modern eye movement research. and then reported how much the pair understood, liked, and agreed New York, NY: Oxford University Press. with each other. Observers believed there was more understanding, liking, and agreement in the spoken (vs. written) conversations, sug- Paper #2 gesting that the effect of communication medium occurs even with- Chaiken, Alan L., Derlega, Valerian, and Sarah J. Miller (1976), out hearing the interactants’ voices. “Effects of Room Environment on Self-Disclosure in a A follow-up experiment (n=400) further considered the trajec- Counseling Analogue”, Journal of Counseling Psychology. 23. tory of the conversations by asking online observers to rate each 479-481. “exchange” of opinion within a conversation separately. Results Davis, Deborah and Timothy C. Brock (1975), “Use of first person from this experiment revealed that observers could tell the difference pronouns as a function of increased objective self-awareness between the spoken and written conversations almost immediately— and performance feedback,” Journal of Experimental Social by the second exchange of opinion in the conversation. Psychology, 11(4), 381–88. In aggregate, the results from these eight experiments suggest Derlega, Valerian J., Sandra Metts, Sandra Petronio, and Stephen T. that, although people seem to prefer writing to (vs. speaking with) Margulis (1993), Self‐disclosure, Newbury Park, CA: Sage. an opponent, in fact speaking is more civil form of discourse. Politi- Forgas, Joseph P. (2011), “Affective influences on self-disclosure: cal opponents who had short spoken conversations reported having mood effects on the intimacy and reciprocity of disclosing more positive impressions of each other, experiencing less conflict, personal information,” Journal of Personality and Social feeling more understood, and being more open to each other’s at- Psychology, 100(3), 449-61. titudes compared to opponents who had written conversations. Houghton, David J. and Adam N. Joinson (2012), “Linguistic These findings have important implications for how technology may markers of secrets and sensitive self-disclosure in ,” shape discourse. People who disagree can easily interact via online in 45th Hawaii International Conference on System Science forums (e.g., Reddit, ), which may discourage them from (HICSS), IEEE, 3480-9. conversing in-person. Further, these online interactions may subtly Matheson, Kimberly and Mark P. Zanna (1988), “The impact exacerbate conflict. Disagreement is born not just from harsh words of computer-mediated communication on self-awareness,” exchanged but from the structure of the interaction itself. Computers in Human Behavior, 4(3), 221-33. REFERENCES Melumad, Shiri and Michel Tuan Pham (2019), “Understanding the Psychology of Smartphone Usage: The Smartphone as Session Overview a Pacifying Technology,” Working Paper, Wharton School, Pew Research Center (2018), Mobile Fact Sheet, accessed at: http:// University of Pennsylvania. www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheet/mobile/ Scheier, Michael F. and Charles S. Carver (1983), “Self-directed Howell, Janlea (2017), “Number of Number of Connected IoT attention and the comparison of self with standards,” Journal Devices Will Surge to 125 Billion by 2030, IHS Markit Says”, of Experimental Social Psychology, 19(3), 205–22. accessed at: https://technology.ihs.com/596542/number-of- connected-iot-devices-will-surge-to-125-billion-by-2030-ihs- markit-says Paper #3 Diao, Wenrui, Xiangyu Liu, Zhe Zhou, and Kehuan Zhang (2014), “Your Voice Assistant is Mine,” in Proceedings of the 4th Paper #1 ACM Workshop on Security and Privacy in Smartphones & Amer, Tarek, L. Campbell, and Lynn Hasher (2016), Mobile Devices - SPSM ’14, 63–74. “Cognitive Control as a Double-Edged Sword,” Trends in Feldman, Ronen, Jacob Goldenberg, and Oded Netzer (2010), Cognitive Sciences, 20(12), 905–15. “Mine your own business: Market structure surveillance Gallup (2017). “State of American Workplace.” (February 2019) through text mining,” Marketing Science Institute, Special [available at: https://news.gallup.com/reports/178514/state- Report, 10 (3), 10–202. american-workplace.aspx] 50 / The Modern Consumer: How New Technologies are Changing Consumer Behaviors and Interactions Ghosh, Sanjay and Jatin Pherwani (2015), “Designing of a Natural Paper #4 Voice Assistants for Mobile Through User Centered Design Daft, Richard L. and Robert H. Lengel (1984), “Information Approach,” in Human-Computer Interaction - Design and Richness: A New Approach to Managerial Behavior and Evaluation, 320–31. Organizational Design,” in Research in Organizational Hirschberg, Julia and Christopher D Manning (2015), “Advances in Behavior, Vol. 6, ed. Larry L. Cummings and Barry M. Staw, natural language processing,” Science, 349 (6245), 261–66. Homewood, IL: JAI Press, 191-233. Hoffman, Donna L. and Thomas P. Novak (2018), “Consumer and Schroeder, Juliana, Michael Kardas, and Nicholas Epley (2017), object experience in the internet of things: An assemblage “The Humanizing Voice: Speech Reveals, and Text Conceals, theory approach,” Journal of Consumer Research, 44 (6), a More Thoughtful Mind in the Midst of Disagreement,” 1178–1204. Psychological Science, 28 (December), 1745-1762. Kempster, Gail B., Bruce R. Gerratt, Katherine Verdolini Abbott, Schroeder, Juliana, and Nicholas Epley (2016), “Mistaking Julie Barkmeier-Kraemer, and Robert E. Hillman (2009), and Machines: How Speech Affects Dehumanization and “Consensus auditory-perceptual evaluation of voice: Anthropomorphism,” Journal of Experimental Psychology: Development of a standardized clinical protocol,” American General, 145 (November), 1427-1437. Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 18 (2), 124–32. Schroeder, Juliana, and Nicholas Epley (2015), “The Sound of Novak, Thomas P. and Donna L. Hoffman (2018), “Relationship Intellect: Speech Reveals a Thoughtful Mind, Increasing a journeys in the internet of things: a new framework for Job Candidate’s Appeal,” Psychological Science, 26 (June), understanding interactions between consumers and smart 877-891. objects,” Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science. Tolins, Jackson and Jean E. Fox Tree (2016), “Overhearers Portet, François, Michel Vacher, Caroline Golanski, Camille Roux, Use Addressee Backchannels in Dialog Comprehension,” and Brigitte Meillon (2013), “Design and evaluation of a Cognitive Science, 40 (August), 1412–1434. smart home voice interface for the elderly: Acceptability and Tolins, Jackson and Jean E. Fox Tree (2014), “Addressee objection aspects,” Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, 17 Backchannels Steer Narrative Development,” Journal of (1), 127–44. Pragmatics, 70 (September), 152-164. Sueur, Jerome, Thierry Aubin, and Caroline Simonis (2008), “Equipment review: Seewave, a free modular tool for sound analysis and synthesis,” Bioacoustics, 18 (2), 213–26.