ASSOCIATION FOR CONSUMER RESEARCH

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

O12. When Do People Waste Time? Testing a Mechanism For Parkinson’S Law. Holly S Howe, Duke University, USA Tanya Chartrand, Duke University, USA

Parkinson’s law states that work expands to fill the time available for its completion. In a series of studies, we demonstrate this law and identify a possible mechanism. Specifically, we demonstrate that people who allot too much time to complete a task fail to use time-saving strategies.

[to cite]: Holly S Howe and Tanya Chartrand (2018) ,"O12. When Do People Waste Time? Testing a Mechanism For Parkinson’S Law.", in NA - Advances in Consumer Research Volume 46, eds. Andrew Gershoff, Robert Kozinets, and Tiffany White, Duluth, MN : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 909-909.

[url]: http://www.acrwebsite.org/volumes/2411584/volumes/v46/NA-46

[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/. Advances in Consumer Research (Volume 46) / 909 K12 . Use Language to Change People’s Mind: The Persuasive Power of Online Marketing Communications

Xun He, Katholieke University Leuven, Belgium Barbara Briers, Vlerick Business School, Belgium Luk Warlop, Norwegian School of Management, Norway

Marketing and economies depend mainly on persuasive success. This study investigates which and how linguistic features influence a target’s actual persuasiveness of messages in the setting of online marketing communications.

N6 . Not Myself: The Impact of Secret-Keeping on Consumer Choice Regret

Dongjin He, Hong Kong Polytechic University, China Yuwei Jiang, Hong Kong Polytechic University, China

This research investigates how the experience of secret-keeping affects consumers’ perception of their previous choice. Three studies reveal that the experience of secret-keeping increases consumers’ regret for the consumption choices they made previously and show that this effect is driven by the perceived low intrinsic motivation for the chosen option.

C3 . Using Goal Theory to Promote Habit Formation During and After a Bike-to-Work Campaign

Bettina Rebekka Höchli, University of Bern, Switzerland Claude Messner, University of Bern, Switzerland Adrian Brügger, University of Bern, Switzerland

Health interventions are often ineffective because people discontinue the targeted behavior after the intervention period. Forming habits could maintain the behavior beyond the intervention. We show that combining a superordinate goal with a subordinate goal can produce stronger habits than focusing on a subordinate goal alone.

Q13 . Liquid Consumption From Another Perspective: The Case of “Investomers”

Carina Hoffmann, Heinrich-Heine-University, Germany Lasse Meißner, Heinrich-Heine-University, Germany Peter Kenning, Heinrich-Heine-University, Germany

To extend recent theorizing on liquid consumption and to add a new perspective to this field we investigate the case of investors turning into consumers or reverse (“investomer”). We assume commitment and trust as “coupling” factors between these two categories and find support for this assumption.

O12. When do People Waste Time? Testing a Mechanism for Parkinson’s Law.

Holly S Howe, Duke University, USA Tanya Chartrand, Duke University, USA

Parkinson’s law states that work expands to fill the time available for its completion. In a series of studies we demonstrate this law and identify a possible mechanism. Specifically we demonstrate that people who allot too much time to complete a task fail to use time-saving strategies.

Q8 . Avatars, Consumers and Possession in Online Gaming

Feihong Hu, Lancaster University, UK Xin Zhao, Lancaster University, UK Chihling Liu, Lancaster University, UK

This study seeks to re-examine the relationship between consumers and their possessions. We observed online gamer interactions and conducted depth-interviews with Chinese online gamers. Initial findings have generated rich insights into how consumers experience and manage the relationships between their sense of self avatars and virtual possessions.