The Emotion of Interest and Its Relevance to Consumer Psychology and Behaviour Billy Sung School of Marketing, Curtin University

Home , Interest (emotion)

The Emotion of Interest and its Relevance to Consumer Psychology and Behaviour

Billy Sung

School of Marketing, Curtin University, Perth, Australia

Eric J. Vanman

School of Psychology, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia

Nicole Hartley

School of Business, University of Queensland Brisbane, Australia

Ian Phau

School of Marketing, Curtin University, Perth, Australia

Correspondence concerning this article should be address to B. Sung, School of Marketing,

Curtin University, Bentley, WA 6102, Australia

([email protected])

Abstract

Consumers are known to show a paradoxical tendency to favour both familiar and novel marketing stimuli such as products and advertisements. However, an explanation for this paradox has yet to be proposed. This provides immense challenges for marketing practices that conventionally strive to build familiarity (e.g. building awareness, recognition, recall, and customer relationships). Using the emotion differentiation framework, this theoretical paper shows that this paradox is a result of two distinct emotions - liking and interest.

Specifically, consumers like familiarity but are interested in novelty. This paper offers six empirical propositions to: (1) differentiate interest from liking; (2) show that liking motivates consumers to favour familiarity whereas interest motivates consumers to prefer novelty; (3) demonstrate that interest accounts for previously explained boundary conditions of the familiarity-liking effect; and (4) provide insights to explain previous conflicting findings in the field of innovation, advertising, and consumer psychology research.

Keywords: novelty, familiarity, the omnivore paradox, interest, and liking

The Emotion of Interest and its Relevance to Consumer Psychology and Behaviour

A paradox exists in our understanding of consumer psychology and behaviour. There is a strong positive relationship between familiarity and liking that resides at the core of consumer psychology (e.g., Monahan, Murphy, & Zajonc, 2000; Monin, 2003; Zajonc, 1968;

2001). Yet, consumers demonstrate a preference for novelty over familiarity (e.g., Bornstein,

Kale, & Cornell, 1990; Gillebaart, Förster, & Rotteveel, 2012; Rubera & Kirca, 2012; Talke,

Salomo, Wieringa, & Lutz, 2009). This is known as the omnivore paradox, whereby consumers are both neophiliacs and neophobics who simultaneously desire to approach and avoid novelty (for a review, see van Trijp & van Kleef, 2008). The current paper offers an explanation to this fundamental paradox by alluding to the differentiation of two similar yet distinct emotions - liking and interest. Specifically, it is proposed that consumers like familiarity but are also interested in novelty. This culminates in six empirical propositions to resolve the omnivore paradox and advance our understanding of consumer psychology and behaviour.

Achieving familiarity is a fundamental goal of marketing. Familiarity has been shown to increase brand recall (e.g., Kent & Allen, 1994), consumer engagement (e.g., Paswan &

Ganesh, 2003), perceived product quality (e.g., Hoyer & Brown, 1990), brand preference

(e.g., Rindfleisch & Inman, 1998), purchase intention (e.g., Arora & Stoner, 1996), and repeat purchases (e.g., Macdonald, 2000). Brand familiarity prompts purchase intention by increasing consumers’ resistance toward competitive advertising (e.g., Kent & Allen, 1994) and reducing the likelihood of reference price seeking (e.g., Biswas, 1992). Thus, advertising is used to increase the reach, awareness, and familiarity of the advertised message (e.g., Kent

& Allen, 1994; Pechmann & Stward, 1988; Campbell & Keller, 2003). Endorsement

Running head: Paradoxical Desire for Familiarity and Novelty 2

marketing allows businesses to build associations between a brand or product with a likable and familiar endorser (Cornwell & Coote, 2005; Nicholls et al., 1999). Further, branding strategies are used to build top-of-mind awareness (e.g., Fang, Singh, & Ahluwalia, 2007;

Ferraro, Bettman, & Chartrand, 2009). As such, marketers often strive to achieve greater familiarity for their brands.

However, prior research has shown that consumers prefer novelty over familiarity in certain motivational contexts. For instance, consumers tend to favour novelty over familiarity when they are primed to focus on growth and advancement instead of security (Gillebaart et al.,

2012; Topolinski and Sparenberg, 2012). Consumers are also known to actively engage in variety-seeking and brand switching behaviours for the sake of novelty even when such experiences are less attractive (e.g., Ratner, Kahn, & Kahneman, 1999; Van Trijp, Hoyer, &

Inman, 1996). Novelty has also been found to be a key determinant in the success of innovative products (e.g., Talke, et al., 2009; Kleinschmidt & Cooper, 1991; Calantone,

Chan, & Cui, 2006).

However, whether consumers prefer familiarity or novelty is an important question that has remained unanswered. In fact, recent research in psychology has failed to concur on an resolution to this question (e.g., Norton, Frost, & Ariely, 2011; 2013; Norton et al., 2007;

Reis, Maniaci, Caprariello, Eastwick, & Finkel, 2011; Ullrich, Krueger, Brod, & Groschupf,

2013). Prior research has focused on the individual’s affective motivation to prefer familiarity and found that familiarity breeds liking (e.g., Ferraro et al., 2009; Fang et al., 2007; Zajonc,

2001). However, very little research has examined the opposing affective motivation that drive the individual’s preference for novelty. Therefore, it is suggested that the missing piece

to the omnivore paradox is the understanding of individuals’ affective motivations to

approach novelty.

Interest is an emotion that piques an individual’s curiosity, motivating them to approach

novel, complex, but not necessarily pleasant stimuli (Silvia, 2005b; 2006; 2008; Turner &

Silvia, 2006). Thus, the purpose of this paper is to shed light on the relevance of interest to

the understanding of consumer psychology and behaviour. Specifically, it is proposed that the conflicting tendency to approach both the familiar and novel is accounted for by two distinct positive affective states: liking (contentment and joy) which motivates consumers to favour familiarity; and interest which motivates consumers to favour novelty. This is in line with a growing stream of research on the differentiation of positive emotions (e.g., Gable &

Harmon-Jones, 2008; Harmon-Jones, Gable, & Price, 2013; Smith, Tong, & Ellsworth, 2014;

Tong, 2015). Most importantly, this paper explores how the emotion differentiation framework provides insights to better understand and manage consumers’ tendency to favour both familiar and novel marketing stimuli.

This paper is divided into four parts. First, it will demonstrate that the differentiation of positive affects (i.e., liking and interest) may provide a more thorough and adequate approach to examine the effects of emotion on decision making and information processing. Second, recent research in both psychology (Smith et al., 2014) and marketing (So, Achar, Han,

Agrawal, & Duhachek, 2015) has encouraged the adoption of appraisal theory to advance the study of emotion on consumer psychology. To do so, this paper will utilise an appraisal theory perspective to differentiate the emotional and motivational quality of interest from liking. Specifically, it is argued that familiarity leads to liking, whereas novelty results in interest. Third, it will highlight how interest and its related appraisal may explain the

Running head: Paradoxical Desire for Familiarity and Novelty 4

boundary conditions of the familiarity-liking association, something that has yet to be explained by the existing literature. Lastly, this paper will discuss the practical and theoretical implication of the differentiation between the familiarity-liking and interest-novelty association in consumer psychology and marketing.

Differentiation of Positive Emotions

Liking and interest are both positive emotions (Fredrickson, 2001; Silvia, 2006; Turner &

Silvia, 2006). However, it is proposed that familiarity motivates consumers to favour familiarity while novelty motivates them. This challenges the conventional notion in the psychology and marketing literature that all positive emotions have nearly identical effects on one’s psychology and behaviour (for a review, see Cavanaugh, Bettman, Luce, & Payne,

2007). A notable example of this conventional notion is the affect infusion model, which suggests that the positive and negative valence of affective experiences may determine how individuals process information (Forgas, 1995). Similarly, the broaden-and-build theory proposes that all positive emotions serve the function of broadening attention and cognition to build one’s physical, social, intellectual, and psychological resource (Fredrickson, 1998;

2001). This overgeneralisation is further supported by research that report high correlations amongst the experience of different positive emotions (e.g., Barrett, Gross, Christensen, &

Benvenuto, 2001).

However, recent research on emotion differentiation shows that such an overgeneralisation is misleading. For instance, early research suggested that all positive affects facilitate peripheral and heuristic processing (e.g., Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). However, recent findings shows that some positive emotions such as awe and love led to more systematic processing

(Griskevicius, Shiota, & Neufeld, 2010a; Griskevicius, Shiota, & Nowlis, 2010b). Another example is the effect of positive emotions on the attentional scope, whereby the broaden-and- build theory suggests that positive emotions broaden attention (for a review, see Fredrickson

& Branigan, 2001). Other studies also shows that approach-motivated emotions that are positive in affective valence (e.g., desire and enthusiasm) narrow attentional scope (Gable &

Harmon-Jones, 2008; Sung & Yih, 2015). Thus, the emotion differentiation framework appears to be a more robust explanation on how individual emotions can affect consumer psychology and behaviour.

In fact, the emotion differentiation framework is consistent with various established theories of emotions. Plutchik (1980) proposed that positive emotions have different evolutionary functions that facilitate survival, reproduction, affiliation, and exploration. Ellsworth and

Smith (1998) demonstrated that positive emotions are evoked by distinct cognitive appraisals and Frijda (1986) showed that emotions are associated with different action tendencies. Thus, positive emotions appear to involve different antecedents and consequences. In line with this,

Tong (2015) reported that appraisal structures are different for seemingly similar positive emotions such as amusement, contentment, and joy. For instance, contentment is predicted by a self-relevant and low-effort situation and interest is uniquely evoked by high personal control (Smith & Ellsworth, 2014; Tong, 2015). Although the evolutionary function and appraisal of emotions are frequently discussed in marketing and consumer psychology literature, the differentiation of positive emotions have been neglected by most studies.

Therefore, the current paper draws on the emotion differentiation framework to explain consumers’ paradoxical tendency to favour both familiarity and novelty.

Running head: Paradoxical Desire for Familiarity and Novelty 6

Taken together, the valence of an emotional state does not necessarily serve as an adequate and comprehensive account of its functions and effects on the individual’s decision-making processes. Instead, differentiating emotion by their appraisal structure, motivational function, and evolutionary benefit may provide a more complete examination. This leads to the proposition:

P1: The emotion differentiation framework provides a more holistic account of the

antecedents and consequences of consumers’ emotions.

In this paper, the framework of emotion differentiation is extended to liking and interest. It is also suggested that such a differentiation may account for an individual’s seemingly contradictory tendency to favour both familiarity and novelty. In the next section, liking and interest are differentiated by examining their appraisal structures, motivational functions, subjective experiences, and physiological manifestations.

Differentiating Interest from Liking

In applying the emotion differentiation framework into consumer psychology and behaviour, it is proposed that familiarity evokes liking and novelty evokes interest. Liking has been broadly defined as an emotional state with a positive valence and is closely related to the emotion of contentment and joy (Ferraro et al., 2009; Fang et al., 2007; Zajonc, 2001).

However, marketing research has largely neglected interest as an emotion (Sung, Hartley,

Vanman, & Phau, 2016). In this section, interest is defined and its distinction to liking highlighted. Specifically, it is showed that interest has different appraisal structures, motivation functions, subjective experience, expression, and physiological consequences.

What is Interest?

Interest is an evolutionarily adaptive emotion that motivates people to develop a broad set of

new knowledge, skills, and experiences (Izard, 2007; Silvia, 2006; 2008; Silvia & Kashdan,

2009). It initiates and maintains an individual’s engagement with the environment and is

crucial for survival and adaptation (Izard, 2007; Silvia, 2006; Silvia & Kashdan, 2009). In

fact, research on curiosity suggests that individuals favour novelty because they innately experience a feeling of interest to learn about novelty (Litman, 2010; Silvia, 2006). Interest is, however, is an ‘eccentric emotion’ and some theorists question if interest is truly an emotion (see Silvia, 2008, for a discussion of this issue). Contemporary theories of emotion suggest that an emotion motivates and organises cognition and action by providing information such as distinctive subjective conscious experiences, expressive signals, changes

in physiology, and antecedent cognitive appraisals (Ekman, 1992; Izard, 2010; Roseman &

Smith, 2001). In line with this definition, interest appears to possess these emotional qualities

and, most importantly, its emotional profile is distinct to liking.

Appraisal Structure and Motivational Functions

Under appraisal theories, each emotion is elicited by a set of appraisals – an individual’s

cognitive evaluation and interpretation of an event or a stimulus that can occur automatically

and outside of awareness (Izard, 2010; Roseman & Smith, 2001). Thus, the same event can

trigger different emotional responses amongst different individuals and also within the same

individual over time. For instance, individuals may experience a positive affective state when

they receive a complimentary drink. However, the same event may evoke a negative affective

state if they feel obligated to tip more. Recent research has identified a pattern of cognitive

Running head: Paradoxical Desire for Familiarity and Novelty 8

appraisal that gives rise to interest (Silvia, 2005a; 2004b; 2006). Most importantly, the

appralisal structures are the most compelling evidence that differentiates interest from liking.

Interest is evoked by a novelty-complexity appraisal and high coping potential appraisal, regardless of whether these appraisals were measured or manipulated (Silvia, 2005a; 2005b;

Silvia, Henson, & Templin, 2009; Turner & Silvia, 2006). Drawing from Berlyne’s (1960;

1970) work, Silvia (2005a; 2006; 2008) defined novelty-complexity appraisal as an individual’s interpretation that a stimulus is new, ambiguous, complex, obscure, unclear, unexpected, unfamiliar, or otherwise not understood. In this paper, we use the term ‘novelty’

as an abbreviation of the multidimensional expression of ‘novelty-complexity.’ Coping potential appraisal is an individual’s general estimation of resources, power, ability, and control in order to understand the novelty of an event or stimulus (Roseman & Smith, 2001;

Silvia, 2005a; 2006; 2008). Simply put, coping potential reflects an individual's estimate of readiness for novelty. Taken together, individuals only experience interest toward a stimulus that is subjectively appraised as novel and its novelty is manageable or understandable within their ability.

Recent research supports the two appraisal structures of interest. For instance, art experts are more interested and less confused about abstract images in comparison to novices (Hekkert &

Wieringen, 1996; Silvia, 2013). Artwork titles also increase an individual’s comprehension and evoke interest toward the artwork even when viewers are told to ignore the title or that the title is incorrect (Millis, 2001). Coping potential has also been found to mediate the effect of trait curiosity on interest toward poetry and visual art (Silvia, 2008). Furthermore, comprehensibility has been found to predict interest toward polygons and artwork only when individuals judge the target as a complex stimulus (Silvia, 2005a; 2005b, Millis, 2001).

Novelty appraisals and high coping potential appraisals are unique to the experience of interest. In particular, novelty appraisals and high coping potential appraisals doe not predict

the experience of liking (Ellsworth & Smith, 1988; Silvia; 2005b; 2006; Turner & Silvia,

2006). Furthermore, the appraisal structure of interest means that interest is not necessarily

elicited by pleasant stimuli. In fact, Turner and Silvia (2006) showed that novel, disturbing paintings evoke greater interest but lower liking. In their research, the experience of interest was positively associated with a novelty appraisal, whereas liking had a negative association with a novelty appraisal. Thus, interest appears to be a positive emotional response toward novelty, whereas liking is a positive emotional response toward familiarity.

Subjective Experience, Expression and Physiology

The experience of interest is pleasantly toned and accompanied by the feeling of being alive, active, engaged and curious (Ellsworth & Smith, 1988; Silvia, 2006). Different to liking, the expression and physiology of interest are associated with orientation, attention and concentration (Silvia, 2008). Interest is typically characterised by movement of the frontalis muscle (at the forehead), tilting of the head, a faster rate of speech, and a greater range of vocal frequency (Banse & Scherer, 1996; Langsdorf, Izard, Rayias, & Hembree, 1983; Libby,

Lacey, & Lacey, 1973). The expression of interest is different to the universal smiling and eye-crinkling expression of liking (Silvia, 2008). Furthermore, interest is indexed by an increase in skin conductance and a decrease in heart rate (Langsdorf et al., 1983; Reeve,

1993). In contrast, liking is typically indexed by an increase in heart rate (Nyklíček, Thayer,

& Van Doornen, 1997). Thus, interest appears to have the expressional and physiological features of a typical emotion and its emotional profile is different to liking.

Running head: Paradoxical Desire for Familiarity and Novelty 10

Both interest and liking are positive emotions, yet they have different emotional qualities including expression, physiology, appraisal structure, and motivational function. Most importantly, liking appears to underlie an individual’s desire for familiarity, whereas interest seems to underlies an individual’s desire for novelty.

This leads to the proposition:

P2: Liking and interest are two distinct emotional responses that drive consumers

to favour familiarity and novelty, respectively.

In the next section, evidence supporting the strong association between familiarity and liking is reviewed. Following this, interest’s abuility toaccount for previously unexplained boundary conditions of this familiarity-liking association is shown.

Applying Interest to the Boundary Conditions of Familiarity-Liking Effect

Familiarity breeds liking and this notion has been supported by research in both marketing and psychology. Consumers show greater liking toward familiar over unfamiliar brands (e.g.,

Laroche, Kim, & Zhou, 1996), products (e.g., Park & Lessig, 1981), product features (e.g.,

Zhou & Nakamoto, 2007), innovations (e.g., Rogers, 2003), advertisements (e.g., Pieters,

Warlop, & Wedel, 2002), spokespeople (e.g., Weisbuch & Mackie, 2009), and music (e.g.,

Ward, Goodman, & Irwin, 2013). In fact, incidental exposure toward a brand, for example, walking past a product that displays the brand logo may increase liking and purchase intention toward the exposed brand (Ferraro et al., 2009). This incidental brand exposure effect is unaffected even when cosnumers are distracted during exposure or unaware of the

exposure. Therefore, familiarity has the robust effect of attracting customers. However, this familiarity-liking effect is not without its limits. To demonstrate how interest serves as an explanation of consumers’ tendency to favour novelty, this section demonstrates how interest may account for the boundary conditions of the familiarity-liking effect.

Boredom and Satiation

Consumers are known to exhibit a response called ‘wear-out,’ whereby high familiarity

toward an advertisement ultimately evokes tedium that decreases the effectiveness of the

advertisement and brand placement (e.g., Anand & Sternthal, 1990; Masterson, 1999;

Pechmann & Stewart, 1988). In fact, earlier research has suggested that three exposures to the

same advertisement are sufficient to reverse the positive effect of advertising repetition or

familiarity (Campbell & Keller, 2003). Other researchers also demonstrated that high levels

of exposure induce negative brand attitudes (Cauberghe & De Pelsmacker, 2010; Cowley &

Barron, 2008).

Bornstein et al. (1990) proposed that familiarity might breed boredom and, in turn, reverse the familiarity-liking effect. In their study, participants with low boredom proneness exhibited the familiarity-liking effect, whereas boredom prone participants did not show any evidence of the effect. Furthermore, repetitions of interesting stimuli increased liking, but repetition of uninteresting stimuli decreased affective ratings. Thus, consumers may feel bored toward familiarity and such boredom may reverse the familiarity-liking effect.

Boredom is an affective state that is considered to be the inverse of interest (Silvia, 2006;

2009). Thus, the reduction of liking after excessive exposure may merely reflect a decrease in

Running head: Paradoxical Desire for Familiarity and Novelty 12

interest and an increase in boredom. This may occur as a consumer’s novelty appraisal

decreases upon developing familiarity toward a marketing stimulus. Simply put, the novelty

appraisal at low familiarity generates interest. This keeps a stimulus relevant and interesting

in addition to the familiarity-liking effect. However, excessive repetition of the same stimulus

nullifies the novelty appraisal and interest, resulting in boredom and satiation that compete

with the familiarity-liking effect. Such a decrease in interest toward the exposed stimulus

prompts consumers to gradually seek novelty.

Complexity of the Stimulus

Novelty and the complexity of a stimulus appear to buffer against the satiation of overexposure. For instance, more robust familiarity-liking effects have been observed for ideography with more (vs. less) brush strokes (Saegert & Jellison, 1970), musical compositions with longer (vs. shorter) chords (Heyduk, 1975), and products with complex

(vs. simple) design (Cox D. & Cox A.D., 2002). The appraisal structure of interest explains why perceived novelty of a familiar stimulus may serve as a buffer against satiation under excessive exposure situations. Novelty appraisal incorporates multiple dimensions including newness, ambiguity, complexity, and unexpectedness (Silvia, 2005a; 2006; 2008). Thus, complexity of a stimulus (i.e., a dimension of novelty) appears to moderate the negative effects resulting from excessive familiarity.

Promotion and Progressive Motivational Contexts

Another boundary condition of the familiarity-liking effect is the motivational context of the consumption. Past research has suggested that certain motivational contexts can reverse the

positive association between familiarity and liking (Bornstein et al., 1990; Gillebaart et al.,

2012; Topolinski & Sparenberg, 2012). According to regulatory focus theory (Higgins,

1997), individuals pursue goals with two motivational orientations: (1) a promotion focus,

whereby individuals focus on growth; and (2) a prevention focus, whereby individuals focus

on security. Across six experiments, Gillebaart et al. (2012) showed that individuals prefered

familiar or repeatedly presented stimuli under the prevention focus conditions, but preferred

novel stimuli under the promotion focus conditions. These findings were replicated with

individual differences in regulatory focus and other manipulations of regulatory focus such as

high versus low power (i.e., promotion vs. prevention focus).

Similarly, a progression mindset can also reverse the familiarity-liking effect. Topolinski and

Sparenberg (2012) proposed that a clockwise rotation movement activates a progression

mindset whereas a counter-clockwise rotation movement activates a regression mindset. The

familiarity-liking effect was produced in the counter-clockwise condition. However, the

authors found that merely asking participants to execute or view a clockwise movement could

increase participants’ preferences toward novel, unrepeated, and unconventional stimuli.

Thus, a simple motor clockwise movement, such as opening a bottle’s cap and igniting a

car’s engine, appears to prime a progression mindset and reverse the familiarity-liking effect.

The novelty categorisation theory suggests that a promotion regulatory focus and a

progression (vs. regression) mindset are highly-related as they both facilitate the processing of new information (Förster, Marguc, & Gillebaart, 2010). It is proposed that this facilitation

effect is a reflection of an increase in the coping potential appraisal, which may ultimately

result in a desire for more novelty. Additionally, these psychological tendencies motivate

individuals to the goal of exploration, growth, advancement, and achievement instead of mere

Running head: Paradoxical Desire for Familiarity and Novelty 14

pleasure and reward (see Förster et al., 2010; Higgins, 1997; Topolinski & Sparenberg,

2012). This is consistent with the functional and motivational account of interest, which proposes that interest drives individuals to explore and seek new information to achieve these

goals. These prior findings that support the relevant of interest to the boundary conditions of

the familiarity-liking effect leads to the proposition:

P3: Interest serve as an explanation for previously unexplained boundary

conditions of the familiarity-liking effect.

Implications and Future Research

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to adopt an appraisal theory perspective to differentiate interest and liking, as well as their effects on people’s decision-

making and information processing. Interest has been largely studied by aesthetic research

and no existing research has translated Silvia’s works into a consumer context. In this

section, the theoretical and practical implications of interest across different fields of marketing and consumer psychology are discussed. The aim is to provide testable propositions and questions for future research.

Product Newness and Innovativeness

Most marketing researchers and practitioner assume an inverted-U shaped relationship between product innovativeness and product success. However, the underlying mechanism of this relationship is still unknown (for a review, see Goldenberg, Lehmann, & Mazursky,

2001; Steenkamp & Gielens, 2003; van Trijp & van Kleef, 2008). Product newness and

innovativeness have been largely considered from a functional stance, which defines

innovation as a discontinuity in marketing and/or technological factors (for a review, see

Calantone et al., 2006; Garcia & Calantone, 2002). Thus, most existing research has been

devoted to identify macro-marketing predictors of new product performance including

technological innovativeness, market characteristics, pricing, and product advantage

(Calantone et al., 2006; Henard & Szymanski, 2001). Consequently, consumers’ psychological responses toward innovation has been largely ignored by the product newness literature.

Future research may benefit from conceptualising novelty as a dimension of product

innovativeness that serves as a subjective appraisal stemming from consumers’ viewpoint.

Doing this allows researchers to apply the motivation of interest and liking as an underlying

mechanism of the inverted-U shaped relationship between product innovativeness and

product success. Specifically, it is proposed:

P4: The interactive effect of the novelty appraisal and coping potential appraisal

serves as an explanation for the inverted-U shaped relationship between

product innovativeness and product success.

That is, as product innovativeness increases consumers’ perception of novelty also increases

and results in interest. However, interest is reversed when novelty of the innovation exceeds

the limits of one’s coping potential appraisal and ultimately leading to negative affective

states such as confusion. The optimal point of product innovativeness may therefore be a

balance between the familiarity-liking relationship and the novelty-interest relationship. Such

a consideration of affective responses toward product innovativeness may offer

Running head: Paradoxical Desire for Familiarity and Novelty 16

unprecedented insights, given that few studies have considered consumers’ emotional response toward innovations (for notable exceptions, see Chaudhuri, Aboulnasr, & Ligas,

2010, and Wood & Moreau, 2006).

Consumer Interest toward Advertisements

Interest appears to have a positive effect on consumers’ responses toward the advertisement, the advertised product, and the advertised brand. Consumers’ interest is a strong predictor of viewing duration and purchase intent (Olney, Holbrook, & Batra, 1991; Stapel, 1994).

Interestingness of an advertisement may also enhance consumers’ attitude toward the advertisement and the advertised brand (Alwitt, 2000). However, the antecedent of interestingness in advertising has not been thoroughly examined and psychological theories pertaining to the emotion of interest have not been previously considered. This is unsurprising given that: (1) there is limited research on consumer interest in the advertising literature; (2) no existing research in advertising has examined interest as an emotional or affective state; and (3) researchers have only been interested in investigating advertising strategies that evoke other positive emotions such as joy and surprise (Teixeira, Wedel, &

Pieters, 2012).

The lack of scholarly attention on interest in the advertising literature can be attributed to the fact that interest has been has loosely defined in the extant literature.

For instance, Olney, Holbrook, and Batra (1991) considered interest as an attentive state, whereas Alwitt (2000) proposed that interest is the experience of curiosity, intense attention and high level of engagement. Stapel (1994) even considered interest and liking as the same theoretical construct. However, the existing advertising

literature lacks a consistent conceptual definition of interest. Given that interest has

been thoroughly examined as an emotion in psychology, it is proposed that future

research in advertising may utilise the appraisal theory framework to examine interest

as an emotional response toward advertisements. More importantly, it is proposed:

P5: Interest is an emotional response toward advertisement that is distinct to

liking and elicited by novelty appraisal as well as coping potential appraisal.

The Paradox between Fluency and Disfluency

Another paradox exists when consumers perceive both fluency and disfluency as desirable. It

is suggested that this paradox can be explained by applying the differentiation between the

familiarity-liking effect and the novelty-interest effect. Fluency is a subjective and metacognitive experience of ease in processing information (Alter & Oppenheimer, 2009).

Individuals tend to prefer fluent stimuli that are conceptually primed (Labroo, Dhar, &

Schwarz, 2008), visually clear (Reber, Winkielman, & Schwarz, 1998; Winkielman &

Cacioppo, 2001), or easy-to-imagine (Petrova & Cialdini, 2005). However, recent research showed that disfluency can also be desirable for consumers. Disfluency increases the uniqueness, purchase intention, and willingness to pay for a special-occasion product or service such as flowers and upscale restaurants (Pocheptsova, Labroo, & Dhar, 2010).

Furthermore, product and service advertised with disfluent text are perceived to be more instrumentally useful (Labroo & Kim, 2009), innovative (Song & Schwarz), and more competent (Thompson & Ince, 2013).

The emotion differentiation framework proposed in this paper offers a potential answer to this paradox. Processing ease is highly associated with familiarity. In comparison to novel

Running head: Paradoxical Desire for Familiarity and Novelty 18

stimuli, familiar stimuli are processed faster (Haber & Hershenson, 1965; Jacoby & Dallas,

1981). Moreover, individuals perceive easy-to-read words as more familiar than words that are hard to read, regardless of prior experience (Whittlesea, 1993; Whittlesea & Williams,

1998). The close relationship between fluency and familiarity suggests that the effect of

processing ease on consumer judgment is parallel to those reported for familiarity.

Applying this paper’s theoretical approach toward the conflict between familiarity and

novelty, consumers may like fluency but may be interested in disfluency. Thus, disfluency is

desirable in situation where novelty is favoured over familiarity. This may reconcile the

conflict between the positive effects of disfluency and the positive effects of fluency.

Consumers may perceive complexity and incongruence, dimensions of both disfluency and

novelty, to be desirable product attributes when considering goal-fulfilling, special-occasion,

professional and innovative products. The perceived interestingness of a product may also be

emphasised in a consumer’s purchasing decision when the product is an innovation or a gift

for a special-occasion. Thus, the differentiation between the familiarity-liking and novelty-

interest associations may explain why disfluency is desirable even if fluency is hedonically

marked. Specifically, it is proposed:

P6: Consumers tend to favour both fluency and disfluency because fluency evokes

liking whereas disfluency elicits interest.

This proposition may prompt a substantial reconsideration in the field of advertising.

Marketers always aim to design advertisements that are easily processed and retrieved by

consumers. However, a crucial objective of advertising is to capture consumers’ attention and

interest to process the information on the advertisement. If disfluency may evoke interest,

advertisements should not be designed to evoke fluent processing. Instead, they should be

designed to initially introduce a disturbance in one’s information process to capture attention

and later, evoke fluency to enhance consumers’ liking and evaluative judgment. An example of this strategy is to use a difficult-to-read font for the slogan but an easy-to-read font for the product information within the advertisement. On a broader level, future research may also examine whether perceptual, linguistic and conceptual disfluency are related to advertisement creativity. This may offer unprecedented insight into the tools that generate a novel, creative and effective advertisement.

Concluding Remarks

The omnivore paradox suggests that consumers prefer both familiarity and novelty. This paper resolves this paradox by demonstrating the relevance of interest to consumer psychology and behaviour. Interest was differentiated from liking by demonstrating the distinct appraisal structure, motivational function, physiological response and subjective experience of interest. Building on this differentiation, it was argued that the omnivore paradox is a result of the familiarity-liking effect and the novelty-interest effect. Specifically, consumers like familiarity but are interested in novelty. This led to the development of six propositions to facilitate our understanding of the: (1) omnivore paradox; (2) unexplained boundary conditions of the familiarity-liking effect; (3) unexplained inverted-U shaped relationship between product innovativeness and success; (4) antecedents and consequences of interest in advertising; and (5) the conflicting desire of consumer to favour fluency and disfluency.

Running head: Paradoxical Desire for Familiarity and Novelty 20

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