Strong anxiety boosts new product adoption when hope is also strong
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Published version
Author(s)
Lin, Yu-Ting
MacInnis, Deborah
Eisingerich, Andreas
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
New products can evoke anticipatory emotions such as hope and anxiety. On the one hand, consumers might hope that innovative offerings will produce goal-congruent outcomes; on the other hand, they might also be anxious about possible outcomes that are goal-incongruent. The authors demonstrate the provocative and counterintuitive finding that strong anxiety about potentially goal-incongruent outcomes from a new product actually enhances (vs. weakens) consequential adoption intentions (Study 1) and actual adoption (Studies 2 and 3) when hope is also strong. The authors test action planning (a form of elaboration) and perceived control over outcomes as serial mediators to explain this effect. They find that the proposed mechanism holds even after they consider alternative explanations, including pain/gain inferences, confidence in achieving goal-congruent outcomes, global elaboration, affective forecasts, and motivated reasoning. Managerially, the findings suggest that when bringing a new product to market, new product adoption may be greatest when hope and anxiety are both strong. The findings also point to ways in which marketers might enhance hope and/or anxiety, and they suggest that the use of potentially anxiety-inducing tactics such as disclaimers in ads and on packages might not deter adoption when hope is also strong.
Date Issued
2020-09-01
Date Acceptance
2020-05-15
Citation
Journal of Marketing, 2020, 84 (5), pp.60-78
ISSN
0022-2429
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Start Page
60
End Page
78
Journal / Book Title
Journal of Marketing
Volume
84
Issue
5
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2020.
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Sponsor
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Identifier
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022242920934495
Grant Number
RX3528-613-ICL
Subjects
Social Sciences
Business
Business & Economics
new product adoption
emotions
hope
anxiety
elaboration
perceived control
FUTURE
CONCEPTUALIZATION
DIMENSIONS
EMOTIONS
ABILITY
THREAT
WILL
FEAR
Marketing
1505 Marketing
1506 Tourism
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2020-07-10