Thesis Defense Presentation

Thesis Defense Presentation

Imperfect friend versus imperfect subordinate.

The effect of personal relationships between consumers and products

on the liking of flawed products.

Maria Sycheva (S2463105)

Introduction



European Commission: 88 million tons of food wasted annually in the EU

(FUSIONS, 2016)



Flawed products can be damaging to the company‘s image (McIntyre, 2013)



Anthropomorphism:

 Mascots: M&M’s and Mr. Clean

 “Talking” products: Siri and Alexa



Relationships:

 Expectations vary: personality and behavior standards for colleagues may be much

higher than those for friends (Geiger, 2009)



Point of investigation: whether the presence of a personal relationship between

the person and the anthropomorphized product affects the tolerance for flaws

and, therefore, the liking of the product and whether the type of personal

relationship affects the liking of a flawed product.

Literature review: Flawed products



Flawed products = products with minor imperfections that do not impact the

overall functionality of a product.



Superficially less attractive but appropriate for its intended use (e.g. variation in

color of parts of the item, minor production issues)



“The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less” , Barry Schwartz (2004):

 “buyer’s remorse”

 “the only way to avoid regret is to make the best possible decision”( Schwartz, 2004,

p.148)

 “The only way to be the best is to have the best” (Schwartz, 2004, p.94)



Flawed products may also be used to signal uniqueness.

 Handmade products



Handmade products receive a higher degree of liking due to the “love’’ they

contain (Fuchs, Schreier,& van Osselaer, 2015).

Literature review: Anthropomorphism



Anthropomorphism is defined as ‘the tendency to imbue the real or

imagined behavior of non-human agents with humanlike characteristics,

motivations, intentions, or emotions’ (Epley, Waytz, & Cacioppo, 2007, p.

864), or simply, assigning human characteristics and traits to nonhuman

objects or creatures.



Anthropomorphism is resistant to cultures, religions and other backgrounds

(Wan, and Aggarwal, 2015)  it is central to the human mind.



Feelings such as affection, empathy and relation are much more likely to

arise when humans perceive relatable characteristics such as those of a

human (Riek et.al., 2009).

Literature review: Anthropomorphism



Key characteristics that make people human, and that are transferrable to

anthropomorphic products:



Free will or consciousness

 “The power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate; the ability to act at one's own discretion”(Oxford Dictionary)

 Appearance of free will makes products more predictable (Nahmias, Morris,

Nadelhoffer & Turner, 2005)  more understandable (product may “act” the same way a person would)  trust (Waytz, Heafner & Epley, 2014).



Feelings

 If the product is perceived as human, it should be relatively easy to attribute it with feelings based on social cues relevant to humans:

 facial expressions(Waytz, Heafner & Epley, 2014)

 tone of voice in speech (Waytz, Heafner & Epley, 2014).

Literature review: Relationships

 Brand anthropomorphism is a highly influential factor in brand relationships (Wan and

Aggarwal, 2015)

 “if the brand is seen as a person, it is more likely that a consumer will form a relationship with the brand” (Wan, & Aggarwal, 2015, p.5)

 Aggarwal, & McGill (2012): two distinct types of brand relationships: a Servant, and a Partner.

 Partner co-creates the benefit with the consumer, or works together with him/her.

 Serv ant creates a benefit for the consumer, or works for him/her.

 Alternatively, these relationships can be compared to a relationship between friends (the

Partner relationship) and a superior and a subordinate (the Servant relationship).

 “…consumers perceive anthropomorphized products similar to person perception” (Wan

et al., 2017, p. 484)  perception of products under the condition of a particular relationship would be similar to a perception of a person

Hypothesis



H

: The level of liking will be higher for flawed products when they have a

personal relationship with the consumer, rather than an object relationship.



IV = Object relationship vs Personal relationship



DV = Liking



H

: The level of liking will be higher for the flawed anthropomorphized

products presented in a “Partner” setting, compared to those presented in

“Servant” setting.



IV = Partner vs Servant

Methodology



Survey of 12 questions on Amazon Mechanical Turk (Mturk)



269 participants



Male: 53.5% Female: 46.1&



US American: 91.3%



Age: 25-34: 47%



4 initial conditions, one per participant:

Methodology



Product: a backpack



Anthropomorphism Manipulation: First-person speech



“Hi my name is BeBe. I am a backpack.” vs “This is a BeBe backpack.”



Flaw manipulation: Color of the zipper



All black vs One grey



Relationship manipulation: Co-producer of benefit vs Provider of benefit



Working with you vs Working for you

Graphic representations

11

Text for the conditions

Condition

Text

No Anthro

This is a BeBe backpack. It has a substantial storage capacity and a built-in

power bank for charging various devices.

Partner

Hi, my name is BeBe. I am a backpack. Together, we will carry all of your

things around. Moreover, I have a built-in power bank, so we can stay in

touch with friends or play games for longer! I will be a loyal companion to

you on your journey! .

Servant

Hi, my name is BeBe. I am a backpack. I will hold all of the things for you

and carry them around! Moreover, I have a built-in power bank, so I can

charge all of your devices for you! I will work very hard for you and will not

disappoint!

Variables



DV – Liking 4 levels:

 Liking = How much do you like this backpack?

 Purchase intentions = How likely are you to purchase this backpack if you saw it in a store?

 Enjoyment = How much would you enjoy wearing this backpack?

Variables



Controls:



Age = How old are you?



Gender = What is your gender?



Use = Do you normally use backpacks?



Friend flaw tolerance = I accept my friends’ imperfections.



Subordinate flaw tolerance = Subordinates should have little to no flaws.



Free will = Do you think this product has free will/agency?



Feelings = Did you imagine this product to have feelings upon first reading the

description?

Results – Manipulation check



Dummy variable for Anthropomorphism computed



1 = Anthro 0 = No anthro



Feelings: whether the participants thought the product has feelings



One- Way ANOVA: Anthro: (M = 2.926, SD = 2.129) vs No-anthro (M = 1.948, SD =

1.749)



F

= 16.945, p < 0.001 significant at the 1%.



Acceptance of flaws in friends vs subordinates



Paired samples t-test: Friends flaw tolerance(M = 6,093, SD = ,861) VS Subordinate

flaw tolerance (M = 5,535, SD = 1,317).



t = 7,320, p = ,000

Results – Hypothesis testing: H1



DVs = interval, IVs = nominal data with two levels for both hypotheses

One-way ANOVA with contrasts is used.



Personal relationship (M = 4,9093, SD = 1,136) vs Object relationship (M =

5,015, SD = 1,164)



(t = ,604, p = 0,546)  not significant at 1%, 5%, or 10% levels. When testing

the variables separately, still no significant relationships are identified.



H1 not confirmed

Results – Hypothesis testing: H2



DVs = interval, IVs = nominal data with two levels for both hypotheses

One-way ANOVA with contrasts is used.



Partner (M

= 5,015, SD

= 1,051) vs Servant (M

= 4,805, SD

= 1,213)

relationship type



(t= 1,049, p = 0,295)  not significant at 1%, 5%, or 10% confidence levels.

When testing the variables separately, still no significant relationships are

identified.

Robustness test - Use



Variable Use has a significant effect on all Liking variables:



Median split sample into High and Low Use (Median = 4)



Both hypothesis tested



For High Use: significant difference between Partner and Servant relationships in

regards to liking at the 10% level (p = 0.064).



This points towards a need for a deeper understanding of what type of people

may respond to anthropomorphism.

18

Dependent

Discussion – H1



Anthropomorphized products are somewhat more complicated than

merely transferring human characteristics to a product.



It may be assumed that people do not pay as much attention to the

personal characteristics of the product as to its functionality.



Additionally, it may be suggested that this paper failed to successfully

make the products truly anthropomorphic.



BUT: Manipulation check on anthropomorphism worked

Discussion – H2



People associate general human characteristics, such as feelings, with

anthropomorphized products but may not with more specific characteristics, such as

the ability to be flawed.



General difficulty with giving product roles and having people recognize such roles:

 recognition of roles of products did not occur, and people did not perceiv e the presented products as Partner or Serv ant. A second reason could be that

 the characteristics of those roles did not successfully transfer to the product, and the product did not seem to be Partner or Serv ant in the first place due to surv ey design mishaps.



Appropriate to identify which roles are transferrable to which products:

 partner relationships may work when the products are initially intended to work together with the consumer to produce the benefit as partners (e.g. a pen),

 those designed to work for the consumer would be easily associated with serv ant relationships when anthropomorphized (e.g. a heater)

Limitations and recommendations



Limitations:



Manipulation of the relationship type and the flaw may not have come across



Including no flaw conditions for Partner and Servant relationships could have

provided valuable insight into the nature of the relationships between the person

and the product, and would be a valuable comparison point of the flawed

conditions for the same relationships



The lack of prior research on the topic



Recommendations:



Different relationship types that would impact the acceptance of flaws in

products, and that would be easier to transfer to the product



Including other cultures since culture plays an important role in interpersonal

relationships (Gudykunst, & Matsumoto, 1996) as well as general preference for

certain product types (Zhang, 1996).

References

 European Commission (accessed on 24.06.2017)

http://ec.europa.eu/food/safety/food_waste_en

 McIntyre, D. A. (2013, April 10). America’s Nine Most Damaged Brands. Retrieved June 25, 2017, from http://247wallst.com/special-report/2013/04/10/americas-nine-most-damaged-brands-2/

 Geiger, V. (2009). The master, serv ant, partner, extension-of-self framework in indiv idual, small group and whole class contexts. Crossing div ides, 201-208.

 Schwartz, B. (2004). The paradox of choice : Why more is less. New York, N.Y.: Ecco/HarperCollins

 Fuchs, C., Schreier, M., & v an Osselaer, S. M. (2015). The Handmade Effect: What's Lov e Got to Do with It?. Journal of Marketing, 79(2), 98-110.

 Epley, N., Waytz, A., & Cacioppo, J. T. (2007). On seeing human: a three-factor theory of anthropomorphism. Psychological review, 114(4), 864.

 Wan, J., & Aggarwal, P. (2015). Befriending Mr. Clean: The Role of Anthropomorphism in Consumer-Brand Relationships. Strong Brands, Strong Relationships, 119-134.

References

 Riek, L. D., Rabinowitch, T. C., Chakrabarti, B., & Robinson, P. (2009, March). How

anthropomorphism affects empathy toward robots. In Proceedings of the 4th ACM/IEEE

international conference on Human robot interaction (pp. 245-246). ACM.

 Nahmias, E., Morris, S., Nadelhoffer, T., & Turner 1, J. (2005). Surveying freedom: Folk intuitions about free will and moral responsibility. Philosophical Psychology, 18(5), 561-584

 Waytz, A., Heafner, J., & Epley, N. (2014). The mind in the machine: Anthropomorphism increases trust in an autonomous v ehicle. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 52, 113-117.

 Aggarwal, P., & McGill, A. L. (2012). When brands seem human, do humans act like brands? Automatic behavioral priming effects of brand anthropomorphism. Journal of Consumer

Research, 39(2), 307-323.

 Wen Wan, E., Peng Chen, R., & Jin, L. (2017). Judging a Book by Its Cov er? The Effect of Anthropomorphism on Product Attribute Processing and Consumer Preference. Journal of

Consumer Research, 43(6), 1008-1030

 Gudykunst, W. B., & Matsumoto, Y. (1996). Cross-cultural v ariability of communication in personal relationships. Communication in personal relationships across cultures, 19-56.