••• ad research
Word choice shapes confidence in marketing claims
Research from the University of Florida's Warrington College of Business suggests a subtle linguistic factor – word "reversibility," or how readily a word suggests its opposite – can significantly influence consumer confidence in marketing statements.
The study distinguishes between unipolar words (hard to negate with an antonym, like "prominent") and bipolar words (easily reversed, like "intense," whose opposite "mild" comes readily to mind). Across two experiments involving more than 1,000 participants, lead researcher Giulia Maimone found that when consumers process negated bipolar words, the mental effort required to reverse them engages a more elaborate cognitive process – resulting in lower confidence in the claim's truthfulness, whether they're inclined to believe or doubt it.
Take a sunscreen marketed for its strong scent: "The scent is intense" (bipolar) versus "The scent is prominent" (unipolar). Consumers process the bipolar version more fluidly when stated affirmatively, boosting confidence among likely believers. Critically, that same reversibility works in marketers' favor with skeptics too – their doubt becomes less confident because disputing the claim requires the same effortful mental negation.
The takeaway: When testing or crafting messaging for new products, favor affirmative statements built on easily reversible words. This lexical choice can simultaneously strengthen conviction among receptive consumers and soften the certainty of skeptics – a small wording shift with outsized implications for message testing and claims research.
The study, "How word reversibility impacts judgment confidence," appears in the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research.
••• consumer psychology
E-com shopper assumptions affect hidden-price expectations
Iowa State University (ISU) researchers found that when online shoppers believe a product or store is expensive, revealing the price later in the shopping process can boost purchase interest.
The logic is surprisingly simple. “Without a number in front of them, people fill in the blank themselves – and they tend to imagine something higher. When the real price finally appears and it’s lower than what they had imagined, the product suddenly feels like a deal,” says Minzhe Xu, assistant professor of marketing in ISU’s Ivy College of Business.
Xu and the research team presented their findings in the article “Concealing prices: How delayed price disclosure influences consumer purchase decisions” in the Journal of Consumer Research.
Across six studies researchers found that shoppers can develop expectations based on their price beliefs – assumptions shaped by brand reputation, store environment, product category and economic climate. And when you remove the price, those beliefs tend to take over. “We found that delayed disclosure of prices amplified the influence of price beliefs people had,” Xu says.
Researchers also found that explanations for hidden prices can backfire. “When retailers explain why a price is hidden – for example, saying a ‘minimum advertised price’ policy prevents them from showing the number – most shoppers assume the price must be low. This assumption ends up reducing their interest in making a purchase, even for premium items that would normally benefit from the delay,” Xu says.