Eva Buechel

Mysterious consumption items represent products that are chosen or purchased without knowing the exact nature of the product. In contrast to what we know about uncertainty aversion, we posit that consumers exhibit a preference for mysterious consumption items over non-mysterious consumption items of equal expected value. Ten studies show such a preference for mysterious consumption across a variety of products (stress-balls, ice cream, songs, teas, snacks, hotel rooms). The value of mysterious consumption, we argue, lies at least in part in the uncertainty about the nature of the outcome among objectively similar outcomes. Specifically, the greater number of horizontally differentiated outcomes makes mysterious consumption appealing and allows consumers to be surprised. The preference for uncertainty is not observed when the possible outcomes are vertically differentiated (i.e., differ in objective superiority) or when horizontal uncertainty is reduced to a degree that diminishes the ability to be surprised.

A hedonic contrast effect occurs when comparing a stimulus to its alternatives makes it better or worse. We find that counterfactual comparisons induce larger hedonic contrast effects when they are also social comparisons. Hedonic contrast effects influence happiness with a food or wage more when another person receives its counterfactual alternative than when no person receives its counterfactual alternative. Social attention, the propensity to attend to the experiences of other people, underlies the larger hedonic contrast effects induced by social comparisons. People pay more attention to counterfactual alternatives when they are also social comparison standards, and this difference in the allocation of attention mediates the larger hedonic contrast effects that social counterfactual comparisons induce. Reducing attentional resources with cognitive load or time pressure reduces the impact of social counterfactual comparisons, and drawing attention to nonsocial counterfactual comparisons increases their impact. Social attention makes comparisons stronger when they are social.