Social Traces of Generic Humans Increase the Value of Everyday Objects

Past research finds that people behave as though the particular qualities of specific, strongly valenced individuals “rub off” on objects. People thus value a sweater worn by George Clooney but are disgusted by one worn by Hitler. We hypothesized that social traces of generic humans can also adhere...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Personality & social psychology bulletin 2017-06, Vol.43 (6), p.785-792
Main Authors: Job, Veronika, Nikitin, Jana, Zhang, Sophia X., Carr, Priyanka B., Walton, Gregory M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Consumer Behavior
Consumer goods
Female
Humans
Machinery
Male
Middle Aged
Objectivity
Perception
Social Behavior
Social Perception
Social psychology
Strangers
Studies
Valuation
Young Adult
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Summary:Past research finds that people behave as though the particular qualities of specific, strongly valenced individuals “rub off” on objects. People thus value a sweater worn by George Clooney but are disgusted by one worn by Hitler. We hypothesized that social traces of generic humans can also adhere to objects, increasing their value. Experiments 1 and 2 found that simply marking that consumer products (mugs, giftwrap) were made by generic strangers (e.g., “by people using machines” vs. “by machines run by people”) increased their perceived value. Experiment 3 demonstrated that this effect was mediated by thoughts about attention the object received from other people, which, in turn, led people to see the object as possessing more positive social qualities (e.g., friendly), increasing valuation. The results suggest that generic humans are perceived positively, possessing warm social qualities, and these can “rub off” and adhere to everyday objects increasing their value.
ISSN:0146-1672
1552-7433
DOI:10.1177/0146167217697694