The role of perceived control on consumer evaluations

Modern consumers often have experiences where they feel they have the ability to attain desired outcomes in life, whereas sometimes they feel they lack such abilities. Although preliminary work shows that these experiences of high or low control can influence how consumers make choices, the literature lacks an understanding on how feelings of control can impact the evaluation of consumer decision input variables. My dissertation contributes to this area of research by investigating how perceptions of control influence two important consumer decision input variables: the perceived distance towards spatial or temporal targets and the perceived value of one’s time or money resource.\nIn my first essay, I start out by highlighting a seeming discrepancy in the literature. Specifically, prior research has found that people perceive positive objects and locations as physically closer than negative ones. Yet other work has found the opposite to be true for perceptions of temporal distance, where negative future events feel closer than positive ones. Motivated by this seeming discrepancy, I propose that (1) feelings of control can differentially influence how far away valenced (i.e. positive or negative) targets feel in space and time and that (2) the difference in perceived control over space versus time can account for these opposite findings. I provide empirical support for these claims across six studies and one single-paper meta-analysis. \nIn my second essay, I propose that incidental feelings of low (vs. high) control can affect the perceived instrumentality of consumers’ time and money resources. I build these hypotheses based on the literature on control threat and consumer resources. Across five studies, I find that feeling low (vs. high) control heightens people’s perceived instrumentality of time, whereas it decreases their perceived instrumentality of money. Moreover, I further show that this differential effect of control on time vs. money is driven by differences in the perceived self-relevance of the resource. Additionally, two studies explore how such resource evaluations go onto influence consumer spending decisions and consumer satisfaction. The findings contribute to the literature on control threat and resource perceptions while providing insight into how consumers view their resources and spend them.