The Desire for Unique Consumer Products: A Moderator of the Scarcity Polarization Phenomenon?

Previous research has provided conflicting evidence for whether or not perceived scarcity extremitizes evaluations (e.g., Ditto & Jemmott, 1989; Harris, Lynn, & Clair, 1991). In the present study, the potential moderating role of different types of uniqueness needs was examined. Seventy-three introductory psychology students read descriptions of one consumer and one non-consumer target. Target valence (healthful vs. harmful) and prevalence (scarce vs. common) were manipulated. Participants completed measures assessing the desire for unique consumer products (DUCP, Lynn & Harris, 1997), need-for-uniqueness (NU, Snyder & Fromkin, 1977), and desirability of the targets. Although the results of a series of ANOVAs were nonsignificant (p > .05), all of the trends were in the predicted direction: perceived scarcity of consumer products polarized the ratings of high, but not low, DUCP participants; moreover, scarcity’s effect on the non-consumer target was not moderated by DUCP. Potential causes of these null results are discussed. The Desire for Unique Consumer Products: A Moderator 3 The Desire for Unique Consumer Products: A Moderator of the Scarcity Polarization Phenomenon? Because resources exist in limited quantities, scarcity is an ineluctable issue in life. Living beings constantly compete for adequate quantities of food, land, and in the case of people, popular new electronic items like the Xbox 360 (Xbox 360 fetches, 2005). Through regular experience with rarity, people learn to associate scarcity with evaluative extremity (Harris, Lynn, & Clair, 1991). Recent research has demonstrated that in addition to increasing the perceived value and desirability of a product, like the Xbox 360, scarcity can also make negative evaluations more extreme (e.g., Brannon & Brock, 2001). However, some researchers have failed to find this polarization effect (Harris, Lynn, & Clair, 1991). Harris and colleagues suggest that this failure might stem from some moderating personality variable that influences scarcity’s impact. They suggest that this unknown moderator could be the extent to which an individual strives to be unique. In accordance with Brock’s (1968) commodity theory, which states that items are valued more when they are unattainable, scarcity will have a greater impact on product evaluations for recipients high in need-for-uniqueness. Lynn’s (1991) quantitative review of the commodity theory literature described mixed evidence for this suggestion: Although some studies have demonstrated a scarcity by need-for-uniqueness interaction, other research has only displayed a scarcity main effect. The purpose of the present study is to provide an explanation for this discrepancy in the literature. The present study suggests that the inconsistent appearance of the scarcity by need-forThe Desire for Unique Consumer Products: A Moderator 4 uniqueness interaction is the result of the inappropriately general measure of uniqueness needs in previous studies. The scale used in this experiment is the desire for unique consumer products scale (DUCP, Lynn & Harris, 1997), which was designed to measure the specific desire for unique consumer goods and experiences. The primary hypothesis of the present study is that participants higher in DUCP will exhibit greater evaluation polarization of scarce consumer products compared to participants lower in DUCP; in contrast, a general measure of need-foruniqueness (NU, Snyder & Fromkin, 1977) is not expected to moderate scarcity’s effect on consumer product evaluations. I also predict that when the target stimulus is a self-attribute, NU will moderate the effect, and DUCP will not. In sum, these hypotheses suggest that the mean desirability rating for a target item will be more extremely positive or negative, depending on initial valence, when a product is scarce as opposed to common; however, these hypotheses only apply to participants with a certain level and type of uniqueness striving. Literature Review Commodity Theory According to Brock’s (1968) commodity theory, commodities are valued to the extent to which they are unavailable. Commodity theory provides a more general description of traditional economic notions of supply and demand. In Brock’s theory, a commodity is defined as any useful thing that can be possessed and conveyed. The definition of commodities encompasses both material goods and intangible messages and consumer experiences. The value of a commodity refers to its ability to influence behavior and attitudes. For material commodities, value also refers to desirability. In the literature, scarcity is conceptualized as unavailability. The Desire for Unique Consumer Products: A Moderator 5 Unavailability is typically operationalized as limits in supply or number of suppliers, cost in acquiring or providing a commodity, restrictions limiting possession of a commodity, and delays in providing a commodity. Empirical evidence supports the hypothesis that scarce commodities are valued more than plentiful products. For instance, Worchel, Lee, and Adewole (1975) conducted an experiment in which a jar of chocolate chip cookies was presented to participants. The task of the participants was to taste a cookie and rate its quality. The manipulation in the experiment was the number of cookies in the jar; the jar contained either two (scarce) or ten (not scarce) identical cookies. As predicted by the investigators, participants rated the scarce cookies as more desirable to eat and more costly than the non-scarce cookies. Interestingly, the scarce cookies were not rated as better tasting than the abundant cookies, even though perceived scarcity increased the desirability of the product. In addition to the effect of scarcity on cookie desirability, the effect of scarcity has been extended to encompass a variety of targets such as art prints and wine (Lynn, 1989; for a review of the commodity theory literature, see Lynn, 1991). Lynn describes at least four reasons why scarcity enhances the desirability of commodities. The first reason, which is most germane to the present study, is the fact that possessing a scarce resource provides a sense of distinctiveness (Lynn, 1992). This distinctiveness can be used to satisfy uniqueness needs or provide a standard of comparison between the self and less fortunate others (Wills, 1981, as cited in Lynn, 1992). The second explanation for scarcity’s effect on value is that scarcity often implies that a resource will be costly to obtain in terms of effort or financial expense. Indeed, Lynn (1989) provides support for The Desire for Unique Consumer Products: A Moderator 6 the assumed expensiveness explanation. In a 2 (scarcity, scarce vs. available) x 2 (price information, provided vs. not provided) experimental design, participants read about a white wine. After reading the description, participants in all four conditions rated the wine on multiple dimensions. In support of Lynn’s hypothesis, results indicated that when the price of the wine was not provided, scarcity framing enhanced both the perceived expensiveness and desirability of the wine compared to the non-scarcity framing. However, when participants were given price information, scarcity did not have an effect on desirability. Lynn and Bogert (1996) also provide evidence for the assumed expensiveness explanation of scarcity’s enhancement of desirability. In their experiment, participants read about stamps and coins which were described as scarce (few stamps issues or coins minted) or common (many stamps issued or coins minted). Participants rated the future value of and demand for the target item. Consistent with the investigators’ hypothesis, participants predicted that the scarce target item would exhibit a greater increase in market price compared to the plentiful item. However, in this study, participants did not predict greater future demand for the item based on current scarcity. The authors suggest that the student sample had little interest in the target categories (i.e., stamps and coins), and that the scarcity manipulation would affect demand for these targets for participants interested in collecting these items. This suggestion is consistent with commodity theory’s requirement that the commodity must have some inherent value (Brock, 1968). A third explanation for the effect of scarcity on desirability pertains to the concept of psychological reactance (e.g., Brehm, 1966). According to Brehm’s psychological reactance theory, people desire to preserve established freedoms. In fact, evidence suggests that people are The Desire for Unique Consumer Products: A Moderator 7 more motivated by potential loss than potential gains of the same magnitude (Tversky & Kahneman, 1981). As Lynn (1992) suggests, unavailability threatens the freedom to possess the resource. Worchel, Lee, and Adewole’s (1975) study using chocolate chip cookies provided evidence for this suggestion. In addition to the two conditions described above (scarcity vs. abundance), a third condition was included in which participants experienced increasing scarcity when the jar of ten cookies was replaced by a jar of two cookies. Participants in the increasing scarcity condition provided the most extremely positive evaluations of the cookies compared to the constant scarcity and no-scarcity conditions. The fourth explanation for scarcity’s effect on desirability is the possibility that unavailability serves as a heuristic cue (Cialdini, 1985). People generally associate rarity with evaluative extremity, particularly in the social domain (Festinger, 1954, as cited in Ditto & Jemmott, 1989). Scarcity can also serve as cues to other types of information. For example, restricted books are also assumed to have greater sexual content (Pincus & Waters, 1976). The desirability of a target will increase to the extent that the inferred attributes (e.g., amount of sexually explicit material) are valued by the judgment maker (Lynn, 1992). In a