Up, up and away! The metaphor of verticality and the moderating role of regulatory focus in price assessments

Marconi Freitas da Costa, Claudio Felisoni de Angelo and Salomão Alencar de Farias

Revista de Gestão, 2022, vol. 30, issue 1, 18-31

Abstract: Purpose - The purpose of this study is to analyze the effects of the metaphor of verticality on how individuals assess prices, having regulatory focus as a moderator of this relationship. Design/methodology/approach - Two experiments were conducted with a 2 × 2 between-subjects design (metaphor of verticality: physically higher vs physically lower × regulatory focus: promotion vs prevention). The second study performed moderated mediation by incorporating the self-esteem variable. Findings - The results show that the treatment group consisting of prevention-focused individuals who consider themselves physically higher assessed prices according to what was proposed for the study compared to the group consisting of promotion-focused individuals who consider themselves physically lower. Participants in Treatment Group 1 attributed the lowest prices to products, demanded more significant discounts to go to another store searching for a product and considered the prices more unfair. Originality/value - The primary contribution of this study is to reveal that the position of one's body on the vertical axis influences their thoughts and, therefore, their decision-making in the scope of products and services prices. Moreover, regulatory focus can attenuate such effects.

Keywords: Metaphor of verticality; Regulatory focus; Pricing decisions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (text/html)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eme:regepp:rege-05-2020-0042

DOI: 10.1108/REGE-05-2020-0042

Access Statistics for this article

Revista de Gestão is currently edited by Adriana Marotti de Mello

More articles in Revista de Gestão from Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Emerald Support ().