The DOI matches its Crossref record; 42 of the 42 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
When Brands Seem Human, Do Humans Act Like Brands? Automatic Behavioral Priming Effects of Brand Anthropomorphism
Abstract
This research examines automatic behavioral effects of priming brands that are anthropomorphized. It posits that anthropomorphized brands trigger people’s goals for a successful social interaction, resulting in behavior that is assimilative or contrastive to the brand’s image. Three studies show that consumers are more likely to assimilate behavior associated with anthropomorphized partner brands that they like, consistent with the goal of drawing in the liked coproducer, and servant brands that they dislike, consistent with the goal of pushing the disliked would-be helper away by signaling self-sufficiency. Results also show a contrastive behavior when primed with disliked partner brands and liked servant brands. These effects are observed in contexts unrelated to the brand prime. For example, priming Kellogg’s, a liked partner brand associated with healthfulness, led to greater willingness to take the stairs than the elevator in a purportedly unrelated study. No effects were observed of priming brands that were not anthropomorphized.
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cites
Multiple regression: testing and interpreting interactions
(1992) · Choice Reviews Online · doi:10.5860/choice.29-3352 · Cited by 36,654
Possessions and the Extended Self
Belk, R. W. (1988) · Journal of Consumer Research · doi:10.1086/209154 · Cited by 9,064
Consumers and Their Brands: Developing Relationship Theory in Consumer Research
Fournier, S. (1998) · Journal of Consumer Research · doi:10.1086/209515 · Cited by 7,542
Human Inference: Strategies and Shortcomings of Social Judgment.
Cherniak, C., Nisbett, R., & Ross, L. (1983) · The Philosophical Review · doi:10.2307/2184495 · Cited by 4,196
(2014) · Psychology Press eBooks · doi:10.4324/9781315807102 · Cited by 4,154
On seeing human: A three-factor theory of anthropomorphism
Epley, N., Waytz, A., & Cacioppo, J. T. (2007) · Psychological Review · doi:10.1037/0033-295x.114.4.864 · Cited by 4,069 · cited 2×
“These assertions are consistent with, and can also account for, the findings of Fitzsimons et al. (2008). Both Apple and Disney are ready candidates for anthropomorphizing by consumers, and, in fact, Apple has been anthropomorphized in a long-running advertising campaign (i.”
ResultDimensions of Brand Personality
Aaker, J. L. (1997) · Journal of Marketing Research · doi:10.1177/002224379703400304 · Cited by 4,033
Muniz, A. M., & O'Guinn, T. C. (2001) · Journal of Consumer Research · doi:10.1086/319618 · Cited by 3,998
Bargh, J. A., Chen, M., & Burrows, L. (1996) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/0022-3514.71.2.230 · Cited by 2,736
Bargh, J. A., Chen, M. I.-C., & Burrows, L. (1996) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037//0022-3514.71.2.230 · Cited by 2,636
Cited by
Blut, M., Wang, C., Wünderlich, N. V., & Brock, C. (2021) · Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science · doi:10.1007/s11747-020-00762-y · Cited by 1,194
Brand authenticity: An integrative framework and measurement scale
Morhart, F., Malär, L., Guèvremont, A., Girardin, F., & Grohmann, B. (2015) · Journal of Consumer Psychology · doi:10.1016/j.jcps.2014.11.006 · Cited by 1,084
Managing Brands in the Social Media Environment
Gensler, S., Völckner, F., Liu-Thompkins, Y., & Wiertz, C. (2013) · Journal of Interactive Marketing · doi:10.1016/j.intmar.2013.09.004 · Cited by 911
Pelau, C., Dabija, D.-C., & Ene, I. (2021) · Computers in Human Behavior · doi:10.1016/j.chb.2021.106855 · Cited by 889
Customer service chatbots: Anthropomorphism and adoption
Sheehan, B., Jin, H. S., & Gottlieb, U. (2020) · Journal of Business Research · doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2020.04.030 · Cited by 667
Metadata
- Authors
- Aggarwal, P., & McGill, A. L.
- Venue
- Journal of Consumer Research
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2012-08-01
- Volume
- 39
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 307-323
- ISSN
- 0093-5301 (ISSN-L)
- 1537-5277
- OpenAlex
- W2102311936
- Cited by
- 549
- References
- 42
- FWCI
- 45.71
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
How to cite
Cite CoChat for the checks on this page, and the paper for its own findings.
- This page
- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: When Brands Seem Human, Do Humans Act Like Brands? Automatic Behavioral Priming Effects of Brand Anthropomorphism. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1086/662614
- The paper
- Aggarwal, P., & McGill, A. L. (2012). When Brands Seem Human, Do Humans Act Like Brands? Automatic Behavioral Priming Effects of Brand Anthropomorphism. Journal of Consumer Research. https://doi.org/10.1086/662614
Data sources
Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
