Abstract
The present study investigated the extent to which luxury vs. non-luxury brand labels (i.e., extrinsic cues) randomly assigned to items and preferences for these items impact choice, and how this impact may be moderated by materialistic tendencies (i.e., individual characteristics). The main objective was to investigate the neural correlates of abovementioned effects using functional magnetic resonance imaging. Behavioural results showed that the more materialistic people are, the more they choose and like items labelled with luxury brands. Neuroimaging results revealed the implication of a neural network including the dorsolateral and ventromedial prefrontal cortex and the orbitofrontal cortex that was modulated by the brand label and also by the participants’ preference. Most importantly, items with randomly assigned luxurious brand labels were preferentially chosen by participants and triggered enhanced signal in the caudate nucleus. This effect increased linearly with materialistic tendencies. Our results highlight the impact of brand-item association, although random in our study, and materialism on preference, relying on subparts of the brain valuation system for the integration of extrinsic cues, preferences and individual characteristics.
Highlights
Research on consumer preferences has revealed the importance of extrinsic cues when evaluating the quality of an item[1]
Analyses revealed a significant main effect of the brand label (b = 25.794, CI95% = [10.547; 41.054], t(37.890) = 3.309, p = 0.002), suggesting that items displayed with luxury brand labels were preferred to those displayed with non-luxury brands, the items were exactly the same across conditions with brand labels randomly assigned
Concerning our second hypothesis, results revealed a significant interaction between materialism and brand label (b = 14.437, CI95% = [1.251; 27.615], t(35.410) = 2.144, p = 0.039), suggesting that the impact of the brand label increased with materialism
Summary
Research on consumer preferences has revealed the importance of extrinsic cues when evaluating the quality of an item[1]. The neural network underlying the computation of subjective values has been described in numerous functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies Key regions of this “brain valuation system” are the ventral striatum (VS), ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC), orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), insula, amygdala, and the posterior cingulate cortex[12,13,14,15,16,17]. Activity in the brain valuation system has been shown to be dependent on both extrinsic information about the stimuli and individual characteristics[3,5,10,23] When it comes to choices and purchase decisions, previous studies suggest that individual characteristics of the consumer may lead to increased interest and attention toward brands[24]. We predicted that materialism would enhance activity in the striatum (ventral and/or dorsal) and VMPFC when choosing items displayed with a luxurious as opposed to a non-luxurious brand label
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