Suckers in the morning, skeptics in the evening: Time-of-Day effects on consumers’ vigilance against manipulation

Abstract

Persuasion knowledge is defined as a consumer’s vigilance against manipulative persuasion. In this paper, we explore the relationship between persuasion knowledge and consumer’s diurnal preference. It is proposed that evening-type consumers display enhanced persuasion knowledge relative to morning types. Also, heightened persuasion knowledge is exhibited during their respective optimal times of day for both morning-type and evening-type consumers. We propose cognitive resource availability as the key underlying mechanism for this relationship. Finally, we also demonstrate an analogous relationship between consumer skepticism and diurnal preferences. Over three studies we find supportive evidence for our claims.