IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ucp/jacres/doi10.1086-703462.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Human or Robot? Consumer Responses to Radical Cognitive Enhancement Products

Author

Listed:
  • Noah Castelo
  • Bernd Schmitt
  • Miklos Sarvary

Abstract

Human enhancement products allow consumers to radically enhance their mental abilities. Focusing on cognitive enhancements, we introduce and study a novel factor—dehumanization (i.e., denying a person emotional ability and likening them to a robot)—which plays a key role in consumers’ reluctance to use enhancement products. In study 1, consumers who enhance their mental abilities beyond normal levels were dehumanized, whereas consumers who use the same products to restore lost abilities were not. Moreover, dehumanization decreased prospective consumers’ interest in using the enhancement products themselves. Study 2 shows that emphasizing how the motivation to use an enhancement product can be prosocial (i.e., helping other people) inoculates the consumer against dehumanization, and study 3 supports this positioning strategy in an online advertising campaign. Together, these studies uncover dehumanization as an important obstacle to consumer adoption of enhancement products and demonstrate how to overcome this obstacle with a prosocial positioning strategy.

Suggested Citation

  • Noah Castelo & Bernd Schmitt & Miklos Sarvary, 2019. "Human or Robot? Consumer Responses to Radical Cognitive Enhancement Products," Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, University of Chicago Press, vol. 4(3), pages 217-230.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucp:jacres:doi:10.1086/703462
    DOI: 10.1086/703462
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/703462
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.
    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/703462
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1086/703462?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Huang, Jingya & Wang, Liangyan & Chan, Eugene, 2024. "When does anthropomorphism hurt? How tool anthropomorphism negatively affects consumers' rewards for tool users," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 170(C).
    2. Martin Mende & Stephanie M. Noble & Thomas Sugar, 2023. "From homo sapiens to homo superior? Wearable robotics as the platform for transhumanist marketing," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 51(4), pages 757-766, July.
    3. Eddie John Paul Fisher & Eddie Fisher, 2024. "Fresh thinking about Neo-genetic and Social Perspectives of Mind Upload capabilities beyond the Biological Human Body," Journal of Social Science Studies, Macrothink Institute, vol. 11(1), pages 149-149, June.
    4. Broekhuizen, Thijs & Dekker, Henri & de Faria, Pedro & Firk, Sebastian & Nguyen, Dinh Khoi & Sofka, Wolfgang, 2023. "AI for managing open innovation: Opportunities, challenges, and a research agenda," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).
    5. Benedict G. C. Dellaert & Suzanne B. Shu & Theo A. Arentze & Tom Baker & Kristin Diehl & Bas Donkers & Nathanael J. Fast & Gerald Häubl & Heidi Johnson & Uma R. Karmarkar & Harmen Oppewal & Bernd H. S, 2020. "Consumer decisions with artificially intelligent voice assistants," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 31(4), pages 335-347, December.
    6. Flavián, Carlos & Belk, Russell W. & Belanche, Daniel & Casaló, Luis V., 2024. "Automated social presence in AI: Avoiding consumer psychological tensions to improve service value," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 175(C).
    7. Hermann, Erik & Puntoni, Stefano, 2024. "Artificial intelligence and consumer behavior: From predictive to generative AI," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 180(C).
    8. Grewal, Dhruv & Kroschke, Mirja & Mende, Martin & Roggeveen, Anne L. & Scott, Maura L., 2020. "Frontline Cyborgs at Your Service: How Human Enhancement Technologies Affect Customer Experiences in Retail, Sales, and Service Settings," Journal of Interactive Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 9-25.
    9. Erik Hermann, 2022. "Leveraging Artificial Intelligence in Marketing for Social Good—An Ethical Perspective," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 179(1), pages 43-61, August.
    10. Erik Hermann & Gizem Yalcin Williams & Stefano Puntoni, 2024. "Deploying artificial intelligence in services to AID vulnerable consumers," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 52(5), pages 1431-1451, October.
    11. Hoyer, Wayne D. & Kroschke, Mirja & Schmitt, Bernd & Kraume, Karsten & Shankar, Venkatesh, 2020. "Transforming the Customer Experience Through New Technologies," Journal of Interactive Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 57-71.
    12. Bernd Schmitt, 2019. "From Atoms to Bits and Back: A Research Curation on Digital Technology and Agenda for Future Research," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 46(4), pages 825-832.
    13. Li, Jian & Huang, Jin-Song, 2020. "Dimensions of artificial intelligence anxiety based on the integrated fear acquisition theory," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    14. Wien, Anders Hauge & Peluso, Alessandro M., 2021. "Influence of human versus AI recommenders: The roles of product type and cognitive processes," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 13-27.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ucp:jacres:doi:10.1086/703462. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Journals Division (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JACR .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.