On the Mental Accounting of Restricted-Use Funds: How Gift Cards Change What People Purchase
Journal of Consumer Research (2015) 42 (4): 596-614
19 Pages Posted: 2 May 2016 Last revised: 3 May 2016
Date Written: September 10, 2015
Abstract
This article emphasizes the role of categorization in mental accounting and proposes that once a mental account is established, purchases that are highly congruent with the purpose of the mental account (i.e., typical category members) will be more preferred in selection decisions compared to purchases that are less congruent (i.e., atypical category members). This hypothesis is tested in the context of gift cards. Six studies find that people shopping with a retailer-specific gift card — and so, the authors argue, possessing a retailer-specific mental account — express an increased preference for products more typical of the retailer compared to those shopping with more fungible currency. This pattern is found to occur for both well-known retailers, where people already possess product-typicality knowledge, and fictional retailers, where product-typicality cues are provided. An alternative account based on semantic priming is not supported by these data. These results both broaden the contemporary understanding of how mental accounting influences preferences and provide retailers deeper insight into their customers’ decision processes.
Keywords: mental accounting, categorization, gift cards, mental representation
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