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Impact of consumers’ effort investments on buying decisions

Article  in  Journal of Consumer Marketing · March 2015

DOI: 10.1108/JCM-08-2014-1090

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Vishal Lala, PhD Goutam Chakraborty

Pace University Oklahoma State University - Stillwater
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 Journal of Consumer Marketing
Impact of consumers’ effort investments on buying decisions
Vishal Lala, Goutam Chakraborty,
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 Impact of consumers’ effort investments on
buying decisions
Vishal Lala
Lubin School of Business, Pace University, New York, New York, USA, and
Goutam Chakraborty
Spears School of Business, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Oklahoma, USA

Abstract
Purpose – This study aims to explore the effect of amount of effort invested by consumers toward the purchase of a product on the amount they
will spend on the product. Authors argue that greater effort on the part of the consumer will lead to an irrational focus on sunk effort causing them
to spend more.
Design/methodology/approach – To explore the effect of amount of effort invested by consumers toward the purchase of a product on the
amount they will spend on the product. Authors argue that greater effort on the part of the consumer will lead to an irrational focus on sunk effort,
causing them to spend more.
Findings – Consumers who invest more effort in buying, spend more on the product in a bid to justify their decision to invest effort in the first place.
Downloaded by Oklahoma State University At 08:10 15 February 2019 (PT)

This effect is stronger in the presence of decisional control.

Originality/value – Much academic research has examined adverse effects of effort spent by consumers and has sought to make things easier for
consumers. This research shows that making it harder rather than easier, can make consumers willing to spend more money, particularly when they
view themselves in control.
Keywords Effort, Decisional control, Self-justification, Sunk cost
Paper type Research paper

An executive summary for managers and executive
readers can be found at the end of this issue.
The time and effort spent by consumers in shopping is
generally accepted as being bad for business with few
practitioners or academics questioning this truism. The
academic literature is replete with findings of negative
consequences from situations that make consumers spend
more time or effort (Baker and Cameron, 1996; Taylor,
1994). With the overwhelming evidence supporting the
deleterious effects of making consumers spend time and effort,
the effect has been taken for granted and the focus has shifted
to identifying ways to reduce its negative impact (Hui and Tse,
1996; Taylor, 1995). Businesses too have actively sought ways
to reduce consumers’ shopping effort. Retailers seek to locate
their stores closer to customers and in places that are easily
accessible, such as in malls and near exits of major highways.
Mobile shopping apps have made the shopping process less
painful by helping consumers to locate products in-store and
store coupons electronically. In the online world, shopping
aids, recommendation systems and single-click buying have
contributed to making the purchasing process easier.
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on
Emerald Insight at: www.emeraldinsight.com/0736-3761.htm
In this paper, we question the assumption that situations
that call on consumers to spend time and effort are all bad.
There are at least two reasons for this. First, the difficulty and
effort required to obtain a product may signal quality, thereby
drawing shoppers (Giebelhausen et al., 2011). It is common
for people to judge the quality of a service such as a restaurant
or a club based on the length of the line or waiting time. Some
attribute the success of online services such as Gmail and
Google⫹ to the level of difficulty created by limiting the
service to those who have been invited (Wortham, 2011).
Second, those who invest the time and effort in acquiring a
product would feel compelled to go through and complete the
purchase. Research on the sunk cost phenomenon has looked
at justification of one’s decision to invest time and effort and
a fear of wasting time and effort as drivers of the decision to
make the purchase (Arkes and Blumer, 1985; Staw, 1976).
Recent research on goal completion has also argued that as
consumers spend more time and effort toward the purchase,
they become increasingly committed to consummating the
purchase (Cheema and Bagchi, 2011; Janakiraman et al.,
2011; Kivetz et al., 2006).
We argue that there exist conditions where greater
consumer time and effort is associated with positive
consequences for the marketer including a greater willingness
to buy and a willingness to pay a greater amount. In the next
section, we examine research on effort as a resource. Next, we
introduce the sunk cost phenomenon and offer two potential
explanations. Study 1 examines the effect of invested effort,

Journal of Consumer Marketing

32/2 (2015) 61–70 Received 5 August 2014
© Emerald Group Publishing Limited [ISSN 0736-3761] Revised 29 December 2014
[DOI 10.1108/JCM-08-2014-1090] Accepted 12 January 2015

61
 Impact of consumers’ effort investments
Vishal Lala and Goutam Chakraborty
and Study 2 explores decisional control as a boundary
condition for this effect. Finally, we discuss theoretical and
managerial implications of this research.
Shopping effort as a resource
When considering a purchase decision, a consumer must
factor in the money and effort (e.g. evaluation of brands,
search and travel) involved in the purchase (Saini et al., 2010).
One possibility is that the consumer computes the total cost of
the transaction by combining the monetary cost of the product
with effort involved in searching, evaluating and comparing it
to the benefit derived from the product. However, recent
research has demonstrated that non-monetary and monetary
resources have psychologically distinct characteristics, causing
consumers to treat them differently and making it difficult to
combine the two resources in an arithmetic fashion (Mogilner
and Aaker, 2009; Monga and Saini, 2009; Saini and Monga,
2008; Soman, 2001). Thus, consumers evaluate expenditure
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of non-monetary and monetary resources separately.
Effort expended in purchasing may be in multiple forms,
including the physical effort involved in driving to a store and
searching for a product within the store, or the cognitive effort
involved in evaluating a set of alternatives. For instance, John
may expend physical effort by driving to a computer store ten
miles away, whereas Jill might expend cognitive effort by
spending 45 minutes evaluating competing brands in the
computer store. In addition, the effort spent may also vary in
magnitude with some purchases involving more effort and
others less. For instance, Jill might spend as little as 5 minutes
in evaluating blank DVDs but as much as 45 minutes in
evaluating competing brands of Blu-ray players in an
electronics’ store.
There has been some interest in effort as a resource,
particularly in situations where consumers counterintuitively
seek alternatives which are more effortful. Recent research has
found that consumers choose more effortful experiences when
energy levels are high (vs low) (Gibbs and Drolet, 2003),
when they believe that they are better attuned to completing
the task than others (Kivetz and Simonson, 2003), when they
believe that the task is too easy (Schrift et al., 2011), when
greater effort signals better quality (Giebelhausen et al., 2011),
when pain and effort suggest greater meaning in an activity
(Olivola and Shafir, 2013) or efficacy of a product (Kramer
et al., 2012). The one common thread across this stream of
research is that it examines choices made before effort has
been invested. We add to this literature by investigating what
happens once the consumer has already invested effort.
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of
the shopping effort invested by consumers on their buying
behavior. As an illustration, consider the following scenario:
Nancy and Jennifer are interested in buying a desktop computer. Nancy
spent 10 minutes on the Website of a computer retailer searching for and
evaluating competing brands of desktop computers before she found the
computer she was looking for. On the other hand, Jennifer, who visited the
same Website, spent 45 minutes before she found the computer she liked.
Assuming Nancy and Jennifer could look at identical amounts of
information, who is more likely to buy her top preference? Who will be
willing to pay more for her top preference?
From an economic perspective, the effort spent in evaluating
computers should have no impact on buying behavior. Each
person should base her decision solely on the costs and
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Journal of Consumer Marketing
Volume 32 · Number 2 · 2015 · 61–70
benefits of her top preference. So long as the amount of effort
invested in selecting the best computer is not diagnostic of the
qualities of the computer selected, the effort spent should not
influence the buying behavior of either person.
On the other hand, research on loyalty programs and
do-it-yourself products has found that the level of consumer
effort expended alters consumers’ preferences and valuation.
Consumers who invest effort have a greater preference for
sure-small rewards over large-uncertain rewards (Kivetz,
2003), investment of greater effort shifts preferences from
necessity to luxury rewards (Kivetz and Simonson, 2002) and
increases valuation of products (Norton et al., 2012).
Similarly, research on the sunk cost phenomenon suggests
that each person will likely take into consideration her sunk
effort (Arkes and Blumer, 1985; Staw, 1976). The magnitude
of the sunk effort, whether 10 or 45 minutes spent searching for
a desktop computer, will then influence buying behavior. Since
Jennifer spent 45 minutes evaluating desktop computers, she
would be expected to be more likely than Nancy (who spent only
10 minutes) to buy her top preference and be willing to pay more
for it.
It is important to note that we do not attempt to separate the
effects of time and effort. Although time and effort are clearly
different resources, they are ecologically confounded in that in
most marketing settings, putting in effort takes time and
conversely spending time involves effort. For instance,
traveling to a store far away compared to one nearby takes
more effort as well as more time. Similarly, waiting in line for
a long time compared to a short time generally takes more
effort. This approach is consistent with recent research where
authors do not make a distinction between time and effort
(Okada, 2005; Okada and Hoch, 2004) or manipulate time
without controlling for effort (Monga and Saini, 2009; Saini
and Monga, 2008). Thus, in this paper, differences in effort
may also reflect differences in time.
Sunk cost phenomenon
Research across multiple disciplines has found that consumers
incorporate information on previous investments into their
future decisions (Arkes and Blumer, 1985; Boulding et al.,
1997; Staw, 1976; Thaler, 1980). For instance, Thaler (1980)
found that a family is more likely to go to a basketball game on
a stormy day when they paid for the tickets than when they got
them for free. Arkes and Blumer (1985) found that when
people are presented with a scenario where they must choose
from two meals they already purchased, one for US$3 and the
other for US$5, most of the participants chose the expensive
meal. This irrational focus on previous investments also
afflicts managers when making new product decisions. Even
experienced managers based their decision to invest in a failing
new product on the amount already invested (Biyalogorsky
et al., 2006; Boulding et al., 1997), particularly for innovative
products (Schmidt and Calantone, 2002).
Although there is ample evidence supporting the sunk cost
phenomenon for money, the evidence for non-monetary costs
is mixed. Research contrasting time and money has found the
former to be more ambiguous than the latter in terms of how
it is measured. Therefore, people feel less accountable for how
they spend their time and, as a result, prefer spending time
and effort (vs money) on things such as hedonic goods or
 Impact of consumers’ effort investments
Vishal Lala and Goutam Chakraborty
high-risk high-return lotteries (Okada, 2005; Okada and
Hoch, 2004). A direct test of the sunk cost for time failed to
find support for the phenomenon (Soman, 2001). On the
other hand, a few prominent researchers in this domain have
indicated that consumers will be expected to commit the same
decisional errors when the sunk cost is of a non-monetary
kind, such as investments of time or effort (Arkes and Blumer,
1985; Kahneman and Tversky, 1979, p. 290; Staw, 1981,
p. 577). Heath (1995) found that the participants were more
likely to commit decisional errors when the nature of the sunk
investment was incompatible with the nature of the future
investment. This resembles the situation in the scenario
described earlier where the sunk investment involved time and
effort in evaluating computers, while the future investment
involved the money to be paid for the computer.
Thus, based on the sunk cost literature, we expect that
consumers investing effort in searching or evaluating a
product will be more likely to buy it and be willing to pay more
for it:
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H1. Amount of effort invested will have a positive influence
on (i) willingness to buy and (ii) amount paid.
It is worth noting here that some recent research makes an
opposite prediction. Reczek et al. (2014) found that consumers
who invested a large amount of effort (e.g. spent more money on
a particular retail outlet’s credit card, stayed more nights at a
particular hotel chain’s properties) not only expected better
service but also had a higher expectation for likelihood of
obtaining a randomly determined promotional outcome.
Thus, this deservingness hypothesis would argue that
consumers who invest more effort would expect to pay a lower
price and be less willing to buy the product, a prediction
contrary to that made by the sunk cost literature.
Theoretical explanations
There are a host of potential explanations for the sunk cost
effect, including a need for self-justification (Staw, 1976),
desire to reduce waste (Arkes and Blumer, 1985), change in
decisional goals with project progress (Garland and Conlon,
1998) and risk-seeking behavior in light of prior losses
(Kahneman and Tversky, 1979; Whyte, 1986). Of these
explanations, self-justification and desire to reduce waste are
particularly relevant to the context of effort as a sunk cost.
Self-justification
According to this explanation derived from dissonance theory,
individuals have a need to be correct, especially when the
decision is taken by them (Staw, 1976). Driven by this need to
make good decisions, individuals justify their decisions to
themselves and others (Brockner et al., 1979; Staw, 1981).
Similarly, consumers in purchasing situations like to make
good decisions. If they invest a large amount of effort in
picking a brand, then they may be more driven to buy it. For
instance, having spent 45 minutes evaluating computers,
Jennifer might buy her top preference to justify her decision to
spend so much effort. On the other hand, if she did not buy
her top pick, she would be faced with the challenge of
justifying to herself the amount of time and effort spent in
evaluating computers. Thus, self-justification concerns might
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Journal of Consumer Marketing
Volume 32 · Number 2 · 2015 · 61–70
explain a consumer’s increased likelihood to buy and
willingness to pay more.
H2. The influence of effort on (i) willingness to buy and (ii)
amount paid is mediated by self-justification.
Desire to reduce waste
Individuals have a desire to not appear wasteful. In fact, it is
this fear of wasting money, time and effort that has been
offered as one explanation of the sunk cost phenomenon
(Arkes and Blumer, 1985). Specifically, consumers who incur
a sunk cost tend to follow it up with a subsequent investment
because of fear that the initial investment would be wasted. In
the scenario described earlier, if Jennifer decided not to buy
the computer she had picked after 45 minutes of evaluation,
she might feel like the time and effort spent were wasted. On
the other hand, if she bought the computer she liked the most,
the time and effort spent would not go to waste. In the same
vein, Grewal et al. (2012) found that when shoppers were
made aware of the uncertainty of a potential stock-out, they
became sensitive to the possibility that their travel effort could
be wasted. Thus, desire to reduce waste might explain
consumers increased likelihood to buy and willingness to pay
more.
H3. The influence of effort on (i) willingness to buy and (ii)
amount paid is mediated by desire to reduce waste.
Study 1
Eighty-four students enrolled in undergraduate business
classes at a large Midwestern university were offered extra
credit for participation in this study. Effort in evaluating
computers was manipulated at two levels using a between-
subjects design.
Procedure and research instrument
This study was conducted using a Web-based instrument
constructed for the purpose of this study. To control for
potential confounding variables, the study was administered in
a computer lab in batches of 20-30 students. Participants
arriving in the computer lab were given an instruction sheet
that informed them how to access the Web-based instrument.
The first few pages of the Web-based instrument informed
participants that they would be given information on four
competing brands of desktop computers. Based on this
information, they were to evaluate the four brands and then
pick their top preference. The evaluation task began with a
screen that resembles the Mouselab instrument that has been
used extensively in studies involving effort manipulations
(Garbarino and Edell, 1997; Payne et al., 1988) (see Figure 1
for a screenshot). The screen listed four brands and four
attributes with boxes to enter scores for each brand on each
attribute. It also contained a set of four boxes to enter the total
unweighted score for each brand. A set of four information
buttons led to expert reviews on each of the four desktop
computers (see Figure 2 for expert reviews for Brand A).
Participants were instructed to use the reviews to enter
attribute scores then compute the total for each brand and
figure out the best brand.
After completion of this task, participants were asked to
respond to a battery of dependent measures (their willingness
 Impact of consumers’ effort investments
Vishal Lala and Goutam Chakraborty
Figure 1 Screenshot of main page of evaluation module
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Figure 2 Expert review for Brand A
to purchase their top pick and the amount they were willing to
pay for that computer). Next, they were asked to respond to a
set of items on self-justification and desire to reduce waste.
The next page asked participants questions on their affective
states, manipulation checks and selected demographics. The
Web instrument was programmed to also collect additional
information such as time spent on each page.
Manipulation of effort
Effort was manipulated by varying the difficulty in evaluating
the four brands. In the evaluation module, participants in the
high-effort condition had to contend with expert reviews that
showed up in the same window (requiring them to go back
and forth between windows) rather than a pop-up window.
They were also more difficult to read because of a smaller font
and a poor contrast between font color and background color.
Furthermore, the attribute scores recommended by the
experts in the high-effort condition were in decimals rather
than whole numbers. Although participants did not have to
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Journal of Consumer Marketing
Volume 32 · Number 2 · 2015 · 61–70
use the exact same scores given by the experts, most of them
did, which made adding up the attribute scores more difficult.
Results
A major concern with the research instrument was whether
participants had actually looked at the information they were
asked to utilize. Specifically, participants were asked to
evaluate the brands using information from experts. However,
participants were not forced to utilize this information to
generate attribute scores. Put differently, participants could
have filled in random numbers for the attribute scores to just
get through the study, thus defeating the purpose of the study.
Fortunately, the Web site log revealed that each participant
had looked at the expert review pages for each brand.
To test for the manipulation of effort, a three-item, 7-point
measure of perceived effort was used. In addition, a measure
of time taken or response latency was also used. Both these
measures have been utilized in previous literature to measure
effort (Payne et al., 1988). Participants in the high-effort
condition took longer to complete the task than those in the
low-effort condition (Mlow ⫽ 13.5 minutes versus Mhigh ⫽
19.5 minutes, F(1,81) ⫽ 9.68, p ⬍ 0.01). Moreover,
participants in the high-effort condition also perceived the task
to be more effortful than those in the low-effort condition
(Mlow ⫽ 2.71 versus Mhigh ⫽ 3.97, F(1,81) ⫽ 18.16, p ⬍
0.01).
The main hypothesis of this study is that participants who
spend more effort in evaluating brands of desktop computers
will be more likely to buy the best brand and be willing to pay
more for it. The results revealed that participants who invested
more effort were willing to pay significantly more than those
who invested less effort (Mlow ⫽ $777 versus Mhigh ⫽ $853,
F(1,81) ⫽ 4.78, p ⬍ 0.05). Also, participants investing more
effort were more likely to buy the computer than those who
spent less effort, but the difference was not significant (Mlow ⫽
5.21 versus Mhigh ⫽ 5.57, F(1,81) ⫽ 2.09, p ⬎ 0.1).
The above results notwithstanding, it might be argued that
the manipulation used here may have manipulated more than
just effort. In fact, another study investigating the role of effort
found that participants who were assigned difficult
computations were more likely to experience negative affect
than those who were assigned easy computations (Garbarino
and Edell, 1997). Other research on waiting time has revealed
that those who waited longer got angrier (Hui and Tse, 1996;
Hui et al., 1998). So if participants experienced negative
affect, based on the findings of Garbarino and Edell (1997),
participants should be less likely to engage in purchasing
behavior. Thus, an affect-driven behavior makes a prediction
counter to what we have hypothesized. Put differently, the
presence of affect would, if anything, weaken the results
obtained here.
To assess the role of affect, we compared the low and high
effort groups using a four-item, seven point scale for affect. We
found that those in the high-effort condition experienced more
negative affect than those in the low-effort condition (Mlow ⫽
3.70 versus Mhigh ⫽ 4.55, F(1,81) ⫽ 14.07, p ⬍ 0.01). So we
reran the ANOVA with the affect measure as a covariate and
found that the effect of effort on amount participants would
pay was strengthened, as would be expected (F(1,81) ⫽ 6.38,
p ⬍ 0.01).
 Impact of consumers’ effort investments
Vishal Lala and Goutam Chakraborty
In general, it is difficult to manipulate effort without also
manipulating affect. However, it is comforting to know that
the accidental manipulation of affect (although only marginal)
actually works toward weakening the results of this study.
Thus, the significance of the effect of effort in spite of the
existence of some affect speaks to the strength of these results.
On the other hand, accounting for the effect of affect
analytically offers even stronger results of the effect of effort on
amount willing to pay.
The influence of effort on buying behavior may be explained
either by a desire to justify one’s decision to spend effort or by
a desire to reduce wastage of effort already invested. To test
for these two explanations, we conducted tests of mediation by
running regressions with and without each mediator (Baron
and Kenny, 1986). Using the measures collected for
self-justification and desire to reduce waste, two different
summated indices were generated. (Details of these summated
indexes are available on request from the first author.) These
indices were then entered as independent variables in a
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regression of effort on the dependent measures. In the test of
self-justification as a mediator, it was found that entering
self-justification as an independent variable weakened the
coefficient of effort when it was regressed against the amount
participants were willing to pay (␤ ⫽ 0.24, p ⫽ 0.03 to ␤ ⫽
0.21, p ⫽ 0.06). Since willingness to buy turned out to be
non-significant in analysis described earlier, it was not used as
a dependent measure for a test of mediation. In the test of
desire to reduce waste as a mediator, it was found that the
coefficient of effort was unaffected by the introduction of
desire to reduce waste into the regression (␤ ⫽ 0.24, p ⫽ 0.03
to ␤ ⫽ 0.26, p ⫽ 0.02). Thus, the test for self-justification as
an explanation was supported, but the same was not
supported for desire to reduce waste.
Discussion
Using a Web-based instrument, we manipulated the effort in
searching and evaluating desktop computers. The findings
were consistent with two of the three hypotheses. Specifically,
participants who invested more effort were likely to spend
more on a computer, and this effect was strengthened when
affect was used as a covariate (H1). The decision to spend
more on a computer was driven by the participants’ desire to
justify their decision to invest effort in searching and
evaluating (H2). The role of desire to reduce waste as an
explanation was not supported (H3). A surprising result of this
study was the non-significant effect of effort on willingness to
buy.
Decisional control
Although the results of Study 1 support the influence of effort,
it is not clear whether these results would pan out the same
way in a natural setting. One major difference between Study
1, a laboratory experiment, and a person who decides to go to
a Website to buy a desktop computer is that in the former
situation the task was not determined by the participant.
Instead, those who had agreed to participate in Study 1 were
instructed to go to a certain Website, evaluate four desktop
computers, and pick the best one. Thus, participants in Study
1 lacked control over the decision to shop.
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Journal of Consumer Marketing
Volume 32 · Number 2 · 2015 · 61–70
Control is defined as the active belief that one has a choice
among responses that are differentially effective in achieving the
desired outcome (Langer, 1983). Researchers investigating
control have investigated various aspects such as behavioral,
decisional, and cognitive control (Averill, 1973). Behavioral
control is the direct action taken on the environment to influence
a threatening event; cognitive control relates to the interpretation
of threatening events; and, finally, decisional control is the
opportunity to choose among various possible actions. Most
previous research on control has employed one of these forms of
control in testing the role of control. Among these different forms
of control, the role of decisional control is most important in the
context of this research.
Research investigating the role of decisional control
(Schoorman and Holahan, 1996) found that when participants
felt they didn’t have control over their decision to spend money,
they were less likely to commit sunk cost errors. Research on
goals has found that those investing effort by their own choice see
the value of their goal increase as they invest more effort but
when the choice is imposed they value the goal less as they invest
more effort (Zhang et al., 2011). Drawing a parallel to the role of
effort, we argue that if participants don’t perceive having control
over the task characteristics of the study, their buying behavior
will not be influenced by the amount of effort invested.
Conversely, if participants experience decisional control, then the
effect of effort on buying behavior will be stronger. This might be
formally stated as follows:
H4. Decisional control moderates the relationship between
effort and (i) willingness to buy and (ii) amount paid.
Specifically, when decisional control is high, the effect
of effort on (i) willingness to buy and (ii) amount paid
will be stronger than when decisional control is low.
Study 2
The purpose of Study 2 was to test the role of decisional
control as a moderator of the relationship between effort and
buying behavior. A total of 95 students from an introductory
business course at a large midwestern university were used as
participants for this study. This study used a 2 (Effort: high,
low) ⫻ 2 (Decisional Control: high, low), between-subjects,
full factorial design. The manipulation of effort was identical
to the one in the previous study.
Manipulation of decisional control
In manipulating decisional control we were concerned about a
self-selection bias wherein respondents pick the experimental
condition to join, thereby threatening random assignment of
participants. Therefore, we created an illusion of control or a
feeling of being in control rather than giving respondents a real
sense of control (e.g. Cutright et al., 2013). Participants in the
high control group were given a choice between two
equivalent research studies while those in the low control
group were assigned to one of the two studies. Regardless of
their choice, all participants worked on the same task. This is
similar to the manner in which decisional control has been
operationalized in prior research (e.g. Langer and Rodin,
1976). It is worth noting that the manipulation used here is a
conservative test of real decisional control people have when
choosing to invest purchasing effort.
 Impact of consumers’ effort investments
Vishal Lala and Goutam Chakraborty
Procedure
Participants arriving at the experimental facility were given a
handout with descriptions of two different research studies. In
a pretest, these studies were found to be equivalent in terms of
perceived similarity (M ⫽ 6.18), measured on a nine-point
scale with anchors very similar and very different, and in terms
of overall evaluation (MStudyA ⫽ 5.45, MStudyB ⫽ 6, t10 ⫽
⫺0.37, p ⬎ 0.1), measured on a nine-point scale with anchors
very bad and very good. Finally, both studies were equally
likely to be chosen (36 versus 64 per cent, t10 ⫽ 0.90, p ⬎ 0.1).
In spite of their equivalence, however, participants in the
pretest indicated that the choice gave them a sense of control
(M ⫽ 7.27), measured on a nine-point scale with anchors no
choice and complete choice. The two study descriptions were
such that they revealed nothing about the actual task yet
differed on a number of variables unrelated to the task, such as
the sponsor of the study (Education or Business departments),
place where the study was being conducted (in a computer lab
1 minutes away or 5 minutes away), approximate duration of
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the study (20 or 30 minutes), etc. (See Table I for a
description of the two studies.)
After reading the descriptions, the participants in the high
decisional control group were asked to pick a study they wished
to participate in, while those in the low decisional control group
were assigned to one of the two studies. The groups were
separated in different sessions to eliminate any feelings of
unfairness among the participants. Next, participants went to the
computer lab where their study was being conducted and
responded to the Web instrument described in Study 1.
Results
Effort was successfully manipulated across the high effort and
low-effort conditions. Those in the high-effort condition took
significantly longer to complete the study as compared to
those in the low-effort condition (Mlow ⫽ 14 minutes versus
Mhigh ⫽ 21.3 minutes, F(1, 91) ⫽ 53.07, p ⬍ 0.01). There
was also a significant difference in perceived effort, with
participants in the low-effort condition finding the task
significantly easier than those in the high-effort condition
(Mlow ⫽ 2.51 versus Mhigh ⫽ 3.60, F(1, 91) ⫽ 17.09, p ⬍
0.01). The control manipulation was measured using three
items measured on a 9-point Likert scale. Participants stated
their level of agreement to the statements: “I was able to
choose the research study to participate in”, “I was able to
select the research study to participate in” and “I had control
over the decision to participate in the study”. Those in the
high control condition experienced a significantly greater
Table I Study descriptions
Research study A
This research study is being conducted by the Education Department, and it
involves mathematical calculations. This study is the last of a series of five
studies. More than 100 students have participated in previous versions of
this research. This study will be conducted in the Instructional Services
computer lab which is on the first floor of Instructional Services, a 5 minute
walk from here. Once you arrive at the computer lab, the study will take
approximately 30 minutes. As an incentive for participation in this study,
you will not only receive class credit but will also be entered into a lucky
draw for US$15
66
Journal of Consumer Marketing
Volume 32 · Number 2 · 2015 · 61–70
sense of control than those in the low control condition
(Mlow ⫽ 1.30 versus Mhigh ⫽ 6.36, F(1, 91) ⫽ 249.07, p ⬍
0.01).
Although the manipulations were effective, we were
concerned about potential bias created by the use of a choice
between two research studies to manipulate control.
Specifically, we were concerned that the results of this study
may be driven by a perceived difference between the two study
descriptions, Studies A and B, given to participants to
manipulate control. To test for this, we compared the
participants who did either Study A or B on a number of
variables and found no difference across the two studies.
Participants participating in both research study conditions
responded to a single 7-point task capability item with anchors
very easy and very difficult. There was no difference in ability
to perform the task (MStudyA ⫽ 5.12 versus MStudyB ⫽ 4.87,
F(1, 92) ⫽ 0.384, p ⬎ 0.1). Participants in both research study
groups took the same amount of time to complete the study
(MStudyA ⫽ 17.85 minutes versus MStudyB ⫽ 17.75 minutes,
F(1, 92) ⫽ 0.945, p ⬎ 0.1), were equally willing to buy the
desktop computer (MStudyA ⫽ 4.96 verus MStudyB ⫽ 5.07,
F(1, 92) ⫽ 0.712, p ⬎ 0.1), were willing to pay similar amounts
(MStudyA ⫽ US$837 versus MStudyB ⫽ US$842, F(1, 92) ⫽
0.86, p ⬎ 0.1) and were similar in terms of their scores for self-
justification (MStudyA ⫽ 3.63 versus MStudyB ⫽ 3.75, F(1, 92) ⫽
0.471, p ⬎ 0.1) as well as desire to reduce waste (MStudyA ⫽ 5.12
versus MStudyB ⫽ 5.26, F(1, 92) ⫽ 0.606, p ⬎ 0.1).
Next, we tested for the proposed interaction between effort
and decisional control as predicted in H4. The interaction
between effort and control was significant for the amount paid
(F(1, 91) ⫽ 4.045, p ⬍ 0.05). Participants who spent more
effort and had control were willing to pay US$890, whereas
those who had control but invested lesser effort were willing to
pay only US$795. On the other hand, for participants who
had low control, the corresponding numbers for high and low
effort were US$822 and US$850, respectively (Figure 3).
This interaction between effort and control was not significant
for willingness to buy (F(1, 91) ⫽ 2.11, p ⫽ 0.15) (Figure 4).
Thus, H4 is partially supported. Finally, as in Study 1,
entering affect as a covariate increased the strength of the
interaction effect (F(1, 91) ⫽ 4.04, p ⫽ 0.047 to F(1, 90) ⫽
4.35, p ⫽ 0.040).
Discussion
This study provided support for the hypothesized interaction
between effort and decisional control. Specifically, we found
that when participants experienced decisional control, the
Research study B
This research study is being conducted by the Business Department,
and it involves desktop computers. This study is the first of a series
of five studies. You are the first set of students to participate in
such a study. This study will be conducted in the Wood Hall
computer lab which is on the second floor of this building, a 1
minute walk from here. Once you arrive at the computer lab, the
study will take approximately 20 minutes. As an incentive for
participation in this study, you will not only receive class credit but
will also be entered into a lucky draw for US$5
 Impact of consumers’ effort investments Journal of Consumer Marketing
Vishal Lala and Goutam Chakraborty Volume 32 · Number 2 · 2015 · 61–70

Figure 3 Effort– control interaction for amount spent chosen brand. Consistent with research on the sunk cost
effect, this effect is driven by a need to justify the decision to
1,000.00 invest effort in the first place. As predicted by waiting time
research (Hui and Tse, 1996; Hui et al., 1998), those who
spent more effort did experience significantly greater negative
800.00 emotions, but this effect was not strong enough to counter the
respondent’ desire for self-justification. Study 2 shows that the
Mean Amount Spent ($)

effect of effort is limited to situations where the consumer sees

600.00 herself as being in control.

Theoretical implications
400.00
Early conceptualizations of the sunk cost phenomenon
predicted consumer reliance on initial investments in making
future decisions to apply to all three resources, money, time
200.00
and effort (Thaler, 1980). Since then, much research has
established that investments of time and effort are perceived
differently from that of money (Mogilner and Aaker, 2009;
0.00
Monga and Saini, 2009; Saini and Monga, 2008). The relative
High Low
Downloaded by Oklahoma State University At 08:10 15 February 2019 (PT)

difficulty of accounting for time and effort (vs money) makes

Decisional control
consumers less regretful of waste of time and effort relative to
High effort Low effort
money. This might explain the difficulty in demonstrating a
sunk cost effect for time and effort as has been found for
Figure 4 Effort– control interaction for willingness to buy money (Soman, 2001). We have contributed to the sunk cost
literature by providing evidence of the sunk cost phenomenon
6.00
for even non-monetary resources. Furthermore, we compared
two potential explanations of the irrational reliance on initial
investments and found support for a self-justification
5.00 explanation.
Our results also contribute to the literature on consumer
effort. Previous research has found that consumer effort
Willingness to buy

4.00
creates a sense of entitlement for better treatment and even
a higher likelihood of earning randomly determined
3.00 promotional outcomes (Reczek et al., 2014). On the other
hand, our research has shown that consumers’ need to
justify that their investment of effort may overpower this
2.00
sense of entitlement and, contrary to the deservingness
hypothesis, make them willing to pay more for the target
1.00 product.

0.00
High
Decisional control
High effort
effect of effort invested in buying on amount willing to pay was
strengthened.
General discussion
This paper questions the premise that situations which call on
consumers to spend time and effort are all bad. Academic
literature consistently presents consumer expenditures of time
and effort in shopping as having undesirable consequences on
attitude toward the product and intention to buy. Through
a pair of studies, we demonstrated that under certain
circumstances consumers who spend more effort may actually
yield positive consequences for the company. Study 1
establishes that consumers who spend more effort (vs less
effort) in evaluating brands are willing to pay more for the
Managerial implications
Low
The key takeaway for practitioners is that not all situations
where consumers have to spend time and effort in shopping
are bad for business. The difficulty in getting the product, like
Low effort having to wait in line to enter a club, may reflect quality
(Giebelhausen et al., 2011), and those who do invest time and
effort will pay a higher price. Companies need to take a long
hard look at the purchasing process before sprinting to make
changes to simplify the task. For instance, Web sites may be
tempted to shorten the checkout process from say seven steps
to three steps. Based on our findings, we would argue that a
customer entering the seven-step check out process (vs a
three-step checkout process) is less likely to abandon the
shopping cart on finding out about an unexpectedly high
shipping price. Similarly, all is not lost for a store that is
located far away from their customers. Based on our findings,
we would predict that the customer making the commute to
the far-away store will spend more money shopping than she
would at a nearby store. So, our recommendation to
companies would be to focus on finding ways to get
consumers to invest effort in shopping rather than reducing

67
 Impact of consumers’ effort investments
Vishal Lala and Goutam Chakraborty
the effort. Once consumers invest a certain level of effort, they
will be increasingly likely to go through with the transaction
and spend more money.
Another important implication is in the manner in which
the company encourages consumers to invest effort. The
desirable effects of greater effort accrue only when customers
believe the investment of effort was voluntary, so it is
important to design strategies that give customers a sense of
control, either real or illusory, over the decision to spend time
and effort in the shopping process.
Finally, in addition to the benefit of increasing the
amount people are willing to pay for an item, effortful
purchases may also help reduce the guilt associated with
luxury purchases. This is borne out of research on
frequency programs where greater consumer effort helped
alleviate the guilt associated with choosing a luxury reward
over a necessity (Kivetz and Simonson, 2002). Similarly,
Clarke and Mortimer (2013) have recommended
Downloaded by Oklahoma State University At 08:10 15 February 2019 (PT)
highlighting consumer effort as a solution for reducing the
guilt associated with self-gifting.
Future research and limitations
One of the issues with this paper is that the manipulation of
effort is confounded with time spent. Not controlling for
time in the manipulation of effort was a deliberate decision,
as the two are ecologically confounded and we were keen on
creating a situation that involved an investment of effort
that mirrors a natural setting. That being said, from a
theoretical standpoint, this paper fails to distinguish
between the roles of the two non-monetary resources, time
and effort.
One interesting finding was that the significant effects of
effort show up for amount willing to pay but not for
willingness to purchase. At this point, we can only conjecture
that perhaps the issue of sunk cost of effort spent becomes
salient in consumers’ minds only when consumers are asked
questions about making further investments (amount willing
to pay) but not necessarily when questions simply ask for
buying intentions. More research is clearly warranted to fully
explore this issue.
In this research, we only examine two levels of effort, thus
our findings are limited to demonstration of a simple effect
of effort invested. It is reasonable to expect that at very high
levels of effort, the disutility of spending additional effort
will overcome the commitment resulting from previously
invested effort which will cause consumers to abandon the
service. Future research should investigate the possibility of
an inverted U-shaped relationship as has been found in
recent waiting time research (Janakiraman et al., 2011).
In this paper, we establish that consumers’ decision to
pay more for an item that they invest more effort evaluating
is an attempt to justify their initial decision to spend time
and effort. Although this might be the only explanation for
the specific research study conducted, it may not be the
only explanation for the effect of sunk effort in general.
Specifically, consumers who spend a lot of time and effort
in searching and evaluating a product may have higher
expectations of quality which, in turn, may lead to a higher
willingness to pay (Giebelhausen et al., 2011). This rational
68
Journal of Consumer Marketing
Volume 32 · Number 2 · 2015 · 61–70
behavior explanation of sunk effort needs to be explored in
future research.
We expect the effect of effort to be limited to the product
toward which the effort was invested. However, it may not
always be possible to unambiguously attribute the effort to a
particular product. Consider a person who drives two hours to
an outlet mall to get a winter coat but ends up also buying a
scarf. In this case, it is not clear whether the driving effort will
make the consumer more willing to pay more than expected
for the scarf as well. This is a fruitful avenue for future
research.
Finally, this study makes use of a small student sample, a
laboratory setting to manipulate effort and a single product.
Future research should examine the generalizability of these
results by using a non-student sample in a natural setting and
examine multiple products.
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Vishal Lala and Goutam Chakraborty Volume 32 · Number 2 · 2015 · 61–70

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Corresponding author
Vishal Lala can be contacted at: vlala@pace.edu

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