Spatial Expressions and Consumer Perceptions of Quantity

Authors

• Scott D. Swain, Clemson UniversityFollow
• Danny Weathers, Clemson University

Document Type

Conference Proceeding

Publication Date

Spring 3-18-2021

Abstract

Marketplaces and media sources frequently present consumers with information or measurements that involve “extreme” quantities (e.g., the size of the national debt or the number of pounds of plastic in the Earth’s oceans). Often, communicators express these quantities in spatial terms in an effort to influence the perceptual impact of the information (e.g., expressing the national debt in terms of the number of miles it would extend if laid out in paper currency form). Across three experiments, we find evidence that perceptual impact diminishes with spatial dimensionality (e.g., expressing a quantity as a length makes it seem larger than expressing it as a volume).

Copyright

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DOI

10.20429/amtp.2021.25

Recommended Citation

Swain, Scott D. and Weathers, Danny, "Spatial Expressions and Consumer Perceptions of Quantity" (2021). AMTP Proceedings 2021. 25.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/amtp-proceedings_2021/25