Acting Like Humans? Anthropomorphism and Consumer’s Willingness to Pay in Electronic Commerce

Abstract

Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human characteristics to a non-human object. Past research shows that anthropomorphism changes how we perceive objects (e.g., believing them to be more attractive). Does this mean we would be willing to pay more for them? We examined whether displaying a product in an anthropomorphized form influenced how much a consumer was willing to pay. We examined two design aspects, visual (i.e., a face) and auditory (e.g., a voice), in the context of an online auction, and proposed three theoretical routes by which an anthropomorphic product display might affect willingness to pay (emotional, product attachment, and product quality). Results show that adding visual anthropomorphizing features to the way a product was displayed increased the amount bid by 7 percent, but adding auditory anthropomorphizing features had no effect. The visual anthropomorphizing features increased product attachment but had no effect on emotions or perceptions of product quality. Therefore, we conclude that anthropomorphizing the way a product is displayed increases willingness to pay primarily through the theoretical route of creating attachment to the product. There is an additional, as yet undiscovered, theoretical route through which anthropomorphism influences willingness to pay. The results also suggest that the conventional wisdom that the combination of visual and auditory design features is best for triggering anthropomorphism is not always true.

Key words:

• and phrases: anthropomorphism
• online auction
• willingness to pay
• product attachment

Notes

1. We cannot really speak of “anthropomorphizing the display of a product” or of an “anthropomorphic product display” because anthropomorphism is a human process that is induced to a greater or lesser extent by how an object is displayed. We should more properly use phrases such as “designing the display of a product to induce users to anthropomorphize it.” Such phrasing is long and cumbersome, so we will often use shorter phrasing to simplify our language, but it is important to remember that anthropomorphism is a human process, separate and distinct from the object that induces it.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lingyao (Ivy) Yuan

Lingyao (Ivy) Yuan ([email protected]) is an Assistant Professor of Information Systems of Debbie & Jerry Ivy College of Business at Iowa State University. She received her Ph.D. from Indiana University. Her research interests include the impact of non-cognition behavior in decision making, especially the impact of emotion on computer-mediated communication, decision making, and collaboration. She has conducted research in the fields of electronic commerce and social media. Dr. Yuan has been published in the Decision Sciences and Group Decision and Negotiation, as well as in the proceedings of several conferences including International Conference on Information Systems, Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, and INFORMS Annual Meeting.

Alan R. Dennis

Alan R. Dennis ([email protected]; corresponding author) is Professor of Information Systems and holds the John T. Chambers Chair of Internet Systems in the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University. He has written more than 200 research papers, and has won numerous awards for his theoretical and applied research. His research focuses on four main themes: fake news on social media; team collaboration; digital nudging; and information security. Dr. Dennis is the co-Editor-in-Chief of AIS Transactions on Replication Research. He has written four books (two on data communications and networking, and two on systems analysis and design). He is a Fellow and President Elect of the Association for Information Systems.