This paper develops an agenda for underrepresented populations in consumer research, highlighting both opportunities and challenges as well as ways to address them. Based on survey responses collected among attendees at the 16th Pangborn Symposium in 2025 together with data obtained through targeted LinkedIn posts in relevant communities (N = 104), we present preliminary evidence that matters linked to greater generalisability are deemed important on a wide array of parameters, including those linked to pressing societal issues, practical relevance and research practices, especially in applied relative to basic research. Adapted study designs, methods and analyses emerged as a key initiative to enable more research on underrepresented populations, while editorial policies that put a stronger emphasis on generalisability and sample diversity turned out to be the least popular initiative in this context. When asked to state which specific underrepresented populations participants would prioritize from a sensory and consumer research perspective, low-income populations were, by far, the most frequently selected category. Grounded in these results, we introduce the PLATEAU acronym, which describes the strong focus on People from Literate, Affluent, Technological, Educated, Anglicised and Urban settings, characterised by Western customs, consumption norms and food culture. We end the paper with several strategies and concrete examples on how to mitigate the present PLATEAU priority and inspire more research on underrepresented populations, while acknowledging complex challenges, including those related to systemic biases embedded in artificial intelligence.

PurposeMost tipping studies from actual field settings have been conducted in Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) societies, typically in the United States. Because tipping practices are culturally contingent, the current research sought test the applicability of former findings in a different cultural context. To this end, we examined the replicability of US-based tipping studies in the majority world - where most people live - through three conceptual replications conducted in Turkey.Design/methodology/approachWe carried out three field experiments (Ntotal = 694 dining parties corresponding to 1737 consumers) as conceptual replications of published US-based tipping studies. Dining parties either received a blank check or a check with (a) the words "Thank you" added, with or without the server's name included (Study 1); (b) a "smiley" drawn (Study 2); or (c) the words "Wish you a sunny day" written (Study 3). Tip amount, tip percentage and tip likelihood were analyzed depending on the assigned condition of the dining parties.FindingsAcross studies, most dining parties engaged in tipping irrespective of treatment. However, compared to receiving a blank check, tip amounts and tip percentages significantly increased by receiving a check with (a) the words "Thank you" added, especially when the server's name was included (Study 1); (b) a "smiley" drawn (Study 2); and (c) the words "Wish you a sunny day" written (Study 3). Tip percentages were considerably lower than those reported in former US-based studies. In fact, the conditions with the highest tip percentages in the current studies fell far below the conditions with the lowest tip percentages in the original studies (i.e. the control conditions), indicating cross-cultural variability in certain tipping tendencies.Research limitations/implicationsThe present studies generalize prior results in a different cultural context. From a managerial viewpoint, this research attests to the robustness and replicability of seemingly subtle tipping strategies, documenting that small details can benefit servers and possibly also the restaurants in which they operate.Practical implicationsManagers in the service and hospitality sectors can use the results reported herein to train and educate their employees in ways that generate practically relevant and economically significant boosts in customers' tip amounts and tip percentages.Originality/valueStudies 1-3 replicate some of the main results from prior research in another part of the world, with different cultural values and norms. Importantly, however, some results clearly diverged from prior findings, suggesting that certain tipping tactics may be contextually sensitive and, hence, might not generalize from WEIRD societies to other cultures. Considering repeated calls for more generalizable theories, these results add nuance to the tipping literature.

Time spent in nature benefits human mental and physical well-being. However, much of the variance in outcomes of nature contact remains unexplained, suggesting that new mechanistic pathways need to be considered. Here, we tested a novel conceptual model linking nature contact with life satisfaction via pathways involving positive experiences of living in and experiencing the world through the physical self. Using data from the Body Image in Nature Survey (BINS; N = 50,363), representing respondents from 58 nations and speaking 36 different languages, we find that nature contact is associated with greater self-compassion and greater perceived restoration in nature, which in turn are associated with more positive body image. In addition, more positive body image is associated with greater life satisfaction. These associations were robust to sensitivity tests, generalised to all gender identities and age groups, and held individually in almost all national groups and languages. Although replications are needed, we propose that the materialities of natural environments help to link bodily experiences to the production and experience of well-being, a process that is largely stable across national groups.

People with attachment anxiety frequently experience problems in social relationships and tend to form a strong attachment toward material objects as a substitute for their interpersonal insecurities. However, the underlying mechanism linking attachment anxiety with material values is not well-defined. We propose that anxiously attached people are more prone to avoid thoughts, feelings, and experiences, thereby leading to greater material values. In three correlational studies and a preregistered experiment conducted across Russian, Turkish, Polish, and U.S. samples (N = 1,397), we investigated whether experiential avoidance mediates the link between attachment anxiety and material values. The indirect effect of attachment anxiety on material values through experiential avoidance was consistently significant across all studies. In Study 4, we also demonstrated that inducing attachment anxiety (vs. negative affect) led to a suppression of unwanted experiences, feelings, and thoughts, resulting in more material values. We suggest that interventions focused on secure relationships may enhance anxiously attached individuals’ action strategies, potentially reducing their material values, with implications for the literature on attachment styles and material values as well as broader models of social and clinical psychology.

We investigated how gender and different social contexts guide impression management through food choices at a casual dining chain restaurant. Waitstaff unobtrusively recorded 300 orders by groups of diners coded as romantic dates, friendship gatherings, or family meals. Photographs of all 89 menu items available at the restaurant were independently rated on perceived femininity, masculinity, sophistication, and expensiveness, with the price of the chosen meals also noted. Multilevel Bayesian models showed that men ordered more expensive dishes than women, a difference most pronounced on dates. Food chosen by men (women) was also perceived as more (less) masculine and less (more) feminine, with these gender differences amplified during dates and attenuated during family meals. Regardless of gender, diners selected more expensive and more sophisticated items during dates (vs. family meals). These findings suggest that mate attraction heightens conformity to gender-typical consumption norms, demonstrating the adaptive and situation-specific nature of impression management in social eating settings.

Sustainable consumption practices can drive environmental and societal benefits. One way of steering consumers in a desired direction is through the social proof principle, which posits that consumers are more inclined to exhibit a target behavior if they believe that many others already engage in said behavior. We conducted an online experiment (N = 376; US sample) to test whether reliance on social proof (vs. control) increases consumers' pro-environmental responses, and whether trait conscientiousness moderates this interplay. All included social proof messages outperformed the control condition, regardless of whether they were based on majority (vs. minority) information or dynamic (vs. static) social norms. Additionally, the social proof effect was particularly pronounced among consumers scoring low (vs. high) in trait conscientiousness, with these consumers typically exhibiting the least pro-environmental behaviors according to previous research. Taken together, the current findings carry important implications regarding ways to tackle climate change.

Purpose: This study investigates how the naturalness shapes online wine reviews through the lens of information asymmetry and credence attributes. Methodology: We analyze over six million consumer reviews from a global platform using computational linguistics to compare evaluative and affective responses between natural and conventional wines. Findings: Compared to conventional wines, natural wines command a twenty percent price premium and elicit longer consumer reviews; however, they systematically receive lower quality ratings and yield less positive per-word sentiment. Further, they have a more polarized emotional profile marked by increased negative emotions, such as disgust and anger, combined with slightly higher levels of joy. Originality: The current findings challenge the natural-is-better bias and advance authenticity theory and wine economics by demonstrating that naturalness operates as a quality signal that drives expectation disconfirmation rather than hedonic satisfaction. Implications: Managers of natural wine brands should position naturalness as a credence attribute and implement proactive expectation management regarding variable sensory profiles to mitigate negative affective responses while leveraging the price premium associated with authenticity.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly reshaping modern marketing practice, yet whether this technology will ultimately advance or hinder diversity, equity, and inclusion in the marketplace remains unknown. On the one hand, AI promises to deliver better, more powerful services and products to a wider customer base. On the other hand, however, AI is replicating biases, threatening learning opportunities, and may ultimately be at odds with human autonomy. To advance the academic discourse in this area, the current article synthesizes existing research on diversity, equity, and inclusion related to AI-driven marketing. It then proposes an integrative framework to illustrate and discuss a series of transformational developments across three dominant themes: (1) from design to practice, (2) from implementation to integration, and (3) from evaluation to empowerment. Building on these perspectives, a future research agenda then directs attention toward grand challenges and trends in a customer-based view of diversity, equity, and inclusion in AI-driven marketing, ultimately seeking to realize genuine impact for both marginalized and general consumers. Taken together, this article offers insights for researchers, marketers, and policymakers interested in navigating diversity, equity, and inclusion while leveraging the power of AI-driven marketing.

Women are greatly underrepresented in positions of political leadership around the world. In seeking to explain this underrepresentation, some researchers have pointed to people’s tendencies to stereotype leaders as more similar to men than women as these tendencies can support the belief that women are unsuited to leadership. This project aimed to test whether a subtle linguistic intervention was able to ameliorate this gender bias in political leadership stereotypes across different languages and national contexts (country N = 42, sample N = 22,995). Specifically, this project examined whether gender fair language (e.g., the use of paired pronouns ‘he or she’) can reduce the tendency for people to stereotype political leaders as more similar to men than women. To increase the rigor with which these stereotypes were measured, this project complemented the dominant ‘cheap talk’ measure of personal stereotype content with a novel incentivised community measure of this content. As expected, participants stereotyped political leaders as more similar to men than women; this pattern was stronger on the incentivised measure of community stereotypes. Unexpectedly, there was no evidence that paired pronouns reduced this bias (there was weak exploratory evidence that paired nouns increased participants’ tendencies to stereotype political leaders as more similar to women). This project suggests that the ability of gender fair language interventions to ameliorate gender bias in the political leadership domain may be limited.

This paper proposes a novel conceptual framework, entitled The Big Five of Phygital Luxury Experience (PH-LX), to explore how the convergence of digital and physical touchpoints is redefining luxury customer experiences. Aligned with macromarketing principles and the Transformative Luxury Research (TLR) agenda, this paper proposes a novel conceptual framework, PH-LX, emphasizing luxury as a catalyst for consumer well-being, ethical consumption, and societal enhancement. Rather than treating these dimensions as fixed, we identify two transformational shifts reshaping the luxury landscape: (1) the evolution of luxury from static ownership models to orchestrated, evolving customer experiences, and (2) the redefinition of channels from fixed physical spaces to dynamic, fluid ecosystems of interaction. These shifts are analyzed through a longitudinal lens of past, present, and future across five interdependent dimensions: Identity Expectations, Access Emphasis, Main Channel, Philosophy, and Revenue Drivers. Grounded in macromarketing's normative agenda for human-centric market systems, this paper introduces a forward-looking conceptual model that emphasizes luxury experience as a platform for enhancing well-being and positive societal outcomes. Our analysis synthesizes literature from luxury branding, customer experience (CX), and digital transformation to surface the opportunities and tensions emerging in phygital luxury. The framework also foregrounds societal and ethical implications, including concerns around automation, access inequality, and data privacy. We conclude by offering a research agenda and managerial pathways to enable more inclusive and future-oriented luxury experience design.

Striving for social status is a fundamental human motive, yet individuals vary considerably in their status-seeking tendencies. Drawing on attachment literature and life history theory, we propose that attachment anxiety drives status pursuit through heightened intrasexual competition. Across six preregistered studies (N = 4,456) spanning five countries, we found that attachment anxiety, but not attachment avoidance, predicts stronger status strivings. This relationship is mediated by intrasexual competition—competing with same-sex rivals—rather than, as previously documented, by materialism or general competitiveness. Experimental evidence confirmed causality: inducing attachment anxiety (vs. avoidance) increased desire for high-status cars and houses through heightened intrasexual competition. A moderation-of-process design demonstrated that experimentally manipulating intrasexual competition correspondingly enhanced or reduced the effect of attachment anxiety on status strivings, but only for high-status possessions. These effects held for both men and women. Our findings show that anxiously attached individuals pursue status to compensate for relational insecurities, and they do so by competing with same-sex rivals. This research extends attachment theory to status pursuit and clarifies whether, when, and why individual differences in attachment patterns predict people’s status strivings.

OBJECTIVES:Infectious diseases are often associated with decline in quality of life. The aim of this study is to analyze the relationship between personal history of communicable, i.e., infectious and parasitic diseases and self-rated health. STUDY DESIGN:Secondary analysis of a large dataset multi-country observational study. METHODS:We used a four-pronged analysis approach to investigate whether personal history of infectious and parasitic diseases is related to self-reported health, measured with a single item. RESULTS:Three of the four analyses found a small positive effect on self-reported health among those reporting a history of pathogen exposure. The meta-analysis found no support but large heterogeneity that was not reduced by two classifications of countries. CONCLUSION:Personal history of infectious and parasitic diseases does not reduce self-reported health across a global sample.

Identifying cues to contagious disease is critical for effectively tracking and defending against interpersonal infection threats. People hold lay beliefs about the types of sensory information most relevant for identifying whether others are sick with transmissible illnesses. Are these beliefs universal, or do they vary along cultural and ecological dimensions? Participants in 58 countries (N = 19,217) judged how effective, and how likely they were to use, cues involving each of the five major sensory modalities in an imagined social interaction during a flu outbreak. Belief patterns were strongly consistent across countries (sight > audition > touch > smell > taste), suggesting a largely universal conceptualization of the role of sensory information for interpersonal respiratory disease detection. Results also support a safe senses hypothesis, with perceivers reporting that they would use senses that function at a distance-and thus reduce pathogen transmission risk-more than would be expected given participants' beliefs as to the efficacy of these senses for disease detection. Where societal variation did emerge, it was captured by a cohesive set of socio-ecological factors, including human development, latitude, pathogen prevalence, and population density. Together, these findings reveal a shared lens through which contagious respiratory disease is assessed, one that prioritizes minimizing risk to perceivers, and may offer leverage for designing interventions to improve public health.

Evidence regarding the link between digital food marketing and eating habits is lacking in the majority world, i.e., the world regions where most people live. This study sought to investigate (i) self-reported exposure to digital food marketing, (ii) associations between such exposure and socio-demographic characteristics, and (iii) associations between exposure and food consumption frequency among adolescents in a Latin American country (Uruguay). A sample of adolescents aged between 11 and 19 years attending 29 public and 10 private high schools (n = 1542) was obtained through a cross-sectional survey using a stratified, two-stage cluster probability-based sampling approach. Participants filled out closed and open-ended questions about exposure to digital food marketing, food consumption frequency, social media usage, and socio-demographic characteristics. The data were analysed through descriptive statistics and ordinal logistic regressions. Almost 90

The 12-item Self-Compassion Scale–Short Form (SCS–SF) is a widely used instrument for the assessment of self-compassion. To date, there have been few examinations of this instrument’s psychometric properties, particularly across nations and languages. Therefore, we used data from the Body Image in Nature Survey (BINS) to assess measurement invariance of the SCS–SF across nations, languages, gender identities, and age groups. Participants (N = 56,968) from 65 nations completed the SCS–SF in 40 languages. Using these data, we tested various hypothesised models of the SCS–SF in the total sample and, using multi-group confirmatory factor analysis, tested for invariance of the optimal model across national groups, languages, gender identities, and age groups. In the total dataset, we found that an 11-item, 2-factor model (i.e., SCS-11) provided best fit to the data, with the two factors tapping distinct constructs of compassionate and uncompassionate self-responding. The SCS-11 was found to be partially scalar invariant across national groups and languages, and fully scalar invariant across gender identities and age groups. There was wide variation in latent means for the two factors, particularly across national groups and languages. Further analyses showed negligible associations between the two factors and sociodemographic variables, including marital status, financial security, and urbanicity. Our results suggest that it may be possible to derive a stable 2-factor model of the SCS–SF for use in cross-cultural research, but also highlight the likelihood of cross-national and cross-linguistic variations in the way that self-compassion is understood.

The Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS) is a widely used self-report measure of subjective well-being, but studies of its measurement invariance across a large number of nations remain limited. Here, we utilised the Body Image in Nature (BINS) dataset-with data collected between 2020 and 2022 -to assess measurement invariance of the SWLS across 65 nations, 40 languages, gender identities, and age groups (N = 56,968). All participants completed the SWLS under largely uniform conditions. Multi-group confirmatory factor analysis indicated that configural and metric invariance was upheld across all nations, languages, gender identities, and age groups, suggesting that the unidimensional SWLS model has universal applicability. Full scalar invariance was achieved across gender identities and age groups. Based on alignment optimisation methods, partial scalar invariance was achieved across all but three national groups and across all languages represented in the BINS. There were large differences in latent SWLS means across nations and languages, but negligible-to-small differences across gender identities and age groups. Across nations, greater life satisfaction was significantly associated with greater financial security and being in a committed relationship or married. The results of this study suggest that the SWLS largely assesses a common unidimensional construct of life satisfaction irrespective of respondent characteristics (i.e., national group, gender identities, and age group) or survey presentation (i.e., survey language). This has important implications for the assessment of life satisfaction across nations and provides information that will be useful for practitioners aiming to promote subjective well-being internationally.

OBJECTIVES:To evaluate the prevalence of advertisements for ultra-processed products outside food outlets in Montevideo (Uruguay) and explore the patterns of these advertisements across areas with different socio-economic statuses (SES). DESIGN:Cross-sectional field survey of advertisements of ultra-processed products outside food outlets. The percentage of outlets featuring any type of advertisement of ultra-processed products on the exterior part of the outlets was calculated, at the aggregate level and separately by type of outlet and type of product. Comparisons were made considering the SES of the tract where outlets were located. SETTING:106 census tracts in Montevideo, differing in geographical location and SES. PARTICIPANTS:Outlets selling foods and beverages, located within the selected census tracts. RESULTS:30·7 % of the 1217 food outlets identified in the field survey featured some type of exterior advertisement of ultra-processed products. Sweetened beverages (specifically soda) were the most frequently advertised ultra-processed product category, followed by ice cream. After adjusting for the type of outlet, medium SES tracts exhibited the highest prevalence of ultra-processed product advertisements outside food outlets (36·0 %). Differences in the prevalence of advertisements of specific categories with SES were also found, which may reflect variations in the types and characteristics of food outlets. CONCLUSIONS:Results from this work suggest the frequent presence of exterior advertisements of ultra-processed products and highlight the need to develop effective policies to reduce their use as part of a comprehensive set of strategies to discourage the consumption of ultra-processed products.