| The product anthropomorphism will undermine self-control,inducing the desire to indulge.However,whether product anthropomorphism will affect intertemporal choice is still under debate.In the previous research,people notice that when time has its own will,the powerless individuals do not have the will to wait.But when we transform the entity of anthropomorphism from time to product,it is still uncertain whether the similar process can happen and what will be the underlying mechanism.Thus,we conducted two experiments in this research to explore whether product anthropomorphism can affect intertemporal choice of individuals in different power.The experiment 1 examines the effect of product anthropomorphism on intertemporal choice when people are under different power states.Meanwhile,the underlying mechanism of how product anthropomorphism or power influence intertemporal choice is also discussed.The experiment 2 employs the advanced event-related potential(ERP)technique to further explore the neural mechanism by recording the neural signals when people make such intertemporal choices.The experiment 1 shows that the main effect of the manipulated product anthropomorphism or the manipulated power on intertemporal choice is not significant.However,we observed a significant main effect of the perceived anthropomorphism and the measured power.A higher perceived anthropomorphism or measured power will lessen the individual’s patience in intertemporal choice.The mediation analysis for perceived anthropomorphism revealed that the association between perceived anthropomorphism and intertemporal choice is mediated by emotion.As the perceived anthropomorphism increases,a more positive emotional state will be induced and thus leading to myopic decision-making.And the mediation analysis for measured power indicated that the association between measured power and intertemporal choice is mediated by external attribution.As the measured power increases,individuals are more inclined to make external attribution for their consumption and leading the impulsive decision-making in intertemporal choice.In experiment 2,the behavioral results showed that the main effect of both product anthropomorphism and power were not significant.However,in the regression analysis,we still found the same main effect of perceived anthropomorphism and measured power.In addition,we surprisingly noticed that there existed a significant interaction between perceived anthropomorphism and measured power on SS% or Log(k).Further moderation analysis for both SS% and Log(k)revealed that the increase of perceived anthropomorphism only reduced the patience of low-power individuals but not highpower individuals.For response time,compared with non-anthropomorphic products,low-power individuals would devote more time to the intertemporal choices associated with the anthropomorphic products.But similar effect was not observed in high-power individuals.The ERP results in experiment 2 also have some findings.For N1 in picture screen,the main effect of product anthropomorphism and power were both not significant but there existed a significant interaction.The simple effect analysis suggested that nonanthropomorphic product could induce a larger N1 than anthropomorphic product in low-power individuals but not high-power individuals.As for N170,P2,N300 and LPP,we all noticed a significant main effect of product anthropomorphism.Compared with non-anthropomorphic product,anthropomorphic product can elicit a larger amplitude.However,we did find the main effect of power or interaction between product anthropomorphism and power in these ERP components.In the SSLL screen,we also found a significant interaction between product anthropomorphism and power on the N1 and P2,but significant main effect of product anthropomorphism or power was not found.For N1,simple effect analysis showed that for low-power individuals,product anthropomorphism had a marginally significant effect.The anthropomorphic group had a larger N1 component than the non-anthropomorphic group.However,a significant difference between anthropomorphic group and non-anthropomorphic group for highpower individuals was not found.For P2,simple effect analysis showed that for lowpower individuals,non-anthropomorphic group had a larger P2.But there still did not exist any significant discrepancy between anthropomorphic group and nonanthropomorphic group for high-power individuals.For N300,repeated measures ANOVA showed that neither product anthropomorphism or power had a significant main effect nor there was a significant interaction between them.For LPP,repeated measures ANOVA showed a significant main effect of power.Compared with lowpower individuals,high-power individuals had a larger LPP amplitudes.However,we neither found a main effect of product anthropomorphism nor found a significant interaction between them.In general,we found that both the perceived anthropomorphism and power have a positive relationship with patience in intertemporal choice in the behavioral level,though the main effect of the manipulated anthropomorphism or the manipulated power was not significant.Additionally,the interaction effect between perceived anthropomorphism and power revealed that perceived anthropomorphism only impacted the patience of individuals with low power.Given that the perceived anthropomorphism originated from the manipulated product anthropomorphism,we maintained that product anthropomorphism did have a diverse influence on the patience of individuals in different power states.Specially,product anthropomorphism only affected the behavior of low-power individuals.Meanwhile,the evidence from the ERP data also confirmed this conclusion.For N1 in picture screen and N1 and P2 in SSLL screen,we found the neurological evidence that product anthropomorphism affects the intertemporal choice of individuals in diverse power states.Further analysis supported that product anthropomorphism only influences the amplitude of low-power individuals but not high-power individuals. |
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