ABSTRACT A fictitious company asked participants to fill out a marketing survey in exchange for a gift card to a local movie theater; cards either expired in 2 weeks or didn’t expire. A control condition received no gift card. Attitudes about the company were assessed 2 weeks later. Analyses showed that for the no- expiration condition, using the gift card during the first 2 weeks after receipt increased liking and interest toward the providing company, but gift use instead decreased interest and liking if the card was set to expire after 2 weeks. In addition, 2-week cards were more likely to be used during the study period as compared to no-expiration cards. These results contribute to the growing research on consumer reactance, raising concerns that the common business practice of giving out expiring gifts may backfire. INTRODUCTION Brehm’s reactance theory (1966) is one of the best-known in the field of Psychology—Google scholar alone has over 4000 citations listed. Consumer psychologists have only begun to devote resources to the study of the phenomenon, though. Reactance, the psychological state induced by restriction of specific behavioral freedoms, was discussed as a potential avenue for consumer research by Clee and Wicklund (1980) and later Brehm himself (1989), yet no behavioral, consumption-focused research was found to have been published in marketing or psychological journals. The current research attempts to fill this gap in the literature. Through generous funding via the Arkansas Department of Higher Education’s Student Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) program, a behavior-focused paradigm was designed, with participants given real gifts, along with the measurement of actual behavior (the use of the gift cards). HYPOTHESIS Consumers who feel their freedom threatened by restrictive expiration dates will like the providing company less than those with a non-expiring card. RESULTS REFERENCES Brehm, J. (1966). A theory of psychological reactance. New York, NY: Academic Press. Brehm, J. (1989). Psychological reactance: Theory and applications. Advances in Consumer Research, 16, Clee, Mona A. and Robert A. Wicklund (1980), "Consumer Behavior and Psychological Reactance," Journal of Consumer Research, 6 (March), Kahnemann, D., Knetsch, J. L., & Thaler, R. H. (1991). Anomalies: The endowment effect, loss aversion, and status quo bias. The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 5(1), That Expires Tomorrow? Expiring Gifts and Consumer Reactance Gabriel Gonzales 1, Dr. Marc Sestir 2, Dr. Lindsay Kennedy 1 1 Hendrix College; 2 University of Central Arkansas METHOD 149 University of Central Arkansas students recruited via SONA Ps were asked to fill out a marketing survey for Grab-N-Go Convenience Stores in exchange for course credit as well as a chance to receive a gift card to a local theater After completion of initial survey, Ps split into 3 groups at random: 2 week expiration group received gift cards mailed in envelope marked with expiration date No expiration group received gift cards mailed in envelope clearly stating that gift card would never expire Control group received no gift card initially 2 weeks later, Ps were contacted about follow-up survey which asked Ps about the company as well as their gift card use RESULTS In all, 73 Ps responded to the follow-up survey sent 2 weeks after completion of the initial survey. Ps were of diverse ages (M= 22.04, SD= 7.75), and primarily (82%) female. When asked about Ps’ interest in Grab-n-Go stores, there was an interaction between condition and gift card use: β= 1.806, SE=.914, p =.054. This pattern was repeated when Ps were asked about their feelings toward Grab-n-Go, as condition and gift card use interacted: β= 1.952, SE= 1.133, p =.092. Finally, Ps in the 2 week condition were more likely than those in the no expiration condition to use their gift cards : β= -.258, SE=.136, p =.063. DISCUSSION Both of these results suggest that Ps who were able to use their gift card before its supposed expiration date were less happy with the providing company than those who were unable to use the gift card. For those given cards that did not expire, use of the gift card correlated with higher ratings of interest in and liking of Grab-n-Go stores. One way to interpret this result is that Ps in the 2 week condition felt that they were “forced” into using their gift card to see a movie they might not have gone to see otherwise. Those who did not use their gift card were not financially worse off than if they had not received a gift card at all, but those who made time to go to the theater might have felt that their hands were tied in doing so. Perhaps surprisingly, participants with expiring cards did not seem to feel wronged if they had not used their gift card within the 2 week period. In fact, Ps with unused 2 week cards felt no different about Grab-n-Go than Ps who had used a card that would never have expired. This finding opposes traditional behavioral economics (Kahnemann et al, 1991), as individuals are expected to be loss averse--yet the participants in this study did not seem to care. CONCLUSIONS Those who feel “forced” to use an expiring gift may react negatively toward the providing company Additional data must be collected to compensate for high attrition rates associated with current paradigm Logo of Fictional Providing Company: Grab-n-Go Convenience Stores