{"pk":30166,"title":"Word Aversion and Consumer Behavior","subtitle":null,"abstract":"Word aversion is characterized by visceral disgust in responseto seeing or hearing a word. Unlike taboo words or profanity,aversive words do not seem to have an obvious historicalcontext, referent, or pejorative function that causes people toreact negatively to them. “Moist” is a prototypical example ofan aversive word: roughly 20% of American English speakersequate hearing the word with the sound of fingernailsscratching a chalkboard. Despite widespread aversion to“moist,” the word frequently appears on the packaging ofconsumer products like cake, shampoo, and towelettes. Thepresent study tests whether word aversion affects consumerbehavior. We find that moist-averse participants are less liketo choose hygiene-related, but not food-related, products thathave “moist” on the package. We discuss the implications ofthis finding for theories of language processing and disgust inthe context of consumer behavior.","language":"eng","license":{"name":"","short_name":"","text":null,"url":""},"keywords":[{"word":"word aversion"},{"word":"emotional language"},{"word":"decisionmaking"},{"word":"consumer psychology"},{"word":"disgust"}],"section":"Papers accepted as Posters, appearing in proceedings only","is_remote":true,"remote_url":"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0ng7r531","frozenauthors":[{"first_name":"Paul","middle_name":"H.","last_name":"Thibodeau","name_suffix":"","institution":"Oberlin College","department":""},{"first_name":"Katerine","middle_name":"","last_name":"Christel","name_suffix":"","institution":"Oberlin College","department":""}],"date_submitted":null,"date_accepted":null,"date_published":"2020-01-01T18:00:00Z","render_galley":null,"galleys":[{"label":"PDF","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/cognitivesciencesociety/article/30166/galley/20020/download/"}]}