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Full text release has been delayed at the author's request until August 25, 2025

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Shhh… Don’t Tell: Divergent Effects of Secrecy on Consumption Enjoyment

Jia, Lei
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1591370991002245

Abstract Details

2020, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Business Administration.
Secrecy, or an intention to conceal information from one or more individuals, is a ubiquitous social phenomenon which enshrouds a wide spectrum of human behavior. Inevitably, secrecy also infiltrates into the consumption domain of people’s lives and constitutes an indispensable element in myriad consumption activities, ranging from throwing surprise parties and preparing surprise gifts, through purchasing counterfeit products on the sly, to covertly indulging in diet busters. Despite the prevalence of secrecy in consumption activities, scant research has examined the influences of secret keeping on consumer behavior. Given the temporal nature of secrecy which spans across a period of time from the point when the hiding begins to the moment when the secret is disclosed, secrecy can prolong a consumption activity from the consumption per se (or a single-episode activity) to a longer psychological experience that lingers on the secret keeper’s mind. In light of such a unique feature of secrecy, this research investigates how keeping a consumption secret will influence the secret keeper’s enjoyment through the prolonged psychological experience sustained by secrecy. Across eight studies, this research demonstrates that secrecy has a polarizing effect on a secret keeper’s enjoyment. Specifically, when a consumption activity is expected to elicit positive social responses, keeping it as a secret (vs. not) increases consumption enjoyment. When a consumption activity is anticipated to elicit negative social responses, keeping it as a secret (vs. not) decreases consumption enjoyment. It reveals that such effects are jointly mediated by the secret keeper’s anticipation of outcomes of secret revelation and the cognitive effort imposed by the process of secret keeping. It also examines preoccupation as a moderator and finds that when expected social responses are positive, a curvilinear relationship between level of preoccupation and enjoyment exists such that the secret consumption is most enjoyable when consumers are moderately preoccupied with the secret; when expected social responses are negative, a negative linear relationship emerges such that enjoyment decreases as the level of preoccupation increases. Finally, it establishes that the polarizing effect of secrecy on enjoyment is also moderated by the social distance between the secret keeper and the audience (i.e., person or people from whom the secret is kept), such that this effect is more pronounced when the distance is close (vs. not).
Xiaoyan Deng (Committee Chair)
Rebecca Reczek (Committee Member)
Selin Malkoc (Committee Member)
Xiaojing Yang (Committee Member)
106 p.
Marketing; Psychology
Secrecy, consumption, enjoyment

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Jia, L. (2020). Shhh… Don’t Tell: Divergent Effects of Secrecy on Consumption Enjoyment [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1591370991002245

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Jia, Lei. Shhh… Don’t Tell: Divergent Effects of Secrecy on Consumption Enjoyment. 2020. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1591370991002245.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Jia, Lei. "Shhh… Don’t Tell: Divergent Effects of Secrecy on Consumption Enjoyment." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2020. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1591370991002245

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

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This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.