"It Could Have Been You": How States Exploit Counterfactual Thought to Market Lotteries

Psychology and Marketing

Volumn 17, Issue 4, 2000, Pages 299-321

  Landman, Janet ^a   Petty, Ross ^a  

^a BABSON COLLEGE   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0034374407     PISSN: 07426046     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1002/(SICI)1520-6793(200004)17:4<299::AID-MAR3>3.0.CO;2-E     Document Type: Article

References (66)

1. Abt, V., Smith, J. F., & Christiansen, E. M. (1985). The business of risk: Commercial gambling in mainstream America. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas.
2. Anderson, C. A. (1983). Imagination and expectation: The effect of imagining behavioral scripts on personal intentions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 52, 366-378.
3. Babad, E., & Katz, Y. (1991). Wishful thinking - Against all odds. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 21, 1921-1938.
4. Beck, K. H., & Frankel, A. (1981). A conceptualization of threat communications and protective health behavior. Social Psychology Quarterly, 3, 204-217.
5. Bell, D. E. (1982). Regret in decision making under uncertainty. Operations Research, 30, 961-981.
6. Boninger, D. S., Gleicher, F., & Strathman, A. J. (1994). Counterfactual thinking: From what might have been to what may be. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67, 297-307.
7. Dear Ann Landers. (1998, July 5). Boston Globe, p. E8.
8. Burns, A. C., Gillett, P. L., Rubinstein, M., & Gentry, J. W. (1990). An exploratory study of lottery playing, gambling addiction and links to compulsive consumption. Advances in Consumer Research, 17, 298-305.
9. Chinoy, I., & Babington, P. (1998, May 3). Low-income players feed lottery cash cow. The Washington Post, p. A1.
10. Clotfelter, C. T., & Cook, P. J. (1989). Selling hope: State lotteries in America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
11. Conte, J. (1998, June). A case study of Colorado advertising and marketing. Paper presented at the meeting of the Marketing and Public Policy Association, Arlington, VA (abstracted in Marketing and Public Policy Conference Proceedings, 1998, pp. 94-95).
12. Dawes, R. M. (1988). Rational choice in an uncertain world. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
13. Dermer, M., Cohen, S. J., Jacobsen, E., & Anderson, E. A. (1979). Evaluative judgments of aspects of life as a function of vicarious exposure to hedonic extremes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37, 247-260.
14. Farragher, T. (1998, July 29). N.H. lottery chief warns of excess in rush to Powerball. Boston Globe, pp. Al, A12.
15. Gavanski, I., & Wells, G. L. (1989). Counterfactual processing of normal and exceptional events. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 25, 314-325.
16. Gilovich, T. (1983). Biased evaluation and persistence in gambling. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 44, 1110-1126.
17. Girotto, V., Legrenzi, P., & Rizzo, A. (1991). Event controllability in counterfactual thinking. Acta Psychologica, 78, 111-133.
18. Gleicher, F., Boninger, D. S., Strathman, A., Armor, D., & Ahn, M. (1995). With an eye toward the future: The impact of counterfactual thinking on affect, attitudes, and behavior. In N.J. Roese & J. M. Olson (Eds.), What might have been: The social psychology of counterfactual thinking (pp. 283-304). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
19. Gleicher, F., Kost, K. A., Baker, S. M., Strathman, A. J., Richman, S. A., & Sherman, S. J. (1990). The role of counterfactual thinking in judgments of affect. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 16, 284-295.
20. Goodman, R. (1995). The luck business: The devastating consequences and broken promises of America's gambling explosion. New York: Free Press.
21. Gregory, L. W., Cialdini, R. B., & Carpenter, K. M. (1982). Self-relevant scenarios as mediators of likelihood estimates and compliance: Does imagining make it so? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 43, 89-99.
22. Humphreys, L. G. (1939). The effect of random alternation of reinforcement on the acquisition and extinction of conditioned eyelid reactions. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 25, 141-158.
23. Kahneman, D., & Miller, D. T. (1986). Norm theory: Comparing reality to its alternatives. Psychological Review, 93, 136-153.
24. Karcher, A. J. (1989). Lotteries. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.
25. Koehler, D. J. (1991). Explanation, imagination, and confidence in judgment. Psychological Bulletin, 110, 499-519.
26. Landman, J. (1993). Regret: The persistence of the possible. New York: Oxford University Press.
27. Landman, J., Vandewater, E. A., Stewart, A. J., & Malley, J. E. (1995). Missed opportunities: Psychological ramifications of counterfactual thought in midlife women. Journal of Adult Development, 2, 87-97.
28. Langenderfer, J. (1996). Lotteries and education: The mediating effect of illusion of control. Marketing and Public Policy Conference Proceedings, 190-198.
29. Langer, E. J. (1975). The illusion of control. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 32, 311-328.
30. Langer, E. J. (1977). The psychology of chance. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 1, 185-208.
31. Larrick, R. P., & Boles, T. L. (1995). Avoiding regret in decisions with feedback: A negotiation example. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 63, 87-97.
32. Loomes, G., & Sugden, R. (1982). Regret theory: An alternative theory of rational choice under uncertainty. The Economic Journal, 92, 805-824.
33. Lottery player kills himself. (1995, April 11). Detroit News.
34. "Lucky 13" score jackpot. (1998, July 30). Austin American-Statesman [On-line publication]. Available: www. Alta Vista.
35. Markman, K. D., Gavanski, I., Sherman, S. J., & McMullen, M. N. (1993). The mental simulation of better and worse possible worlds. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 29, 87-109.
36. Markman, K. D., Gavanski, I., Sherman, S. J., & McMullen, M. N. (1995). The impact of perceived control on the imagination of better and worse possible worlds. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 21, 588-595.
37. McMullen, M. N. (1997). Affective contrast and assimilation in counterfactual thinking. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 33, 77-100.
38. McMullen, M. N., Markman, K. D., & Gavanski, I. (1995). Living in neither the best nor worst of all possible worlds: Antecedents and consequences of upward and downward counterfactual thinking. In N. J. Roese & J. M. Olson (Eds.), What might have been: The social psychology of counterfactual thinking (pp. 133-167). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
39. Medvec, V. H., Madey, S. F., & Gilovich, T. (1995). When less is more: Counterfactual thinking and satisfaction among Olympic medalists. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, 603-610.
40. Meyers-Levy, J., & Maheswaran, D. (1992). When timing matters: The influence of temporal distance on consumers' affective and persuasive responses. Journal of Consumer Research, 19, 424-433.
41. Miller, D. T., & Taylor, B. R. (1995). Counterfactual thought, regret, and superstition: How to avoid kicking yourself. In N. J. Roese & J. M. Olson (Eds.) What might have been: The social psychology of counterfactual thinking (pp. 305-331). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
42. Miyazaki, A. D., Hansen, A., & Sprott, D. E. (1998). A longitudinal analysis of income-based tax regressivity of state-sponsored lotteries. Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, 17, 116-172.
43. National Gambling Impact Study Commission. (1998). Lotteries, 1, 6, 8. (Comments by Perlee).
44. Netemeyer, R. G., Burton, S., Cole, L. K., Williamson, D. A., Zucker, N., Berman, L., & Diefenbach, G. (1998). Characteristics and beliefs associated with probable pathological gambling: A pilot study with implications for the National Gambling Impact and Policy Commission. Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, 17, 147-160.
45. N'gabala, A., & Branscombe, N. R. (1995). Mental simulation and causal attribution: When simulating an event does not affect fault assignment. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 31, 139-162.
46. Nisbett, R., & Ross, L. (1980). Human inference: Strategies and shortcomings of social judgment. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
47. Petty, R. D. (1998). Federalism and the Federal Trade Commission's authority to regulate state lottery marketing practices. Unpublished manuscript.
48. Richard, R., van der Pligt, J., & de Vries, N. K. (1996). Anticipated regret and time perspective: Changing sexual risk-taking behavior. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 9, 185-199.
49. Roese, N. J. (1994). The functional basis of counterfactual thinking. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66, 805-818.
50. Roese, N. J., & Olson, J. M. (1995a). Preface. In N. J. Roese & J. M. Olson (Eds.), What might have been: The social psychology of counterfactual thinking (pp. vii-xi). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
51. Roese, N. J., & Olson, J. M. (1995b). Counterfactual thinking: A critical overview. In N. J. Roese & J. M. Olson (Eds.), What might have been: The social psychology of counterfactual thinking (pp. 1-55). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
52. Roese, N. J., & Olson, J. M. (1995c). Functions of counterfactual thinking. In N. J. Roese & J. M. Olson (Eds.), What might have been: The social psychology of counterfactual thinking (pp. 169-197). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
53. Sanna, L. J., & Turley, K. J. (1996). Antecedents to spontaneous counterfactual thinking: Effects of expectancy violation and outcome valence. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 22, 906-919.
54. Seelau, E. P., Seelau, S. M., Wells, G. L., & Windschitl, P. D. (1995). Counterfactual constraints. In N. J. Roese & J. M. Olson (Eds.), What might have been: The social psychology of counterfactual thinking (pp. 57-79). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
55. Selinger, I. C. (1993, May 10). The big lottery gamble. Advertising Age, 22-28.
56. Shenk, J. W. (1995, July/August). Everyone's a loser. The Washington Monthly, 22-25.
57. Sherman, S. J., & McConnell, A. R. (1995). Dysfunctional implications of counterfactual thinking: When alternatives to reality fail us. In N. J. Roese & J. M. Olson (Eds.), What might have been: The social psychology of counterfactual thinking (pp. 199-232). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
58. Simonson, I. (1992). The influence of anticipating regret and responsibility on purchase decisions. Journal of Consumer Research, 19, 105-118.
59. Sterngold, J. (1996, July 14). Muting the lotteries' perfect pitch. New York Times, pp. 1, 18.
60. Taylor, S. E., & Schneider, S. K. (1989). Coping and the simulation of events. Social Cognition, 7, 174-194.
61. Turnbull, W. (1981). Naïve conceptions of free will and the deterministic paradox. Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science, 13, 1-13.
62. Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1974). Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases. Science, 221, 453-458.
63. Weinstock, S. (1954). Resistance to extinction of a running response following partial reinforcement under widely spaced trials. Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology, 47, 318-322.
64. J. B. Williams Co. (1972). 81 F.T.C. 238-246.
65. Zeelenberg, M., & Beattie, J. (1997). Consequences of regret aversion 2: Additional evidence for effects of feedback on decision making. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 72, 63-78.
66. Zeelenberg, M., Beattie, J., van der Pligt, J., & de Vries, N. K. (1996). Consequences of regret aversion: Effects of expected feedback on risky decision making. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 65, 148-158.