Wanting a Bit(e) of Everything: Extending the Valuation Effect to Variety Seeking

Markman and Brendl have demonstrated that individuals tend to regard as more valuable those objects that are able to satisfy an active desire. Building on their framework, we predicted that desire would enlarge the consideration set and, hence, affect variety-seeking tendencies in a product category. Our first study shows that hunger and visual food cues enhance variety seeking in food items. Further, by means of mediation analyses and a suppression manipulation( exposing participants to stale foods), we are able to show that this increase in variety-seeking results from an increased attractiveness in the food items. Our second study, where we generalize these findings by applying them to nonphysiological goals, produces evidence that the effect-the increase in variety seeking-is domain specific.