¶ … consumer choice seem 'obvious' to a naive observer, namely that consumers will inevitably prefer cheaper products over more expensive ones, and more products rather than fewer items. However, psychological research suggests that 'common sense' does not always hold true when it comes to market research, hence the need for companies to spend money on obtaining such findings to improve the use of scarce money and time when seeking to reach the public. This paper will present a review of three peer-reviewed articles in the field of consumer research on human subjects which provide further nuance to the study of consumption habits. According to Dai & Fishbach (2014), although the presence of products can stimulate the desire to consume, so can the absence of such products. If 'absence makes the heart grow fonder' in the case of romance, the same can be said to be true of buying consumer goods. One of the central questions asked in their research was: "When a product becomes temporarily unavailable, does desire for it increase or decrease over time?" (Xianchi & Fishbach 2014: 938). A survey of one hundred and five undergraduate students at the Chinese University of Hong Kong studying abroad who completed an online study on food consumption yielded the finding that the length of time spent away from favorite foods coupled with a lack of acceptable substitutes increased the saliency...

A study of Jewish people keeping kosher over Passover yielded the finding that the desire for substitutes increased markedly with the duration of the absence of the forbidden food and the presence of salient substitutes decreased the desire for forbidden foods overall (Xianchi & Fishbach 2014: 941).
However, another study which required participants to abstain from Facebook for its duration determined that desire increased in the face of the absence of acceptable substitutes. Ultimately, the researchers concluded that duration of nonconsumption and the presence of substitutes were the critical factors in influencing desire: "In the absence of substitutes, longer nonconsumption increases desire (including, missing, liking, and consumption intention), whereas in the presence of salient substitutes, longer nonconsumption decreases desire" (Xianchi & Fishbach 2014: 948). These findings have critical implications for marketers. For products without substitutes of comparable value, artificially induced scarcity could boost consumption (such as seasonal 'rationing' of products). For products with many substitutes, however, a shortage could result in permanently decreased demand, due to a shift to substitute goods.

In another study involving human subjects, Mittleman (et al. 2014) found that the presentation of goods in…