It's Not what you Get but when you Get It: The Effect of Gift Sequence on Deposit Balances and Customer Sentiment in a Commercial Bank
通过银行实地实验发现，礼品能提升存款余额和满意度，但礼品价值递减（如先100后35美元）会显著损害存款，这种“恶化厌恶”源于期望被违背。
The authors examine the impact of gifts on deposit balances and customer satisfaction in a longitudinal field experiment conducted at a commercial bank. They find that gifts increased deposit balances, survey response rates, and customer satisfaction compared with the no-gift control. They manipulated several factors within the gift treatment: gift type, the accompanying message, and the sequence of gift value, which improved ($35 then $100 gift), worsened ($100 then $35 gift), or was a single gift. A highly detrimental effect of decreasing gift value occurred on deposit balances. This “deterioration aversion” persisted in a long-term follow-up analysis of deposit balances. A vignette experiment replicates deterioration aversion and extends the results, demonstrating increased effectiveness of improving gifts over constant gift sequences and indicating that the mechanism underlying deterioration aversion involves the violation of expectations.