You ought to know: Why consumers think companies can foresee bad (but not good) side effects
研究发现消费者认为企业更能预见有害副作用而非有益副作用，并提出基于启发式的解释，探讨这一不对称性对消费者归因、动机推断和责备判断的影响。
Abstract Routine business activities often lead to unintended side effects. Prior research suggests that consumers ascribe greater corporate foreknowledge when side effects are harmful (vs. helpful) but offers a controversial explanation and insufficient exploration of its consequences. The current research fills these gaps, offering a heuristic‐based explanation steeped in consumer behavior, while demonstrating the importance of this asymmetry to consumer response. First, a Pilot Study confirms the theoretical processes underlying our explanation. Study 1 tests the role of this foreknowledge asymmetry in predicting implicit bias toward the company. Studies 2 and 3 provide moderation evidence for our heuristic‐based explanation and connect the phenomenon to motive inferences and blame judgments, respectively. In sum, this work provides a novel explanation for a common marketplace phenomenon while establishing its effects on several important consumer response variables.