A Glass Wide Open: How Glass Shape Influences Extraversion and Happiness: An Abstract

Abstract

It is widely known that people want to be happy and marketers are increasingly trying to appeal to consumers’ pursuit of happiness. In consumer behavior research, an interesting question is if and how consumption contributes to overall happiness. Research on the topic has focused on how peoples’ choice contributes to happiness (Schwartz et al. 2002) and whether material or experiential purchase brings happiness (Nicolao et al. 2009). Extending research on happiness, the current paper investigates if consumption of the same item can make people happier depending on its container. Specifically, this research examines whether consuming or imagining consuming a drink may make people more or less happy depending on the shape of the glass it comes in. When drinking a beverage, the shape of the vessel’s rim can slope outward (e.g., a martini glass) or can slope inward (e.g., balloon wine glass). The outward slope of a vessel rim is defined as when the upper part of the vessel is wider than the bottom, and the lines of the object give an impression that it is opening itself to the environment. On the contrary, an inward sloping vessel rim is when the shape of the vessel gives the impression that it is closing itself to the environment. Grounded cognition proposes that learning takes place via multiple channels, including modal simulations, bodily states, and situated actions that underlie cognition (Barsalou 2008). Building on grounded cognition, metaphoric transfer strategy suggests that consumers make sense of the world through the use of metaphors. The metaphoric transfer strategy further suggests that psychological states (e.g., perceptions) related to one concept (e.g., shape of a glass) change how people process information related to a dissimilar concept (e.g., extraversion and happiness) in a consistent manner with their metaphoric relation (Landau et al. 2010). Based on this theory, we suggest that the shape of a beverage vessel that is outwardly sloped influences extraversion and subsequent happiness. Specifically, we propose that the more open a beverage vessel, the more extraverted (i.e., socially open) and thus happy consumers are likely to be. Two studies show that when people drink or contemplate drinks from a glass that has an outward-sloped rim, they feel more extraverted than when they drink from a glass that has an inward-sloped rim. In addition, the slope of the glass rim increases perceived happiness through extraversion. These findings are aligned with previous research that shows that extraversion is a strong predictor of happiness and subjective well-being.