Mental Stealing Effects on Purchase Decisions for Others

Past research on mental accounting has focused on how consumers create budgets for themselves to control the flow of resources (Thaler 1980; 1999; Thaler and Johnson 1990). This research examines how consumers’ creation of a mental account, or budget, for another person affects the consumers purchase decisions for that other. Although some prior research suggests might focus on finding a good gift, we predict that the formation of a mental account for another can sometimes lead to consumers avoid optimizing on the best gift. Instead, consumers will spend in a manner to avoid feeling as if they have stolen from another person’s account, an experience we term mental stealing. Mental stealing is defined as a sense of guilt due to an individual feeling that they are stealing from another individual by spending less money than they had cognitively committed to the person in their mind. The creation of a mental account may lead consumers to be averse to spending significantly below the budget due to the feeling that they are stealing resources that have already been given to the other person. In experiment 1, we predict that aversion to mental stealing can lead to decreased purchase intentions towards gifts that meet gift criteria but which are priced significantly below the budget. In experiment 2 we examine whether a mental account must be created for mental stealing to occur, as well as the mediating effect of self-reported guilt. Finally, experiment 3 examines a moderator of the mental stealing effect based on a consumer’s ability to make future reparations.