While previous research has demonstrated the effect of implicit theories (i.e. the belief whether human attributes are fixed or malleable) on attitudes and behaviors in many domains, such a relationship has not been investigated in the domain of beauty. In this research, we examine the effect of implicit theories of beauty on how consumers access their actual versus ideal self, and how they experiment the self, in turn influencing brand variety seeking. We theorize that believing beauty is fixed (versus malleable) would make the ideal, desired self more accessible, as entity theorists tend to orient more towards performance goals, ones that ensure the desired judgments (Dweck, Hong, & Chiu, 1993) while incremental theorists strive to enhance their ability (i.e. learning goals) (Dweck & Leggett, 1988). In an experiment using a reaction time task, we found that participants who were primed with an incremental theory of beauty (i.e. beauty is malleable) took longer to react to words that describe their ideal self compared to words that describe their actual self. On the contrary, participants who were primed with the entity theory of beauty (i.e. beauty is fixed) reacted towards ideal self related words as quick as the actual self related words. Results from this experiment shows that when people believe is fixed, their ideal self is as accessible as their actual self. Believing beauty is fixed activates the yearn to possess characteristics that one desires, making the ideal, desired self more accessible. We further examined the effect of implicit theories of beauty on experimenting tendency and brand variety seeking, as experimenting different looks by using cosmetic products might be a way to experience multiple ideal selves. With a sample of over 1200 female consumers in four countries, including two Asian countries (Indonesia and Thailand) and two Western countries (the UK and Australia), we found a consistent pattern that the beauty is fixed (vs. malleable) belief is associated with greater tendency to experiment with beauty looks, which in turn leads to higher variety seeking of beauty brands. This result demonstrated that beauty essentialism can be a universal mechanism that drive behaviour in a beauty domain. Our finding provides insights for the marketing of beauty products. We show that beauty essentialism is a factor that drives consumer’s desire for their ideal self, similarly drives the tendency to experiment with new makeup looks as a way to express the multiple ideal selves. The belief whether beauty is fixed or malleable is thus a factor that customer segmentation can be based on. Further, communicating the message that beauty is fixed might motivate the consumers to try out new makeup products. Our findings further shed lights on some of the strategies that are currently implemented by companies. For instance, does Dove’s Real Beauty campaign really encourage consumers to embrace their actual beauty, or does it in fact make them desire for the ideal beauty even more?

Salaries of managers across many firms have sizeable performance-linked reward components. Conventional wisdom suggests that these performance-linked rewards are effective in keeping employees motivated and innovative. However, recent psychological research indicates that overly-attractive rewards may in fact reduce performance and be counterproductive for an otherwise high performing team. This issue has important implications for design of compensation schemes for marketing managers. Yet, few marketing management researchers have studied this phenomenon. How do performance-linked rewards influence the decision making styles of marketing managers who have to be innovative in dealing with competition? Does the promise of attractive performance-linked rewards help or hinder performance of a marketing unit? We sought to answer these questions via a simulation study in which we examined decision making processes and performance changes under different levels of performance-linked incentives. We find evidence to support that the practice of performance-linked rewards may benefit the low performers more than the high performers and that the high performers may not push themselves hard for the performance-linked rewards, thus lowering the performance levels. The findings are counterintuitive specifically for the high performers. Contrary to the popular notion and practice, we find that team performance including risk taking tendencies and innovative efforts actually dip in response to the high performance-linked rewards. Findings from our study provide new insights into the link between performance-linked rewards, decision making processes, and the actual performance of the managers. Our research also contributes prescriptions for calibration of compensation structures in order to promote more prudent decision making processes and to drive greater performance.