Marc T. P. Adam

Who they are

The work of Marc T. P. Adam reaches this site through the paper listed below. On this site the name is tied to Incidental Arousal, Competitive Arousal.

Key papers

Adam, M. T. P., Ku, G., & Lux, E. (2019). Auction fever: The unrecognized effects of incidental arousal. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 80, 52-58. What it reports: Three experiments in which arousal came from outside the auction raised bids for items in auctions with real money. Experiment 1 used a ten-minute symbol-matching task: the high-arousal version had seven seconds per decision, point losses for slow answers, cash prizes for the top three and energetic music; the low-arousal version had soothing music, longer decision time and pay unrelated to performance. High-arousal participants bid more, with higher heart-based arousal measures. Experiment 2 induced arousal through a choice to write an essay against own views; high-choice participants bid more. Experiment 3 (235 analysed of 369 recruited) auctioned a jar of one-penny coins worth 82 pence after vivid images and energetic music or calm images and music: mean bids 0.90 and 0.81. No participant mentioned emotions or the image task, and both groups rated the task as having very little effect on their bids (2.14 and 2.25 on a seven-point scale).

Key ideas

Incidental Arousal: Excitement that comes from a source unrelated to the decision at hand, such as music, images or a fast task, and that can still change what people bid or pay.

Competitive Arousal: Arousal produced by features of a contest such as rivalry, time pressure and an audience, proposed by Ku and colleagues in 2005 to explain auction fever.

---