On the Mental Accounting of Restricted-Use Funds: How Gift Cards Change What People Purchase
Reinholtz first author. Six studies. The reported pattern: shoppers holding a retailer-specific gift card lean toward products typical of that retailer more than shoppers holding flexible currency; the effect holds for well-known and for fictional retailers; a semantic-priming explanation was not supported
Reinholtz first author. Six studies. The reported pattern: shoppers holding a retailer-specific gift card lean toward products typical of that retailer more than shoppers holding flexible currency; the effect holds for well-known and for fictional retailers; a semantic-priming explanation was not supported
Written from the abstract read 2026-10-18.
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Reinholtz, N., Bartels, D. M., & Parker, J. R. (2015). On the Mental Accounting of Restricted-Use Funds: How Gift Cards Change What People Purchase. Journal of Consumer Research, 42(4), 596-614. doi:10.1093/jcr/ucv045.