When High-Similarity Copycats Lose and Moderate-Similarity Copycats Gain: The Impact of Comparative Evaluation

Vol. XLIX (February 2012), 83 –91 *Femke van Horen is a postdoctoral researcher, Social Psychology Department, University of Cologne (e-mail: [email protected]). Rik Pieters is Professor of Marketing, Marketing Department, and Fellow at the Tilburg Institute of Behavioral and Economics Research (TIBER), Tilburg University (e-mail: [email protected]). This article is based on the first author’s dissertation, defended at Tilburg University. The authors thank Claessens Product Consultants (Chris Huynen) in Hilversum, the Netherlands, for developing the stimuli used in Study 2 and Luk Warlop for helpful comments on a previous version of this article. Ziv Carmon served as associate editor for this article. FEMKE VAN HOREN and RIK PIETERS*