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SCARLET TANAGER MANUSCRIPT REVIEW HISTORY
REVIEWS (ROUND 2)
Editor Decision Letter
Thank you for submitting your revision to the Journal of Consumer Research. The revision was
evaluated by the same three reviewers as in the previous round. Overall, this piece is on a
positive trajectory, with RB and RC recommending a conditional acceptance (RA is less excited
on this round compared to the previous one in terms of his/her recommendations). The AE is
also positively disposed toward the manuscript and has recommended a conditional acceptance.
Thus, my decision is to conditionally accept your manuscript for publication in JCR.
There are a few more issues that need to be addressed before this paper can get accepted. The AE
has highlighted these issues and provided you with some directions. All these issues can be
easily handled in a revision, but I would like you to give a lot of thought to points 1 and 3 in the
AE’s report. Let me elaborate.
1. If you put yourselves in the shoes of a JCR reader who enjoys effects-rich papers, you will
realize that your introduction is too tepid. All your findings are very interesting but your front
end does no justice to them. More specifically, your first paragraph needs to be written such that
it elicits the “wow” among readers. Start with the ubiquity of signing one’s name (as you have
now) and then get to the “mystery” question – something like, “The question is, can signing
one’s name affect behavior…” and elaborate on these behaviors very quickly by pulling the most
counterintuitive results in one or two of your studies. (BTW, here and in the rest of the paper,
don’t get to the “this has not been done before” spiel—something may have not been
investigated before because it is boring; also, making such statements tends to automatically
trigger a “Really? Let me show you that you are wrong” response). Get to the next paragraph by
answering the question that you lead off with in the first para. Then elaborate on the mechanism.
Your last para in the intro can be shortened and more of managerial implications of your findings
highlighted.
2. Yes, your paper needs to be shortened. The AE has provided several areas where you can cut
down. In addition, I found the conceptual background section to be long-winded, quite tough to
follow and sometimes repetitive with what you state earlier. See if you can considerably sharpen
the exposition – keeping in only what is necessary to tell your story. Also, you do a good job by
invoking Amanda on top of page 8. It would be nice if you can use Amanda and figure 1 to
elucidate what comes next. That part of your conceptualization was particularly difficult to
follow and some hand-holding for the readers would help.
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On the next round (hopefully the last), only the AE and I will read the manuscript. However, that
does not mean that you can ignore the reviewers’ comments. I would suggest that you address
them in the revision (without adding to the length) or in a revision note written as if the package
would have been sent to the reviewers.
If there is anything in my letter, in the AE report or the reviews that need elaborating
on/clarifications, please don’t hesitate to contact me.
AE Report
Comments to the Author(s):
The same review team that had read your initial submission read your revision. Generally, we
are pleased by it and believe your paper is iterating appropriately towards publication. The
reviewers have raised a number of issues that you should consider
1. I agree with Reviewer C that this paper should move towards being an effects paper. The
signature effect is clear and novel You do a good job showing that it is stronger when selfidentity is activated, but the link to the extensive literature on self-identity is sufficiently
problematic that these theoretical links should be played down.
2. Reviewer A makes a good point about distinguishing between the impact of signatures
enhancing differences between in- vs. out-group compared with differences of self relative to
the in-group. Put in a different context, signing one’s family name may make one’s
differences within the family less but differences with other families greater. Study 3
provides important insight on this issue.
3. The paper can be shortened and focused. For example, in the introductory section the
sections on graphology and signature size can be shortened, as can the general discussion of
signatures. In a number of your analyses, the same data is examined from a different
perspective (e.g. ANOVA vs. ANCOVA in study 1) producing results that are conceptually
redundant. Only one is needed.
4. Consistent with reviewer B, P-values between .05 and .10 should be denoted as marginally
significant. You should also indicate when your tests are one tailed. It appears that you use a
one-tailed test where you are trying to show a difference, but two-tailed tests when you are
not.
5. Include more information in your figures so that they can be understood independently of the
text.
Reviewer A
Comments to the Authors:
Unfortunately I think this is a case where the revision has complicated rather than clarified
things. The idea is still great, and the combination of effects in the field and lab are nice, but
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while the revision has certainly strengthened some aspects, in other cases it has raised more
questions or drawn attention to other issues. In particular it has drawn attention to the fact that
the theorizing needs tightening in certain areas. To be fair to the authors, part of the needed
tightening may be because things are so clear in the rest of the paper (something they should be
commended for) but nonetheless there are a number of places where things are confusing, effects
come out of nowhere, or results don’t seem to fit with theory. Still like the paper and feel it is a
great fit for JCR, but more clean-up work (particularly on theorizing) is necessary.
Self or Social Identities?
The manuscript clearly shows that signing one’s name leads people to behave in ways that are
generally consistent with who they are, but it would benefit from a deeper discussion (and
theorizing) about the self vs. social nature of these effects. People not only select options to
communicate group identities (more social), but to also distinguish themselves and express their
own uniqueness (more self specific). Someone might use a gift certificate to buy running shoes
to express their social identity as a runner, for example, but might choose purple running shoes
because that is their favorite color personally.
The authors suggests that signing one’s name acts as a “general self-identity prime,” but it is not
clear what that means in regards to this self vs. social distinction. Should it drive people to
behave in ways that are more consistent with their social identities? More consistent with unique
self-identities? Both? While this distinction is never mentioned, results of Study 4 suggest the
former. Signing one’s name leads people to conform more (and diverge less) from in-groups.
This finding is consistent with the idea that signing leads people to behave in ways that are
consistent with their social identities, but if self-consistency was being increased, one could
actually make the opposite prediction. Signing your name should lead people to diverge more
even from ingroups because they want to act consistent with the unique self.
I don’t want to hijack the theorizing here, but at least the way it is currently presented, the data
seem consistent with signing activating social rather than self-identities. The manuscript would
benefit from a deeper discussion of uniqueness motivations, the self vs. social identity distinction
(Cindy Chan has a working paper she presented at ACR last year that touches on this issue that
may be useful), and which aspect signing plays on.
Effects on Group Identification and Perception
The distinction between how signing should impact group identification vs. perception comes
out of nowhere, is not very well theoretically developed, and seems only weakly supported. In
Study 3 the authors argue that signing should increase group identification but not affect how
much one likes members of that group or how similar they feel towards group members. First, it
is unclear why. This issue is never talked about in the introduction and it is unclear how it falls
out of the existing theoretical framework. Second, it seems like the theory could easily predict
something else. If signing activates social identities, then it makes sense that it should increase
how strongly people identify with ingroups. But why shouldn’t it also make people feel more
similar to those ingroups? If it highlights that aspect of the self, shouldn’t ingroups seem more
similar (and outgroups as more different)? (meant to ask this in the 1st round but realize that my
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review was unclear on this point) The authors could argue that this is not what the effects show,
and that is fair, but they still need to clarify why the theory predicts this. More generally, this
aspect of the manuscript either needs to be clarified greatly or dropped.
(as a side note the authors argue that they do not find effects in Study 4 on group association
because the measures were taken after people completed 19 choice tasks, but it not clear why this
should weaken the effect. Yes they made a bunch of choices, but given that most of them should
have been consistent with the group identity, couldn’t one just as easily argue the choices should
strengthen the effects?)
The issue is particularly problematic in Study 3 because of a potential methodological issue.
People list an ingroup or outgroup after the sign vs. print manipulation, so this manipulation
might impact the actual group people list. If signing activates self/social identities, then people
might list ingroups (outgroups_ that are closer to (further from) the self in the first place. Thus it
is unclear whether the manipulation is impacting how strongly people identify with ingroups
(disidentify with outgroups), or just whether they list ingroups (outgroups) that they more (less)
strongly identify with in the first place. The good news is that either case seems somewhat
consistent with the authors’ theory, but it makes it hard to evaluate the effects, particularly on the
other dependent variables.
Other Methodological Concerns
1. The identity-congruent vs. identity-incongruent choice bit in Study 4 is confusing and seems
slightly problematic. Agree that activating one’s social identity should facilitate choosing
consistently with that identity, and Study 3 nicely shows that people are faster to finish the
task when they sign. In Study 4 though, people are not randomly assigned to congruent vs.
incongruent choices, rather that is an outcome that they choose. Thus comparing time spent
on these two types of choices as a function of signing vs. printing is slightly problematic
because I’d bet that manipulation also effects the number of choices that are congruent vs.
incongruent. More broadly, I think this aspect distracts from an already complex study, so it
might be best just to drop this part of the results.
2. Why are the first two predictions in Study 4 run in separate models? Seems like one model
could be run that would allow both predictions to be tested. Running two separate models
makes it seem like prediction 1 (more identity congruent choices) would not hold if the
identity-relevance score of the preference domain is included in the analysis (as is done to
test whether the effects are stronger in identity relevant domains).
Signing vs. Printing
Sorry to harp on this, but I don’t think the revision clarifies why effects should be stronger when
the name is signed vs. printed. Yes, all the studies show the effects occur under signing vs.
printing, and yes the intro talks about how signing is connected to the self, but one could easily
argue that printing is as well. Given that all the studies rely on this comparison, I think its worth
a few sentences/paragraph that concretely and quickly state why signing should be more strongly
tied to the self.
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Smaller Points
1. There are many cases where effects are marginal and the studies might benefit from adding
extra participants (e.g., Study 1)
2. In the Study 1 “Additional Analyses” the authors mention running and ANCOVA but it is
not clear what the covariate is and why one was included.
3. The ingroup/outgroup manipulation used in Study 3 and 4 seems exactly like what was used
in Berger and Heath 2007/Escalas and Bettman 2005. If this is where it was adapted from, it
seems like this should at least be acknowledged.
4. Study 3’s finding that people who signed their name responded more quickly to both
ingroups and outgroups is nice, but it would be good if the introduction to the study clarified
that a main effect is expected. The way it is currently written I expected an interaction, so I
thought the study failed to find the expected result. It was only after re-reading that it
became clear.
5. A figure which also shows the effects in less identity-relevant domains in study 4 would
make the effects easier to interpret.
In sum, I still think this is a clever effect and that this will be a great paper, but a little deeper
thought on the theorizing will help improve things even more.
Reviewer B
Comments to the Authors:
I would like to congratulate the authors on their revision. I think the new manuscript sufficiently
addresses many of the concerns raised in the previous round.
A few small points:
1. I am a bit troubled by the sheer number of marginal effects, especially in Studies 1-3 being
referred to as “significant”. Significant is <.05. Yes, it’s an arbitrary convention, but please
temper as the paper is littered with effects being interpreted above that threshold. It’s not
even consistent - you refer to “marginal” effects in Study 4. Just tone it down please
throughout the paper.
2. Clearly state in your “additional analyses” section of Study 1 that you are collapsing across
condition and using the continuous measure instead.
3. Does the strength of the one’s identity with the in (or out) group correlate with the time they
spent on the task? You could take deviations from the mean on the measure to test this. This
might be helpful.
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While I appreciate the additional theoretical clarity, after being (net) down a study, the paper has
expanded to 58 total pages. I would suggest trimming some of the front end perhaps the part on
the history of signatures (which might also eliminate some references), but there is added length
throughout.
Reviewer C
Comments to the Authors:
This paper is greatly improved from the previous version. In particular, the additional process
data provide much more compelling evidence that the findings are due to identity activation.
This is a much tighter paper and one that conveys the key thesis more clearly than the previous
one. That is not to say that there are not remaining mysteries. As the authors noted in their
cover letter (and as I noted in my previous review), it seems clear that signing one's name does
something different than printing one's name. Why it should do so remains unclear. It seems
sensible that signing one’s name could have stronger effects than printing one’s name (because
signatures allow for more self-expression, etc.), but the fact that printing one’s name does
nothing at all is odd, if activating one’s identity is at work. Similarly, why are the situations
themselves insufficient to activate the identities? Why shouldn’t a running store, for example, be
sufficient to activate a running identity (among those who identify as runners) and have the
effects on its own? Given that situations and objects can automatically activate identity-relevant
constructs, this also seems odd. Hence, this is a paper that presents interesting effects, but also
raises lots of questions. Is finding the answers to all of these questions critical? Perhaps not.
The paper as is contains four nice studies that provide evidence consistent with the authors’
conceptualization, even if they don’t provide a completely tight or unambiguous story. I’m a
bit divided.
The answer may depend on which “track” this paper is designed to fit for JCR. The paper is
purportedly primarily about the effect of signatures. I take this as more of an effects-type
contribution with this framing. If this is the framing, it would benefit the paper to, up front,
provide more evidence that this is an issue of practical importance for marketers. As I consider
consumer situations in which I sign things, it is typically at the end of a transaction rather than at
the beginning, and the signatures always pertain to something specific (which, as the authors
noted, is likely to alter the effects). And although there are potential carryover effects (from the
grocery store to the running store, as the suggested in the paper), one could question how
prevalent they are or what marketers can do about them.
A focus on the self-activation aspect of the paper would suggest a more thorough
acknowledgment of other related literature, some of which was referenced in my previous
review. The notion of general activation of the self-concept has quite a history in psychological
research. It might be that signing one's name shares something in common with other instigators
of self-activation that have shown similar types of effects. For example, mirrors can lead to
activation of the self-concept (Geller and Shaver 1976), self-stereotyping and identification with
important groups (Edelman and Silvia 2010), and increased tenencies to act consistently with
one's attitudes (and divergence in behavior between people who hold different attitudes, Carver
1975). Hearing one's voice increases agreement with the majority opinion of a positive reference
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group (Wicklund and Duval 1971). Exposure to self-relevant pronouns increases behavior
consistent with one's chronic behavioral tendencies (Smeesters et al. 2009). These effects are all
different in many ways, but they do share the feature that activation of the self-concept leads to
acting more like "me". To be sure, there are potential differences. Mirrors can have different
effects from some other means of self-activation due to activating both public and private selfawareness (e.g., Froming et al. 1982; Gibbons and Wright 1983; Wiekens and Stapel 2008).
Also, people have also theorized that mirrors increase behavior consistent with one’s standards,
something that seems inconsistent with (cut) previous studies 1 and 2. Nevertheless, the idea
that features of the context can serve as general identity primes, and the idea that accessible
identity aspects direct behavior are both reasonably well established. (Incidentally, Joe Cesario
has a Psych Science paper in press that also deals with affordances and would bolster the
authors’ assertions regarding this aspect).
This paper contains captivating studies with notable effects. Where it falls short is in being
either a paper with clear applied importance or completely solid theoretical grounding (though it
is much improved on that aspect from the previous version).
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