| Summary: | We frequently make consumption decisions for ourselves with others' consumption information (e.g., online review, street fashion), and make consumption decisions for the self and other together (e.g., pick a restaurant for a get-together). As social animals, we are connected---we experience fuzzy self-other boundary and thus a sense of connectedness. Such self-other connection, I propose, leads consumers to view each other's totally independent consumption as connected, and influences decisions for the self and decisions for the self and other together. In two chapters, I present evidence that "connected consumers" 1) focus on what the self-other collective gets (instead of what the self or the other gets), and 2) mentally share each other's consumption. Specifically, in chapter 1 I show that when making resource allocation decision for self and a close (versus distant) other, people are more likely to prefer a self-benefiting allocation when this option also offers greater total benefit to the self-other collective, because the concern for total benefit overrides the concern for either the self or the other (i.e., "friendly taking"). In chapter 2, I show that, despite the fact that people usually treat their in-group better than out-group, they are more likely to infringe an in-group's intellectual property and are more tolerant towards a given infringement when the intellectual property owner is an in-group, because they mentally share the ownership of an in-group's intellectual property to a greater extent (i.e., "what's yours in mine") and behave as if they are the owner.
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