主题：The Internal Zero Effect: Why Would $1088 Elicit Greater Pain of Paying Than $1188?
题目：内部零值效应：定价数字中的内部零值对消费感知的反直觉效应解析
时间： December 15th, 2025 (Monday) 9:00 am-10:00 am, Beijing Time
地点： 管理科研楼第二教室
主讲人：Wei Li, PhD Candidate, School of Management, Huazhong University of Science and Technology
Bio:
Wei Li is a Ph.D. candidate at the School of Management, Huazhong University of Science and Technology. Her research areas include numerical cognition, green marketing, charitable giving and fear of AI in marketing. Her work has been published in Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services and Nankai Business Review. She is the winner of the Best Paper Award at CMAU (2024), the 2nd and 3rd Prize of Excellent Doctoral Student Paper at JMS (2024 and 2023), the Outstanding Paper Award at APMA (2023), the Best Doctoral Student Paper Award at CMIC (2024), and the Outstanding Paper Award at MSI (2025).
Abstract:
The present research finds that price numbers containing an internal zero lead to greater pain of paying compared to their counterparts without an internal zero (e.g., $1088 in comparison to $1188). This effect occurs because price numbers affect how people mentally represent costs. When there is an internal zero within a pricing number, such as $1088, people are more likely to represent it as two partitioned components (the base number 1000 plus the reminder 88) and think about the discrete costs of paying. In contrast, when an internal zero is absent, such as $1188, people are more likely to regard $1188 as an entire paying and think about it as an aggregate cost. Given that higher cost discreteness makes consumers feel much more pain of paying, $1088 may finally lead to more pain of paying than $1188. Further, we demonstrate that the effect is not significant when there is a reference price. Results from 10 experiments provide converging evidence to support our main effect, underlying mechanism and moderating role of reference points. Different from previous research, this article shows that even lower prices (i.e., $1088) can lead to more pain of paying than higher prices (i.e., $1188). Our findings also point out that sometimes it is wise to set the product at a higher price (i.e., $119, $1188, $11888) than lower price (i.e., $109，$1088, $10888) because a higher price can not only improve net profits but also can increase sells at the same time.