The present research investigates how purchase motives (hedonic vs. utilitarian) influence
the effectiveness of partitioned versus combined pricing. Across four studies, we find that
compared to combined pricing, partitioned pricing increases hedonic purchases, but not
utilitarian purchases. We find this happens because consumers considering a hedonic
purchase tend to feel anticipated guilt associated with their hedonic spending, and
partitioned pricing is used as a guilt-mitigating justification for the spending. Specifically …