Author(s): Tanvi Gupta, Preeti Krishnan Lyndem
The belief in the evil eye is seen across cultures. It reflects a cultural notion that another person’s envious gaze can cause misfortune. Across two experiments run with consumers in India and United States, this research empirically shows that belief in the evil eye heightens preference for visually inconspicuous product designs, an effect mediated by the motive to avoid attention. This relationship is grounded in the presence of public gaze, as the influence of evil eye belief emerges only in public, not private, consumption contexts. Overall, the findings demonstrate that lay cultural beliefs involving magical thinking can shape how individuals perceive the affordances of visual design features, thereby guiding their product choices.