Ravi Dhar

Yale University | YU · School of Management

Heritage branding is a common marketing strategy that has been shown to increase product appeal. Here, we find that certain forms of heritage branding can also have potentially negative consequences by leading consumers to react negatively to changes made to the brand's original, flagship product-even if those changes objectively improve it. We dem...

Although campaigns designed to promote pro-environmental behaviours increasingly highlight self-interest, recent research suggests that such appeals may not always be effective. For example, individuals are more likely to check their tyre pressure when prompted with self-transcendent (that is, benefits to the environment) versus economic motives; a...

Doing good does not necessarily imply doing well for a company. Ironically, in the case of green products it can even be quite the contrary. Deliberately enhancing a product with environmental benefits to make it more appealing may actually lead to a decrease in consumer interest because consumers suspect that quality was reduced on other dimension...

Consumers demonstrate a robust preference for items with earlier serial numbers (e.g., No. 3/100) over otherwise identical items with later serial numbers (e.g., No. 97/100) in a limited edition set. This preference arises from the perception that items with earlier serial numbers are temporally closer to the origin (e.g., the designer or artist wh...

Much of the recent empirical IO research has been conducted in the context of relatively mature, stable (often consumer packaged goods) markets. In these markets, consumer preferences and competitive interaction are often characterized by relatively stable patterns over time. In contrast, modeling and estimating analogous patterns in rapidly changi...

Four studies sought to bridge the gap between the consumer literature on atmospheric effects on shopping and research on prime-to-behavior effects. Studies 1-3 found that nonconsciously priming sophistication influenced consumer preferences, lending credence to the hypothesis that the accessibility of concepts related to sophistication is sufficien...

Much of the recent empirical IO research has been conducted in the context of relatively mature, stable (often consumer packaged goods) markets. In these markets, consumer preferences and competitive interaction are often characterized by relatively stable patterns over time. In contrast, modeling and estimating analogous patterns in rapidly changi...

Much research has shown that conflict is aversive and leads to increased choice deferral. In contrast, we have proposed that conflict can be beneficial. Specifically, exposure to nonconscious goal conflict can activate a mindset (a set of cognitive procedures) that facilitates the systematic processing of information without triggering the associat...

The pursuit of long-term goals is often thwarted by immediate desires--a pattern particularly common in food choices. Research in economics, psychology, and marketing has identified a rich supply of unrelated small influences or “nudges” that can help make healthy choices easier, aligning behaviors with intentions. We organize these streams of rese...

Many companies offer products with social benefits that are orthogonal to performance (e. g., green products). The present studies demonstrate that information about a company's intentions in designing the product plays an import role in consumers' evaluations. In particular, consumers are less likely to purchase a green product when they perceive...

The authors examine how a reference to an unrelated product in the choice context impacts consumers’ likelihood of donating to charity. Building on research on self-signaling, the authors predict that consumers are more likely to give when the donation appeal references a hedonic product, as compared to when a utilitarian product is referenced or w...

It is well established that differences in manufacturing location can affect consumer preferences through lay inferences about production quality. In this article, the authors take a different approach to this topic by demonstrating how beliefs in contagion (the notion that objects may acquire a special aura or "essence" from their past) influence...

Building on the dual-system theory of judgment, we propose an intuitive and deliberate framework for understanding the effects of preference construction in choice. We argue that while certain choice effects can be attributed primarily to rapid, unintentional, and intuitive processing, others arise from intentional and deliberate processing. We use...

Our target article proposed a dual-system framework for understanding context and task effects in choice. In this summary, we address the major points made by each set of commentators and, building on their suggestions, define a more precise dual-system theory of preference construction. We also propose some avenues for future research on a broader...

People are frequently challenged by goals that demand effort and persistence. As a consequence, philosophers, psychologists, economists, and others have studied the factors that enhance task motivation. Using a sample of undergraduate students and a sample of working adults, we demonstrate that the manner in which an incentive is framed has implica...

Contrary to the general view that decision difficulty is a stable characteristic of specific choice sets, the authors propose that decision difficulty depends on how the choice set is mentally represented. Comparing the difficulty associated with comparable and noncomparable choice sets, the authors find that changes in mental representation can ma...

A recent meta-analysis has found that an increase in the size of an assortment has no reliable impact on choice difficulty. Building on a fundamental property of cognition, the authors investigate the link between mental representation and the choice overload effect based on the size of the assortment. They propose that the mental representation of...

People are frequently challenged by goals that demand effort and persistence. As a consequence, philosophers, psychologists, economist and others have studied the factors that enhance task motivation. Using a sample of undergraduate students and a sample of working adults, we demonstrate that the way in which an incentive is framed has implications...

People are often asked to complete tasks for small incentives. For example, researchers in a university setting frequently ask students to participate in studies in exchange for a small compensation. Despite the prevalence of these scenarios, many open questions remain regarding how incentives impact motivation in these contexts, and further if peo...

The authors examine how a reference to an unrelated product in the choice context impacts consumers’ likelihood of donating to charity. Building on research on self-signaling, the authors predict that consumers are more likely to give when the donation appeal references a hedonic product, as compared to when a utilitarian product is referenced or w...

Similarity plays a critical role in many judgments and choices. Traditional models of similarity posit that increasing the number of differences between objects cannot increase judged similarity between them. In contrast to these previous models, the present research shows that introducing a small difference in an attribute that previously was iden...

Most choice research has studied how people make decisions within a narrowly defined choice context and has not paid sufficient attention to the role of social context. We commend Simpson, Griskevicius, and Rothman for directing the attention of choice researchers to the study of joint decision making and current theories on relationships. Building...

It is well established that consumers’ evaluations of brand extensions depend on the quality of the parent brand and the fit between that brand and the extension category. We propose that the relative importance of these two factors is influenced by two key features of a typical shopping environment: the presence of visual information and the avail...

The literature on self-control emphasizes that temptation is costly. The authors propose that temptation entails not only costs but also benefits for consumers. These arise from self-signaling effects of how consumers handle tempting choice options. Succumbing to temptation is a (costly) self-signal of weak willpower, whereas resisting temptation i...

Understanding how emotions can affect pleasure has important implications for both individuals and for firms’ communication strategies. Prior research has shown that experienced pleasure often assimilates to the valence of one’s active emotions, such that negative emotions decrease pleasure. In contrast, we demonstrate that the activation of guilt,...

While many individuals express support for pro-social causes, little is understood about the psychological drivers that affect when the desire for pro-social benefits will trump the desire for personal benefits. We address this question by testing how psychological distance affects interest in green products, and further if this effect is moderated...

More than 200 studies suggest that metacognitive difficulty reduces the liking of an object. In contrast to those findings, the authors demonstrate that the effects of metacognitive experiences on evaluation are sensitive to the consumption domain. In the domain of everyday goods, metacognitive difficulty reduces the attractiveness of a product by...

Marketers are increasingly offering bundles that combine cross-category, seemingly unrelated items. This article examines the conditions under which framing a discount as savings on certain items of cross-category bundles is more effective for increasing bundle purchase. Three experiments show that the purchase of a cross-category bundle is more li...

In two experiments we study the endowment effect in the exchange of an endowment for an alternative product. The products differed either in their unique-positive or unique-negative features. Furthermore, we compared endowment effects for both hedonic and utilitarian goods. The results of the first experiment show a larger endowment effect in the u...

Four experiments examine why choices deplete executive resources. The authors show that the resolution of trade-offs is a driver of depletion effects arising from choice, and the larger the trade-offs, the greater is the depletion effect. The authors also find that choice difficulty not related to trade-offs does not influence the depleting effect...

Consumers often resolve trade-offs in a particular order. For example, when making flavor and size decisions, consumers might first decide which flavors to choose and then decide which sizes of those flavors to choose. This research examines the effect of decision order on purchase quantity decisions. The authors build on prior work on decision dif...

This article explores the processes by which consumers make choices when goals conflict and their implications for preferences. Drawing from research on goal systems theory and behavioral decision theory, we posit that when all choice options serve one goal that conflicts with an incidentally activated goal, consumers will be more likely to choose...

Panel survey data have been gaining importance in marketing. However, one challenge of estimating econometric models based on panel survey data is how to account for underreporting; that is, respondents do not report behavioral incidences that actually occur. Underreporting is especially likely to occur in a panel survey because the data-recording...

Self-customization is the process by which consumers seek to customize offerings to their own preferences. In this paper, the authors propose that differences in self-customization procedures potentially influence (i) the product configuration favored, (ii) the degree of decision difficulty in product customization, (iii) the degree of satisfaction...

To properly consider the opportunity costs of a purchase, consumers must actively generate the alternatives that it would displace. The current research suggests that consumers often fail to do so. Even under conditions promoting cognitive effort, various cues to consider opportunity costs reduce purchase rates and increase the choice share of more...

Panel survey data have been gaining importance in marketing. However, one challenge of estimating econometric models based on panel survey data is how to account for under reporting, that is, respondents do not report behavioral incidences which actually occur. Under reporting is especially likely to occur in a panel survey because the data recordi...

Many consumer products deliver their utility over time, and the decision to purchase such products often depends on predictions of future product enjoyment. The present research shows that consumers often fail to predict hedonic adaptation to products and explores the antecedents and consequences of this misprediction. We demonstrate that the failu...

Consumer choices are a result of an interplay of two systems: fast and intuitive thinking (System 1) and more deliberative reasoning (System 2). The present research examines the implication of the interplay between the two systems for context effects in choice by exploring the consequences of resource depletion. Building on a substantial body of p...

New research on consumer behavior throws light on what creates a mindset that leads customers to keep on shopping. What underlies shopping momentum is a shift from a deliberation mindset to one of implementation. In the deliberation mindset, the potential customer evaluates the pros and cons of a purchase, rather in the manner suggested by the theo...

The BDT literature has largely focused on demonstrations of violations of rationality (i.e. consistency) in individual decision making and has had little to say about the content of preferences. While researchers concluded that inconsistency implied preferences were constructed, some went so far as to presume that since preferences are constructed,...

Three experiments show that semantic primes can enhance perceptual fluency, resulting in higher liking of the perceived product. Specifically, semantic primes that cue the visual identifier of one of two products (e.g., a bottle of wine with a frog shown on the label) increase preference of the prime-compatible target over another target (e.g., a w...

Three experiments show that semantic primes can enhance perceptual fluency, resulting in higher liking of the perceived product. Specifically, semantic primes that cue the visual identifier of one of two products (e.g., a bottle of wine with a frog shown on the label) increase preference of the prime-compatible target over another target (e.g., a wine...

We propose that, in the pursuit of ongoing goals, optimistic expectations of future goal pursuit have greater impact on immediate actions than do less optimistic considerations, such as retrospections on past goal pursuit or less optimistic expectations. Further, we propose that the direction of the impact is determined by the framing of goal pursu...

The authors propose that consumer choices are often systematically influenced by preference fluency (i.e., the subjective feeling that forming a preference for a specific option is easy or difficult). Four studies manipulate the fluency of preference formation by presenting descriptions in an easy- or difficult-to- read font (Study 1) or by asking...

Choices often involve self-control conflicts such that options that are immediately appealing are less desirable in the long run. In the current research, the authors examine how viewing such a choice as one of a series of similar future choices rather than as an isolated decision decreases the preference for items requiring self-control. The autho...

Like many important theories that were originally tested in one domain, construal level theory has broadened the notion of temporal distance to psychological distance and examined the wide ranging implications of this construct on evaluation and behavior. This commentary seeks to take a step back to admire the "forest" that has been created and sug...

Like many important theories that were originally tested in one domain, construal level theory has broadened the notion of temporal distance to psychological distance and examined the wide ranging implications of this construct on evaluation and behavior. This commentary seeks to take a step back to admire the “forest” that has been created and sug...

We propose that consumer preferences are often systematically influenced by preference fluency, i.e., the subjective feeling that forming a preference is easy or difficult. In five studies, we manipulated the fluency of preference formation by presenting descriptions in an easy or difficult to read font (Studies 1 and 2) or by asking participants t...

The self-regulation process often involves breaking an ongoing goal (e.g., keeping in shape) into many individual, constituent subgoals that monitor actual actions (e.g., eating healthy meals, going to the gym). The article examines how pursuing each of these subgoals may influence subsequent goal pursuit. The authors show that when people consider...

This paper analyzes the trading records of a major discount brokerage house to investigate the disposition effect, the tendency to sell stocks that have appreciated in price (winners) sooner than stocks that trade below the purchase price (losers). In contrast to previous research that has demonstrated the disposition effect by aggregating across i...

Most choices in the real world follow other choices or judgments. The authors show that a prior choice, which activates and boosts a positive self-concept, subsequently licenses the choice of a more self-indulgent option. The authors propose that licensing can operate by committing to a virtuous act in a preceding choice, which reduces negative sel...

This article examines the effect of goal fulfillment on choices made in the context of an ongoing sequence of experiences. We find that a good first experience produces an upward shift in the target level of goal achievement. When a higher level of goal attainment is offered by a risky option, that option will be preferred more following a good exp...

In this paper we address the factors influencing the institutional decision to allocate resources to real estate. We survey a sample of major institutional investors via a web questionnaire. They were willing to answer questions about their target real estate allocation, their plans to increase or decrease their allocation, the major reasons for in...

ABSTRACT Shopping momentum ,occurs when ,an initial purchase ,provides a psychological ,impulse whose momentum drives the purchase of a second, unrelated product. The most promising theoretical mechanism ,for shopping ,momentum ,comes ,from Gollwitzer’s (1990) theory of implementation and deliberation mindsets. Under this theory, shopping momentum...

Consumer choices are often driven by multiple goals (e.g., career and family), each of which if viewed in isolation may appear to suggest conflicting choices. This article examines the effect of initial goal pursuit on consumers' interest in pursuing unrelated or even conflicting goals. Four studies were conducted to test whether perceived goal pro...

Real estate data are often characterized by data irregularities: missing data, censoring or truncation, measurement error, etc. Practitioners often discard missing- or censored-data cases and ignore measurement error. We argue here that an attractive remedy for these irregularity problems is simulation-based model fitting using the Gibbs sampler. T...

This article extends research on evaluation differences in response modes to situations in which the no-choice option is available. Prior research on choice deferral has presented the no-choice option as just another response option (i.e., an unconditional brand-choice response mode), which has its primary focus on the selection decision. However,...

Kivetz, Netzer, and Srinivasan (2004) make an important contribution to the theory of choice models by demonstrating through a rigorous analysis of four alternative models that the compromise effect systematically affects choice in a wide range of conditions. The value and impact of their work can be enhanced by extensions that examine key underlyi...

You are a marketing director with $5 million to invest in customer acquisition and retention. Which customers do you acquire, and which do you retain? Up to a point, the choice is obvious: Keep the consistent big spenders and lose the erratic small ones. But what about the erratic big spenders and the consistent small ones? It's often unclear wheth...

Whereas most academic and industry studies of consumer preferences and decision making involve forced choice (i.e., participants are told to choose one of the presented product or service alternatives), buyers usually also have the option not to select any alternative. An implicit assumption in the experimental practice of forcing choice is that th...

We examine the trading of individual investors around stock splits and find that splits are associated with a change in investor clientele. A higher fraction of post-split trades are made by less sophisticated investors. We also find that individual investors trade more frequently after splits and that trade sizes decrease after splits. These clien...

In this paper, we analyze the trading records of a major discount brokerage house to investigate the disposition effect, the tendency to sell winners too quickly than losers. In contrast to previous research that has demonstrated the disposition effect by aggregating across investors (Odean, 1998), our main objective is to identify individual diffe...

This article examines how the exclusion of a neutral or fence-sitting option changes an expressed attitude or preference judgment. Over a series of six studies, we find that the exclusion of a neutral response option (1) affects the judgment of extreme options (strong positive and negative features) more significantly than the judgment of options t...

We analyze the impact of price trends on trading decisions of more than 40,000 households with accounts at a major discount brokerage house and find that buying and selling decisions of investors in our sample are influenced by short-term (less than 3 months) price trends. We examine investor heterogeneity in trading based on prior returns and clas...

Although the consumer research field has made great progress over the past 30 years with respect to the scope, quality, and quantity of research, there are still significant disagreements about what consumer research is, what its objectives are, and how it should differ from related disciplines. As a result, the field appears to be rather fragmente...

Previous research on the effectiveness of promotions by “private label” and “national” brands has focused primarily on its impact on relative market share. This research has documented the asymmetric nature of promotions between weaker (e.g., private labels) and stronger (e.g., national) brands [Blattberg RC, Wisniewski KJ. Price induced patterns o...

In many situations, consumers do not have either a positive or negative attitude, and thus express a neutral response. It is hypothesized that a neutral response on a bipolar scale is caused by either (1) indifference, which is a truly neutral response, or (2) ambivalence, which is a consequence of conflict. When consumers are experiencing ambivale...

Several studies have shown that consumer choice is often influenced by the context or the set of alternatives under consideration. Context effects have largely been explained in terms of constructive preferences that are consistent with 2 theoretical accounts—effort minimization and perceptual contrast—that emphasize different underlying motivation...

In this article, the authors examine how consumer choice between hedonic and utilitarian goods is influenced by the nature of the decision task. Building on research on elaboration, the authors propose that the relative salience of hedonic dimensions is greater when consumers decide which of several items to give up (forfeiture choices) than when t...

In this article, we employ the Linear Approximate Almost Ideal Demand System (LA/AIDS). and specify price reaction equations derived under the LA/AIDS specification. We perform intracategory analyses using data on six individual categories, as well as a pooled analysis on a sample of 125 categories and 59 geographic markets. We find that consumer r...

Consumers frequently compare alternatives to make similarity and preference judgments. Recent research suggests that the construction of both similarity and preference judgments can be captured by a feature-matching model that allows for shifts in the relative weights assigned to the various features of the alternatives being compared. An implicati...

Although most research on consumer decision making has focused on individual choices, the majority of products are purchased and consumed with other products (e.g., an appetizer, an entree, and a dessert) as part of the same purchase and/or consumption episode (e.g., a meal). The authors investigate consumption episode effects, whereby the attribut...

This article investigates the effect of time pressure on choice deferral. Recent research suggests that the likelihood of deferral is contingent on the ease of making the selection decision (which option to choose) as well as the overall attractiveness of the selected alternative. We focus on how time pressure systematically impacts choice deferral...

Although most research on consumer decision making has focused on individual choices, the majority of products are purchased and consumed with other products (e.g., an appetizer, an entree, and a dessert) as part of the same purchase and/or consumption episode (e.g., a meal). The authors investigate consumption episode effects, whereby the attribut...

Despite a great deal of theoretical research on competition, there has been limited empirical work assessing the type of competitive interaction that actually exists in the marketplace. The empirical work that has been conducted has suggested that there is significant variation in the type of competitive interaction across categories and across mar...

The traditional focus in the decision‐making literature has been on understanding how consumers choose among a given set of alternatives. The notion that preference uncertainty may lead to choice deferral when no single alternative has a decisive advantage is tested in seven studies. Building on recent research, the article shows that the decision...

This article reviews recent research that has examined consumer decision making when the option of not choosing any of the alternatives is provided. The attractiveness of the decision outcomes and the difficulty of choosing are posited to be two key factors that determine the preference for a no-choice option. Building on the notion that preference...

Recent research has examined consumer decision making when the option of not choosing any of the alternatives is also provided. The findings from this research suggest that the decision to defer choice is sensitive to the uncertainty of choosing the most preferred option from the set of alternatives provided. Building on this research, the author t...

Recent research in marketing has focused on cross-category variation in the market share of private label products, while recent work in the economics and industrial organization literature has focused on the determinants of firm price setting behavior. In this paper, the authors develop a framework for estimating market share and price reaction eq...

Consumer choice often involves a comparison among the available alternatives. Recent research finds that features shared by alternatives are canceled and greater weight is placed on the unique features in choosing among the alternatives provided. Building on this research, the authors propose that the attractiveness of the choice set can be enhance...

A recent stream of research has demonstrated that the relative preference ordering among any two alternatives is influenced by the context or the set of alternatives under consideration. A parallel stream of research has suggested that judgments of similarity or perceived distance also vary with the composition of the stimulus set. In this paper, w...

The authors propose that the attractiveness and choice probability of an alternative can be enhanced by making it the focus of a comparison (the focal option) with a competing alternative. This proposition is supported in choice problems involving alternatives about which consumers have information in memory (e.g., frozen yogurt and fruit salad). T...

The authors propose that the attractiveness and choice probability of an alternative can be enhanced by making it the focus of a comparison (the focal option) with a competing alternative. This proposition is supported in choice problems involving alternatives about which consumers have information in memory (e.g., frozen yogurt and fruit salad). T...