Remi Trudel

Boston University | BU · Questrom School of Business

Many indebted consumers carry multiple credit cards with significant balances and do not generate enough income to pay off these balances in full at the end of each repayment period. In managing their debt over time, such consumers must decide how to allocate repayments across their debt accounts. This research examines how different monthly repaym...

This article proposes a utilitarian model in which recycling could reduce consumers’ negative emotions from wasting resources (i.e., taking more resources than what is being consumed) and increase consumers’ positive emotions from the disposal of consumed resources. The authors provide evidence for each component of the utility function using a ser...

It has been known for some time that consumers' identities influence purchasing decisions, and that people form strong identity connections or "links" with products and brands. However, research has yet to determine whether identity-linked products are differentially treated at disposal in comparison to products that are not identity-linked. Across...

Government regulators and consumer packaged goods companies around the world struggle with methods to help consumers make better nutritional decisions. In this research we find that, depending on the consumer, a traffic light color-coding (TLC) approach to product labeling can have a substantial impact on perceptions of foods' health quality and fo...

The present research examines conditions under which consumers dispose of recyclable products in the garbage. Results from a field study and four laboratory studies demonstrate that a consumer’s decision to recycle a product or throw it in the trash can be determined by the extent to which the product has been distorted during the consumption proce...

A circular economy is a “closed-loop” system designed so that products flow back into the production cycle after use. With many companies implementing take-back programs as part of their sustainability strategy, a fundamental shift in consumption has occurred, with consumers considering disposal during and even before making a purchase decision. Ei...

Despite the ubiquity of ingredient quantity information in the marketplace, prior literature has yet to examine whether and how ingredient quantity shapes consumer choice. Eight preregistered experiments show that this pervasive information regularly distorts consumers' consequential product decisions. In two large field experiments, consumers are...

This research investigates the perceived fairness of price increases that are due to green manufacturing practices. We show that consumers view price increases due to green manufacturing costs as fairer than price increases due to manufacturing costs of equivalent magnitude that are not related to sustainable manufacturing, both in the case of alig...

Background Many sustainability initiatives are successful and produce results that benefit the environment. However, others miss the mark and fail to produce the desired outcome. Past research has typically focused on understanding why initiatives fail, without first considering differences in how they fail. Focus of the Article This manuscript is...

This paper examines the question of why consumers engage in ethical consumption. The authors draw on self-affirmation theory to propose that the choice of an ethical product serves a self-restorative function. Four experiments provide support for this assertion: a self-threat increases consumers’ choice of an ethical option, even when the alternati...

The present research examines how hedonic and utilitarian purchase motivations influence consumers’ perceptions of their product preferences and the resulting number of options they wish to consider when making a purchase. Across six studies, consumers choose to review larger assortments when their purchase motivation is hedonic rather than when th...

As consumers look for opportunities to benefit others and society in their touchpoints with brands, businesses have the chance to incorporate prosocial consumption into their branding. In this chapter, we approach branding from a consumer decision-making perspective that explores the diverse influences and challenges in branding prosocial consumpti...

Uncovering inexpensive, simple techniques to encourage students to act in a pro-environmental manner is of critical importance. Through a four-week field study at a large, environmentally focused elementary school, it was found that placing negatively valenced emoticons (i.e., red frowny faces) on trash cans increased the proportion of recycled mat...

Much of what ends up in our landfills is recyclable material, exposing the urgent need to understand the psychological processes behind recycling behavior. Results from four studies suggest that consumers often trash well-known recyclable products due to the product being erroneously categorized as trash after it has been distorted (e.g., paper aft...

Consumer self-presentation is considered a major driver of word-of-mouth (WOM) communication. In particular, the manner in which consumers self-present using brand mentions is likely to impact impressions of the WOM senders as well as the mentioned brands. In some cases, however, mentioning reputable brands in a WOM message can be considered braggi...

We propose and demonstrate that although depletion of self-regulatory strength is common, it is not inevitable. Four experiments show that under certain conditions, consumers can amplify their self-regulatory strength and, as a result, increase their ability to control their behavior. Experiments 1-3 examine the depleting effects of cost and pleasu...

This paper examines the effect of regulatory focus on consumer satisfaction. In contrast to the disconfirmation of expectations model of satisfaction, we find that, although regulatory focus does affect consumers' expectations, the effect on satisfaction cannot be explained by differences in those expectations. Instead, our results reveal a direct...

Marketers struggle with how best to position innovative products that are incongruent with consumer expectations. Compounding the issue, many incongruent products are the result of innovative changes in product form intended to increase hedonic appeal. Crossing various product categories with various positioning tactics in a single meta-analytic fr...

In this paper, the authors present an information processing model of self-regulation. The model predicts that consumers with an active self-regulatory goal will tend to focus on the cost (rather than the pleasure) of consumption and, as a result, they are better able to control their behavior. In contrast to prior research, the authors find that c...

In this article, the authors present an information-processing model of self-regulation. The model predicts that consumers with an active selfregulatory goal will tend to focus on the cost (rather than the pleasure) of consumption, and as a result, they are better able to control their behavior. In contrast to prior research, the authors find that...

That is a question that has long puzzled marketers who have heard from customers that they want to do business with ethically based firms - defined as companies that produce products under conditions of progressive stakeholder relations, advanced environmental practices and respect for human rights. Marketers had no reason to doubt that sentiment,...