September 2024
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6 Reads
Journal of the Association for Consumer Research
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Publications (48)
April 2024
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891 Reads
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3 Citations
Journal of Marketing Research
Evoking simplicity in marketing communications has become popular among marketing practitioners, but little is known about its effects on consumers and firms. The current work focuses on consumers’ perceptions of the simplicity or complexity of brands and a previously overlooked consequence of those perceptions. Results from six experiments and analysis of a proprietary customer satisfaction dataset from Consumer Reports (N = 147,600) show that when consumers think brands are simple, they judge them to be less likely to experience product or service failures. Although these lower risk judgments could be positive for brands, they can also lead consumers to punish simpler brands more in the event of failures. Results also suggest that consumers’ simplicity/complexity perceptions reflect the dimensionality of their mental representations of brands, and the relationship between simplicity and lower risk is attenuated when additional brand dimensionality is framed in terms of redundancy. The findings cast doubt on the degree to which evoking simplicity is a uniformly positive marketing strategy and encourage practitioners to more thoughtfully consider simplicity’s implications for consumer and firm welfare.
January 2024
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1 Read
SSRN Electronic Journal
June 2023
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21 Reads
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1 Citation
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
May 2023
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210 Reads
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10 Citations
Topics in Cognitive Science
Conspiratorial thinking has been with humanity for a long time but has recently grown as a source of societal concern and as a subject of research in the cognitive and social sciences. We propose a three-tiered framework for the study of conspiracy theories: (1) cognitive processes, (2) the individual, and (3) social processes and communities of knowledge. At the level of cognitive processes, we identify explanatory coherence and faulty belief updating as critical ideas. At the level of the community of knowledge, we explore how conspiracy communities facilitate false belief by promoting a contagious sense of understanding, and how community norms catalyze the biased assimilation of evidence. We review recent research on conspiracy theories and explain how conspiratorial thinking emerges from the interaction of individual and group processes. As a case study, we describe observations the first author made while attending the Flat Earth International Conference, a meeting of conspiracy theorists who believe the Earth is flat. Rather than treating conspiracy belief as pathological, we take the perspective that is an extreme outcome of common cognitive processes.
July 2022
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383 Reads
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56 Citations
Science Advances
Public attitudes that are in opposition to scientific consensus can be disastrous and include rejection of vaccines and opposition to climate change mitigation policies. Five studies examine the interrelationships between opposition to expert consensus on controversial scientific issues, how much people actually know about these issues, and how much they think they know. Across seven critical issues that enjoy substantial scientific consensus, as well as attitudes toward COVID-19 vaccines and mitigation measures like mask wearing and social distancing, results indicate that those with the highest levels of opposition have the lowest levels of objective knowledge but the highest levels of subjective knowledge. Implications for scientists, policymakers, and science communicators are discussed.
May 2022
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1,523 Reads
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41 Citations
Nature Sustainability
While the scientific community documents environmental degradation and develops scenarios to identify the operational margins of system Earth, less attention is given to how decisions are made that steer the system in one direction or the other. We propose to use strategy games for this purpose, increasing the representation of human agency in scenario development and creating spaces for deliberation between different worldviews. Played by the right people, strategy games could help break free from established norms and support more transparent democratic dialogues, responding to the human and social limitations of current decision-making. The question is, who gets to play? Scholars develop scenarios to identify the operational margins of system Earth, but focus less on how decisions are made that affect the system one way or another. Strategy games can help increase the representation of human agency in scenario development, allowing for deliberation among diverse worldviews.
January 2022
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17 Reads
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3 Citations
SSRN Electronic Journal
September 2021
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130 Reads
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11 Citations
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Significance This paper makes several contributions to research in memory, overconfidence, and investment behavior. First, we find that investors’ memories for past performance are positively biased. They tend to recall returns as better than achieved and are more likely to recall winners than losers. No published paper has shown these effects with investors. Second, we find that these positive memory biases are associated with overconfidence and trading frequency. Third, we validated a new methodology for reducing overconfidence and trading frequency by exposing investors to their past returns.
August 2021
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462 Reads
While the scientific community has focused on documenting environmental degradation and developing scenarios that help identify the operational margins for system Earth, less attention has been given to the mental models of decision-makers that underpin environmental policies. We suggest that global efforts to stop deforestation and biodiversity loss are failing in part due to a critical blind spot in the analysis—human agency. To address this weakness, we propose to formulate mental models and translate them into strategy games. This will increase the representation of agency in scenario development and create spaces for deliberation between different worldviews. We claim that personal transformation can be achieved through transparent democratic dialogues that identify, challenge, and respond to the human and social limitations inherent to decision-making and we present empirical examples that validate that claim. Their transformation through gaming gives decision-makers access to the experience of consciousness: “what is it like being a stakeholder?”. Such experience will help to break free of established norms in science and political processes.
Citations (40)
... Satisfied customers are more likely to engage in positive word-of-mouth and exhibit higher levels of brand commitment (Murshed et al., 2023). Studies have consistently shown that brand trust and satisfaction are interrelated, with trust often enhancing satisfaction and vice versa, creating a virtuous cycle that strengthens consumer-brand relationships (Light & Fernbach, 2024). In the cosmetics industry, where product efficacy and safety are paramount, the interplay between brand trust and satisfaction is particularly crucial, as it influences not only consumer retention but also brand reputation and market share (Hao et al., 2024). ...
- Citing Article
- Full-text available
April 2024
Journal of Marketing Research
... Lynch et al. (4) focus on the differences between one original study (Fernbach, Kan, & Lynch, 2015, Study 2; 5) and our initial replication of it. They identified an error in our first replication, and we issued a correction shortly after they identified the issue. ...
- Citing Article
June 2023
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
... A study by Kotcher et al. (2017) indicates that issue advocacy in general might not harm the credibility of scientists, but endorsing specific policies or engaging in issues of heated public debate will sometimes do so. In a polarised society where truths increasingly are regarded as "lived experiences" and publicly recognised expertise and titles can be viewed with suspicion rather than awe (Meyer & Quattrone, 2021), it becomes hard to reach "the other side" with unpopular arguments, e.g., convincing flatearthers (Fernbach & Bogard, 2023), racists/anti-racists, etc. If we, as academics, openly and repeatedly associate with and label ourselves as something which large parts of society find controversial or extreme, we run the risk of turning people off-regardless of the logic in the argumentation or the empirical evidence (i.e., who are you to tell me how things are and how the world works?). ...
- Citing Article
May 2023
Topics in Cognitive Science
... Thus, while scholars and practitioners assume increased objective AI knowledge to reduce AI aversion, it seems possible that their subjective assessment of their AI knowledge may fundamentally shape this relationship. Past research has indicated the critical role of subjective knowledge for other important areas including vaccination, climate change, finance or education [29][30][31][32]. We propose that an excess of subjective AI knowledge over objective AI knowledge may cloud people's judgement of AI advice [6,33]. ...
- Citing Article
- Full-text available
July 2022
Science Advances
... For example, participants in one study were either directly provided with financial information or asked to search Google for it prior to betting on and completing an incentive-compatible investment choice task. Those who used Google bet significantly more on their own performance-and took on significantly more financial riskyet performed significantly worse [90]. Although artificially inflated confidence can be problematic when there is an objectively optimal choice, it may have more nuanced implications when choice quality is subjective. ...
- Citing Article
January 2022
SSRN Electronic Journal
... Participatory modelling and stakeholder-driven scenario simulations informed by a companion modelling framework [107,108] enable co-designing desirable futures of place-based sustainability scenarios. Participatory approaches in social simulation and modelling are already extensively used for natural resource management, including water management [80,[108][109][110][111][112][113][114][115][116][117][118][119][120][121][122][123][124]. Many of them focus on application and distribution issues in water management; applications for disaster management are rare [125]. ...
- Citing Article
- Full-text available
May 2022
Nature Sustainability
... The study filled the gap of knowledge by studying overconfidence surrounding the passive investing momentum. Researchers adapted a behavioral model of investing choice, incorporating two key perspectives: (1) BIS/BAS perspective of personality following the narrowed focus in recent investing literature (Oehler, Wendt, Wedlich, & Horn, 2018) and (2) personal experience which had garnered attention in both academic and industry circles (Malmendier & Nagel, 2011;Klement, 2015;Andersen, Hanspal, & Nielsen, 2019;Walters & Fernbach, 2021). The study seeks to address three research questions. ...
- Citing Article
- Full-text available
September 2021
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
... Polarization has been defined in various ways (Fernbach & Van Boven, 2022) and different types of polarization have been studied in the academic literature. Although affective polarization-referring to increasing dislike and distrust between those with differing views-has recently received increasing attention (see Iyengar et al., 2019;Levendusky, 2018;Orhan, 2022), researchers have traditionally studied attitudinal or ideological polarization, which refers to increasing divergence among people in their political beliefs, policy preferences, and ideological positions (see Abramowitz & Saunders, 2008;Fiorina & Abrams, 2008). ...
- Citing Article
June 2021
Current Opinion in Psychology
... Thus, we recommend that insights from psychology and other social sciences on behavioural change are considered. Such research shows that stakeholders make decisions based on beliefs and values, and that providing renewed beliefs and fostering a better understanding of each other's values is crucial for transformative change (Garcia et al., 2020;Garcia & Waeber, 2022;Waeber et al., 2021). In addition, it may also be useful to spell out the assumptions behind each pathway ( Figure 4) and to verify its achievement through outcome monitoring and scientific evidence. ...
- Citing Article
- Full-text available
March 2021
... Firms can gain access to a much larger pool of potential consumers by expanding to other markets (Chen et al., 2021;De Sousa et al., 2012). This expansion not only allows firms to grow, but also to diversify their markets and reduce reliance on any single domestic market, mitigating the risks associated with local economic fluctuations (Reinholtz et al., 2021). Even further, firms can take advantage of demographic and cultural differences, tailoring products and services to meet new needs and preferences (Beise, 2004;Creusen, 2010;Iyer et al., 2006), by tapping into global markets. ...
- Citing Article
March 2021
Management Science
