Quick post. I am headed to Chicago for the Association for Consumer Research (ACR) Conference.
The mission of the Association for Consumer Research is to advance consumer research and facilitate the exchange of scholarly information among members of academia, industry, and government worldwide.
Basically, a bunch of nerds get together and talk about the problems they are having getting their papers published.
Three sessions that I am attending:
1. Choice Utility
-Ioannis Evangelidis, Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, The Netherlands*
-Jonathan Levav, Stanford Graduate School of Business, Stanford University, USA
We introduce the concept of choice utility, which describes the utility obtained by how people attain an outcome independent of what the actual outcome is. Our data document preference reversals in classic decision problems when we manipulate the degree of choice utility.
2. Smart Phones, Bad Decisions? The Impact of In-store Mobile Technology Use on Consumer Decisions
-Michael Sciandra, University of Pittsburgh, USA*
-Jeff Inman, University of Pittsburgh, USA
We investigate lay beliefs of in-store mobile technology use and examine how mobile devices alter decisions. While consumers understand the positive implications of these devices, it appears they are unaware of the negatives. Specifically, mobile use leads to more unplanned purchases, more forgotten items, longer shopping times, and additional trips.
3. Malcom Gladwell’s keynote address on his new book David & Goliath.
Three thousand years ago on a battlefield in ancient Palestine, a shepherd boy felled a mighty warrior with nothing more than a stone and a sling, and ever since then the names of David and Goliath have stood for battles between underdogs and giants. David’s victory was improbable and miraculous. He shouldn’t have won.
Or should he have?
In David and Goliath, Malcolm Gladwell challenges how we think about obstacles and disadvantages, offering a new interpretation of what it means to be discriminated against, or cope with a disability, or lose a parent, or attend a mediocre school, or suffer from any number of other apparent setbacks