Course Syllabus BA 991

Special Topics in Consumer Research

Jim Bettman – Spring 2017

Purpose:

The purpose of this seminar is to examine recent work in, or relevant to, consumer research. We will select a set of topics to be considered over the semester, often triggered by a new article of particular interest or student interests. For each topic considered, a few articles will be chosen, and we will read and discuss those. Our goals will be to gain exposure to the latest ideas in consumer research and to develop research ideas. In particular, each week we should generate in class the design/idea for at least one new study in the focal topic area.

Classes will be held in the Conference Room 14 at the Fuqua School on Tuesdays from1:25 pm – 4:15 pm. The first class is Tuesday, January 24. The last class isTuesday, April 18.

Student Responsibilities:

Each student should come to the seminar prepared to discuss each article in depth and to present their ideas about the major ideas, contributions, or shortcomings of each article if asked to do so. Students should also examine the research ideas of the other students, as described next.

As noted above, we will also generate an idea for a study each week. Each student will be responsible for writing up an approximately one-page (double-spaced) note for each class focusing on an idea for a study that relates to that week’s readings, e.g., a new study or studies designed to extend a particular paper or to build a bridge between papers. Please specify the research question, why it is important, and a brief overview of the proposed design (e.g., the independent and dependent variables) and hypotheses. Everyone should plan on outlining their ideas in class. Please submit your ideas to me no later than 5 pm on the Mondaybefore each class so that I and the other students can examine them. I will forward these ideas to each class member. I will also send out copies of the papers for each session via email.

Finally, each student will be expected to do a research paper, which can be a critical literature review, a design for a study, etc. I will set aside 1-2 hours at a specific time during the semester when we will discuss preliminary ideas for the papers, and I will ask each student to present an idea at those times. Papers are typically 20-30 pages in length and will be due by 5 pm onMay 5, the Friday of exam week. On March 21 we will have each student present and receive feedback on their paper idea for roughly 10-15 minutes; please prepare a brief set of overheads outlining your idea (no more than 5-6) that you will present; try to keep your presentation to 5 minutes or so in order to allow time for feedback from me and the others in the class.

Papers for BA991, Spring 2017

Session 1 –Perceptions of Effort –January 24,2017

a. Steinmetz, Janina, Qian Xu, Ayelet Fishbach, and Ying Zhang (2016), “Being Observed Magnifies Action,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 111 (December), 852-865.

b. Bigman, Yochanan, and Maya Tamir (2016), “The Road to Heaven Is Paved With Effort: Perceived Effort Amplifies Moral Judgment,” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 145 (December) 1654-1669.

c. Labroo, Aparna A., and Anastasiya Pocheptsova, (2016) “Metacognition and Consumer Judgment: Fluency is Pleasant but Disfluency Ignites Interest,” Current Opinion in Psychology, 10 (August), 154-159.

Session 2–Favorite Things–January 31, 2017

a. Bettman, James R., “These Are a Few of My Favorite Things,” power point, 2017.

Session 3–The Revenge of Material Goods –February 7, 2017

  1. Tully, Stephanie, and Tom Meyvis (2016), “Infrequent Walks Down Memory Lane: People Overestimate How Much They Will Retrospect About Experiences,” working paper.
  2. Goodman, Joseph K., Selin A. Malkoc, and Brittney L. Stephenson (2016), “Celebrate or Commemorate? A Material Purchase Advantage When Honoring Special Life Events,” Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, 1 (4), 497-508.
  3. Weidman, Aaron C., and Elizabeth W. Dunn (2016), “The Unsung Benefits of Material Things: Material Purchases Provide More Frequent Momentary Happiness Than Experiential Purchases,” Social Psychological and Personality Science, 7 (4), 390-399.

Session 4–Goal Pursuit in Relationships –February 14, 2017

  1. Fitzsimons, Grainne M., Eli J. Finkel, and Michelle R. vanDellen (2015), “Transactive Goal Dynamics,” Psychological Review, 122 (4), 648-673.
  2. Laurin, Kristin, Grainne M. Fitzsimons, Eli J. Finkel, Kathleen L. Carswell, Michelle R. vanDellen, Wilhelm Hofmann, Nathaniel Lambert, Paul W. Eastwick, Frank D. Fincham, and Preston C. Brown (2016), “Power and the Pursuit of a Partner’s Goals,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 110 (6), 840-868.

Session 5 –Dynamics of the Self Over Time –February 21, 2017

  1. O’Brien, Ed, and Michael Kardas (2016), “The Implicit Meaning of (My) Change,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 111 (6), 882-894.
  2. O’Brien, Ed (2015), “Mapping Out Past and Future Minds: The Perceived Trajectory of Rationality Versus Emotionality Over Time,” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 144 (3), 624-638.
  3. O’Brien, Ed, and Nadav Klein (2017), “The Tipping Point of Perceived Change: Asymmetric Thresholds in Diagnosing Improvement Versus Decline,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 112 (2), 161-185.

Session 6 –Potpourri –February 28, 2107

  1. Galak, Jeff, Julian Givi, and Elanor F. Williams (2016), “Why Certain Gifts Are Great to Give but Not to Get: A Framework for Understanding Errors in Gift Giving,” Current Directions in Psychological Science, 25 (6), 380-385.
  2. Morewedge, Carey K., Colleen E. Giblin, and Michael I. Norton (2014), “The (Perceived) Meaning of Spontaneous Thoughts,” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 143 (4), 1742-1754.
  3. Sng, Oliver, Steven L. Neuberg, Michael E. W. Varnum, and Douglas T. Kenrick (2017), “The Crowded Life Is a Slow Life: Population Density and Life History Strategy,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

Session 7 –Memory and Its Implications– March 7, 2017

  1. Chun, HaeEun Helen, Kristin Diehl, and Deborah J. MacInnis (forthcoming), “Savoring an Upcoming Experience Affects Ongoing and Remembered Consumption,” Journal of Marketing.
  2. Cooney, Gus, Daniel T. Gilbert, and Timothy D. Wilson (2017), “The Novelty Penalty: Why Do People Like Talking About New Experiences but Hearing About Old Ones?” Psychological Science.
  3. Kyung, Ellie J., and Manoj Thomas (forthcoming), “When Remembering Disrupts Knowing: Blocking Implicit Price Memory,” Journal of Marketing Research.

Session 8 –Student Paper Idea Presentations–March 21, 2017

Session 9 –Religion and Psychological Constructs–March 28, 2017

a. Cohen, Adam B. (2015), “Religion’s Profound Influences on Psychology: Morality, Intergroup Relations, Self-Construal, and Enculturation,” Current Directions in Psychological Science, 24 (1), 77-82.

b. Gebauer, Jochen E., Constantine Sedikides, and Alexandra Schrade (2017), “Christian Self-Enhancement,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

c. Gebauer, Jochen E., Constantine Sedikides, Felix D. Schönbrodt, Wiebke Bleidorn, Peter J. Rentfrow, Jeff Potter, and Samuel D. Gosling (2017), “The Religiosity as Social Value Hypothesis: A Multi-Method Replication and Extension Across 65 Countries and Three Levels of Spatial Aggregation,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

d. Gebauer, Jochen E., Constantine Sedikides, and Wiebke Neberich (2012), “Religiosity, Social Self-Esteem, and Psychological Adjustment: On the Cross-Cultural Specificity of the Psychological Benefits of Religiosity,” Psychological Science, 23 (2), 158-160.

Session 10–New Interpretations– April 4, 2017

a. Weinberger, Michelle F., Jane R. Zavisca, and Jennifer M. Silva (forthcoming), “Consuming for an Imagined Future: Middle-Class Consumer Lifestyle and Exploratory Experiences in the Transition to Adulthood,” Journal of Consumer Research.

b. Bardhi, Fleura, and Giana M. Eckhardt (forthcoming), “Liquid Consumption,” Journal of Consumer Research.

Session 11–Observation and Concealment– April 11, 2017

a. Boothby, Erica J., Margaret S. Clark, and John A. Bargh (2017), “The Invisibility Cloak Illusion: People (Incorrectly) Believe They Observe Others More Than Others Observe Them,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 112 (4), 589-606.

b. Gilovich, Thomas and Kenneth Savitsky (1999), “The Spotlight Effect and the Illusion of Transparency: Egocentric Assessments of How We Are Seen by Others,” Current Directions in Psychological Science, 8 (6), 165-168.

c. Kim, Esther C. (2012), “Nonsocial Transient Behavior: Social Disengagement on the Greyhound Bus,” Symbolic Interaction, 35 (3), 267-283.

Session 12–Stigma Management and Reappropriation– April 18, 2017

a. Wang, Cynthia S., Jennifer A. Whitson, Eric M. Anicich, Laura J. Kray, and Adam D. Galinsky (2017), “Challenge Your Stigma: How to Reframe and Revalue Negative Stereotypes and Slurs,” Current Directions in Psychological Science, 26 (1), 75-80.

b. Galinsky, Adam D., Cynthia S. Wang, Jennifer A. Whitson, Eric M. Anicich, Kurt Hugenberg, and Galen V. Bodenhausen (2013), “The Reappropriation of Stigmatizing Labels: The Reciprocal Relationship Between Power and Self-Labeling,” Psychological Science, 24 (10), 2020-2029.

c. Crockett, David (2017), “Paths to Respectability: Consumption and Stigma Management in the Contemporary Black Middle Class,” Journal of Consumer Research, 44.

WRITING A BEHAVIORAL PAPER

Introduction

Positioning

Importance - big picture - knowing the literature and important issues

State purpose early and often

Issue in marketing/conceptual issue/combination of the two

Not “no one has studied this” (as the main reason)

Overview of the paper

Literature Review and Hypotheses

Use only what you need for the case at hand

Use subheads and overviews of coming points - try to have a logical flow

Summarize main points you want the reader to get

Hypotheses - explicit or not?

Method

Overview

Sections - see psychology journals

Ps, Design, Procedure, Measures, Analyses

Results

Only present results relevant to hypotheses

Organize by H (repeat) or by major dependent variable

Try to present in some logical flow

Use tables and figures

Discuss after presenting - discussion section for each study

Overall Discussion

Summary

Relate back to introduction and purpose - conclusions

Some issues better in discussion than up front

References

Pick a style and stick with it - either the journal you’ve targeted or APA

General issues

Top down vs. bottom up writing – write using a powerpoint “outline”

You are telling a story – it must be coherent and simple (not too many “Main points”), write using reader expectations (what does the reader know by this point, what does the reader need to know to get what I am saying)

See Heath and Heath, Made to Stick; Peracchio and Escalas, JCP (2008), 18, 3, pp. 197-204; Bem (see reference in Peracchio and Escalas).

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