This paper examines the persuasiveness of assertive language (as in Nike’s slogan “Just do it”) as compared to nonassertive language (as in Microsoft’s slogan “Where do you want to go today?”). Previous research implies that assertive language should reduce consumer compliance. Two...

This paper examines how consumers' willingness to pay for goods is determined by past patterns of consumption. The central result is a theorem of interior maximum, which states that willingness to pay for a good is maximized at a moderate level of habitual consumption. The theorem is derived...

We propose that ambiguity aversion, as introduced in the literature on decision making under uncertainty, drives a preference for established brands in multiattribute choices among branded alternatives. Established brands are those for which belief in quality is held with greater confidence,...

Superfluous choices are unnecessary choice steps that could be removed without affecting the final choice context and outcome. They are introduced in this article in order to study the mere effects of consumer participation. Superfluous choices have no immediate impact on the chosen option but...

This paper analyzes a model of discounted utility under habit formation. Habit formation means that utility in each period is determined by the difference between the received outcome and the customary outcome at that point in time. Preferences are rational, in the sense that the decision maker...

Consumers aware of a new benefit will often experience uncertainty about its personal relevance or usage value. This paper shows that the decision to deliberate further to resolve this uncertainty and reach a polarized judgment of personal relevance critically depends on the posted price. In...

Existing evidence suggests that preferences are affected by whether a price is presented as one all-inclusive expense or partitioned into a set of mandatory charges. To explain this phenomenon, we introduce a new mechanism whereby price partitioning affects a consumer's perception of the...

Several studies have shown that promotions of national brands yield more effect than those of store brands (e.g., Allenby and Rossi 1991, Blattberg and Wisniewski 1989). However, the evolution of price-quality data available from over the last 15 years seems to reveal a reduction of the quality...