We propose a method to quantify the willingness-to-pay for the consumption of others in group decisions. Our method is based on revealed preference theory. It measures willingness-to-pay for others' consumption by evaluating positive consumption externalities in monetary terms. Within the...

We studied the decision making process in the Dictator Game and showed that decisions are the result of a two-step process. In a first step, decision makers generate an automatic, intuitive proposal. Given sufficient motivation and cognitive resources, they adjust this in a second, more...

Ego depletion, the observation that self‐regulation reduces subsequent self‐regulation, is a remarkably robust phenomenon, and the generalization to the consumer domain appears undisputable. Contrary to most other self‐regulatory situations, however, consecutive self‐regulatory decisions in...

Markman and Brendl have demonstrated that individuals tend to regard as more valuable those objects that are able to satisfy an active desire. Building on their framework, we predicted that desire would enlarge the consideration set and, hence, affect variety-seeking tendencies in a product...

Neuroscientific studies demonstrate that erotic stimuli activate the reward circuitry processing monetary and drug rewards. Theoretically, a general reward system may give rise to nonspecific effects: exposure to "hot stimuli" from one domain may thus affect decisions in a different domain. We...

People are often exposed to actionable food temptations (i.e., an immediate opportunity to consume, like when friends offer cookies) and nonactionable food temptations (i.e., no immediate consumption opportunity, like ads for chocolate). The results of three experiments suggest that prior...

Most contemporary self-control theories share two core assumptions. They assume that indulgence is the default option in self-control decision situations, and that successful self-control requires top down interference, either in the form of willpower (direct top down interference) or in the...

We conducted an experiment to collect data on consumption decisions made by children of different age categories. In particular, our experiment involves unsophisticated discrete consumption choices,and we present a rationality test that is specially designed for the resulting choice data. Our...

The present paper shows that when a person has the experience of giving advice but that advice is not acted upon, there is a reduced openness to external information. We call this the “referral backfire effect”. We argue that this referral backfire effect is due to the identity threatening...