Research on the role of identity in choice varies widely across fields like psychology, philosophy, consumer behavior, and economics, in both the key questions addressed and the methods of investigation. Although a large literature has established how salient aspects of identity affect attitudes...

How does the anticipated connectedness between one’s current and future identity help explain impatience in intertemporal preferences? The less consumers are closely connected psychologically to their future selves, the less willing they will be to forgo immediate benefits in order to ensure...

Reducing spending in the present requires the combination of being both motivated to provide for one’s future self (valuing the future) and actively considering long-term implications of one’s choices (awareness of the future). Feeling more connected to the future self—thinking that the...

This article examines how dynamic changes in information cost structure and time preferences affect consumers' search and switching behavior over time and lead to lock-in. The information cost structure is conceptualized as a trade-off of initial setup costs and ongoing usage costs. Lock-in is...

Research in intertemporal choice has been done in a variety of contexts, yet there is a remarkable consensus that future outcomes are discounted (or undervalued) relative to immediate outcomes. In this paper, we (a) review some of the key findings in the literature, (b) critically examine and...

We present five studies supporting our strategic memory protection theory. When people make decisions about experiences to consume over time, they treat their memories of previous experiences as assets to be protected. The first two studies demonstrate that people tend to avoid situations that...

Consumers often search for and choose from ordered sets, commonly from options listed from best to worst. Normatively, such declining orderings maximize expected value from search and should lead to more positive evaluations of the experience compared to searching improving orderings. We...