Purchasing products that consumers have not used before (e.g., baby stroller for first time parents or a new product like an iPad) can be a challenge for consumers. In this article, the authors examine how mentally simulating two specific aspects of a product - the product usage process vs. the...

Prior research on intertemporal choice has demonstrated that people’s preferences can be impacted by the temporal distance. Specifically, Trope and Liberman (2003) shows that when we make a choice for the future, we tend to think much more about how desirable a certain option is. However, when...

In this research we examine the role of process vs. outcome-focused mental simulation in new product evaluation. We first show that consumers naturally focus on product benefits when they evaluate incrementally new products (INPs), but have a more balanced focus on both the benefits and process...