A great deal of research in consumer decision-making and social-cognition has explored consumers' attempts to simplify choices by bolstering their tentative choice candidate and/or denigrating the other alternatives. The present research investigates a diametrically opposed process, whereby...

With the ever-increasing number of options from which consumers can choose, many decisions are done in stages. Whether using decision tools to sort, screen, and eliminate options, or intuitively trying to reduce the complexity of a choice, consumers often reach a decision by making sequential,...

Central consumers — consumers with many ties in their social network — can be influential within their communities. Marketers keenly target them and expect to profit from their word-of-mouth. However, does the central consumer indeed shape the group's preference, or alternatively, gravitate...