Consumers often interact with agents to obtain advice about products and services. A consumer’s evaluation of an agent as a source of personalized advice depends, in part, on the extent to which the consumer believes the agent knows and shares her tastes. In this research, we show a positivity...

Recent research has identified a positivity effect in consumers’ evaluations of agents, such as friends and professional critics, who provide word-of-mouth evaluations and recommendations. Specifically, agreement with an agent on previously loved alternatives is perceived as more diagnostic of...

Prior research has shown that individuals are often susceptible to a false consensus effect, whereby they overestimate the extent to which others share their opinions. In three studies, we show that the strength of the false consensus effect is moderated by the valence of one’s own opinion,...

This research presents a comprehensive conceptual model of the dynamics of goal revision over multiple periods. First, based on an integrative literature review, we derive four principles that govern how individuals update their goals over time (monotonicity, diminishing sensitivity, aspiration...

We demonstrate the effect of consumers’ lay theories of self-control on goal-directed behavior as evidenced by New Year’s and other resolutions. Across three studies, we find that individuals who believe that self-control is a malleable but inherently limited (vs. unlimited) resource tend to...

Consumers often search the Internet for agent advice when making decisions about products and services. Existing research on this topic suggests that past opinion agreement between the consumer and an agent is an important cue in consumers’ acceptance of current agent advice. In this article,...

This research investigates the effects of refraining from a purchase temptation at one point in time on choices made at a subsequent opportunity to purchase or consume a tempting product. Four experiments involving scenarios and real decisions demonstrate that the salience of restraint at a...

Three experiments investigate the emotions that arise from buying or not buying at an unintended purchase opportunity and how they color evaluations of affective advertising appeals that are viewed subsequently. We demonstrate that buying can cause happiness tempered with guilt, while not buying...