Research Interests
I am principally interested in how consumers think and feel about their finances. Much of my research focuses on the following questions consumers might ask themselves:
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How much money do I feel like I have available?
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How should I divide my money between different uses?
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What does a particular instance of money (e.g., financial growth from an investment) mean to me?
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I am especially interested in considering these questions in the context of consumers who are also workers and investors.
Selected Abstracts
Happy Workers are ‘Rich’ Consumers: Work Enjoyment Increases Consumer Spending
Solo-authored. Dissertation Essay 1. Invited revision at JCR.
Work provides consumers with income, which can be evaluated objectively (the dollar amount) or subjectively (the perceived size). The current research explores how the enjoyment of work increases consumer spending by shaping subjective income assessments. An analysis of secondary data from the New York Federal Reserve Bank’s Survey of Consumer Expectations uncovers a positive relationship between work enjoyment and spending. This relationship is explored through several online studies, which document a consistent effect: work enjoyment increases consumer spending. The effect occurs because work enjoyment decreases the amount of money the consumer requires to work in a given job, making their actual income seem large by comparison. Perceiving more income subsequently leads to more spending. This extends to consequential behavior, as work enjoyment increases the likelihood of shopping on a real e-commerce store. These findings have implications for marketers, who may use just-in-time reminders or priming of work enjoyment to help their customers feel richer, thus encouraging shopping behavior. This research contributes to a growing and important literature on subjective financial perceptions and highlights the potential value of incorporating work evaluations into consumer research.
Budgeting Increases Reliance of Category-Level Evaluations
with Stephen Spiller. Dissertation Essay 2. Invited revision at JCR.
Consumers frequently use budgets to manage their spending. Budgets are consequential, as money in budgets is treated as though it is not fungible, so budget allocations matter. How do consumers set budget allocations? Consumers could use item-level evaluations, and set budgets in accordance with their end purchases, or category-level evaluations, and set budgets in accordance with their overall evaluations of the category. We propose that relative to purchase decisions, allocation decisions increase consumers’ reliance on category-level evaluations. As a result, budget allocations are more sensitive to category summary representations (i.e., the average value of a category) than are purchase decisions. Because budget allocations causally impact spending, the act of budgeting shifts spending toward categories with higher average value. This implies consumers with identical preferences and identical budget levels will spend differently, depending on whether they allocate in advance of spending. We present evidence of these patterns in three preregistered experiments including a mouse-tracking study and an incentivized, data-rich experimental game.
Spending Responses to Income vs. Balance Information
with Stephanie Smith and Stephen Spiller. Dissertation Essay 3.
To maximize consumption while avoiding debt, consumers may calibrate their spending against their available funds. But what do they consider as available funds? Two likely possibilities are income and bank account balance. Because income is a flow and balance is a stock but translating between flows and stocks is difficult, consumers tend to rely on whichever measure they attend to. When consumers attend to income, income is treated as available funds and therefore used as a spending limit. As a result, consumers tend to underspend their current income, thereby accumulating funds. Such accumulation is less likely when attending to balance rather than income because prior accumulation is integrated into the current balance and therefore available to be spent. We find support for this process in two data-rich studies using incentivized spending games with measured and manipulated attention.
Framing Inequality to Promoted Redistributive Policies: Highlighting Unequal Opportunities Versus Unequal Outcomes
with Kate Christensen and Franklin Shaddy. Invited revision at SPPS.
To maximize consumption while avoiding debt, consumers may calibrate their spending against their available funds. But what do they consider as available funds? Two likely possibilities are income and bank account balance. Because income is a flow and balance is a stock but translating between flows and stocks is difficult, consumers tend to rely on whichever measure they attend to. When consumers attend to income, income is treated as available funds and therefore used as a spending limit. As a result, consumers tend to underspend their current income, thereby accumulating funds. Such accumulation is less likely when attending to balance rather than income because prior accumulation is integrated into the current balance and therefore available to be spent. We find support for this process in two data-rich studies using incentivized spending games with measured and manipulated attention.
Research Methods
Whenever possible, I try to collect experimental data in engaging, realistic, and data-rich environments. Below are three examples of experimental paradigms I have created. I really enjoy creating, using, and sharing these paradigms. Here's a little .qsf file to get started with mouse-tracking in Qualtrics. Further below is an abstract and link to a more comprehensive (though still developing) guide to creating an Online Behavioral Store for research purposes.
Online store from
Dissertation Essay 1
(Solo authored)
Experimental game from
Dissertation Essay 2
(with Stephen Spiller)
Mouse-tracking from
Dissertation Essay 3
(with Stephanie Smith and Stephen Spiller)
Conducting Experimental Research on Shopify: An Initial Discussion and Guide to Getting Started
Solo-authored. Available on SSRN.
This paper introduces the online behavioral store as a tool for conducting research through e-commerce platforms. Online behavioral stores offer many possible benefits, including enhancing experimental realism, measuring actual behavior, and creating a consequential choice environment. Stores do not need to actually sell products to enhance experimental designs; however, using an online behavioral store to make real sales is a viable strategy for conducting field experiments without a field partner. This paper provides a preliminary guide to creating and using an online behavioral store in a fast and cost-efficient manner. The methods described here do not require any coding knowledge and leverage an assortment of off-the-shelf Shopify tools and third-party applications. Using this approach, you can establish your own store capable of conducting on-site experiments (A/B tests), measuring individual-level behavior, and matching that behavior with external identifiers (e.g., Qualtrics information). The functionality, methods, and best practices surrounding online behavioral stores are in an early stage of development, and all should continue to improve.