About

My research investigates how consumers expect firms, a

Research topics

• Sociology
• Social Science
• Political Science
• Social psychology
• Economics
• Psychology
• Mathematical analysis
• Mathematics
• Econometrics
• Public economics
• Demography
• Law
• Biology
• Ecology
• Natural resource economics
• Microeconomics
• Positive economics

Selected publications

• Ethical Considerations of Marketing

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• United States V. Philip Morris: Marketing Tobacco to Minors

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Relational diversity in social portfolios predicts well-being

  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2022 · 51 citations

  • Sociology
  • Psychology
  • Social psychology

  = 21,644), specification curve analyses show that the positive relationship between social portfolio diversity and well-being is robust across different metrics of well-being, different categorizations of relationship types, and the inclusion of a wide range of covariates. Over and above people's total amount of social interaction and the diversity of activities they engage in, the relational diversity of their social portfolio is a unique predictor of well-being, both between individuals and within individuals over time.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Whose pay should be cut in economic crises? Consumers prefer firms that prioritize paying employees over CEOs

  Behavioural Public Policy · 2021-10-13 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Four experiments examine the impact of a firm deciding to no longer pay salaries for executives versus employees on consumer behavior, particularly in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Study 1 explores the effect of announcing either pay cessations or continued pay for either CEO or employees, and shows that firms’ commitment to maintaining employee pay leads to the most positive consumer reactions. Study 2 examines the effects of simultaneously announcing employee and CEO pay cessations: consumers respond most positively to firms prioritizing employee pay, regardless of their strategy for CEO pay. Moreover, these positive perceptions are mediated by perceptions of financial pain to employees, more than perceptions of CEO-to-worker pay ratio fairness. Study 3, using an incentive-compatible design, shows that firms’ commitment to paying employees their full wages matters more to consumers than cuts to executive pay, even when those executive pay cuts lead to a lower CEO-to-worker pay ratio. Study 4 tests our account in a non-COVID-19 context, and shows that consumers continue to react favorably to firms that maintain employee pay, but when loss is less salient, consumers prioritize cutting CEO pay and lowering the CEO-to-worker pay ratio. We discuss the implications of our results for firms and policymakers during economic crises.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Patient perceptions of diagnostic certainty at discharge and patient satisfaction in the emergency department

  Academic Emergency Medicine · 2021-04-08 · 6 citations

  letterOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Patient satisfaction has evolved into a standard measure for quality and value in health care. Given the importance of patient satisfaction to overall hospital quality measures, a growing literature has investigated a number of variables that affect satisfaction in the emergency department (ED). For instance, studies have demonstrated that certain objective visit-related metrics, such as reduced wait time to see a provider, shorter length of stay, and a higher number of administered treatments, underlie higher patient satisfaction in the ED.1-3 However, recent research has also highlighted that subjective measures of a patient's experience may be greater determinants of satisfaction than objective measures of care.4 For example, patient perception of wait time is a stronger predictor of satisfaction than objectively measured wait time.5, 6 These results reveal the importance of understanding the subjective aspects of a patient's experience in an ED that may predict overall satisfaction. We investigated one critical factor that may influence patients’ subjective experience (and, in turn, satisfaction): perceived diagnostic certainty—or the extent to which patients leave the ED feeling certain they know what caused their underlying condition. Psychology research has established individuals’ aversion to uncertainty and ambiguity and the negative affect induced by decisions involving uncertainty.7 There is reason to believe that diagnostic certainty may also play a role in patient satisfaction within the ED. Given the nature of the ED practice environment (i.e., relatively limited information, little to no prior relationship with patients, time constraints), the main goal is often to rule out truly emergent causes of patients’ presenting complaints—not necessarily to achieve a definitive diagnosis. Yet, many patients present with expectations of receiving a definitive diagnosis.8 Violating this expectation by discharging patients without a definitive diagnosis, thus leaving them in an otherwise uncomfortable state of uncertainty, may decrease positive affect and, in turn, decrease patient satisfaction. To develop a baseline understanding of this phenomenon, we sought to (1) determine whether perceptions of diagnostic certainty are associated with greater patient satisfaction and (2) assess the strength of the relationship between diagnostic certainty and patient satisfaction relative to other potentially relevant variables, including reported level of pain, length of stay, and number and types of follow-up recommendations provided. We administered a survey to a convenience sample of patients in a single academic tertiary care ED with an annual volume of 55,000 visits. Patients with a chief complaint of abdominal pain, back pain, chest pain, or headache who were listed for discharge from the ED were identified and approached by a research assistant between 8:00 a.m. and 11:00 p.m. These conditions were chosen by consensus because they were thought to reflect conditions where the focus of the emergency physician is often ruling out the worst-case scenario and where a definitive diagnosis might often not be reached even after a thorough ED evaluation. A survey was created using online software and given to each patient for completion on an electronic tablet. Each patient survey was paired with data obtained from an administrative database that provided details about the patient's stay, including length of stay, tests ordered, and medications administered. All survey items and data collection methods were approved by the institution's ethical review board. Our primary measures were patient affect, perceived diagnostic certainty, and satisfaction with care. To measure affect, participants rated (using a modified 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = not at all to 7 = very much) the extent to which they felt anxious (reverse-coded); relieved, happy, satisfied, angry (reverse-coded); frustrated (reverse-coded); nervous (reverse-coded); discouraged (reverse-coded), and confused (reverse-coded) based on their visit. We averaged all 10 affect items to create a composite of positive affect (α = 0.87). To measure perceived diagnostic certainty, participants indicated their level of agreement (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree) with two statements: I am sure about exactly what is wrong and My doctors know exactly what is wrong. We averaged the two measures to create a composite of diagnostic certainty (α = 0.86). Finally, to measure satisfaction, patients indicated their level of agreement (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree) with one statement: I am satisfied with the quality of care I received in the ER. Over the 14-month study period, 148 ED patients participated (note that data collection was paused for 3 months due to COVID-19). Mean patient age was 49.5 years, 58.8% (n = 87) of patients were female, and 39.9% (n = 59) self-identified their race/ethnicity as White non-Hispanic. Of the study sample, 25.0% (n = 37) presented with abdominal pain, 23.0% (n = 34) presented with back pain, 27.7% (n = 41) presented with chest pain, and 23.0% (n = 34) presented with a headache. Our results show that patient perception of diagnostic certainty was a significant predictor of positive affect. Multiple regression analysis (R2 = 0.18, p < 0.001) revealed that perception of diagnostic certainty (β = 0.39, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.24 to 0.56) was more strongly associated with positive affect than patient self-reported pain (β = –0.10, 95% CI = –0.26 to 0.07), length of stay (β = 0.02, 95% CI = –0.15 to 0.18), number of tests conducted during stay (β = 0.09, 95% CI = –0.08 to 0.26), number of follow-up actions prescribed (β = 0.07, 95% CI = –0.09 to 0.23), or type of complaint (β = –0.05, 95% CI = –0.21 to 0.11; see Table 1). Patient perception of diagnostic certainty was also significantly associated with patient satisfaction. Multiple regression analysis (R2 = 0.21, p < 0.001) revealed that perception of diagnostic certainty (β = 0.38, 95% CI = 0.22 to 0.54) was more strongly associated with patient satisfaction than patient self-reported pain (β = –0.13, 95% CI = –0.29 to 0.03), length of stay (β = –0.04, 95% CI = –0.20 to 0.13), number of tests conducted during stay (β = 0.19, 95% CI = 0.03 to 0.36), number of follow-up actions prescribed (β = 0.16, 95% CI = 0.00 to 0.32), or type of complaint (β = –0.11, 95% CI = –0.27 to 0.05; see Table 1). Based on 5,000 bootstrapped samples, a mediation analysis indicated that greater diagnostic certainty was significantly correlated with greater positive affect (b = 0.21, 95% CI = 0.13 to 0.30, p < 0.001) and, in turn, greater positive affect was significantly associated with greater patient satisfaction (b = 0.64, 95% CI = 0.48 to 0.79, p < 0.001).9 In other words, perceptions of diagnostic certainty increased satisfaction by increasing patients’ positive affective experience (indirect effect: b = 0.14, 95% CI = 0.07 to 0.23). These findings do not suggest that diagnostic certainty is the only, or the most, important determinant of patient affect or satisfaction; these models do not explain the majority of variance in patient affect or satisfaction. However, these findings do suggest that perceptions of diagnostic certainty play a significant role in a patient's experience and deserve further consideration. By highlighting the importance of a patient's perceived diagnostic certainty on overall satisfaction with care, this study adds to a growing literature investigating the subjective measures of patient experiences that contribute to patient satisfaction with health care. Specifically, when patients feel a greater sense of certainty regarding the diagnosis of their health condition, they also have greater positive affect and report higher satisfaction with care received. Notably, a patient's sense of diagnostic certainty is associated with their satisfaction of care—above and beyond several standard, objective measures, including length of stay, number of tests run, and number of follow-up actions prescribed. While our findings are limited by relatively small sample size and should be viewed as preliminary, we believe that our findings have important implications for ED physicians. ED physicians are trained to assess for and rule out “worst-case” diagnoses and generally not to evaluate conditions that are more appropriate for an outpatient setting. For example, ED physicians focus on “ruling out” a myocardial infarction for a patient presenting with chest pain, rather than “ruling in” any other sources of the pain. Although this approach is standard and often optimal for the ED setting, additional testing, either to rule out worst-case diagnoses or done mainly to reassure patients, may still not provide patients with sufficient diagnostic certainty.10 Rather than performing additional potentially low-value testing, ED physicians may consider simple interventions, such as setting better expectations about the level of diagnostic certainty they believe is possible or changing the ways in which they communicate any degree of diagnostic uncertainty at discharge. Importantly, we do not suggest that this should necessarily change how ED physicians approach the diagnostic evaluation of patients with these or other undifferentiated conditions; overtesting for the sake of certainty could, itself, have significant untoward consequences. However, our findings should factor into how ED physicians communicate the diagnostic approach in the ED and how they frame any remaining uncertainty. Finally, our study raises important questions with respect to the appropriateness or utility of current measures of patient satisfaction in the ED. If such a disconnect exists vis-à-vis the basic goal of an ED evaluation between patient and physician, then evaluating patient satisfaction after an ED visit may be capturing aspects beyond the control of the treatment team. Such a focus on patient satisfaction may then actually be harmful—for example, if physicians were to order additional testing simply to address the concern over patient discomfort with diagnostic uncertainty. These aspects are important when considering the utility of measures of patient satisfaction in the ED setting.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Economic Inequality Shapes Judgments of Consumption

  Journal of Consumer Psychology · 2021 · 10 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Sociology
  • Political Science
  • Economics

  Economic inequality affects not only individuals’ judgments and behavior in their own lives, but also those individuals’ judgements and behavior toward others—both people and firms. First, the consumption decisions of others are often evaluated through a moral lens, such that lower‐income consumers are held to more negative, restrictive standards of what is acceptable to purchase. Second, firms that perpetuate inequality among their employees or their customers—through unequal pay or unequal services—are viewed negatively. We discuss the implications of economic inequality shaping people’s moral scrutiny of others.

  PublisherDOI

• Hoping for the Worst? A Paradoxical Preference for Bad News

  Journal of Consumer Research · 2021-01-26 · 7 citations

  articleSenior author

  Abstract Nine studies investigate when and why people may paradoxically prefer bad news—for example, hoping for an objectively worse injury or a higher-risk diagnosis over explicitly better alternatives. Using a combination of field surveys and randomized experiments, the research demonstrates that people may hope for relatively worse (vs. better) news in an effort to preemptively avoid subjectively difficult decisions (studies 1 and 2). This is because when worse news avoids a choice (study 3A)—for example, by “forcing one’s hand” or creating one dominant option that circumvents a fraught decision (study 3B)—it can relieve the decision-maker’s experience of personal responsibility (study 3C). However, because not all decisions warrant avoidance, not all decisions will elicit a preference for worse news; fewer people hope for worse news when facing subjectively easier (vs. harder) choices (studies 4A and B). Finally, this preference for worse news is not without consequence and may create perverse incentives for decision-makers, such as the tendency to forgo opportunities for improvement (studies 5A and B). The work contributes to the literature on decision avoidance and elucidates another strategy people use to circumvent difficult decisions: a propensity to hope for the worst.

  PublisherDOI

• Inequality and Inefficiency

  ACR North American Advances · 2020-01-01

  article1st authorCorresponding
  Publisher

• Inequality in socially permissible consumption

  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2020 · 47 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Sociology
  • Social Science
  • Economics

  interpersonal judgments about what is acceptable (or not) for others to consume-such that lower-income individuals' decisions are subject to more negative and restrictive evaluations. Indeed, the same consumption decisions may be deemed less permissible for a lower-income individual than for an individual with higher or unknown income (studies 1A and 1B), even when purchased with windfall funds. This gap persists among participants from a large, nationally representative sample (study 2) and when testing a broad array of "everyday" consumption items (study 3). Additional studies investigate why: The same items are often perceived as less necessary for lower- (versus higher-) income individuals (studies 4 and 5). Combining both permissibility and perceived necessity, additional studies (studies 6 and 7) demonstrate a causal link between the two constructs: A purchase decision will be deemed permissible (or not) to the extent that it is perceived as necessary (or not). However, because-for lower-income individuals-fewer items are perceived as necessary, fewer are therefore socially permissible to consume. This finding not only exposes a fraught double standard, but also portends consequential behavioral implications: People prefer to allocate strictly "necessary" items to lower-income recipients (study 8), even if such items are objectively and subjectively less valuable (studies 9A and 9B), which may result in an imbalanced and inefficient provision of resources to the poor.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Consumers Punish Firms that Cut Employee Pay in Response to COVID-19

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2020-01-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Michael I. Norton

  4 shared

• Bhavya Mohan

  University of San Francisco

  2 shared

• Michael Norton

  2 shared

• Kate Barasz

  2 shared

• Kate Barasz

  Universitat Ramon Llull

  2 shared

• Hanne K. Collins

  1 shared

• Alison Wood Brooks

  1 shared

• Jordi Quoidbach

  Universitat Ramon Llull

  1 shared

Education

• PHD, Marketing

  Harvard Business School

Awards & honors

• American Marketing Association’s CBSIG Rising Star Award for…