LAUREN B. CHEATHAM
CURRICULUM VITAE
Office Address
Stanford University
655 Knight Way Stanford,
CA 94305
Contact Information
Email: cheatham@stanford.edu
Phone: 847-757-6214
EDUCATION
Ph.D. Candidate, Marketing
Stanford Graduate School of Business
Expected 2017
M.S., Integrated Marketing Communications
Northwestern University
2010
B.S., Communication Studies and History
Northwestern University
2002
RESEARCH INTERESTS
Advocacy, Attitudes, Consumer Persuasion, Consumer Welfare
PUBLISHED PAPERS
Cheatham, L. and Tormala, Z. (2015). “Attitude Certainty and Attitudinal Advocacy: The
Unique Roles of Clarity and Correctness.” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.
(Dissertation essay 1. See appendix for abstract.)
SELECT PAPERS UNDER REVIEW AND IN PROGRESS
Cheatham, L., and Tormala, Z., “The Curvilinear Relationship between Attitude Certainty
and Attitudinal Advocacy.” Paper under review at Personality and Social Psychology
Bulletin (Dissertation essay 2. See appendix for abstract.)
Cheatham, L., Goldsmith, K., Gal, D., and Raghunathan, R., “The Pursuit of Happiness: Can
it Make You Happier?” Paper under review at Journal of Consumer Research (see
appendix for abstract).
Cheatham, L., and Tormala, Z., (Four studies complete), “The Making of a Successful
Advocate: When and How Consumer Referrals Persuade Others.”
Tormala, Z., Cheatham, L., and Wheeler, S. C., (Four studies complete), “What a Difference
a Measurement Makes: A New Way to Measure Attitudes.”
Cheatham, L., and Tormala, Z. (Data collection in progress), “Your Uncertainty Makes Me
Feel Certain: Why Attitude Certainty Matters for Consumer Product Advocacy.”
(Dissertation essay 3.)
Cheatham, L., Flaschen, K., and Levav, J. (Data collection in progress), “Surge Pricing and
its Effects on Consumer Trust.”
Cheatham, L., and Kreps, T. (Data collection in progress), “The Moral Limit of Advocacy.”
MEDIA MENTIONS
How Certainty Transforms Persuasion, September 2015, Harvard Business Review
CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS (*PRESENTER)
*Cheatham, L., and Tormala, Z., (2016). The Making of a Successful Advocate: When and
How Consumer Referrals Persuade Others. Paper presented at the Society for Consumer
Psychology Conference, St. Petersburg Beach, Florida.
*Cheatham, L., and Tormala, Z., (2015). Attitude Certainty’s Curvilinear Relationship With
Advocacy: Why We Advocate at Both High and Low Certainty. Paper presented at the
Association of Consumer Research Conference. New Orleans, LA. Served as symposium
chair
*Cheatham, L., and Tormala, Z., (2015). Attitude Certainty and Attitudinal Advocacy: The
Unique Roles of Clarity and Correctness. Paper presented at the Society for Personality and
Social Psychology Conference. Long Beach, California. Served as symposium chair
*Cheatham, L., and Tormala, Z., (2014). Attitude Certainty and Attitudinal Advocacy: The
Unique Roles of Clarity and Correctness. Competitive paper presented at Association of
Consumer Research Conference, Baltimore, Maryland.
*Cheatham, L., and Tormala, Z., (2014). Fostering Advocacy: The Unexpected Role of
Source Expertise in Intentions to Persuade Others. Working paper presented at the
Association of Consumer Research Conference, Baltimore, Maryland.
*Cheatham, L., Goldsmith, K., Gal, D., and Raghunathan, R., (2013). Happiness in the Wild:
Focusing on Maximizing Happiness Makes People Happy. Competitive paper presented at
Association of Consumer Research Conference, Chicago, Illinois.
*Cheatham, L., Goldsmith, K., Gal, D., and Raghunathan, R., (2013). Happiness in the Wild:
Focusing on Maximizing Happiness Makes People Happy. Paper presented at the Society for
Consumer Psychology Conference, San Antonio, Texas. Served as symposium chair.
FELLOWSHIPS & AWARDS
Graduate Voice and Influence Program, Doctoral Fellow, Clayman Institute for Gender
Research (2015-2016)
McKinnell, Hank Phd Fellowship Fund (2014-2015)
The George and Mary Lou Shott Fellowship Fund (2014-2015)
Gustav H. Benkendorf and Elizabeth Benkendorf Scholarship (2013-2014)
Milton L. Roberts Scholarship (2013-2014)
George and Mary Lou Shott Fellowship (2013-2014)
Clarke A. and Elizabeth Stuart Nelson Fellowship (2013-2014)
Wentworth, William and Harriet Fellowship (2012-2013)
EBLF Fellowship Fund (2012-2013)
McKenna, Regis and Dianne Fellowship (2012-2013)
MBA Class of 1980 Doctoral Fellowship (2012-2013)
Jaedicke Family Fellowship (2012-2013)
Robert E. “Buck” Buchanan Award (2010)
SELECT PROFESSIONAL SERVICE
Invited Reviewer: Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
Invited Reviewer: Association of Consumer Research (conference) fall 2014
Invited Reviewer: Society for Consumer Psychology (conference) spring 2013
TEACHING
2014, 2015 and 2016 Acting With Power, Course Assistant/Grader, Prof. Deborah Gruenfeld,
Stanford Graduate School of Business
2015 Marketing Management, Course Assistant/Grader, Prof. Christian Wheeler, Stanford
Graduate School of Business
2014 and 2015 Marketing Management, Course Assistant/Grader, Prof. Uzma Khan,
Stanford Graduate School of Business
2014 and 2015 Consumer Behavior, Course Assistant/Grader, Prof. Szu-Chi Huang, Stanford
Graduate School of Business
2010 Consumer Insights, Course Assistant, Prof. Ashlee Humphreys, Northwestern
University, Medill School of Journalism, Media, and Integrated Marketing Communications
SELECTED RELATED PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Marshall Goldsmith Group, Chicago, IL
Organizational Behavior Researcher
Researched select topics for Marshall Goldsmith, PhD on happiness and engagement in the
workplace for a forthcoming book
Ran large-scale study about happiness and engagement in the workplace with seven Fortune
500 companies and over 300 participants
Collected, analyzed and presented data on above study
Copa Airlines, Panama City, Panama
Marketing Consultant for largest airline in Latin America
Developed a customer experience survey and all back-end analytics
Directed beta test of new survey to over 18,000 customers
Created and implemented an elite status customer segmentation model for targeted marketing
purposes
Built long-term plan for the Customer Experience Department by advising on software and
manpower needs
Cheatham Consulting
Independent consultant on marketing strategy
Developed multiple consumer insights surveys and advised on back-end analytics for Lully, a
biomedical start-up
Created the brand strategy for Eat Green Foods, a local, slow foods company
Redesigned the web content and implemented SEO for StudentSpace.com, a housing locator
service for graduate students
Cheatham Horse Training, Chicago, IL
Owner and operator of professional horse training, management and consulting business
Built up a dedicated clientele of over 50 students in the disciplines of Hunter/Jumper and
Dressage, training children and adults that ranged in all skill levels
Managed 15 clients’ horses, providing personalized training programs for each horse and
rider, maintaining health records, and acting as the primary rider for clients’ horses
Consulted to seven facilities throughout Illinois and Wisconsin
Advised, valued, purchased and sold horses for high net worth individuals, negotiated
individual transactions worth up to $80,000
APPENDIX
Attitude Certainty and Attitudinal Advocacy: The Unique Roles of Clarity and Correctness
When and why do people advocate on behalf of their attitudes? Past research suggests that
attitude certainty is one important determinant. The current research seeks to provide more
nuanced insight into this relationship by (1) exploring the unique roles of attitude clarity and
attitude correctness, and (2) mapping clarity and correctness onto different forms of
advocacy (sharing intentions and persuasion intentions). Across four studies, we find that
correctness but not clarity plays an important role in promoting persuasion intentions,
whereas both correctness and clarity help shape sharing intentions. Thus, this research
unpacks the certainty-advocacy relation and helps identify experimental manipulations that
uniquely drive persuasion and sharing intentions.
The Curvilinear Relationship between Attitude Certainty and Attitudinal Advocacy
Do people advocate more on behalf of their own attitudes and opinions when they feel
certain or uncertain? Although considerable past research suggests that people are more
likely to advocate when they feel highly certain, there also is evidence for the opposite
effect—that is, that people advocate more aggressively when they experience a loss of
attitude certainty. The current research seeks to reconcile these disparate findings.
Specifically, we explore the possibility that the relationship between attitude certainty and
attitudinal advocacy is curvilinear. Consistent with this hypothesis, we find evidence for a Jshaped curve: Advocacy intentions (and behavior) peak under high certainty, bottom out
under moderate certainty, and show a slight uptick under low (relative to moderate) certainty.
We document this relationship and investigate its potential mechanisms in three studies by
examining advocacy intentions and the actual advocacy messages participants write when
they feel high, moderate, or low certainty. Theoretical and managerial implications are
discussed.
The Pursuit of Happiness: Can it Make You Happier?
The pursuit of happiness has preoccupied philosophers, psychologists, consumer researchers,
and economists, amongst others. Recently, the pursuit of happiness has been investigated
empirically, with results appearing to support the perspective that explicitly trying to enhance
one’s own happiness may be counterproductive. However, prior investigations were
correlational or involved participants being asked to maximize or monitor their happiness
while engaged in tasks assigned to them by an experimenter, rather than tasks that they
themselves chose. The current research examines whether trying to enhance one’s own
happiness can increase happiness levels, and what conditions allow for such enhancement.
We find that regardless of whether experiences are constrained or unconstrained, when
individuals monitor their current state of happiness, they tend to experience a decrease in
happiness. However, when individuals are directed to maximize their happiness in an
unconstrained setting, they tend to engage in happiness-directed behaviors, which in turn
improve their happiness. We relate our findings to research regarding why individuals often
fail to make happiness-maximizing choices.