A. Sophie Chaxel
Virginia Tech
Marketing Department – Pamplin 2052
schaxel@vt.edu; 540-553-1186
EDUCATION
Ph.D., Marketing, May 2012
Cornell University, The Johnson School of Management
Master in Research, Marketing and Organizational Behavior, 2007
French pre-doctoral program, Paris-Dauphine University
Master of Science in Management, 2005
HEC Paris
POSITIONS
Assistant Professor of Marketing, Virginia Tech, 2015-current
Assistant Professor of Marketing, McGill University, 2012- 2015
RESEARCH
FOCUS
Consumer choice processes, biases in consumer judgment and decision making
PUBLICATIONS
Chaxel, A. Sophie (2015), "How do Stereotypes Influence Choice?" Psychological science, 26(5), 641-645.
Abstract: I tracked one process through which stereotypes affect choice. The Implicit
Association Test (IAT) and a measurement of predecisional information distortion
were used to assess the influence of the association between male gender and career
on the evaluation of information related to the job performance of stereotypical targets
(male) and nonstereotypical targets (female). When the IAT revealed a strong
association between male gender and career and the installed leader in the choice
process was a stereotypical target, decision makers supported the leader with more
proleader distortion; when the IAT revealed a strong association between male gender
and career and the installed leader in the choice process was a nonstereotypical target,
decision-makers supported the trailer with less antitrailer distortion. A stronger
association between male gender and career therefore resulted in an upward shift of
the evaluation related to the stereotypical target (both as a trailer and a leader), which
subsequently biased choice.
Chaxel, A. Sophie (2015), "The Impact of a Relational Mindset on Information
Distortion," Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 60, 1-7.
Abstract: The preference-supporting bias in information evaluation, known as
information distortion, is a ubiquitous phenomenon. The present work demonstrates
that priming a relational mindset induces individuals to process independent units of
information interdependently and therefore contributes to increasing distortion. In
three studies, a relational mindset is activated by asking participants to generate
solutions to cross-domain analogies. All three studies show that the activation of a
relational mindset then carries over into a second, unrelated choice task and increases
distortion. In addition, the present work shows that generating solutions to cross-
domain analogies activates a high level of construal, which in turn mediates the effect
of relational thinking on information distortion. Finally, the present work also
demonstrates that imposing a cognitive load during the choice task reduces the impact
of the relational mindset on distortion. In sum, this research demonstrates that the
same mechanism that promotes creative thinking (i.e., seeing relationships across
concepts) may also induce more biased information processing by prompting
individuals to process independent units of information interdependently.
Chaxel, A. Sophie. J. Edward Russo and Catherine Wiggins (2015), "A Goalapproach to Cognitive Consistency: Applications to Judgment and Decisionmaking" - Journal of Behavioral Decision Making
Abstract: A fundamental criterion of judgment is consistency among beliefs. To
augment traditional methods for studying cognitive consistency, we treat it as a goal
and present a priming method for increasing its activation. Three studies use three
criteria to validate the method: an increase in the biased evaluation of incoming
information, speed in a lexical decision task, and participants’ direct reports of greater
goal activation. The method is then used to verify the role of the consistency goal in
three diverse judgment phenomena. Priming cognitive consistency increases the
search for postdecisional supporting information (selective exposure to information),
the agreement between preference and prediction (the desirability bias or wishful
thinking), and the adjustment of a socially unacceptable implicit attitude to conform to
the corresponding explicit attitude. One conclusion is that the cause of these
phenomena is not only motivated reasoning (driven directionally by a desired
outcome) but also the purely cognitive and nondirectional process of simply making
beliefs more consistent.
Chaxel, A. Sophie (2013), “The Impact of Procedural Priming of Selective
accessibility on Self-generated and Experimenter-provided Anchors,” Journal of
Experimental Social Psychology, 50, 45-51.
Abstract: Anchoring is often considered to be the product of two distinct processes: (a)
the under-adjustment associated with the anchoring-and-adjustment heuristic, when
individuals provide their own anchors; and (b) selective accessibility, when an
experiment provides an anchor. The evidence for the existence of two distinct
processes mostly comes from the differential impact of effort across anchor types
(self-generated vs. experimenter-provided). The present work challenges this
distinction by demonstrating that priming selective accessibility (a) impacts the
anchoring bias independently of the type of anchor and (b) interacts with effort in the
same way across both sources of anchors. Therefore, the present results challenge the
dichotomy between selective accessibility and anchoring-and-adjustment as two
independent processes. Instead, they suggest the idea that these processes are both
responsible for yielding the commonly observed anchoring phenomenon.
Chaxel, A. Sophie, J. Edward Russo and Neda Kerimi (2013), “PreferenceDriven Biases in Consumer Search and Evaluation of Product
Information,” Judgment and Decision-Making, 8 (5), 561-576.
Abstract: While it is well established that the search for information after a decision is
biased toward supporting that decision, the case of preference-supporting search
before the decision remains open. Three studies of consumer choices consistently
found a complete absence of a pre-choice bias toward searching for preferencesupporting information. The absence of this confirming search bias occurred for
products that were both hedonic and utilitarian, both expensive and inexpensive, and
both high and low in expected brand loyalty. Experiment 3 also verified the presence
of the expected post-choice search bias to support the chosen alternative. Therefore
the absence of a pre-choice search bias in all three studies was not likely to be due to
our using a method that was so insensitive that a search bias would not be observed
under any circumstances. In addition to the absence of an effect of prior preferences
on information selection, subjects’ self-reported search strategies exhibited a clear
tendency toward a balance of positive and negative information. Across the three
studies, we also tested for the presence of a preference-supporting bias in the
evaluation of the information acquired in the search process. This evaluation bias was
found both pre- and post-choice.
Russo, J. Edward and Anne-Sophie Chaxel (2010), “How Persuasive Messages
Can Influence Choice without Awareness,” Journal of Consumer Psychology, 20,
338-342.
Abstract: A persuasive message that favors one option in a binary choice can enhance
the apparent value of its target by biasing the interpretation of subsequent information.
The message installs its target as the initial leader in preference and lets the
predecisional distortion of information defend that leadership position. An experiment
that contrasts showing TV commercials before and after objective product information
demonstrates this process. Ratings of the importance of the commercials to the choice
indicate that people are aware of advertising's direct effect on their choice but not of
its indirect effect through the biased evaluation of the product information.
CONFERENCES
Chaxel, A. Sophie*, "Being Correct or Feeling Protected: A Process Account of the
Effect of Personal Control on Product Information Processing,” Association for
Consumer Research, New Orleans, October 2015
Chaxel, A. Sophie*, "The impact of procedural priming of selective accessibility on
self-generated and experimenter-provided anchors,” Association for Consumer
Research, Chicago, October 2013
Chaxel, Anne-Sophie*, and Catherine Wiggins, “The influence of associative
reasoning on consumer biases”, SCP Conference, San Antonio, March 2013.
Chaxel, Anne-Sophie, J. Edward Russo*, and Catherine Wiggins “The Desire for
Cognitive Consistency as a Driver of Multiple J/DM Phenomena”, NYU Stern,
January 2013
Chaxel, Anne-Sophie, J. Edward Russo*, and Catherine Wiggins “The Desire for
Cognitive Consistency as a Driver of Multiple J/DM Phenomena”, Behavioral
Decision Research in Management Conference, Leeds School of Business, Colorado,
June 2012
Chaxel, Anne-Sophie and J. Edward Russo*, “The Desire for Cognitive Consistency
as a Driver of Multiple J/DM Phenomena”, Decision Research Workshop at the
University of Bolton, May 2012
Chaxel, Anne-Sophie* and J. Edward Russo, “The Desire for Cognitive Consistency
as a Driver of Multiple J/DM Phenomena”, Invited talks at McGill U. (Montreal), The
University of New South Wales (Sydney), UTS (Sydney), ESCP (Paris), Instituto de
Empresa (Madrid), Bocconi (Milan), Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona), September –
December 2012
Chaxel, Anne-Sophie* and J. Edward Russo, “The goal of consistency as a cause of
biases in consumer decision-making”, European Marketing Trends Conference,
January 2011
Chaxel, Anne-Sophie and J. Edward Russo*, “Priming Consistency: A methodology”,
Society for Judgment and Decision-Making, November 2010
Russo, J. Edward and Anne-Sophie Chaxel*, “How Persuasive Messages Can
Influence Choice without Awareness”, European Marketing Trends Conference,
January 2009
Russo, J. Edward and Anne-Sophie Chaxel*, “How Persuasive Messages Can
Influence Choice without Awareness”, Association for Consumer Research (working
paper session), October 2008
Bour, Stephanie, Pierre Volle and Anne-Sophie Chaxel*, “Understanding the
consequences of the feeling of betrayal on consumer behavior”, French Marketing
Association Conference, May 2007
TEACHING
Master Level
Marketing Management, The Johnson School of Management
(Spring 2012)
Undergraduate
Level
Marketing Management, McGill University (Fall 2012, Fall 2013)
MBA
Independent
Projects
Mikki Ishii, “Social Media, Affect, & Word of Mouth generation”
Miyuki Unno, “Influence of Positive Affect on Consumer Attitudes”
SERVICE
INTERNAL
PhD Committee: Zachary Mendenhall and Sumitra Auschaitrakul
With Thomas Dotzel at McGill U.: Started a curriculum restructuring of the
marketing major and concentration (BCom program).
Course Coordinator (Marketing Management): Fall 2013 and Winter 2014
Undergraduate Program Committee Member at McGill U.
Valedictorian Selection Committee Member at McGill U.
EXTERNAL
Reviewer for the Association for Consumer Research Conference, 2011, 2012,
2013, 2014, 2015
Reviewer for the Society for Consumer Psychology Conference, 2013
Trainee Reviewer, the Journal of Consumer Research, 2012
AFFILIATIONS
Association for Consumer Research
Society for Consumer Psychology
Society of Judgment and Decision-Making
Association for Psychological Science
American Psychological Association