Course Syllabus - BA 991
Special Topics in Consumer Research
Jim Bettman – Spring 2014
Purpose:
The purpose of this seminar is to examine recent work in, or relevant to, consumer
research. We will select a set of topics to be considered over the semester, often
triggered by a new article of particular interest or student interests. For each topic
considered, a few articles will be chosen, and we will read and discuss those. Our
goals will be to gain exposure to the latest ideas in consumer research and to develop
research ideas. In particular, each week we should generate in class the
design/idea for at least one new study in the focal topic area.
Classes will be held in the DeSanctis Seminar Room of the Academic Center of the
Fuqua School on Thursdays from 12:00 pm – 2:45 pm. The first class is Thursday,
January 9. The last class is Thursday, April 10.
Student Responsibilities:
Each student should come to the seminar prepared to discuss each article in depth and
to present their ideas about the major ideas, contributions, or shortcomings of each
article if asked to do so. Students should also examine the research ideas of the other
students, as described next.
As noted above, we will also generate an idea for a study each week. Each student will
be responsible for writing up an approximately one-page (double-spaced) note for each
class focusing on an idea for a study that relates to that week’s readings, e.g., a new
study or studies designed to extend a particular paper or to build a bridge between
papers. Please specify the research question, why it is important, and a brief overview
of the proposed design (e.g., the independent and dependent variables) and
hypotheses. Everyone should plan on outlining their ideas in class. Please submit your
ideas to me no later than 5 pm on the Wednesday before each class so that I and the
other students can examine them. I will forward these ideas to each class member. I
will also send out copies of the papers for each session via email.
Finally, each student will be expected to do a research paper, which can be a critical
literature review, a design for a study, etc. I will set aside 1-2 hours at a specific time
during the semester when we will discuss preliminary ideas for the papers, and I will ask
each student to present an idea at those times. Papers are typically 20-30 pages in
length and will be due by 5 pm on May 2, the Friday of exam week. On March 20 we
will have each student present and receive feedback on their paper idea for roughly 1015 minutes; please prepare a brief set of overheads outlining your idea (no more than 56) that you will present; try to keep your presentation to 5 minutes or so in order to allow
time for feedback from me and the others in the class.
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Papers for BA991, Spring 2014
Session 1 – Recent Research on Happiness – January 9, 2014
a. Bhattacharjee, Amit and Cassie Mogilner (2014), “Happiness from Ordinary and
Extraordinary Experiences,” JCR, 41 (June).
b. Mogilner, Cassie, Sepandar D. Kamvar, and Jennifer Aaker (2011), “The Shifting
Meaning of Happiness,” Social Psychological and Personality Science, 2 (4),
395-402.
c. Baumeister, Roy F., Kathleen D. Vohs, Jennifer L. Aaker, and Emily N. Garbinsky
(2013), “Some Key Differences between a Happy Life and a Meaningful Life,”
Journal of Positive Psychology.
Session 2 – Effects of Disease Threat – January 16, 2014
a. Schaller, Mark and Justin H. Park (2011), “The Behavioral Immune System (and
Why It Matters),” Current Directions in Psychological Science, 20 (2), 99-103.
b. Park, Justin H., Mark Schaller, and Christian S. Crandall (2007), “PathogenAvoidance Mechanisms and the Stigmatization of Obese People,” Evolution and
Human Behavior, 28 (November), 410-414.
c. White, Andrew Edward, Douglas T. Kenrick, and Steven L. Neuberg (2013),
“Beauty at the Ballot Box: Disease Threats Predict Preferences of Physically
Attractive Leaders,” Psychological Science, 24 (12), 2429-2436.
d. Schaller, Mark and Damian R. Murray (2008), “Pathogens, Personality, and
Culture: Disease Prevalence Predicts Worldwide Variability in Sociosexuality,
Extraversion, and Openness to Experience,” Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 95 (1), 212-221.
e. Mortensen, Chad R., D. Vaughn Becker, Joshua M. Ackerman, Steven L.
Neuberg, and Douglas T. Kenrick (2010), “Infection Breeds Reticence: The
Effects of Disease Salience on Self-Perceptions of Personality and Behavioral
Avoidance Tendencies,” Psychological Science, 21 (3), 440-447.
Session 3 – Scarcity, Stress, and Eating – January 23, 2014
a. Briers, Barbara and Sandra Laporte (2013), “A Wallet Full of Calories: The Effect of
Financial Dissatisfaction on the Desire for Food Energy,” Journal of Marketing
Research, 50 (December), 767-781.
b. Briers, Barbara, Mario Pandelaere, Siegfried Dewitte, and Luk Warlop (2006), “The
Desire for Calorie Resources Increases the Desire for Financial Resources and
Vice Versa,” Psychological Science, 17 (November), 939-943.
c. Sproesser, Gudrun, Harald T. Schupp, and Britta Renner (forthcoming), “The Bright
Side of Stress-Induced Eating: Eating More When Stressed but Less When
Pleased,” Psychological Science.
Session 4 – New Perspectives on Prosocial Behavior – January 30, 2014
a. Newman, George E. and Daylian M. Cain (2014), “Tainted Altruism: When Doing
Some Good is Evaluated as Worse Than Doing No Good at All,” Psychological
Science.
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b. Nadler, Arie and Lily Chernyak-Hai (2014), “Helping Them Stay Where They Are:
Status Effects on Dependency/Autonomy-Oriented Helping,” Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 106 (1), 58-72.
c. Ahn, Hee-Kyung, Hae Joo Kim, and Pankaj Aggarwal (2014), “Helping Fellow
Beings: Anthropomorphized Social Causes and the Role of Anticipatory Guilt,”
Psychological Science, 25 (1), 224-229.
Session 5 – Status Signals – February 6, 2014
a. Bellezza, Silvia, Francesca Gino, and Anat Keinan (2014), “The Red Sneakers
Effect: Inferring Status and Competence from Signals of Nonconformity,” Journal
of Consumer Research.
b. McFerran, Brent and Jennifer J. Argo (2014), “The Entourage Effect,” Journal of
Consumer Research.
c. Sharma, Eesha and Adam L. Alter (2012), “Financial Deprivation Prompts
Consumers to Seek Scarce Goods,” Journal of Consumer Research, 39
(October), 545-560.
Session 6 – Decision Making – February 20, 2014
a. Blanchard, Simon J., Kurt A. Carlson, and Margaret G. Meloy (2014), “Biased
Predecisional Processing of Leading and Nonleading Alternatives,” Psychological
Science.
b. Maeng, Ahreum, Robin J. Tanner, and Dilip Soman (2013), “Conservative When
Crowded: Social Crowding and Consumer Choice,” Journal of Marketing
Research, 50 (December), 739-752.
c. Hafenbrack, Andrew C., Zoe Kinias, and Sigal G. Barsade (2014), “Debiasing the
Mind Through Meditation: Mindfulness and the Sunk-Cost Bias,” Psychological
Science, 25 (February), 369-376.
Session 7 – Sharing and Disclosing – February 27, 2104
a. Reis, Harry T., Shannon M. Smith, Cheryl L. Carmichael, Peter A. Caprariello, FenFang Tsai, Amy Rodrigues, and Michael R. Maniaci (2010), “Are You Happy for
Me? How Sharing Positive Events With Others Provides Personal and
Impersonal Benefits,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 99 (2), 311329.
b. Hackenbracht, Joy and Karen Gasper (2013), “I’m All Ears: The Need to Belong
Motivates Listening to Emotional Disclosure,” Journal of Experimental Social
Psychology, 49 (September), 915-921.
c. Berger, Jonah and Katherine L. Milkman (2012), “What Makes Online Content Viral?”
Journal of Marketing Research, 49 (April), 192-205.
Session 8 – Consumer Indulgence – March 20, 2014
a. Cavanaugh, Lisa (2014), “Because I (Don’t) Deserve It: How Relationship Reminders
and Deservingness Influence Consumer Indulgence,” Journal of Marketing
Research.
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b. Salerno, Anthony, Juliano Laran, and Chris Janiszewski (2014), “Hedonic Eating
Goals and Emotion: When Sadness Decreases the Desire to Indulge,” Journal of
Consumer Research.
c. Parker, Jeffrey R. and Donald R. Lehmann (2014), “How and When Grouping LowCalorie Options Reduces the Benefits of Providing Dish-Specific Calorie
Information,” Journal of Consumer Research.
Session 9 – Student Paper Idea Presentations – March 27, 2014
Session 10 – Financial Decisions – April 3, 2014
a. Fernandes, Daniel, John G. Lynch, Jr., and Richard G. Netemeyer (forthcoming),
“Financial Literacy, Financial Education and Downstream Financial Behaviors,”
Management Science.
b. Gal, David and Blakeley B. McShane (2012), “Can Small Victories Help Win the
War? Evidence from Consumer Debt Management,” Journal of Marketing
Research, 49 (August), 487-501.
c. Hsee, Christopher K., Jiao Zhang, Cindy F. Cai, and Shirley Zhang (2103),
“Overearning,” Psychological Science, 24 (June), 852-859.
Session 11 – Connection and Authenticity – April 10, 2014
a. Newman, George E. and Ravi Dhar (2014), “Authenticity is Contagious: Brand
Essence and the Original Source of Production,” Journal of Marketing Research,
51.
b. Chan, Cindy and Cassie Mogilner (2014), “Experiential Gifts Are More Socially
Connecting than Material Gifts,” Working paper, Wharton School, University of
Pennsylvania.
c. Lowe, Michael L. and Kelly L. Haws (2014), “(Im)moral Support: The Social
Outcomes of Parallel Self-Control Decisions,” Journal of Consumer Research,
41.
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