How people decide: Lab explores consumer behavior

At the W. P. Carey School's Behavioral Research Lab, marketing faculty conduct research on consumer behavior as it applies to such areas as product selection and consumption — how and why people make decisions about what to buy and eat. Some 500 students every two weeks participate in the intensive research, which originates new theories that are used by marketers and policy makers. The quality of the lab and the research helps attract top faculty and doctoral students, gives undergraduate students experience in a lab setting, and contributes to the school's national reputation.

On any given day, in the basement of ASU’s Discovery Hall, students from the W. P. Carey School of Business can be found putting golf balls, shooting darts or even eating vomit-flavored jelly beans.

And while that may sound more like frat-house behavior than serious academics, the students actually are participating in leading-edge marketing research in one of the country’s foremost consumer behavior research labs.

The W. P. Carey Marketing Department’s Behavioral Research Lab is a beehive of activity, with as many as 500 student volunteers participating every two weeks in research conducted by marketing faculty and Ph.D. candidates. The research focuses on consumer behavior as it applies to such areas as product selection and consumption — how and why people make decisions about what to buy and eat.

The results are presented at conferences for peer reviews, and often are published in major academic journals. Ultimately, the research findings can influence the way products are marketed and inventory is managed.

“We create new consumer theories and marketing theories,” said Daniele Mathras, a Ph.D. student who manages the lab (photo above). “All of our research informs marketing practices in some way.”

Top marketing lab in the country

The W. P. Carey lab is considered one of the best in the country for two reasons. First, it has access to a large pool of students who volunteer to participate in the research. The students, who receive extra academic credit, participate in both hands-on activities and computer surveys. The large student pool allows the lab to conduct dozens of different studies every semester, making the marketing department one of the most prolific in the country in terms of research.

“We have so many different participants that it allows us to run a lot of studies and tweak them in different ways,” said marketing assistant professor Adriana Samper. “You don’t have the same flexibility if you have fewer participants.”

The lab also is considered one of the best because the researchers study actual consumer behavior as opposed to hypothetical behavior. For example, the lab has a putting green to study whether top-quality putters and balls improve golfing performance. The lab also has actual store shelves for use in product selection studies.

"We need a lab in which we can look at real behavior,” said Andrea Morales, an associate professor of marketing and faculty director of the research lab. “Lots of studies look at specific aspects of behavior in isolation in a very sterile environment. But when someone is standing in front of a real product display (in the lab), it is closer to how people actually make decisions in stores. We are able to replicate that in our lab.”

Among the more intriguing research studies that have been conducted or are currently underway in the lab:

• Product quality and performance – Does a golfer using a high-quality putter or ball perform better than someone using generic equipment?
• Health care products – Does the cost of a medicine affect how likely people think they are to get sick from the related disease?
• Scarcity – Are shoppers more likely to buy a product if only one is left on the store shelf?
• Exercise behavior – Should people set specific goals for completing exercises and commit to them?
• Group bonding – Do people who experience something disgusting together, such as eating vomit-flavored jelly beans, more easily build common social bonds?

Playing golf and shooting darts

Samper has been studying product use and whether using certain products can improve people's performance or otherwise affect them positively. Her research involves someone using a high-end putter or golf ball to compete with someone using a generic product. She has found that the results differ if the players know which products they are both using.

“People tend to do better if they know they have a better ball or putter than the other person,” Samper said. “In that case, the person with the high-end ball or putter got the boost. But if they didn’t know about the quality of the other person’s equipment, there was no difference in the number of putts made.”

Samper said her research also found that when people choose higher-end products because they believe they will make them perform better, they feel worse if the results aren’t what they expected. She is conducting similar studies using darts because so many people are familiar with golf equipment, or are experienced golfers, which can skew the results. “Darts are more obscure, so people know less about the equipment and have less inherent skill,” she said.

Samper also has studied health care product use, specifically the flu vaccine. She found that people tend to believe that vaccine prices are based on need, not market demand. As a result, they think they are more likely to get the flu when the flu shot is cheaper, rather than a more expensive even if it is covered by insurance.

“They think that the lower the price is, the more it is needed by people and, therefore, higher their risk of disease,” Samper said.

If the shelf is empty, is the product better?

Morales has conducted extensive research on product selection and consumption. One such study involved scarcity?whether consumers consider products to be more desirable if only one is left on the store shelf. The answer: it depends.

“It’s not a simple question,” Morales said. “It depends on whether it is a food or non-food product. It depends on whether the brand is familiar or unfamiliar because people have strong preferences about familiar brands. While it might seem that fewer items remaining on the shelf would evoke increased desire, that isn’t always the case. It could actually be revolting. If consumers encounter a messy shelf with only one food item left, they might think that a lot of people touched it?yuck. So people don’t always flock to the one item left on the shelf. We try to determine which factors affect how consumers select products.”

Morales also has studied product contagion and how people perceive different products that touch each other in a shopping cart. If, for instance, a package of lard touches a package of rice cakes, some shoppers will perceive the rice cakes as containing more fat than they actually do.

W. P. Carey marketing researchers also have studied exercise behavior and self-control, which is possible because the school’s lab is large enough to allow participants some privacy. People tend to act differently when they are alone than when people are watching them, which is crucial to this type of study, Morales said.

The research has shown that when people commit to a set amount of exercise, such as doing a wall sit for one minute, they don’t go beyond that time. They reach their goal and stop. However, if they focus instead on a long-term goal, such as fitting into a pair of skinny jeans, they tend to exercise longer, Morales said. “If you think about how good your legs are going to look, you are more apt to exercise more,” she said.

People who eat disgusting food together…

Also in the works is research on how sharing disgusting activities or food, such as watching a gross movie or eating vomit-flavored jelly beans, can bring people together. “People feel a common bond when they endure an aversive consumption experience together,” Morales said.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean it makes them like each other, she added. “We have found that disgust can actually cause people to pull away from each other,” she said. “Experiencing something together can build social bonds of commonality, but it doesn’t necessarily make people like each other more.”

Marketing research conducted at W. P. Carey usually ends up in Ph.D. dissertations or being published in professional journals, which are read both by academics and marketing practitioners. Ultimately, it can influence everything from the way stores stock their shelves to the way companies market their products to consumers.

“We create the theories that can be used by marketers and policy makers,” Morales said. “We are trying to find a bridge between theory and practical use in the greater community. It’s exciting to know that this type of research is going on all the time here.”

The intensive marketing research conducted in the W. P. Carey lab also has a positive effect on the school, its faculty and its students. The quality of the lab and the research helps attract top faculty and doctoral students, gives undergraduate students experience in a lab setting, and contributes to the school’s national reputation.

“Our lab is unparalleled,” said Samper, who is familiar with research labs at other major institutions, including Duke University and the Wharton School of Business. “As a researcher, this is invaluable to me. It is such a huge asset.”

Bottom Line

• The W. P. Carey Marketing Department’s Behavioral Research Lab is considered one of the best in the country.
• Marketing faculty and Ph.D. students conduct leading-edge research in such areas as product selection and consumption how and why consumers make decisions about what to buy and eat.
• The lab includes such features as store shelves for product displays, allowing researchers to study actual consumer behavior as opposed to hypothetical behavior.
• Marketing researchers create theories that ultimately can influence everything from the way stores stock their shelves to the way companies market their products to consumers.