How often do salespeople obfuscate in response to a customer's question? And when and why does obfuscating help or hurt the prospects of a sale? We investigate these questions in three studies, developing and testing a framework based on theory from persuasion, social cognition, and...

Research shows that scent enhances memory for associated information. Current debate centers around scent's immunity to “retroactive interference,” i.e., reduced memory for earlier-learned information after exposure to additional, subsequently-learned information. This paper demonstrates...

The concept of olfactory imagery is introduced and the conditions under which imagining what a food smells like (referred to here as "smellizing" it) impacts consumer response are explored. Consumer response is measured by: salivation change (studies 1 and 2), actual food consumption (study 3),...

Does the number of funds offered in a defined contribution plan affect how many funds consumers choose to invest in or how they spread dollars across the funds they choose? Across three experiments and the analysis of defined contribution plan data, the authors explore these issues by examining...

Does the number of funds offered in your defined contribution plan affect how many funds you choose to invest in or how you spread dollars across the funds you choose? Across three experiments and the analysis of defined contribution plan data, we explore these issues by examining investors'...

We report the results of a decision simulation conducted among 349 adults whose task was to invest in a hypothetical 401(k) retirement plan. We varied the number of mutual funds offered for investment and observed the effects on the incidence and extent of participation. The results indicate...

Employers have moved away from traditional defined benefit pension plans to defined contribution plans such as 401(k)s. As a result, many individuals are now required to make their own retirement saving and investment decisions, which has raised concerns about their ability and desire to handle...

We conducted an analysis of the 13-item Maximization Scale (Schwartz et al., 2002) with the goal of establishing its factor structure, reliability and validity. We also investigated the psychometric properties of several proposed refined versions of the scale. Four sets of analyses are reported....

The authors examine an important anomaly in investment behavior - namely, the tendency to fall prey to the effects of contextual and presentation biases, which emerge when people make different decisions as a function of how information is presented to them. They also identify an important...