Research has consistently found that goals triggered by environmental cues can influence decision making processes outside of conscious awareness. This lack of awareness led naturally to the presumption that decision makers could not report the activation level of nonconsciously primed goals....

Leader-driven primacy uses initial product information to install a targeted brand as the early leader in a choice between two brands. Biased evaluation of subsequent attributes builds support for the targeted brand, causing the choice itself to be biased. Study 1 finds evidence of this effect...

We propose that when predicting future behavior, consumers selectively (but unwittingly) test the hypothesis that they will behave ideally. This selective hypothesis testing perspective on unrealistic optimism suggests that estimates of future behavior should be similar to those made by...

Previous research in marketing and consumer research has shown that consumers/households often possess multiple ideal points in a given product/service category. In such cases, traditional segmentation and positioning models that estimate a single ideal point per individual/segment may render an...

Various deterministic and latent structure approaches for combining forms of multidimensional scaling and cluster analysis have been previously discussed. A new clusterwise three-way unfolding methodology for the analysis of two-way or three-way metric dominance/preference data is proposed. The...

This paper introduces a technique for improving preference assessment by reducing the influence of context on preferential choices. We propose that a decision maker who is exposed to relevant attribute levels will form spontaneous valuations, which will then insulate the decision maker from the...

Objectives have long been considered a basis for sound decision making. This research examines the ability of decision makers to generate self-relevant objectives for consequential decisions. In three empirical studies, participants consistently omitted nearly half of the objectives that they...