Although incentives can be a powerful motivator of behavior when they are available, an influential body of research has suggested that rewards can persistently reduce engagement after they end. This research has resulted in widespread skepticism among practitioners and academics alike about...

People making decisions for others often do not choose what their recipients want. Prior research has generally explained such preference mismatches as decision makers mispredicting recipients’ satisfaction. We propose a smile-seeking hypothesis as a distinct cause for these mismatches in the...

Consumers sometimes prefer to repeat their past choices, while other times the same consumer prefers to try something new. We demonstrate that a consumers’ situational future outlook, that is, local optimism or pessimism about an imminent outcome, can systematically affect the sequential...