Kim P. Corfman

Models of Cooperative Group Decision- Making and Relative Influence: An Experimental Investigation of Family Purchase Decisions*

A conceptual framework is developed that provides a description of group decisionmaking processes in conflict situations. Selected implications of this framework as it applies to family purchase tasks are tested using experimental data provided by couples making sequences of product choice decisions. Models tested include power-related resources and power use-related goals as determinants of relative influence. Results indicate that relative preference intensity and the outcomes of preceding joint decisions consistently made the strongest contributions to relative influence.

Informational Properties of Anxiety and Sadness, and Displaced Coping

Replicating Raghunathan and Pham ( 1999 ), results from two experiments confirm that while anxiety triggers a preference for options that are safer and provide a sense of control, sadness triggers a preference for options that are more rewarding and comforting. Results also indicate that these effects are driven by an affect-as-information process and are most pervasive when the source of anxiety or sadness is not salient. Finally, our results document a previously unrecognized phenomenon we term displaced coping, wherein affective states whose source is salient influence decisions that are seemingly-but not directly-related to the source of these affective states. (c) 2006 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc..

Comparability and comparison levels used in choices among consumer products.

A typology for the classification of products according to their comparability is presented and hypotheses about the levels of comparison used by consumers in making choices among durable goods are...

Sadness as pleasure-seeking prime and anxiety as attentiveness prime: The Different Affect-Different Effect (DADE) model

According to popular interpretations of both the mood repair and affect-as-information theories, affective states of the same valence should have equivalent influences on behavior. We propose, instead, the Different Affect–Different Effect (DADE) model. Building on cognitive and psychoevolutionary theories of affect, we predict that while sadness leads to seeking pleasurable stimuli (consistent with mood repair predictions), anxiety leads to becoming more attentive (consistent with affect-as-information predictions). These predictions are tested using consumption stimuli and, across two experiments, results were consistent with our hypotheses. This research helps resolve apparent discrepancies among our findings and those found in previous mood repair and affect-as-information literatures. Specifically, we suggest that in previous demonstrations of mood repair through seeking pleasurable stimuli, the mood-state in question was most closely related to that of sadness. Likewise, we argue that in previous demonstrations of sadness leading to greater attentiveness, the procedure used to evoke sadness is also likely to have evoked anxiety.

The Prisoner's Dilemma and the Role of Information in Setting Advertising Budgets

Abstract This study examines how advertising budget setting, framed as a prisoners dilemma, is affected by information on the competitive situation and characteristics of the decision maker. Hypotheses are tested using experiments in which subjects set advertising budgets. Results indicate that subjects were generally competitive, but also based their strategy selections on what they expected their opponents to do, what their opponents did last time, whether the competitive relationship was expected to continue, market shares, and whether the subjects profit objectives were short- or long-term. Individual differences also played a part in determining strategy selection.

Understanding managers' strategic decision-making process

This goal of this paper is to establish a research agenda that will lead to a stream of research that closes the gap between actual and normative strategic managerial decision making. We start by distinguishing strategic managerial decision making (choices) from other choices. Next, we propose a conceptual model of how managers make strategic decisions that is consistent with the observed gap between actual and normative decision making. This framework suggests a series of interesting issues, both descriptive and prescriptive in nature, about the strategic decision-making process that define our proposed research agenda.

Thinking About Values in Prospect and Retrospect: Maximizing Experienced Utility

Decision-makers often do not or cannot predict at the time of choice howtheir tastes may change by the time the outcomes are experienced. This paperexplores the implications of making decisions by maximizing experiencedutility ex post rather than ex ante. Focusing on being satisfied with choicein retrospect results in quite different kinds of problems than aprospective orientation that projects ones current preferences into thefuture. We examine a number of ways that people can easily mistake theirreactions to outcomes in the future, and propose a series of hypothesesrelated to how people will be dissatisfied with their choices. Finally, werelate these barriers to good decisions to prescriptive processes thatassist people in making decisions with which they will be happy in thefuture.

Prospects and Problems in Modeling Group Decisions

This paper summarizes some of the major issues related to group decision modeling. We briefly review the existing work on group choice models in marketing and consumer research. We draw some generalizations about which models work well when and use those generalizations to provide guidelines for future research.

The influence of member heterogeneity on dyad judgment: Are two heads better than one?

An experiment is conducted to test the effect of the degree of heterogeneity in individual member judgments on the accuracy of judgments made by dyads. Predictions are made about how (1) homogeneity versus heterogeneity in judgments and (2) task instruction interact to affect a groups judgmental accuracy in average price-estimation tasks. Results indicate that dyads were not more accurate than the average dyad member or than the better member. However, increases in accuracy (relative to the accuracy of the better member of the dyad) occurred more often in dyads whose members were heterogeneous in their prior individual judgments than they did in dyads whose members were more homogeneous. When provided with instructions, heterogeneous dyads improved in accuracy to a greater degree than did homogeneous dyads.

Chapter 3 Mathematical models of group choice and negotiations

Publisher Summary This chapter illustrates the importance and prevalence of group choice in marketing. Few choices are made by individuals truly independent of others and many are explicitly joint. The examples in the chapter are designed to illustrate the hazards of assuming that most choices are independent. Purchase histories can be misinterpreted if they are assumed to belong to a single individual and actually reflect the preferences of multiple family members, buyers, and sellers often negotiate issues that have been assumed to be set by one party and either accepted or rejected by the other, and strategy is more often formulated by formal or informal management teams than by individuals that may result in inaccurate choice predictions for them.