Stephen A. Spiller

Spotlights, Floodlights, and the Magic Number Zero: Simple Effects Tests in Moderated Regression

It is common for researchers discovering a significant interaction of a measured variable X with a manipulated variable Z to examine simple effects of Z at different levels of X. These “spotlight” tests are often misunderstood even in the simplest cases, and it appears that consumer researchers are unsure how to extend them to more complex designs. The authors explain the general principles of spotlight tests, show that they rely on familiar regression techniques, and provide a tutorial demonstrating how to apply these tests across an array of experimental designs. Rather than following the common practice of reporting spotlight tests at one standard deviation above and below the mean of X, it is recommended that when X has focal values, researchers should report spotlight tests at those focal values. When X does not have focal values, it is recommended that researchers report ranges of significance using a version of Johnson and Neymans test the authors term a “floodlight.”

A Generalizable Scale of Propensity to Plan: The Long and the Short of Planning for Time and for Money

Planning has pronounced effects on consumer behavior and intertemporal choice. We develop a six-item scale measuring individual differences in propensity to plan that can be adapted to different domains and used to compare planning across domains and time horizons. Adaptations tailored to planning time and money in the short run and long run each show strong evidence of reliability and validity. We find that propensity to plan is moderately domain-specific. Scale measures and actual planning measures show that for time, people plan much more for the short run than the long run; for money, short- and long-run planning differ less. Time and money adaptations of our scale exhibit sharp differences in nomological correlates; short-run and long-run adaptations differ less. Domain-specific adaptations predict frequency of actual planning in their respective domains. A “very long-run” money adaptation predicts FICO credit scores; low planners thus face materially higher cost of credit.

Opportunity Cost Consideration

Normatively, consumers should incorporate opportunity costs into every decision they make, yet behavioral research suggests that consumers consider them rarely, if at all. This research addresses when consumers consider opportunity costs, who considers opportunity costs, which opportunity costs spontaneously spring to mind, and what the consequences of considering opportunity costs are. Perceived constraints cue consumers to consider opportunity costs, and consumers high in propensity to plan consider opportunity costs even when not cued by immediate constraints. The specific alternatives retrieved and the likelihood of retrieval are functions of category structures in memory. For a given resource, some uses are more typical of the category of possible uses and so are more likely to be considered as opportunity costs. Consumers who consider opportunity costs are less likely to buy focal options than those who do not when opportunity costs are appealing, but no less likely when opportunity costs are unappealing.

Too Much of a Good Thing: The Benefits of Implementation Intentions Depend on the Number of Goals

Implementation intentions are specific plans regarding how, when, and where to pursue a goal (Gollwitzer). Forming implementation intentions for a single goal has been shown to facilitate goal achievement, but do such intentions benefit multiple goals? If so, people should form implementation intentions for all their goals, from eating healthily to tidying up. An investigation into this question suggests that the benefits of implemental planning for attaining a single goal do not typically extend to multiple goals. Instead, implemental planning draws attention to the difficulty of executing multiple goals, which undermines commitment to those goals relative to other desirable activities and thereby undermines goal success. Framing the execution of multiple goals as a manageable endeavor, however, reduces the perceived difficulty of multiple goal pursuit and helps consumers accomplish the various tasks they planned for. This research contributes to literature on goal management, goal specificity, the intention-behavior link, and planning.

The Elasticity of Preferences

We explore how preferences for attributes are constructed when people choose between multiattribute options. As found in prior research, we observed that while people make decisions, their preferences for the attributes in question shift to support the emerging choice, thus enabling confident decisions. The novelty of the studies reported here is that participants repeated the same task 6 to 8 weeks later. We found that between tasks, preferences returned to near their original levels, only to shift again to support the second choice, regardless of which choice participants made. Similar patterns were observed in a free-choice task (Study 1) and when the favorableness of options was manipulated (Study 2). It follows that preferences behave in an elastic manner: In the absence of situational pressures, they rest at baseline levels, but during the process of reaching a decision, they morph to support the chosen options. This elasticity appears to facilitate confident decision making in the face of decisional conflict.

Individuals Exhibit the Planning Fallacy for Time But Not for Money

People underestimate how long it takes to complete various projects. Researchers have proposed that this planning fallacy extends to underestimation of money expenditures as well, though empirical work has focused on the planning fallacy for time. In three studies, we find that participants acknowledge smaller, less frequent planning fallacies for money than for time, that participants do not exhibit a planning fallacy for money but do for time, and that this difference between money and time is mediated by resource-specific propensity to plan. Individuals generally plan more for time than for money, and those who plan more for a given resource exhibit a greater planning fallacy. This ironic effect of planning is consistent with the prior literature on “inside” thinking about successful execution of the plan versus “outside” thinking about events external to the plan.

Opportunity cost neglect attenuates the effect of choices on preferences

The idea that choices alter preferences has been widely studied in psychology, yet prior research has focused primarily on choices for which all alternatives were salient at the time of choice. Opportunity costs capture the value of the best forgone alternative and should be considered as part of any decision process, yet people often neglect them. How does the salience of opportunity costs at the time of choice influence subsequent evaluations of chosen and forgone options? In three experiments, we found that there was a larger postchoice spread between evaluations of focal options and opportunity costs when opportunity costs were explicit at the time of choice than when they remained implicit.

Millennial-Style Learning: Search Intensity, Decision Making, and Information Sharing

The growing use of online educational content and related video services has changed the way people access education, share knowledge, and possibly make life decisions. In this paper, we characterize how video content affects individual decision making and willingness to share in the context of a personal financial decision. We find that distracting advertising curtails the time people invest in searching for the best alternative and causes worse decisions. Content geared toward giving better instructions helps to overcome this effect. Such actionable content improves both search quality and financial decisions. However, including such content may decrease sharing unless it is perceived to be sufficiently useful. As such, there is a potential risk to adding actionable content to videos. Our work has important implications for policies guiding financial literacy training, and it also has broader impact for education in the information age. Data are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2016.2689. This ...