Teresa M. Pavia

The reflexive relationship between consumer behavior and adaptive coping.

This article explores the reflexive nature of coping and consumer behavior in people who live for months or years with a heightened sense that they may die sometime in the near future. These themes were explored in the context of a diagnosis of breast cancer. The analysis shows that consumption plays a reflexive role in coping with this crisis and the uncertainty it brings. Various coping behaviors lead to consumption, but consumption can also lead to functional coping and act as a catalyst for forward thinking.

An Examination of the Use of Unacceptable Levels in Conjoint Analysis

Unacceptable levels in conjoint analysis are studied using both a full profile method and Sawtooth Softwares Adaptive Conjoint Analysis. The utility of an unacceptable level was set equal to a value that would have been assigned if the unacceptable levels question was not asked, but the respondent treated that level as unacceptable. With ADA, this resulted in a model with (a) superior predictive power relative to a model that eliminates alternatives with unacceptable levels and (b) equivalent predictive power to a compensatory model that does not consider unacceptable levels. Furthermore, in this application, this was accomplished even though the respondent was presented with approximately 30 percent fewer paired comparison observations. Copyright 1992 by the University of Chicago.

Vulnerability and Physical, Cognitive, and Behavioral Impairment Model Extensions and Open Questions

This article begins by considering how current models of vulnerability do not adequately capture situations arising from physical, cognitive and behavioral impairment. Using specific examples and prior studies, three dimensions – ability to remediate, duration, and stability of the underlying challenge – are suggested to enhance our understanding of situations that lead to vulnerability. As these dimensions are explored, four categories are proposed for such situations: Straightforward Resolvable, Complex Resolvable, Straightforward Unresolvable, and Complex, Dynamic Unresolvable. These categories are leveraged in the discussion of the embodied consumer to develop propositions related to the likelihood someone will experience vulnerability in a given situation. We also address how the experienced vulnerability of one person ripples outward to create secondary vulnerability in his/her social network. After using these categories to understand how various impairments may lead to vulnerability, we then focus closely on how specific physical, cognitive and behavioral impairments limit market choice and market flexibility. Normative market expectations regarding the body and its cognitive capacity present fertile ground for exploring consumer agency and how actors relate to one another in the market. Theoretical propositions, as well as broader areas of inquiry, are developed to help identify areas for future research.

Inclusion, exclusion and identity in the consumption of families living with childhood disability

Many households include a family member with a disability. For these households, who consumes together, where they consume and when the consumption occurs often represent a complicated, nuanced set of tradeoffs. Based on in-depth interviews with families that include a child with a disability, we examine how a family makes an inclusion/exclusion decision and how the decision factors into the ongoing project of creating the family that is uniquely theirs. The analysis suggests that the decision-making is closely tied to the nature of the childs disability and that the type of disability is central to the familys narrative regarding its decision. Also, an important driver of the familys inclusion/exclusion decision is the process of self-stigmatization by non-disabled family members. The analysis shows that the implications of who in the family is included in the consumption, and the experience the family has as a result of the inclusion/exclusion decision reflect and reinforce the collective familys identity.

Using marketing models in strategic planning

Abstract Although analytical marketing research can be of substantial value to corporate planners, it often is ineffective because of communications difficulties and related misunderstandings. This article identifies several ways in which the effectiveness of relationships between planners and marketing researchers can be improved.

A Simplified Method of Constrained Parameter Estimation in Conjoint Analysis

Part-worths estimated via regression are replaced by constrained part-worths that are as close to the original part-worths as possible subject to any a priori constraints on the ordering of preferences for the levels of each attribute.This approach produces significant improvements in validations on holdout samples when employed with either ACA or full-profile conjoint analysis. The improvements in full-profile validations are similar to those obtained when constraints are imposed with LINMAP. A smaller gain is achieved with ACA.