Research
Publications, Manuscripts in the Review Process, and Working Papers
My work exploring how consumers evaluate products and experiences
Mehr, Katie S., and Joseph P. Simmons (2024), “How Does Rating Specific Features of an Experience Alter Consumers’ Overall Evaluation of That Experience?” Journal of Consumer Research, 51(4), 739-760. (Click here for a copy of the paper)
Abstract: How does the way companies elicit ratings from consumers affect the ratings that they receive? In 10 pre- registered experiments, we find that consumers rate subpar experiences more positively overall when they are also asked to rate specific aspects of those experiences (e.g., a restaurant’s food, service, and ambiance). Studies 1-4 established the basic effect across different scenarios and experiences. Study 5 found that the effect is limited to being asked to rate specific features of an experience, rather than providing open-ended comments about those features. Studies 6-9 provided evidence that the effect does not emerge because rating positive aspects of a subpar experience reminds consumers that their experiences had some good features. Rather, it emerges because consumers want to avoid incorporating negative information into both the overall and the attribute ratings. Lastly, study 10 found that asking consumers to rate attributes of a subpar experience reduces the predictive validity of their overall rating. We discuss implications of this work and reconcile it with conflicting findings in the literature.
Select press coverage: The Wall Street Journal, University of Alberta Folio, Radio Active on CBC Edmonton
Park, Alexander B.*, Katie S. Mehr*, and Amirreza Faghihinia, “Who Rates Matters: How Review Source and Star Rating Value Affect Product Evaluations” under review.
Abstract: While many product raters provide a single review, some raters provide multiple reviews after experiencing the product multiple times (e.g., returning to a restaurant) to reflect each experience. Five preregistered studies (N = 6,727) examine how different sources of reviews– specifically, two raters providing separate reviews versus the same rater offering two reviews based on different product experiences–influence consumers’ product evaluation. Results indicate that the source of the reviews matters and importantly, interacts with the star rating value of the reviews to influence consumer product evaluation. First, when the same rater has provided an initial, high rating (e.g., 5 stars) and updated it to a lower rating (e.g., 3 stars), consumers evaluate the product less favorably than if two different raters provide the identical star ratings (e.g., 5 and 3 stars). Second, when either a) both initial and subsequent star ratings are the same (e.g., both 5 stars) or b) the initial rating is low (e.g., 3 stars) and subsequent rating is high (e.g., 5 stars), rating source does not significantly change evaluations. Third, when both star ratings are categorically low (e.g., 1-2 stars), consumers perceive the product more positively when those two ratings come from the same rater.
Mehr, Katie S. and Joshua Lewis, “Are They Representative? Disagreement, Volume, and Credibility Perceptions of Product Ratings,” working paper.
Abstract: How do consumers evaluate products with rater agreement (e.g., two 3-star ratings) or disagreement (e.g., one 1-star and one 5-star rating)? Across eight preregistered studies, this paper finds that credibility plays a key role in consumers’ evaluation. Ratings seem credible when they are unlikely to have come from idiosyncratic, unrepresentative raters. Thus, when either the raters agree––or there are sufficiently many ratings––consumers rely on the ratings to judge the product. But when there are few ratings and they disagree, the ratings seem plausibly unrepresentative of past customers’ experiences, and consumers find them non-credible. Consumers then rely on their (usually high) prior expectations to judge the product. As a result, when there are few ratings with a mediocre average, consumers typically prefer products with rater disagreement to those with rater agreement. However, when there are many ratings, those ratings seem credible regardless of whether they agree; there are too many for a few, unrepresentative raters to shape the distribution. Instead of non-credibility, with many ratings, disagreement suggests the product itself is risky. Then, in line with risk aversion, consumers prefer products whose ratings agree. We show these effects across different products, and in both hypothetical and real choices.
My work exploring motivation and prosocial behavior
Mehr, Katie S., Amanda E. Geiser, Katherine L. Milkman, and Angela L. Duckworth (2020), “Copy
Paste Prompts: A New Nudge to Promote Goal Achievement,” Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, 5(3), 329-334. (Click here for a copy of this paper)
Abstract: Consumers often struggle to achieve self-set, life-improving goals. We introduce a novel, psychologically wise nudge - the copy-paste prompt - that encourages consumers to seek out and mimic a goal-achievement strategy used by an acquaintance. In a large (N = 1,028) preregistered, longitudinal study, participants randomly assigned to receive a copy-paste prompt spent more time exercising the following week than participants assigned to either a quasi-yoked or simple control condition. The benefits of copy-paste prompts are mediated by the usefulness of the adopted exercise strategy, commitment to using it, effort put into finding it, and the frequency of social interaction with people who exercise regularly. These findings suggest that further research on the potential of this virtually costless nudge is warranted.
Mehr, Katie S., Jackie Silverman, Marissa A. Sharif, Alixandra Barasch, and Katherine L. Milkman,
“The Motivating Power of Streaks: Increasing Persistence Is As Easy As 1, 2, 3,” under fourth-round review at Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.
Abstract: Organizations often use financial incentives to boost employees’ commitment to work-relevant goals in an effort to increase persistence and goal achievement (e.g., to improve organizational efficiency or sales). We introduce and test a novel incentive scheme designed to enhance persistence by increasing commitment to the goal of maximizing earnings. Specifically, we test “streak incentives,” or rewards that offer people increasing payouts for completing multiple consecutive work tasks. Across six pre-registered studies (total N = 4,504), we show that, contrary to standard economic models suggesting people will complete more piece-rate work for larger rewards, people actually complete more work when compensated with streak incentives than with larger, stable incentives. We theorize that this occurs because, by encouraging consecutive task completion, streak incentives increase commitment to a goal of maximizing earnings, which in turn increases persistence. We also show that this effect is not driven by the increasing nature of streak incentives; rather, people’s goal commitment and motivation are boosted by the requirement that they complete work tasks consecutively to earn escalating payments. Taken together, our results suggest that designing incentives to encourage streaks of work is a low-cost way to increase goal commitment and therefore persistence in organizations and other contexts.