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 Experience Quality Affect Product Evaluations,” under review.
Abstract: Consumers often seek product information from peers before making a purchase. Sometimes, this entails learning about several people’s single experiences with a product (e.g., hearing from two people who each went to a restaurant once). Other times, this entails learning about one person’s multiple experiences with a product (e.g., hearing from one person who went to a restaurant twice). The current research (N = 5,731) examines how the source of these reviews–whether from the same or different individuals– interacts with the quality of the experiences described in the reviews to affect product evaluation. First, we find that when the same source provides reviews indicating a decline in quality (e.g., an initial 5-star rating followed by a 3-star rating), consumers evaluate the product less favorably than when different sources provide the identical reviews (e.g., one reviewer giving 5 stars, another giving 3 stars). Second, we show that the effect attenuates when the reviews indicate an improvement in quality (e.g., an initial 3- star rating updated to a 5-star rating), as consumers perceive such quality improvements as less diagnostic than a decline. Third, we demonstrate that when reviews from the same source reflect only low-quality experiences (e.g., two 1- or 2-star ratings), consumers evaluate the product more positively than when the identical ratings are given by different sources. We show that these three patterns arise because the review source and experience quality influence consumers’ attribution of the reviews, affecting diagnosticity, and thus product evaluations.
Mehr, Katie S. and Joshua Lewis, “The Ratings-Diagnosticity Framework: How Product Rating Volume and (Dis)agreement Influence Consumers,” under review.
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)? Six preregistered studies show that diagnosticity plays a key role in consumers’ evaluation. Ratings are more diagnostic when they reflect typical experiences of representative raters. Consumers assume ratings to reflect such typical experiences either when there are many ratings or the ratings agree. But when there are few ratings and they disagree, it is plausible that the ratings instead reflect unusual experiences or unrepresentative raters. In such cases, consumers discount the ratings, and their product beliefs revert to prior expectations. Consequently, when consumers with high expectations focus on only a few raters or reviews, disagreement improves product perceptions (controlling for average rating). However, when consumers focus on many ratings together, rater disagreement (i.e., many 1-star and 5-star ratings) no longer undermines rater diagnosticity nor improves product perceptions.
My work exploring motivation and prosocial behavior
Mehr, Katie S., Jackie Silverman, Marissa A. Sharif, Alixandra Barasch, and Katherine L. Milkman (2025),
“The Motivating Power of Streaks: Increasing Persistence Is As Easy As 1, 2, 3,” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 187, 1-13. (Click here for a copy of this paper)
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 = 4,493), 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 providing increasing rewards; 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.
Select press coverage: University of Alberta Folio, Radio Active on CBC Edmonton, HRD Canada
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.