|
Continued from previous page
Bolton's study of identity based judgement builds on earlier
work that investigates "stickiness" in judgement, i.e., the tendency
for judgements to persevere. Her dissertation, for instance, looked
at what happens when managers launching new products base forecasts
on past experience rather than analytic predictions. "Forecasts
were stickier when based on analogies or scenarios rather than analytic
thinking," Bolton says. "This suggests that managers may be
overconfident about a product's success, continuing to invest in it
or in a project when evidence suggests otherwise."
Another study, titled "Consumer Perceptions of Price
(Un)Fairness," found that price perceptions are sticky: consumers
tend to believe that prices are unfair, and reminding them of inflation
and other costs does little to improve their fairness perceptions.
The research, Bolton says, points to a gap between how consumers
and managers think—a gap managers should acknowledge if they
want to change customer attitudes.
Other work has a definite social welfare bent, such as research
that investigated how the marketing of "remedy" products such as
nicotine replacement patches, the now-ubiquitous debt consolidation
loan, and identity theft insurance and software ultimately affect
consumer behavior. The good news, the studies found, was that
for consumers "outside of the problem domain," i.e., non-smokers
or those with little personal debt, "remedy messages" reinforced perceptions
that the behavior is risky and should be avoided. The bad
news? Smokers and over spenders tended to perceive remedy products
as 'get out of jail free cards,' ultimately increasing their problem
behavior. And when it came to identity theft, consumers were more
inclined to take risks, such as sharing personal information when
shopping on websites, if they had purchased identity theft insurance
or software.
"The companies are really careful about how they position their
messages," Bolton says. "But somehow you always get the feeling
in the end that the consumer is walking away thinking 'Gee, this
isn't so risky after all, because of the remedy.' The remedy marketers'
messages undermine the risk-avoidance messages of just-say-no
campaigns, for example. We'd all be better off if we didn't smoke
and get into too much debt, but the remedies suggest to consumers
that maybe we can get away with it. Put this way, it seems that risky
behavior is sticky and hard to change too."
Born and raised in the countryside near Toronto, Bolton was
an officer in the Canadian forces, then worked for five years as a
medical engineer at several Canadian teaching hospitals. She took a
year off and traveled the world before deciding to earn her PhD at
the University of Florida, a school known for its strong marketing
program, where she met professor Reed and the two first began discussing
issues of identity and judgement.
Her work is all about stickiness, but didn't start out that way.
"I was initially very interested in how judgements are formed and
how they change, and I studied this in contexts where judgement
is very important, like new product forecasting and consumer price
perceptions. Along the way, I discovered that some kinds of judgements
seem to be more difficult to change, and I decided to explore
this more."
"Stickiness isn't always a bad thing," Bolton continues.
"Sometimes, it's good to stick to your guns or persevere with an
initial judgment—if it's correct. But stickiness can be bad if it leads
us astray and prevents us from adapting to new information in our
environment. On the flip side of the stickiness coin, my research
also explores ways to change or take the bias out of judgment—for
example, by prompting people to engage in more analytic pro-and-con
reasoning, to generate alternative scenarios and analogies, to
adopt counter-identities. I hope that some of these tools may prove
useful in overcoming the stickiness of an initial judgment and ultimately
help managers and consumers make better decisions."
Nancy Moffitt is a frequent contributor to and former editor of the
Wharton Alumni Magazine.
|
