Color can affect judgment and decision making, and its effects may vary across cultures. Research reported in this article shows that cross-cultural color effects on risk preferences are influenced by personal associations of color-gain/loss. Our research finds a cultural reactance effect, a phenomenon in which people who hold culturally incongruent (vs. cultural mainstream) color associations show a stronger risk preference.
Our decision making is subject to more pervasive observation than ever due to technologies that companies use to understand our offline and online activities — even before we make a purchase. Our research finds that consumers are particularly averse to being observed while they construct their preferences. Consumers feel that their sense of autonomy is threatened and distort their behaviors significantly in order to evade being observed.
Emerging insights on “temporal contagion” explain the unusual contours of limited-edition markets.
Marketers increasingly mold their work around the customer experience. They manufacture rich, immersive interactions, carefully crafted to resonate with consumers. A 1998 Harvard Business Review article on the ‘experience economy’ noted that “experiences are a distinct economic offering.” Quite simply, the argument runs that delightful customer experiences add value and build loyalty. And yet many companies find that objective improvements to products and services, which are central to experience, don’t translate into customers or revenue. The fact is, renovating experience is insufficient, because how we perceive an experience depends deeply on our beliefs and intuitions.
