Christina Kan. Koelbel 469, 419 UCB, Boulder, CO, (720)

Transcription

1 Christina Kan Koelbel 469, 419 UCB, Boulder, CO, (720) EDUCATION, Ph.D. Marketing Expected: Summer 2015 Advisor: Dr. John G. Lynch Sauder School of Business, University of British Columbia May 2006 Bachelor of Commerce, Marketing and International Business DISSERTATION RESEARCH Dissertation: Two Essays in Coping with Resource Constraint Committee: John Lynch (chair), Philip Fernbach, Laura Kornish, Donald Lichtenstein, Stephen Spiller Resource constraint is a common consumer experience; people often find themselves short on time or money. How do people cope with constraint? My dissertation builds from a working paper (forthcoming at JCR) that suggests that as constraint increases, consumers respond initially by engaging in efficiency planning (stretching resources to avoid explicit opportunity costs), and then by shifting to greater prioritization (considering opportunity costs and choosing between competing priorities). In this paper, I find that people perceive efficiency planning to be more of an accomplishment, to feel less costly, and to involve more cross-resource tradeoffs (e.g., spending time to save money) than priority planning. The first essay in my dissertation further explores these results. I propose that when individuals experience resource constraint, attention is directed toward focal attributes and resources, while non-focal attributes and resources are down-weighted. The decreased weighting of non-focal product attributes increases the perceived similarity between options, leading consumers to feel that they are getting the same product for less money and increasing transaction utility. The decreased weighting of non-focal resources results in a decreased sensitivity to expenditure of non-focal resources, leading cross-resource tradeoffs to feel less costly. I also find that budgeting increases the translation of constraints into more prioritization, and that it decreases dysfunctional behaviors. This is explored in essay two. I propose that budgeting provides a head start in understanding one s priorities, and decreases ambiguity in one s financial situation. Further, budgeting functions as a commitment device prior to consumption and provides feedback that facilitates the timing of corrective action. 1

2 PUBLICATIONS Kan, Christina, Donald R. Lichtenstein, Susan Jung Grant and Chris Janiszewski (2014), Strengthening the Influence of Advertised Reference Prices Through Information Priming, Journal of Consumer Research, 40 (April), Selected Media: Science Daily, Fox Business, Smithsonian.com McGraw, A. Peter, Caleb Warren, and Christina Kan, Humorous Complaining, Forthcoming at the Journal of Consumer Research. Fernbach, Philip M., Christina Kan, and John G. Lynch, Jr., Squeezed: Coping with Constraint Through Efficiency and Prioritization, Forthcoming at the Journal of Consumer Research. Media: Denver Post MANUSCRIPTS IN REVISION Fernandes, Daniel, Lawrence E. Williams, and Christina Kan, Only a Diamond Can Cut a Diamond: The Regulation of Anxiety and Sadness via System Fit, Invited revision at the Journal of Consumer Research. RESEARCH IN PROGRESS Kan, Christina, Donald R. Lichtenstein, and Chris Janiszewski, An Asymmetric Effect of Deals on Demand for Competing Products, Data collection in progress. Kan, Christina, Daniel M. Bartels, and A. Peter McGraw, Maintaining Motivation By Connecting to the Person You Once Were, Working paper. CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS McGraw, A. Peter, Christina Kan, and Caleb Warren. Humorous Complaining. Talk presented at the Association for Consumer Research; Vancouver, BC. Oct Kan, Christina, Caleb Warren, and A. Peter McGraw. Humorous Complaining. Poster presented at the Behavioral Decision Research in Management Conference; Boulder, CO. Jun 2012 Kan, Christina, Caleb Warren, and A. Peter McGraw. Humorous Complaining. Poster presented at the Association for Consumer Research; St. Louis, MO. Oct

3 AWARDS AND HONORS AMA Sheth Doctoral Consortium Fellow, 2012 Graduate School Fellowship, Summer 2013 (Only business school student selected in 2013) Gerald Hart Fellowship,, Summer 2011, 2012 Marketing Science Institute Research Grant for Humorous Consumer Complaining, December 2010, with A. Peter McGraw and Caleb Warren TEACHING EXPERIENCE, Fall Instructor, Buyer Behavior (undergraduate) Instructor Evaluation, Fall 2013: 5.0 / 6.0 Instructor Evaluation, Fall 2012: 5.3 / 6.0 Instructor Evaluation, Fall 2011: 4.3 / 6.0, Spring 2013 Teaching Assistant, Experimental Design (PhD), John Lynch, Spring 2012 Teaching Assistant, Market Intelligence (MBA), John Lynch DOCTORAL COURSEWORK Marketing & Psychology Consumer and Managerial Decision Research Social Science Foundations to Consumer Research Buyer Behavior I (audit, pre-phd program) Buyer Behavior II (audit, pre-phd program) Economic Approaches to Marketing Empirical Models in Marketing Social Cognition Research Methods General Statistics / Data Analysis I General Statistics / Data Analysis II Experimental Design and Analysis Survey Research Methods Applied Multivariate Data Analysis Multi-level Models Research Methods Short Courses Hierarchical Linear Models for Longitudinal Data Event History and Survival Analysis Peter McGraw Margaret Campbell Darren Dahl/Juliet Zhu Darren Dahl/Dale Griffin Chuan He YaCheng Sun Bernadette Park Charles Judd/Gary McClelland Charles Judd/Gary McClelland John Lynch Derek Briggs James Nelson Andy Maul Aline Sayer Paul Allison 3

4 PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS American Marketing Association Association for Consumer Research Society for Consumer Psychology Association for Psychological Science REVIEWING Boulder Summer Conference on Consumer Financial Decision-Making 2014 Trainee Reviewer, Journal of Consumer Research REFERENCES John Lynch Ted Andersen Professor of Free Enterprise P: E: Peter McGraw Associate Professor P: E: Philip Fernbach Assistant Professor P: E: Donald Lichtenstein Professor and Chair P: E: Lawrence Williams Assistant Professor P: E: Chris Janiszewski Russell Berrie Foundation Eminent Scholar Chair Full Professor Warrington College of Business Administration University of Florida P: E: 4

5 INDUSTRY EXPERIENCE Client Services Coordinator / Operations Manager DreamLife Design Marketing Coordinator Onni Group of Companies Intern / Account Coordinator Identica Branding and Design 5

6 APPENDIX: SELECT ABSTRACTS Kan, Christina, Donald R. Lichtenstein, Susan Jung Grant, and Chris Janiszewski (2014), Strengthening the Influence of Advertised Reference Prices Through Information Priming, Journal of Consumer Research, 40 (April), The use of advertised reference price promotions, such as regularly $119.99, sale price $39.99, is ubiquitous in the marketplace. Thirty years of research supports the conclusion that advertised reference prices (e.g., $119.99) exert an influence on consumers responses to offer prices (e.g., $39.99) via their assimilative influence on consumers internal reference prices. The present research provides an enriched account of this assimilation process. Specifically, three studies show that increasing the overlap in information made accessible by the advertised reference price and information made accessible by the offer price increases the influence of the information primed by the advertised reference price on the construction of the internal reference price. Consequently, the offer price is considered more attractive. The identification of this process provides insight into additional variables that moderate the influence of advertised reference prices on downstream deal evaluations. Implications for theory, practice, and public policy are discussed. Fernbach, Philip M., Christina Kan, and John G. Lynch, Jr., Squeezed: Coping with Constraint Through Efficiency and Prioritization, Forthcoming at the Journal of Consumer Research. When consumers perceive that a resource is limited and may be insufficient to accomplish goals, they recruit and enact plans to cope with the shortage. We distinguish two common strategies: Efficiency planning yields savings by stretching the resource whereas priority planning does so by sacrificing less important goals. Using a variety of methods to explore both financial and time planning, we investigate how the two types of planning differ, how they vary with constraint and how they interrelate. Relative to efficiency planning, priority planning is perceived as yielding larger one-times savings, but it feels more costly because it requires tradeoffs within-resource (e.g. money for money) as opposed to cross-resource (e.g. time for money). As constraint increases and greater resource savings are required, prioritization becomes more likely. However, the shift to prioritization is often insufficient, and consumers tend to react to insufficient prioritization dysfunctionally, making a bad situation worse. Budgeting helps consumers behave more adaptively. Budgeters respond to constraint with more priority planning than non-budgeters, and they report fewer dysfunctional behaviors, like overspending and impulsive shopping. McGraw, A. Peter, Caleb Warren, and Christina Kan, Humorous Complaining, Forthcoming at the Journal of Consumer Research. Although complaints document dissatisfaction, some are also humorous. The paper introduces the concept of humorous complaining and draws on the benign violation theory which proposes that humor arises from things that seem simultaneously wrong 6

7 yet okay to examine how being humorous helps and hinders complainers. Six studies show that humorous complaints benefit people who want to warn, entertain, and make a favorable impression on others. Further, in contrast to the belief that humor is beneficial but consistent with the benign violation theory, humor makes complaints seem more positive (by making an expression of dissatisfaction seem okay), but makes praise seem more negative (by making an expression of satisfaction seem wrong in some way). Finally, a benign violation approach also reveals that complaining humorously has costs. Because being humorous suggests that a dissatisfying situation is okay, humorous complaints are less likely to elicit redress or sympathy from others than non-humorous complaints. Fernandes, Daniel, Lawrence E. Williams, and Christina Kan, Only a Diamond Can Cut a Diamond: The Regulation of Anxiety and Sadness via System Fit, Invited revision at the Journal of Consumer Research. In this research, we examine the effects of anxiety and sadness on choice and the regulation of these effects. Feeling anxious or sad increases the selection of unhealthy food options relative to healthy ones. Although sadness and anxiety lead to the same behavioral outcomes, they do so via distinct processes. Anxiety decreases cognitive resources, while sadness activates mood repair thoughts. As a consequence, the effects of sadness and anxiety on indulgence are best regulated by different emotion regulation strategies that tap into the processing level of each effect. Anxiety is most strongly regulated by nonconscious emotion regulation approaches and sadness is most strongly regulated by conscious emotion regulation instructions. Kan, Christina, Daniel M. Bartels, and A. Peter McGraw, Maintaining Motivation By Connecting to the Person You Once Were, Working paper. Maintaining motivation over a prolonged period is an important yet difficult part of goal pursuit. We ask whether viewing oneself as similar to the person who set a goal in motion is important to goal motivation. A longitudinal study of academic motivation examines whether feeling psychologically connected to one s past self perceiving greater overlap between the beliefs, values, and important properties of the past and present self can positively influence goal motivation over time. Conducted over 15 weeks, our study revealed that students who felt greater connection to the past self were more motivated to achieve an academic goal than students who were less connected. Our inquiry contributes to an emerging literature that seeks to understand the interplay of time, identity and goal motivation. 7