The University of Chicago Booth School of Business Phone: South Woodlawn Avenue EDUCATION...

Transcription

1 LUXI SHEN The University of Chicago Booth School of Business Phone: South Woodlawn Avenue Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA Homepage: home.uchicago.edu/~luxishen EDUCATION University of Chicago, Booth School of Business, Chicago, USA Ph.D., Behavioral Science, June 2014 (expected) M.B.A., June 2014 (expected) Fudan University, Shanghai, China B.S., Psychology, June 2008 RESEARCH INTERESTS Judgment and Decision Making: Motivation, Uncertainty, and Evaluablity Anomalies in Motivation DISSERTATION Uncertainty Increases Motivation Committee: Ayelet Fishbach (chair), Christopher K. Hsee, Oleg Urminsky, and Devin G. Pope Abstract: Can a reward of an uncertain magnitude be more motivating than a reward of a certain magnitude? I find that people invest more effort, time, and money to qualify for an uncertain reward (e.g., a 50% chance at $100 and a 50% chance at $50) than a certain reward of a higher expected value (e.g., a 100% chance at $100). Uncertain rewards increase motivation because uncertainty increases the excitement in the process. A series of studies, involving real behaviors and real consequences, documented that participants were more motivated when working toward an uncertain (vs. a certain) reward, and that this effect occurred when they focused on the process rather than the outcome of the activity. These findings have theoretical implications for risk preference and motivation theory, and practical implications for designing incentives in various marketing contexts. 1

2 JOURNAL PUBLICATIONS Shen, Luxi and Oleg Urminsky (2013), Making Sense of Nonsense: The Visual Salience of Units Determines Sensitivity to Magnitude, Psychological Science, 24(3), Shen, Luxi, Christopher K. Hsee, Qingsheng Wu, and Claire I. Tsai (2012), Overpredicting and Underprofiting in Pricing Decisions, Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 25, Hsee, Christopher K., Luxi Shen, Shirley Zhang, Jingqiu Chen, and Li Zhang (2012), Fate or Fight: Exploring the Hedonic Costs of Free Competition, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 119, Shen, Luxi, Christopher K. Hsee, Jiao Zhang, and Xianchi Dai (2011), The Art and Science of Guessing, Emotion, 11(6), Hsee, Christopher K., Yang Yang, Naihe Li, and Luxi Shen (2009), Wealth, Warmth and Well-being: Whether Happiness Is Relative or Absolute Depends on Whether It Is about Money, Acquisition, or Consumption, Journal of Marketing Research, 46(3), BOOK CHAPTERS Fishbach, Ayelet and Luxi Shen (forthcoming), The Explicit and Implicit Ways of Overcoming Temptation, in Dual Process Theories in the Social Mind, ed. Jeffrey Sherman, Bertram Gawronski, and Yaacov Trope. MANUSCRIPTS UNDER REVIEW Shen, Luxi and Ayelet Fishbach, The Uniqueness Heuristic: A Preference for Unique Options for a Single Goal, under review at the Journal of Consumer Research. MANUSCRIPTS IN PREPARATION Uncertainty Increases Motivation with Ayelet Fishbach and Christopher K. Hsee. Uncertainty Seeking with Christopher K. Hsee and Ayelet Fishbach. The Power of Specious Numbers with Christopher K. Hsee. Good Luck as a Limited Resource with Jane L. Risen and Eugene M. Caruso. No News Is Good News: Reinforced Risk Seeking with No Feedback with Maferima Touré-Tillery and Ayelet Fishbach. 2

3 CHAIRED CONFERENCE SESSIONS SCP, 2013: Go Get It: Golden Strategies for Goal Pursuit, at the Society for Consumer Psychology Annual Conference, San Antonio, TX, February ACR, 2012: Anomalies in Goal Pursuit, at the Association for Consumer Research Annual North America Conference, Vancouver, BC, Canada, October CONFERENCE TALKS SCP, 2013: The Uniqueness Heuristic with Ayelet Fishbach, at the Society for Consumer Psychology Annual Conference, San Antonio, TX, February ACR, 2012: The Uniqueness Heuristic with Ayelet Fishbach, at the Association for Consumer Research Annual North America Conference, Vancouver, BC, Canada, October SCP (Int l), 2012: The Power of Spurious Numbers with Christopher K. Hsee, at the Society for Consumer Psychology International Conference, Florence, Italy, July SCP, 2012: The Power of Spurious Numbers with Christopher K. Hsee, at the Society for Consumer Psychology Annual Conference, Las Vegas, NV, February SJDM, 2011: The Uniqueness Heuristic with Ayelet Fishbach, at the Society for Judgment and Decision Making Annual Conference, Seattle, WA, November ACR, 2011: Making Sense of Nonsense with Oleg Urminsky, at the Association for Consumer Research Annual North America Conference, St. Louis, MO, October SCP, 2011: Making Sense of Nonsense with Oleg Urminsky, at the Society for Consumer Psychology Annual Conference, Atlanta, GA, February ACR, 2010: Belittling Guesses Can Be Flattering with Christopher K. Hsee, Jiao Zhang, and Xianchi Dai, at the Association for Consumer Research Annual North America Conference, Jacksonville, FL, October SJDM, 2009: Belittling Guesses Can Be Flattering with Christopher K. Hsee, Jiao Zhang, and Xianchi Dai, at the Society for Judgment and Decision Making Annual Conference, Boston, MA, November

4 CONFERENCE POSTERS SJDM, 2012: The Power of Spurious Numbers with Christopher Hsee, at the Society for Judgment and Decision Making Annual Conference, Minneapolis, MN, November SPSP JDM-precon, 2011: Making Sense of Nonsense with Oleg Urminsky, at the Judgment and Decision Making Preconference at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology Annual Conference, San Antonio, TX, January SJDM, 2010: Making Sense of Nonsense with Oleg Urminsky, at the Society for Judgment and Decision Making Annual Conference, St. Louis, MO, November SJDM, 2010: Over-predicting and Under-profiting in Pricing Decisions with Christopher K. Hsee et al., at the Society for Judgment and Decision Making Annual Conference, St. Louis, MO, November SJDM, 2007: Overestimating Consumers Sensitivity to Price Variation with Christopher K. Hsee, at the Society for Judgment and Decision Making Annual Conference, Long Beach, CA, November EDITORIAL SERVICE Ad Hoc Journal Reviewer Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Management Science Ad Hoc Conference Reviewer Association for Consumer Research (ACR) Annual North America Conference Society for Consumer Psychology (SCP) Annual Conference 4

5 TEACHING EXPERIENCE Teaching Assistant Marketing Research for Professor Oleg Urminsky Full-time and evening MBA: 2012 Managerial Decision Making for Professor Christopher Hsee Full-time and evening MBA: 2010, 2011, 2012 Managerial Decision Making and Negotiation for Professor Christopher Hsee Executive MBA: 2010*, 2011*, 2012* * Dean s Performance Award for Exceptional Service to the Executive MBA Program AWARDS Katherine Dusak Miller PhD Fellowship, Chicago Booth, Hillel Einhorn Research Award, Chicago Booth, Travel Award, Judgment and Decision Making Preconference at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology Society (SPSP) Annual Conference, Oscar Mayer Fellowship, Chicago Booth, PhD Fellowship, Chicago Booth,

6 REFERENCES Ayelet Fishbach Jeffrey Breakenridge Keller Professor of Behavioral Science and Marketing University of Chicago Booth School of Business Christopher K. Hsee Theodore O. Yntema Professor of Behavioral Science and Marketing University of Chicago Booth School of Business Oleg Urminsky Associate Professor of Marketing University of Chicago Booth School of Business Devin G. Pope Associate Professor of Behavioral Science and Robert King Steel Faculty Fellow University of Chicago Booth School of Business 6

7 ABTRACTS OF SELECTED RESEARCH PAPERS The Uniqueness Heuristic: A Preference for Unique Options for a Single Goal Luxi Shen and Ayelet Fishbach We document a uniqueness heuristic in consumer choice: a preference for unique choice options when pursuing a single goal. When choosing for a single goal, consumers prefer a unique option that is infrequent within its choice set (e.g., a red apple in a bowl of green apples) or atypical to a category (e.g., an uncommon candy flavor). In addition, consumers choose a unique option when considering either Goal A alone or Goal B alone, but choose an ordinary option when considering both Goals A and B together, even if only one of the goals will be served. Specifically, we document a preference for infrequent options for a single occasion (Study 1), regardless of whether the occasion is special (Study 2). Perceived instrumentality of infrequent options for any single recipient (i.e., goal) underlies the preference for uniqueness (Study 3). Moving to atypical options, we document a preference for an atypical option for a single occasion and a preference for a typical option for one of several occasions (Study 4). Finally, in a field experiment on charitable giving, donors preferred an atypical donation for a single recipient and a typical donation for one of several recipients (Study 5). The Power of Specious Numbers Luxi Shen and Christopher K. Hsee We introduce a minimalistic way to increase individuals efforts in an ongoing task, e.g., working on an exercise machine. We propose and found that showing individuals a number that increases over time can motivate them to work harder on the task, even if the number is not tied to any rewards. We further propose and found that the motivational power of such an increasing number depends neither on its magnitude nor on its speed, but on whether it accelerates or decelerates: an accelerating pattern is more motivating than other patterns. Theoretically this research sheds light on how people respond to changing numbers even if the numbers are normatively meaningless. Practically, the method suggested in this research (i.e., showing people an accelerating number) is a virtually costless way to increase efforts and can be potentially applied to a wide range of tasks. 7

8 Making Sense of Nonsense: The Visual Salience of Units Determines Sensitivity to Magnitude Luxi Shen and Oleg Urminsky Psychological Science (2013) When are people sensitive to the magnitude of numerical information presented in unfamiliar units, such as a price in a foreign currency or a measurement of an unfamiliar product attribute? We propose that people exhibit deliberational blindness, a failure to consider the meaning of even unfamiliar units. When an unfamiliar unit is not salient, people fail to take their lack of knowledge into account, and their judgments reflect sensitivity to the magnitude of the number. However, subtly manipulating the visual salience of the unit (e.g., enlarging its font size relative to the font size of the number) prompts recognition of the unit s unfamiliarity and reduces magnitude sensitivity. In five experiments, we demonstrated this unit salience effect, provided evidence for deliberational blindness, and ruled out alternative explanations, such as nonperception and fluency. These findings have implications for decision making involving numerical information expressed in both unfamiliar units and familiar but poorly calibrated units. Overpredicting and Underprofiting in Pricing Decisions Luxi Shen, Christopher K. Hsee, Qingsheng Wu, and Claire I. Tsai Journal of Behavioral Decision Making (2012) This research examines sellers price-setting behavior and discovers a naturally occurring mismatch between sellers and buyers: Sellers who make a price decision often consider alternative prices and engage in the joint evaluation mode, whereas buyers who make a purchase decision see only the finally set price and are in the single evaluation mode. This mismatch in evaluation modes leads sellers to overpredict buyers price sensitivity and underprice their products. However, these effects apply only to products unfamiliar to buyers and without salient reference prices and can be alleviated if sellers are encouraged to mimic single evaluation when making pricing decisions. These propositions are empirically tested and verified. 8

9 Fate or Fight? Exploring the Hedonic Costs of Competition Christopher K. Hsee, Luxi Shen, Shirley Zhang, Jingqiu Chen, and Li Zhang Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes (2012) As a resource-allocation method, free competition is generally considered more efficient and fairer than binding assignment, yet individuals hedonic experiences in these different resource-allocation conditions are largely ignored. Using a minimalistic experimental simulation procedure, we compared participants hedonic experiences between a freecompetition condition (in which participants could equally and freely compete for the superior resource) and a binding-assignment condition (in which the superior and inferior resources were unequally and irreversibly assigned to different participants). We found that individuals in the binding-assignment condition -- even the disadvantaged ones -- were happier than those in the free-competition condition. We attributed the effect to individuals peace of mind, and supported the peace-of-mind notion by identifying two moderators: ease of social comparison and enjoyability of the inferior resource. In sum, this research highlighted the hedonic aspects of resource allocation methods and identified when accepting one s fate is hedonically better than fighting for the best. The Art and Science of Guessing Luxi Shen, Christopher K. Hsee, Jiao Zhang, and Xianchi Dai Emotion (2011) This research examined how one affectively reacts to others guesses at a value one cares about, such as one s income. Conventional wisdom suggests that people will feel happier upon receiving more favorable guesses (e.g., higher income) than less favorable guesses. We found the opposite pattern. We propose a model to explain the effect and identify its boundaries and report experimental evidence for the model. This research enriches existing literature on self-enhancement and yields practical implications for how to approach guessing in interpersonal communications. 9

10 Wealth, Warmth and Well-being: Whether Happiness Is Relative or Absolute Depends on Whether It Is About Money, Acquisition, or Consumption Christopher K. Hsee, Yang Yang, Naihe Li, and Luxi Shen Journal of Marketing Research (2009) A central question in consumer and happiness research is whether happiness depends on absolute or relative levels of wealth and consumption. To address this question, the authors evaluate a finer level than overall happiness and distinguish among three specific types of happiness: with money, with the acquisition of an item, and with the consumption of an item. They find that happiness with money and with acquisition is relative and that happiness with consumption can be either absolute or relative, depending on whether the consumption is inherently evaluable or not. Including both lab and field data, this research yields implications for how to increase consumer happiness from one generation to the next. 10