A Little Something for Me and Maybe for You, too: Promotions that Relieve Guilt

The goal of this research was to investigate whether considering the balances of intrapersonal and interpersonal consumption would reduce consumption guilt. Feelings of guilt discourage many consumers from purchasing products and services they associate primarily with pleasure (Okada 2005), especially when consuming them is considered unhealthy or improper (Prelec and Herrnstein 1991), models or packages that are higher priced because they include unnecessary features (Nowlis and Simonson 1996), and other items whose purchase is perceived as violating social or cultural norms (Lascu 1991; Thaler and Shefrin, 1981). We show that gift-with-purchase promotions designed with careful attention to the nature of the gift and its intended user can reduce guilt by counterbalancing the self-indulgence or creating a favorable comparison with another’s consumption

Prospects and problems in modeling group decisions

This paper summarizes some of the major issues related to group decision modeling. We briefly review the existing work on group choice models in marketing and consumer research. We draw some generalizations about which models work well when and use those generalizations to provide guidelines for future research.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/47074/1/11002_2004_Article_BF00554128.pd

How a Diverse Research Ecosystem Has Generated New Rehabilitation Technologies: Review of NIDILRR’s Rehabilitation Engineering Research Centers

Over 50 million United States citizens (1 in 6 people in the US) have a developmental, acquired, or degenerative disability. The average US citizen can expect to live 20% of his or her life with a disability. Rehabilitation technologies play a major role in improving the quality of life for people with a disability, yet widespread and highly challenging needs remain. Within the US, a major effort aimed at the creation and evaluation of rehabilitation technology has been the Rehabilitation Engineering Research Centers (RERCs) sponsored by the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research. As envisioned at their conception by a panel of the National Academy of Science in 1970, these centers were intended to take a “total approach to rehabilitation”, combining medicine, engineering, and related science, to improve the quality of life of individuals with a disability. Here, we review the scope, achievements, and ongoing projects of an unbiased sample of 19 currently active or recently terminated RERCs. Specifically, for each center, we briefly explain the needs it targets, summarize key historical advances, identify emerging innovations, and consider future directions. Our assessment from this review is that the RERC program indeed involves a multidisciplinary approach, with 36 professional fields involved, although 70% of research and development staff are in engineering fields, 23% in clinical fields, and only 7% in basic science fields; significantly, 11% of the professional staff have a disability related to their research. We observe that the RERC program has substantially diversified the scope of its work since the 1970’s, addressing more types of disabilities using more technologies, and, in particular, often now focusing on information technologies. RERC work also now often views users as integrated into an interdependent society through technologies that both people with and without disabilities co-use (such as the internet, wireless communication, and architecture). In addition, RERC research has evolved to view users as able at improving outcomes through learning, exercise, and plasticity (rather than being static), which can be optimally timed. We provide examples of rehabilitation technology innovation produced by the RERCs that illustrate this increasingly diversifying scope and evolving perspective. We conclude by discussing growth opportunities and possible future directions of the RERC program

Mathematical models of group choice and negotiations

http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/35510/2/b1579393.0001.001.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/35510/1/b1579393.0001.001.tx

A Little Something For Me, and Maybe For You Too: Promotions That Relieve Guilt

EXTENDED ABSTRACT -Depending on the nature and the intended user of an item being considered for purchase, a consumer may experience feelings of guilt that discourage that purchase. The intensity of the guilt is highest when consumers contemplate purchasing hedonic or pleasurable products and services for themselves (vs. someone else), which are more likely than utilitarian or practical purchases to be considered unnecessary. We propose and demonstrate that this guilt can be reduced through the use of promotions that restore balances between hedonic vs. utilitarian and self vs. other consumption. This research builds on work that explores the affective role of promotions