Love at First Touch: How Swiping vs. Typing Changes Online Dating Decision-Making

Online dating is one of the fastest-growing industries in the United States. Due to its increasing popularity, various dimensions of online dating have been studied in recent years. However, no research has explored how the type of digital platforms used impacts online dating. In this research, we investigate how the use of different platforms (computers vs. smartphones) can influence customers’ decision-making process in the context of online dating. Through multiple studies, we demonstrate that while using their computers (vs. smartphones) to evaluate dating profiles, customers will prioritize the inner attributes of the person (e.g., personality and compatibility). Moreover, the effect of device type on customers’ online dating decision-making is moderated by customers’ gender. Finally, our results also exhibit a significant moderated mediation effect in that the device used by female participants moderates the indirect effect of inner attributes of dating profiles on customers evaluations through perceived psychological closeness. We further manipulated perceived psychological distance to dating profiles for females which reveals that when females use smartphones to look at dating profiles, the effect of psychological distance on participants\u27 rating is only significant when the profiles have attractive (vs. average) inner attributes. This research contributes to the literature on the use of computers vs. smartphones and the literature on gender differences in online dating. It also has important implications for online dating companies on how to design their websites and mobile applications more suited to customers’ preferences while also considering customers’ gender

Human Chefs Cook More Calories: The Impact of Human (vs. Robotic) Food Producer on Calorie Estimation

This research explores how the production mode (human-made vs. robot-made) has an impact on calorie estimation for vice and virtue food. Across 3 studies, we find that healthy food is inferred to have more calories when it is produced by a robot than by a human whereas the effect is reversed for unhealthy food. Unhealthy food produced by a human is estimated to have more calories than the counterpart

The Sanctions on Environmental Performances: An Assessment of Indonesia and Brazilia Practice

This study aims to offer an overview of the effect of environmental law sanctions, particularly criminal sanctions for restoring environmental functions for firms, on restoring environmental functions in Indonesia and Brazil. Using conceptual techniques, statutory methodologies, and comparative legal approaches with Brazil, this study examines how norms emerge in the law. The research shows that criminal sanctions for environmental function restoration in Indonesia have not had their full intended effect and often lead to confusion over their implementation since they do not specify a means of gauging whether or not their goals have been met. This discovery also suggests that criminal consequences for environmental function restoration have not been utilized to their full potential. This is because criminal sanctions do not offer a mechanism for gauging the degree to which ecological restoration efforts have been fruitful. Brazil, which is more likely to apply administrative sanctions and has a better impact, conducts a wide range of things, including imposing fines, canceling company licenses, and other preventative steps used to anticipate excessive environmental exploitation. Brazil has taken these precautions to avoid the negative effects of environmental overexploitation. The actions are in effect to ensure that environmental exploitation does not reach unsustainable levels

Eliciting taxpayer preferences increases tax compliance

Two experiments show that eliciting taxpayer preferences on government spending—providing taxpayer agency--increases tax compliance. We first create an income and taxation environment in a laboratory setting to test for compliance with a lab tax. Allowing a treatment group to express nonbinding preferences over tax spending priorities, leads to a 16% increase in tax compliance. A followup online study tests this treatment with a simulation of paying US federal taxes. Allowing taxpayers to signal their preferences on the distribution of government spending, results in a 15% reduction in the stated take-up rate of a questionable tax loophole. Providing taxpayer agency recouples tax payments with the public services obtained in return, reduces general anti-tax sentiment, and holds satisfaction with tax payment stable despite increased compliance with tax dues. With tax noncompliance costing the US government $385billion annually, providing taxpayer agency could have meaningful economic impact. At the same time, giving taxpayers a voice may act as a two-way "nudge," transforming tax payment from a passive experience to a channel of communication between taxpayers and government

Will He Buy a Surprise? Gender Differences in the Purchase of Surprise Offerings

In the last few years, retailers have introduced numerous products that intentionally conceal some information from the consumer at the time of decision making. While prior research has identified contexts in which customers are attracted to such offerings in the aggregate, heterogeneity in customer proclivities is not well-understood. In the present paper, we examine the effect of gender on choice of surprise (vs. certain) offerings at the point of purchase. We propose and find that, on average, men are less likely to opt for a surprise offering compared to women. We examine multiple mechanisms that could explain this effect – emotionality, desire for exploration, and desire for control – and find the strongest support for the latter, demonstrating that it is men’s stronger desire for control over the purchase outcome that drives their preference for certain (vs. surprise) offerings. Consequently, contexts or product categories that make it acceptable for men to let go of control attenuate the observed gender difference. We present data from a travel services firm, an online product catalog, and both field and lab studies providing robust support for this theory across multiple product categories and participant populations. This work concludes with a discussion of the potential boundary effects of the observed gender difference, a managerial roadmap that delineates the ways in which marketers can offer surprise offerings more fruitfully to both men and women, and recommendations for future research