Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T01:24:26.712Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

23 - A Recipe for Honest Consumer Research

from 3 - Methods for Understanding Consumer Psychology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 March 2023

Cait Lamberton
Affiliation:
Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
Derek D. Rucker
Affiliation:
Kellogg School, Northwestern University, Illinois
Stephen A. Spiller
Affiliation:
Anderson School, University of California, Los Angeles
Get access

Summary

Research in consumer research has rightfully been criticized for p-hacking, hypothesizing after the results are known, and other practices that lead to overestimation of the reliability and replicability of published results. Remediation has centered on more closely approximating the ideal hypothetico-deductive (i.e., confirmatory) method. There has been a push toward forming, and registering, selective hypotheses before running experiments, testing only those hypotheses, and testing each hypothesis with a single, preplanned analysis. We argue that doing better confirmatory experiments is not the (whole) solution and that HARKing and running multiple analyses are not the problem per se. The problem is that we misrepresent exploratory research as confirmatory. Forcing exploratory research into a hypothetico-deductive straitjacket leads to bad hypothesis testing. The straitjacket also leads to bad exploration, crowding out essential, good exploration that deserves space in our journals. We propose a recipe for more honest consumer research, in which authors report exploratory studies meant to generate hypotheses followed by truly confirmatory studies that test those hypotheses.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alba, J. W. (2012). In defense of bumbling. Journal of Consumer Research, 38(6), 981987.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bem, D. J. (1987). Writing the empirical journal article. In Zanna, M., & Darley, J. (Eds.). The Compleat Academic: A Practical Guide for the Beginning Social Scientist (pp. 171201). Random House.Google Scholar
Claesen, A., Gomes, S. L. B. T., Tuerlinckx, F., & Vanpaemel, W. (2019). Preregistration: Comparing dream to reality. Working paper: KU Leuven. PsyArXiv, https://psyarxiv.com/d8wexGoogle Scholar
Forstmeier, W., Wagenmakers, E.-J., & Parker, T. H. (2017). Detecting and avoiding likely false-positive findings – A practical guide. Biological Reviews, 92(4), 19411968.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fuchs, C., Schreier, M., & van Osselaer, S. M. J. (2015). The handmade effect: What’s love got to do with it? Journal of Marketing, 79(2), 98110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ikeda, A., Xu, H., Fuji, N., Zhu, S., & Yamada, Y. (2019). Questionable research practices following pre-registration. Japanese Psychological Review, 62(3), 281295.Google Scholar
Janiszewski, C., & van Osselaer, S. M. J. (2021). The benefits of candidly reporting consumer research. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 31(4), 633646.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Janiszewski, C., & van Osselaer, S. M. J. (2022). Abductive theory construction. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 32(1), 175193.Google Scholar
Kerr, N. L. (1998). HARKing: Hypothesizing after the results are known. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 2(3), 196217.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Klesse, A., Levav, J., & Goukens, C. (2015). The effect of preference expression modality on self-control. Journal of Consumer Research, 42(4), 535550.Google Scholar
LynchJr., J. G., Alba, J. W., Krishna, A., Morwitz, V. G., & Gürhan-Canli, Z. (2012). Knowledge creation in consumer research: Multiple routes, multiple criteria. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 22(4), 473485.Google Scholar
Meyvis, T., & van Osselaer, S. M. J. (2018). Increasing the power of your study by increasing effect size. Journal of Consumer Research, 44(5), 11571173.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Norton, M. I., Mochon, D., & Ariely, D. (2012). The IKEA effect: When labor leads to love. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 22(3), 453460.Google Scholar
Nosek, B. A., & Lakens, D. (2014). A method to increase the credibility of published results. Social Psychology, 45(3), 137141.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pham, M. T. (2013). The seven sins of consumer psychology. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 23(4), 411423.Google Scholar
Pham, M. T., & Tae Oh, T. (2021). Preregistration is neither sufficient nor necessary for good science. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 31(1), 163176.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rohrer, J. M. (2018, February 28). Run all the models! Dealing with data analytic flexibility. Association for Psychological Science Observer, www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/run-all-the-models-dealing-with-data-analytic-flexibilityGoogle Scholar
Simmons, J. P., Nelson, L. D., & Simonsohn, U. (2011). False-positive psychology: Undisclosed flexibility in data collection and analysis allows presenting anything as significant. Psychological Science, 22(11), 13591366.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Simmons, J. P., Nelson, L. D., & Simonsohn, U. (2021). Pre-registration: Why and how. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 31(1), 151162.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simonsohn, U., Nelson, L. D., & Simmons, J. P. (2014). P-curve: A key to the file-drawer. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 143(2), 534547.Google Scholar
Simonsohn, U., Simmons, J. P. & Nelson, L. D. (2020). Specification curve analysis. Nature Human Behavior, 4(11), 12081214.Google Scholar
Sweldens, S., van Osselaer, S. M. J., & Janiszewski, C. (2010). Evaluative conditioning procedures and the resilience of conditioned brand attitudes. Journal of Consumer Research, 37(3), 473489.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thaler, R. (1981). Some empirical evidence on dynamic inconsistency. Economics Letters, 8(3), 201207.Google Scholar
Thompson, C. J., Mick, D. G., van Osselaer, S. M. J., & Huber, J. (in press). Commentaries on “The Case for Qualitative Research.” Journal of Consumer Psychology, https://doi.org/10.1002/jcpy.1299Google Scholar
van Osselaer, S. M. J., & Lim, S. (2019). Research productivity of faculty at 30 leading marketing departments. Marketing Letters, 30(3), 121137.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yamada, Y. (2018). How to crack pre-registration: Toward transparent and open science. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 1831.Google Scholar
Yarkoni, T. (2019, November 22). The generalizability crisis. Working paper: University of Texas-Austin. PsyArXiv, https://psyarxiv.com/jqw35Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×