Psychology of Selling and Marketing
Why investors hate regret more than losses: Inside a study of irrational money decisions
Researchers tested how four mental biases shape investor decisions and found that fear of regret outranked even fear of losses, reshaping how advisors might think about irrational financial behavior.
Does hating a rival brand make you more loyal to your favorite?
New research on 445 smartphone users finds that hating a rival brand is linked to lower, not higher, intentions to buy your own favorite brand. Love drives loyalty; hate may quietly undermine it.
The hidden cost of chasing quotas in business-to-business sales
A study of 227 business-to-business salespeople finds that a manager's fixation on the bottom line tends to spread to their team, but a salesperson's moral values and a higher share of fixed pay appear to protect customer relationships.
What makes a TikTok ad stick? A study breaks down the sights and sounds that drive engagement
A study of 900 TikTok ads identifies four audiovisual ingredients tied to engagement: casual speech, rhythmic sound, vivid color, and a strong visual focal point, with product type and posting time shifting which ones matter most.
New York’s bottle bill raised water prices by 4%, study finds
A new analysis of New York's 2009 bottle deposit law finds retailers raised prices on covered bottles by 4% while shoppers shifted toward larger, uncovered sizes, cutting category sales by 6%.
Who really buys into pump-and-dump stock scams? A look inside 110,000 investor accounts
A study of 470 pump-and-dump schemes and 110,000 investor accounts reveals who buys into stock scams, how much they lose, and why some keep coming back for more.
Why financially literate young investors are more likely to put their money where their values are
New research finds that social pressure alone doesn't push young investors toward responsible investing. Financial literacy is the missing ingredient that makes peer influence actually translate into action.
How the language of finance shapes its moral reputation
A new experiment finds that jargon-heavy descriptions of financial products make readers view those products as more morally problematic, even when the underlying content is unchanged.
A new study explains why confident salespeople sometimes underperform
A study of 145 salesperson-supervisor pairs finds that a salesperson's self-confidence boosts their ability to adapt only when it sparks genuine motivation, and that this chain reaction works mainly in highly competitive markets.
The words brands use in marketing games can shape how consumers feel about them
New research examines how the language brands use in gamified marketing campaigns may shape consumer attitudes, and why feeling close to a brand could amplify the effect.