WENDY LIU. 51 Dudley Lane, #310 Stanford, CA (650) (c e l l) (650) (home)

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1 WENDY LIU The PhD Office 518 Memorial Way 51 Dudley Lane, #310 Stanford, CA (650) (c e l l) (650) (home) EDUCATION, PhD in Marketing, PhD Minor in Psychology, expected June 2006 Stanford University, MS in Management Science and Engineering (2001) Stanford University, BA in Economics (1998) RESEARCH INTERESTS Consumer Judgment and Decision Making Temporal Development of Preferences Effect of Social and Emotional Experiences on Decision Making DISSERTATION Take It or Leave It? Preference Testing Effects in the Consumers Decision to Purchase Committee: Itamar Simonson (Chair), Jennifer Aaker, Baba Shiv This research examines the consumer s decision whether to make a purchase. I propose one psychological process underlying this decision, namely, a metacognitive process I call preference testing. Specifically, when deciding whether to purchase a particular option, people observe whether they have tested the option against alternative options for purchase. Seeing they have considered a competing option but find the focal option to be more attractive creates a cue that the focal option has been tested, leading to a higher likelihood of purchase. In a series of seven studies, I show that features of the consideration set and the decision making procedure can have systematic influences on purchase likelihood through the process of preference testing. In particular, I find that consumers are more likely to purchase (1) when an option is considered next to a competing option that is inferior by a small, rather than large, magnitude (the magnitude of advantage effect); (2) when options are evaluated under a tournament procedure (the tournament effect); and (3) when options are ranked rather than rated (the ranking effect). This research contributes to the theory of decision making, and has important marketing research and managerial implications.

2 RESEARCH UNDER REVIEW Do You Look to the Future or Focus on Today? The Impact of Life Experience on Intertemporal Decisions (with Jennifer Aaker), under revision for 2 nd review at Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes In this research, we investigate the impact of significant life experiences on intertemporal decisions. Four studies focus specifically on the changes caused by an experience of a close other s cancer death; we show that such an experience leads people to make decisions that favor the long-term future over short-term interests (Studies 1 and 2). Underlying this effect appears to be greater salience regarding one s life course, thereby shifting focus away from the present toward the long run in life (Studies 3 and 4). Implications for research on intertemporal decision making and the impact of life events on psychological functions are both discussed. A New Look at Constructed Choice Processes (with Dale Griffin and Uzma Khan), conditionally accepted at Marketing Letters RESEARCH IN PROGRESS Decisions Interrupted: The Effect of Suspending a Decision on Choice, two studies completed While most previous research on choice and decision making has examined the choice problem as a single-phase process, decisions can in fact take more complex forms. In particular, decisions can take place over a substantial period of time, whereby the representation and processing of the problem may change dynamically. In this research, I explore this dynamic dimension of decision making by focusing on the effect of one event, namely, a period of suspension in the decision making process. In addition to its theoretical significance, interruptions and suspensions in decision making also have high external validity in that they occur frequently in the multi-tasking life. I propose that an interruption in the decision making process creates psychological distance towards the decision problem at hand, leading to systematic shifts in preferences. Specifically, two studies show that a suspension in decision making leads to greater preferences for risky options and high quality (high price) options. Next studies seek to provide more evidence that the suspension changes the mental representation of the decision problem, such that the more primary attributes (desirability, core attributes) gain prominence, and to examine whether effects hold for unexpected as well as expected suspensions. When Intuition and Deliberation Converge: Two Routes to the Default Option (with David Gal, Michal Maimaran and Itamar Simonson), two studies completed Past research has provided mixed evidence as to whether the increased choice of the compromise option is obtained when people decide quickly, or when people think for a long time. In this research, we expand this question

3 beyond compromise options to default options in general, where default options are options that are perceived to be the norm and thus easier to justify. We build upon dual models of judgment and decision making whereby decisions can be made either intuitively without much deliberation, or deliberately with significant reasoning. We use response time as an indicator of decision mode, and posit a U- shaped relationship between reaction time and choice of the default option, such that those who decide fast based on intuition as well as those who deliberate for a relatively long time are more likely to choose the default option, compared to those with intermediate response times. We demonstrate this in two studies with compromise choices and risky choices. Next studies will manipulate the default options, as well as manipulate the mode of decision making. Why Do French Women Not Get Fat? (with Jennifer Aaker and Baba Shiv), conducting pilot studies Emotional Goals and Consumption Choices (with Leaf Van Boven), conducting pilot studies Affective Update (with Oded Netzer), conducting pilot studies TEACHING INTERESTS Marketing Management, Consumer Behavior, Marketing Research, International Marketing TEACHING EXPERIENCE Customer-Focused Product Planning, Teaching Assistant (Stanford GSB MBA elective, 2003) How To Make Ideas Stick, Teaching Assistant (Stanford GSB MBA elective, 2002) CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS Preference Testing: How Preference Construction Facilitates Purchase (with Itamar Simonson), Association of Consumer Research European Conference (June 2005, Göteborg, Sweden) Time, Materialism and (Self) Love: Three Perspectives on Consumer Self Regulation, Special Session Chair, Society of Consumer Psychology Conference (February 2005, St Pete s Beach, FL)

4 Live Long and Live Well: Life Experience and Intertemporal Choice (with Jennifer Aaker), Society of Consumer Psychology Conference (February 2005, St Pete s Beach, FL) Take It or Leave It? The Determinants of Preference Conviction (with Itamar Simonson), Association of Consumer Research Conference (October 2004, Portland, OR) HONORS, AWARDS AND GRANTS Gerald Lieberman Fellowship, Stanford University, 2004 American Marketing Association - Sheth Doctoral Consortium Fellow, 2004 Stanford Undergraduate Fellowship, Stanford GSB Center for Electronic Business and Commerce Grant, 2004 Stanford GSB Interdisciplinary Research Grant, SELECTED GRADUATE COURSE WORK Marketing Behavioral Decision Making Consumer Research Cross-Cultural Consumer Research Attitudes and Persuasion Conceptual Foundations of Consumer Research Quantitative Research in Marketing Quantitative Research in Marketing II Multivariate Data Analysis Psychology Memory and Learning Foundations of Cognition Social Psychology Social Influence and Persuasion Mind, Culture, and Society Organizational Behavior: Emotions at Work Emotions The Cultural Shaping of Emotion Sociology & Communications The Psychological Processing of Media Interpersonal Relations Sociology of Culture Introduction to Social Networks Itamar Simonson Jennifer Aaker Jennifer Aaker Christian Wheeler Dale Griffin V. Srinivasan Michaela Draganska Jim Lattin Gordon Bower Joshua Tenenbaum Mark Lepper & Lee Ross Eliot Aronson Hazel Markus & Claude Steele Larissa Tiedens Robert Zajonc Jeanne Tsai Byron Reeves Cecilia Ridgeway Noah Mark Noah Mark

5 REFERENCES Itamar Simonson Sabastian S. Kresge Professor of Marketing (650) Jennifer L. Aaker General Atlantic Professor of Marketing (650) S. Christian Wheeler Associate Professor of Marketing (650)