Search

A major aspiration of investors is to better forecast stock performance. Interestingly, emerging ‘neuroforecasting’ research suggests that brain activity associated with anticipatory reward relates to market behavior and population-wide preferences, including stock price dynamics. In this study we extend these findings to professional investors processing comprehensive real-world information on stock investment options while making predictions of long-term stock performance. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we sampled investors’ neural responses to investment cases and assessed whether these responses relate to future performance on the stock market. We find that our sample of investors could not successfully predict future market performance of the investment cases, confirming that stated preferences do not predict the market. Stock metrics of the investment cases were not predictive of future stock performance either. However, as investors processed case information, nucleus accumbens (NAcc) activity was higher for investment cases that ended up overperforming in the market. These findings remained robust, even when controlling for stock metrics and investors’ predictions made in the scanner. Cross-validated prediction analysis indicated that NAcc activity could significantly predict future stock performance out-of-sample above chance. Our findings resonate with recent neuroforecasting studies and suggest that brain activity of professional investors may help in forecasting future stock performance.Significance StatementThe investors’ dream of forecasting the stock market is typically considered to be just that: An unrealistic aspiration. However, we find that forecasting stock performance may in fact not be completely unattainable. Results of our neuroimaging experiment reveal that professional investors fail to accurately predict long-term stock performance. However, while processing complex information pertaining to investment cases, brain activity in a region associated with reward anticipation was increased for stocks that would end up overperforming in the future market. Remarkably, this effect held after controlling for the stock information presented in the investment cases. Our findings add to recent work in ‘neuroforecasting’, demonstrating that market behavior can be forecasted by brain activity of a small sample, here of professional investors.

The precise role of cognitive control in dishonesty has been debated for many years, but now important strides have been made to resolve this debate.Recently developed paradigms that allow for investigating dishonesty on the level of the choice rather than on the level of the individual have substantially improved our understanding of the adaptive role of cognitive control in (dis)honesty.These new paradigms revealed that the role of cognitive control differs across people: for cheaters, it helps them to sometimes be honest, while for those who are generally honest, it allows them to cheat on occasion. Thus, cognitive control is not required for (dis)honesty per se but is required to override one’s moral default to be either honest or to cheat.Individual differences in moral default are driven by balancing motivation for reward and upholding a moral self-image.Dishonesty is ubiquitous and imposes substantial financial and social burdens on society. Intuitively, dishonesty results from a failure of willpower to control selfish behavior. However, recent research suggests that the role of cognitive control in dishonesty is more complex. We review evidence that cognitive control is not needed to be honest or dishonest per se, but that it depends on individual differences in what we call one’s ‘moral default’: for those who are prone to dishonesty, cognitive control indeed aids in being honest, but for those who are already generally honest, cognitive control may help them cheat to occasionally profit from small acts of dishonesty. Thus, the role of cognitive control in (dis)honesty is to override the moral default.

This study provides an overview of the evolution of the body of knowledge, current research streams, potential new domains, and theoretical models of interest for neuromarketing research developed in the field of communication. Neuromarketing is defined here as research applying psychophysiological or neuroscience methods in communication. We particularly implemented a comprehensive analysis of 861 publications using keyword cooccurrence analysis and science mapping tools. The performance analysis shows a strong growth in the number of publications over the last decade, with a slight declining impact in terms of citations after reaching a peak around the turn of the century. Contributions published in journals in business and communication fields (and not psychology or neuroimaging) are those with the largest average citations per year. The evolution diagrams highlight that the use of brain imaging tools to study ad persuasion in virtual environments and social marketing contexts (e.g., health or sustainable communication), as well as the employment of novel metrics (neural synchronization) and deep learning methods to analyze data, constitute fruitful research streams in the application of neuromarketing tools in communication research. These results offer communication scholars an accurate insight on recent scientific research applying neuromarketing that can shape further studies.

Cognitive control is crucially involved in making (dis)honest decisions. However, the precise nature of this role has been hotly debated. Is honesty an intuitive response, or is will power needed to override an intuitive inclination to cheat? A reconciliation of these conflicting views proposes that cognitive control enables dishonest participants to be honest, whereas it allows those who are generally honest to cheat. Thus, cognitive control does not promote (dis)honesty per se; it depends on one's moral default. In the present study, we tested this proposal using electroencephalograms in humans (males and females) in combination with an independent localizer (Stroop task) to mitigate the problem of reverse inference. Our analysis revealed that the neural signature evoked by cognitive control demands in the Stroop task can be used to estimate (dis)honest choices in an independent cheating task, providing converging evidence that cognitive control can indeed help honest participants to cheat, whereas it facilitates honesty for cheaters.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENTDishonesty causes enormous economic losses. To target dishonesty with interventions, a rigorous understanding of the underlying cognitive mechanisms is required. A recent study found that cognitive control enables honest participants to cheat, whereas it helps cheaters to be honest. However, it is evident that a single study does not suffice as support for a novel hypothesis. Therefore, we tested the replicability of this finding using a different modality (EEG instead of fMRI) together with an independent localizer task to avoid reverse inference. We find that the same neural signature evoked by cognitive control demands in the localizer task can be used to estimate (dis)honesty in an independent cheating task, establishing converging evidence that the effect of cognitive control indeed depends on a person's moral default.

The processing of rewards and losses are crucial for learning to adapt to an ever changing environment. Dysregulated reward processes are prevalent in mental health and substance use disorders. While many human brain measures related to reward have been based on activity in individual brain regions, recent studies indicate that many affective and motivational processes are encoded in distributed systems that span multiple regions. Consequently, decoding these processes using individual regions yields small effect sizes and limited reliability, whereas predictive models based on distributed patterns yield much larger effect sizes and excellent reliability. To create such a predictive model for the processes of rewards and losses, from now on termed the Brain Reward Signature (BRS), we trained a LASSO-PCR model to predict the signed magnitude of monetary rewards and losses on the Monetary Incentive Delay task (MID; N = 39) and achieved a high significant decoding performance (92% for decoding rewards versus losses). We subsequently demonstrate the generalizability of our signature on another version of the MID in a different sample (92% decoding accuracy for rewards versus losses; N = 12) and on a gambling task from a large sample (73% decoding accuracy for rewards versus losses, N = 1084) from the Human Connectome Project. Lastly, we also provided preliminary evidence for specificity to rewarding outcomes by illustrating that the signature map generates estimates that significantly differ between rewarding and negative feedback (92% decoding accuracy) but do not differ for conditions that differ in disgust rather than reward in a novel Disgust-Delay Task (N = 39). We thus created a BRS that can be used to make specific, generalizable and reproducible predictions about brain responses to rewards and losses.

Measurement of the determinants of socially undesirable behaviors, such as dishonesty, are complicated and obscured by social desirability biases. To circumvent these biases, we used connectome-based predictive modelling (CPM) on resting state functional connectivity patterns in combination with a novel task which inconspicuously measures voluntary cheating to gain access to the neurocognitive determinants of (dis)honesty. Specifically, we investigated whether task-independent neural patterns within the brain at rest could be used to predict a propensity for (dis)honest behaviour. Our analyses revealed that functional connectivity, especially between brain networks linked to self-referential thinking (vmPFC, temporal poles, and PCC) and reward processing (caudate nucleus), reliably correlates, in an independent sample, with participants’ propensity to cheat. Participants who cheated the most also scored highest on several self-report measures of impulsivity which underscores the generalizability of our results. Notably, when comparing neural and self-report measures, the neural measures were found to be more important in predicting cheating propensity.

Contains fulltext : 201325.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Closed access) Source characteristics are a key determinant of preferences and choice in the interpersonal influence process. Extant literature documents the positive impact of similarity between oneself and an opinion provider on advice taking, but much less is known about how dissimilarity affects choice. While earlier research assumed that people ignore or discount the opinions of dissimilar others, we argue that dissimilarity can lead to preference and choice contrast. We posit that perceptions of dissimilarity trigger a more general hypothesis of dissimilarity. As a result, a preference contrast is observed, driven by people's tendency to interpret the provided opinion in a way that confirms their dissimilarity hypothesis. Five studies confirm the emergence of preference and choice contrast due to dissimilarity, and support the proposed mechanism. We discuss the relevance of proper baseline conditions for (dis)similarity research, as well as implications for research within the domain of interpersonal influence. 12 p.

There is a long-standing debate regarding the cognitive nature of (dis)honesty: Is honesty an automatic response or does it require willpower in the form of cognitive control in order to override an automatic dishonest response. In a recent study (Speer et al., 2020), we proposed a reconciliation of these opposing views by showing that activity in areas associated with cognitive control, particularly the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), helped dishonest participants to be honest, whereas it enabled cheating for honest participants. These findings suggest that cognitive control is not needed to be honest or dishonest per se but that it depends on an individual’s moral default. However, while our findings provided insights into the role of cognitive control in overriding a moral default, they did not reveal whether overriding honest default behavior (non-habitual dishonesty) is the same as overriding dishonest default behavior (non-habitual honesty) at the neural level. This speaks to the question as to whether cognitive control mechanisms are domain-general or may be context specific. To address this, we applied multivariate pattern analysis to compare neural patterns of non-habitual honesty to non-habitual dishonesty. We found that these choices are differently encoded in the IFG, suggesting that engaging cognitive control to follow the norm (that cheating is wrong) fundamentally differs from applying control to violate this norm.

Abundant research has established the important role of ad-evoked feelings on consumers' reaction to advertising. However, measurement of feelings through explicit self-report is not without its limitations. The current study adds to previous work by showing a sophisticated way of first estimating how arousal is represented in the brain via an independent task (using EEG), and thereafter using this representation to measure arousal in response to advertisements. We then estimate the relationship between the identified process (arousal) and external measures of ad effectiveness (as measured by notability and attitude toward the ad). The results show that the neural measure of arousal is positively associated with notability of ads in the population at large, but may be negatively associated with attitude toward these ads. The implications for the application of EEG in ad testing and for understanding the relationship between arousal and effective advertising are discussed.

Many of the economically most costly forms of unethical behavior such as tax evasion, stock manipulations or movie and music piracy relate to the moral domain of (dis)honesty, in which unethical behavior is not targeted at a clearly identifiable victim. While large individual differences in (dis)honesty are evident, the neurocognitive determinants of this heterogeneity remain elusive. We combined connectome-based predictive modelling (CPM) on resting state functional connectivity patterns with a novel experimental task, which measures spontaneous and voluntary cheating inconspicuously, to investigate how these task-independent neural patterns shape our (dis)honest choices. Our analyses revealed that functional connectivity in a network of regions, including the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the inferior frontal gyrus, commonly linked to cognitive control processes, but also the medial prefrontal cortex and temporal pole, associated with self-referential thinking, and the caudate nucleus, linked to reward processing, are of central importance in promoting honesty. In a leave-one-out cross-validation analysis, we show that this neural model can reliably and accurately predict how much an unseen participant will cheat on our task. Participants who cheated the most, also scored highest on several impulsivity measures, which highlights the ecological validity of our task. Notably, when comparing neural and self-report measures, the neural measures were found to be significantly more important in predicting cheating. Our findings suggest that a person’s dis(honest) decisions depend on how well the self-referential thinking network is functionally connected to the control and reward networks.

Warehouse operations are vital for the success of a supply chain. This paper explores fit among warehouse management structure and the context in which the warehouse operates as an important driver of warehouse performance. Warehouse management structure has been operationalised as the extensiveness by which warehouse operations are planned and controlled, and the complexity of the decision rules used for optimisation of the operations. Warehouse performance is measured using data envelopment analysis (DEA). Hypotheses are developed and tested in a survey study among 111 distribution warehouses in the Netherlands and Belgium. Our results show that indeed warehouse management structure should be adapted to context. In order to obtain high warehouse performance more complex warehouse tasks require more and more complex decision rules, and warehouses with more unpredictable demand require fewer tactical plans. These results can help warehouse managers to structure their warehouse management contingent on the context in which the warehouse operates.

Every day, we are faced with the conflict between the temptation to cheat for financial gains and maintaining a positive image of ourselves as being a ‘good person’. While it has been proposed that cognitive control is needed to mediate this conflict between reward and our moral self-image, the exact role of cognitive control in (dis)honesty remains elusive. Here, we identify this role, by investigating the neural mechanism underlying cheating. We developed a novel task which allows for inconspicuously measuring spontaneous cheating on a trial-by-trial basis in the MRI scanner. We found that activity in the Nucleus Accumbens promotes cheating, particularly for individuals who cheat a lot, while a network consisting of Posterior Cingulate Cortex, Temporoparietal Junction and Medial Prefrontal Cortex promotes honesty, particularly in individuals who are generally honest. Finally, activity in areas associated with Cognitive Control (Anterior Cingulate Cortex and Inferior Frontal Gyrus) helped dishonest participants to be honest, whereas it promoted cheating for honest participants. Thus, our results suggest that cognitive control is not needed to be honest or dishonest per se, but that it depends on an individual’s moral default.

Contains fulltext : 219546.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access) This study explored the feasibility of using shared neural patterns from brief affective episodes (viewing affective pictures) to decode extended, dynamic affective sequences in a naturalistic experience (watching movie-trailers). Twenty-eight participants viewed pictures from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) and, in a separate session, watched various movie-trailers. We first located voxels at bilateral occipital cortex (LOC) responsive to affective picture categories by GLM analysis, then performed between-subject hyperalignment on the LOC voxels based on their responses during movie-trailer watching. After hyperalignment, we trained between-subject machine learning classifiers on the affective pictures, and used the classifiers to decode affective states of an out-of-sample participant both during picture viewing and during movie-trailer watching. Within participants, neural classifiers identified valence and arousal categories of pictures, and tracked self-reported valence and arousal during video watching. In aggregate, neural classifiers produced valence and arousal time series that tracked the dynamic ratings of the movie-trailers obtained from a separate sample. Our findings provide further support for the possibility of using pre-trained neural representations to decode dynamic affective responses during a naturalistic experience. 12 p.

International audience; Neuromarketing’ designates both a developing industry and an academic research field. This study documents the emergence of neuromarketing through the first mention of the term in traditional and new media until the stabilization of the field. Our main interest is to establish whether neuromarketing developed separately as an academic field and as an industry (with knowledge transfer from the former to the latter), or whether it was an act of co-creation. Based on a corpus gathered from a systematic search on the Web, we trace the multiple forms of engagement between academic and commercial communities, echoed but also shaped by reports in traditional and new media. We find that neuromarketing developed an identity through a set of practices and a series of debates which involved intertwined communities of academic researchers and practitioners. This result offers an alternative to the narrative of ‘knowledge transfer’ between academia and the industry and offers a contribution on how to use new kinds of digital sources in business history.

Despite the large body of research that has investigated the effect of ad appeals of television advertisements on consumers' internal responses and behavior, our understanding of how different ad appeals are processed remains limited. Complementing existing literature with novel insights from neuroimaging techniques can be valuable, providing more immediate insights into implicit mental processes. The present study explores the neural responses to functional and experiential executional elements in television advertisements by using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Comparing a unique set of different commercials for the same brand enabled examination of the influence of differences in ad appeal on brain responses and subsequent advertisement effectiveness. Findings show that functional and experiential executional elements engage different brain areas, associated with lower- and higher-level cognitive processes, and that the extent to which these particular brain areas are activated is associated with higher ad effectiveness.

Contains fulltext : 203498.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access) The extent to which brains respond similarly to a specific stimulus, across a small group of individuals, has been previously found to predict out-of-sample aggregate preference for that stimulus. However, the location in the brain where neural similarity predicts out-of-sample preference remains unclear. In this article, we attempt to identify the neural substrates in three functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies. Two fMRI studies (N = 40 and 20), using previously broadcasted TV commercials, show that spatiotemporal neural similarity at temporal lobe and cerebellum predict out-of-sample preference and recall. A follow-up fMRI study (N = 28) with previously unseen movie-trailers replicated the predictive effect of neural similarity. Moreover, neural similarity provided unique information on out-of-sample preference above and beyond in-sample preference. Overall, the findings suggest that neural similarity at temporal lobe and cerebellum – traditionally associated with sensory integration and emotional processing – may reflect the level of engagement with video stimuli.

Although many studies revealed that emotions and their dynamics have a profound impact on cognition and behavior, it has proven difficult to unobtrusively measure emotions. In the current study, our objective was to distinguish different experiences elicited by audiovisual stimuli designed to evoke particularly happy, sad, fear and disgust emotions, using electroencephalography (EEG) and a multivariate approach. We show that we were able to classify these emotional experiences well above chance level. Importantly, we retained all the information (frequency and topography) present in the data. This allowed us to interpret the differences between emotional experiences in terms of component psychological processes such as attention and arousal that are known to be associated with the observed activation patterns. In addition, we illustrate how this method of classifying emotional experiences can be applied on a moment-by-moment basis in order to track dynamic changes in the emotional response over time. The application of our approach may be of value in many contexts in which the experience of a given stimulus or situation changes over time, ranging from clinical to consumption settings.

Item does not contain fulltext The present experiment tested the causal impact of testosterone on human competitive decision-making. According to prevailing theories about testosterone's role in social behavior, testosterone should directly boost competitive decisions. But recent correlational evidence suggests that testosterone's behavioral effects may depend on specific aspects of the context and person relevant to social status (win-lose context and trait dominance). We tested the causal influence of testosterone on competitive decisions by combining hormone administration with measures of trait dominance and a newly developed social competition task in which the victory-defeat context was experimentally manipulated, in a sample of 54 female participants. Consistent with the hypothesis that testosterone has context- and person-dependent effects on competitive behavior, testosterone increased competitive decisions after victory only among high-dominant individuals but testosterone decreased competitive decisions after defeat across all participants. These results suggest that testosterone flexibly modulates competitive decision-making depending on prior social experience and dominance motivation in the service of enhancing social status.

People are particularly sensitive to injustice. Accordingly, deeper knowledge regarding the processes that underlie the perception of injustice, and the subsequent decisions to either punish transgressors or compensate victims, is of important social value. By combining a novel decision-making paradigm with functional neuroimaging, we identified specific brain networks that are involved with both the perception of, and response to, social injustice, with reward-related regions preferentially involved in punishment compared with compensation. Developing a computational model of punishment allowed for disentangling the neural mechanisms and psychological motives underlying decisions of whether to punish and, subsequently, of how severely to punish. Results show that the neural mechanisms underlying punishment differ depending on whether one is directly affected by the injustice, or whether one is a third-party observer of a violation occurring to another. Specifically, the anterior insula was involved in decisions to punish following harm, whereas, in third-party scenarios, we found amygdala activity associated with punishment severity. Additionally, we used a pharmacological intervention using oxytocin, and found that oxytocin influenced participants' fairness expectations, and in particular enhanced the frequency of low punishments. Together, these results not only provide more insight into the fundamental brain mechanisms underlying punishment and compensation, but also illustrate the importance of taking an explorative, multimethod approach when unraveling the complex components of everyday decision-making.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENTThe perception of injustice is a fundamental precursor to many disagreements, from small struggles at the dinner table to wasteful conflict between cultures and countries. Despite its clear importance, relatively little is known about how the brain processes these violations. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, we combine methods from neuroscience, psychology, and economics to explore the neurobiological mechanisms involved in both the perception of injustice as well as the punishment and compensation decisions that follow. Using a novel behavioral paradigm, we identified specific brain networks, developed a computational model of punishment, and found that administrating the neuropeptide oxytocin increases the administration of low punishments of norm violations in particular. Results provide valuable insights into the fundamental neurobiological mechanisms underlying social injustice.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate how warehouse management, understood as a cluster of planning and control decisions and procedures, is organized and driven by task complexity (TC) and market dynamics (MD).Design/methodology/approachA multi‐variable conceptual model is developed based on the literature and tested among 215 warehouses using a survey.FindingsThe results suggest that TC and MD are the main drivers of warehouse management, measured by planning extensiveness (PE), decision rules complexity, and control sophistication. Differences between production and distribution warehouses are found with respect to the relationship between assortment changes and PE. Furthermore, TC appears to be a main driver of the specificity of the warehouse management (information) system (WMS).Research limitations/implicationsThis paper is based on 215 warehouses in The Netherlands and Flanders (Belgium); future research may test the model on a different sample. More research should be conducted to further validate the measures of the core dimensions of warehouse management.Practical implicationsDifferent levels of TC and MD characterize warehouses. Such a characterization is a first step in determining generic warehouse functionalities and helping managers to decide on the best software for their warehouse operations.Originality/valueThe paper defines the core dimensions of warehouse management, makes them measurable, tests them and assesses how these drivers impact specificity of WMS. The paper shows that PE in production warehouses is driven by different variables than in distribution centers.

Research on language abstraction has primarily been focused on the language that is used to describe (intergroup) behaviors, while limited attention has been given to communication about objects. This article aims to fill this gap and studies biases in language abstraction in the descriptions of interactions with objects. Study 1 demonstrated a linguistic expectancy bias in this setting: People described expectancy-congruent experiences with objects more abstractly than incongruent experiences. Study 2 examined a mediator, and provides data suggesting that expectancy-congruent (vs. incongruent) experiences were more likely attributed to the object (vs. the situation/user), and this causal inference mediated the effect of expectancy-(in)congruence on language use. Study 3 examined the impact of communication goals, and found that the goal to convince a receiver of the high quality of a product (vs. no persuasion goal) led to more abstract descriptions of positive experiences with objects and to more concrete language for negative experiences.

This article proposes that neuroscience can shape future theory and models in consumer decision making and suggests ways that neuroscience methods can be used in decision-making research. The article argues that neuroscience facilitates better theory development and empirical testing by considering the physiological context and the role of constructs such as hunger, stress, and social influence on consumer choice and preferences. Neuroscience can also provide new explanations for different sources of heterogeneity within and across populations, suggest novel hypotheses with respect to choices and underlying mechanisms that accord with an understanding of biology, and allow for the use of neural data to make better predictions about consumer behavior. The article suggests that despite some challenges associated with incorporating neuroscience into research on consumer decision processes, the use of neuroscience paradigms will produce a deeper understanding of decision making that can lead to the development of more effective decision aids and interventions. © 2012 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.

This research aims to study the effect of a carefully selected congruent and simple ambient scent in a real-world supermarket setting. Specifically, we study how different levels of scent intensity affect shopper's mood, behavior and evaluations in a space with naturally occurring scents. Using electrostatic aroma diffusers, we apply a carefully selected melon scent at three different intensity levels in a large store of a major supermarket operator. The results show that, in the condition with high scent intensity, the scent has a significant positive effect on shopper’s store evaluations, time spent in store and store level sales. We provide evidence that mood is, as expected, a strong mediator of the effect of scent on positive evaluations. We also find that scent, used as a mood inducer, is especially effective for hurried shoppers. Interestingly, in terms of general mood inducement, we find that shoppers tend to overestimate the amount of time spent shopping at lower intensity levels and underestimate time spent shopping at high scent intensity levels. Implications for marketing and store management are discussed.

This study validates Rossiter and Percy's (1987) hook theory of presenter characteristics, for celebrity presenters. Firstly, by employing a product-alone control group, the study demonstrates that some celebrity-product pairings have a good fit and can persuade whereas others have no effect or represent such an obviously poor fit that they dissuade consumers from buying the product. Secondly, the study suggests that good fit, and thus persuasion, for celebrity presenters, depends on the audience immediately perceiving that the celebrity is an expert user of the product (for all products) and is a positive role model (for high-risk products). On the other hand, the study reveals that failure of any of four of the celebrity's characteristics causes dissuasion by celebrity presenters; these failures include lack of high visibility (i.e., not widely well-known), perceived inexpertness as a user of the product (a strong negative hook that is probably the reason for the poor fit perception), lack of trust (though this is a weak dissuasive factor for celebrities) and, paradoxically, the celebrity being too likable (for low-risk products). Thirdly, the hook(s) conceptualization of presenter characteristics is superior to the conventional linear conceptualization in that a hook-scored regression model accounted for the same amount of variance in persuasion–dissuasion as did the linear model (adjusted R 2 s of 41% vs. 43%) despite the hook model's handicap of at least one-third lower possible R 2 due to trichotomization of 7-point ratings into positive, neutral, and negative hooks.

Item does not contain fulltext People often conform to others with whom they associate. Surprisingly, however, little is known about the possible hormonal mechanisms that may underlie in-group conformity. Here, we examined whether conformity toward one's in-group is altered by oxytocin, a neuropeptide often implicated in social behavior. After administration of either oxytocin or a placebo, participants were asked to provide attractiveness ratings of unfamiliar visual stimuli. While viewing each stimulus, participants were shown ratings of that stimulus provided by both in-group and out-group members. Results demonstrated that on trials in which the ratings of the in-group and out-group were incongruent, the ratings of participants given oxytocin conformed to the ratings of their in-group but not of their out-group. Participants given a placebo did not show this in-group bias. These findings indicate that administration of oxytocin can influence subjective preferences, and they support the view that oxytocin's effects on social behavior are context dependent. 5 p.

Celebrity endorsement is omnipresent. However, despite its prevalence, it is unclear why celebrities are more persuasive than (equally attractive) non-famous endorsers. The present study investigates which processes underlie the effect of fame on product memory and purchase intention by the use of functional magnetic resonance imaging methods. We find an increase in activity in the medial orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC) underlying the processing of celebrity-product pairings. This finding suggests that the effectiveness of celebrities stems from a transfer of positive affect from celebrity to product. Additional neuroimaging results indicate that this positive affect is elicited by the spontaneous retrieval of explicit memories associated with the celebrity endorser. Also, we demonstrate that neither the activation of implicit memories of earlier exposures nor an increase in attentional processing is essential for a celebrity advertisement to be effective. By explaining the neural mechanism of fame, our results illustrate how neuroscience may contribute to a better understanding of consumer behavior.

The present research examines language abstraction as a method to systematically analyse word of mouth. First, we build on previous research on the systematic bias in the use of language abstraction in communication about human behavior, by revealing biased language use about objects. The first studies demonstrate that a negative word of mouth experience is described more abstractly by a consumer with an unfavorable (vs. favorable) product opinion. Second, we reveal how language abstraction influences a receiver¿s inferences about the product attitude of the consumer who is sending word of mouth, and how language abstraction influences the impact of word of mouth on the receiving consumer. Third, we extend previous research by ruling out the valence of the language as a possible alternative explanation for the use of abstract versus concrete language, and for the impact of this language on receivers.

Contains fulltext : 77104_pub.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Closed access) Contains fulltext : 77104_pre.pdf (Author’s version preprint ) (Open Access) In word-of-mouth marketing, marketers often provide financial rewards for referrals. These rewards introduce a financial motive into an interaction among friends or acquaintances, which may harm the perceived sincerity of the referring customer. We show that this negative effect can be mitigated by disclosing the presence of financial motives, but also by the activation of a market pricing (‘sales’) relationship norm. However, such a norm has a negative effect on compliance with the referral. The effects of relationship norms are strongest when cognitive capacity is impaired, which suggests that the influence of relationship norms occurs outside the awareness of consumers. Conversely, the impact of disclosures is stronger when consumers have full cognitive capacity available. 10 p.

Canonical models of rational choice fail to account for many forms of motivated adaptive behaviors, specifically in domains such as food selections. To describe behavior in such emotion- and reward-laden scenarios, researchers have proposed dual-process models that posit competition between a slower, analytic faculty and a fast, impulsive, emotional faculty. In this paper, we examine the assumptions and limitations of these approaches to modeling motivated choice. We argue that models of this form, though intuitively attractive, are biologically implausible. We describe an approach to motivated choice based on sequential sampling process models that can form a solid theoretical bridge between what is known about brain function and environmental influences upon choice. We further suggest that the complex and dynamic relationships between biology, behavior, and environment affecting choice at the individual level must inform aggregate models of consumer choice. Models using agent-based complex systems may further provide a principled way to relate individual and aggregate consumer choices to the aggregate choices made by businesses and social institutions. We coin the term "brain-to-society systems" choice model for this broad integrative approach.

Previous research suggests that people form impressions of others based on their facial appearance in a very fast and automatic manner, and this especially holds for trustworthiness. However, as yet, this process has been investigated mostly in a social vacuum without taking interpersonal factors into account. In the current research, we demonstrate that both the relationship context that is salient at the moment of an interaction and the performed behavior are important moderators of the impact of facial cues on impression formation. It is shown that, when the behavior of a person we encounter is ambiguous in terms of trustworthiness, the relationship most salient at that moment is of crucial impact on whether and how we incorporate facial cues communicating (un)trustworthiness in our final evaluations. Ironically, this can result in less positive evaluations of interaction partners with a trustworthy face compared to interaction partners with an untrustworthy face. Implications for research on facial characteristics, trust, and relationship theories are discussed.

Human behavior is affected by various forms of persuasion. The general persuasive effect of high expertise of the communicator, often referred to as "expert power", is well documented. We found that a single exposure to a combination of an expert and an object leads to a long-lasting positive effect on memory for and attitude towards the object. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we probed the neural processes predicting these behavioral effects. Expert context was associated with distributed left-lateralized brain activity in prefrontal and temporal cortices related to active semantic elaboration. Furthermore, experts enhanced subsequent memory effects in the medial temporal lobe (i.e. in hippocampus and parahippocampal gyrus) involved in memory formation. Experts also affected subsequent attitude effects in the caudate nucleus involved in trustful behavior, reward processing and learning. These results may suggest that the persuasive effect of experts is mediated by modulation of caudate activity resulting in a re-evaluation of the object in terms of its perceived value. Results extend our view of the functional role of the dorsal striatum in social interaction and enable us to make the first steps toward a neuroscientific model of persuasion.

One of the pressing issues in marketing is whether loyalty programs really enhance behavioral loyalty. Loyalty program members may have a much higher share-of-wallet at the firm with the loyalty program than non-members have, but this does not necessarily imply that loyalty programs are effective. Loyal customers may select themselves to become members in order to benefit from the program. Since this implies that program membership is endogenous, we estimate models for both the membership decision (using instrumental variables) and for the effect of membership on share-of-wallet, our measure of behavioral loyalty. We use panel data from a representative sample of Dutch households who report their loyalty program memberships for all seven loyalty programs in grocery retailing as well as their expenditures at each of the 20 major supermarket chains. We find a small positive yet significant effect of loyalty program membership on share-of-wallet. This effect is seven times smaller than is suggested by a naive model that ignores the endogeneity of program membership. The predictive validity of the proposed model is much better than for the naive model. Our results show that creating loyalty program membership is a crucial step to enhance share-of-wallet, and we provide guidelines on how to achieve this. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

This article presents an introduction to and analysis of an emerging area of research, namely decision neuroscience, whose goal is to integrate research in neuroscience and behavioral decision making. The article includes an exposition of (1) how the exponential accumulation of knowledge in neuroscience can potentially enrich research on decision making, (2) the range of techniques in neuroscience that can be used to shed light on various decision making phenomena, (3) examples of potential research in this emerging area, and (4) some of the challenges readers need to be cognizant of while venturing into this new area of research.

Although much progress has been made in relating brain activations to choice behaviour, evidence that neural measures could actually be useful for predicting the successfulness of marketing actions remains limited. To be of added value, neural measures should significantly increase predictive power, above and beyond conventional measures. In the present study, the authors obtained both stated preference measures and neural measures (electroencephalography; EEG) in response to advertisements for commercially released movies (i.e. movie-trailers), to probe its potential to provide insight into individual preferences in our subjects, as well as movie sales in the population at large. The results show that EEG measures (beta and gamma oscillations) provide unique information regarding individual and population-wide preference, above and beyond stated preference measures, and can thus in principle be used as a neural marker for commercial success. As such, these results provide the first evidence that EEG measures are related to real-world outcomes, and that these neural measures can significantly add to models predicting choice behaviour compared to models that include only stated preference measures.

OBJECTIVE—To determine how the decisions of Dutch cardiologists on surgical treatment for aortic stenosis were influenced by the patient's age, cardiac signs and symptoms, and comorbidity; and to identify groups of cardiologists whose responses to these clinical characteristics were similar. DESIGN—A questionnaire was produced asking cardiologists to indicate on a six point scale whether they would advise cardiac surgery for each of 32 case vignettes describing 10 clinical characteristics. SETTING—Nationwide postal survey among all 530 cardiologists in the Netherlands. RESULTS—52% of the cardiologists responded. There was wide variability in the cardiologists' advice for the individual case vignettes. Six groups of cardiologists explained 60% of the variance. The age of the patient was most important for 41% of the cardiologists; among these, 50% had a high and 50% a low inclination to advise surgery. A further 24% were influenced equally by the patient's age and by the severity of the aortic stenosis and its effect on left ventricular function; among these, 62% had a high and 38% a low inclination to advise surgery. Finally, 23% of the cardiologists were mainly influenced by the left ventricular function and 12% by the aortic valve area. The presence of comorbidity always played a minor role. CONCLUSIONS—There were systematic differences among groups of cardiologists in their inclination to advise aortic valve replacement for elderly patients, as well as in the way their advice was influenced by the patients' characteristics. These results indicate the need for prospective studies to identify the best treatment for elderly patients according to their clinical profile. Keywords: aortic stenosis; aortic valve replacement; elderly patients; clinical decision making

Employees' Organizational Identification (OI) is measured in a customer service organization. Particularly the effects of employee communication and perceived external prestige (PEP) on OI were evaluated. Results show that employee communication affects OI more strongly than PEP. One aspect of employee communication, the communication climate, appears to play a central role: it mediates the impact on OI of the content of employee communication. These results suggest that the importance of how an organization communicates internally is even more vital than the question what is being communicated. Consequences of the results for managing and synchronizing internal and external communication are discussed.

Two major approaches to measuring risk attitude are compared. One, based on the expected utility model is derived from responses to lotteries and direct scaling. The other measure is a psychometric approach based on Likert statements that produces a unidimensional risk attitude scale. The data are from computer-assisted interviews of 346 Dutch owner-managers of hog farms, who made decisions about their own businesses. While the measures demonstrate some degree of convergent validity, those measures based on lotteries were better predictors of actual market behavior. In contrast the psychometric scale showed more agreement to selfreported measures of innovativeness, market orientation, and the intention to reduce risk. In light of the higher predictive validity of lottery-based measurements, werecommend elicitation methods based on the expected utility paradigm.