The sciences of the artificial (3rd ed.)
The sciences of the artificial (3rd ed.)
Consumer Sequential Search: Not Enough or Too Much?
Marketing Science
Contingent Pricing to Reduce Price Risks
Marketing Science
Using Online Conversations to Study Word-of-Mouth Communication
Marketing Science
Modeling Online Browsing and Path Analysis Using Clickstream Data
Marketing Science
Conditioning Prices on Purchase History
Marketing Science
Overchoice and Assortment Type: When and Why Variety Backfires
Marketing Science
Optimizing the Marketing Interventions Mix in Intermediate-Term CRM
Marketing Science
The Impact of Utility Balance and Endogeneity in Conjoint Analysis
Marketing Science
Marketing and Designing Transaction Games
Marketing Science
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Despite some misconceptions, consumer rationality is a property of the researcher rather than the consumer. Consumers become more rational as we are better able to predict their behavior or other important outcomes influenced by their behavior. Perfect rationality results when we achieve accurate predictions. Consequently, at least for many Marketing Science articles, consumers are becoming more rational as we find better ways to predict. However, some experimental consumer behavior articles find the opposite. The difference between experimental and statistical controls explains the divergence in conclusions. Experimental controls test rationality based on whether previously absent variables exhibit significant explanatory power holding known explanatory variables constant. Statistical controls test rationality based on the incremental explanatory power of previously absent variables after accounting for known explanatory variables. Moreover, experimental tests tend to isolate consumer behavior predictions while statistical tests check for sufficient accuracy to choose among different firm strategies. Both perspectives are correct but ask very different questions.