Predicting Consumer Choices by Means of Cognitive Process Models

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Benjamin Scheibehenne
• Subject Area: General, Cognitive and Mathematical Psychology
• Term: Funded in 2009
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 157901825

The following line of research aims to improve the understanding and prediction of human decision making by explicitly modeling its underlying cognitive processes. As such, it lies at the intersection of cognitive psychology, economics, and marketing. Current models in these disciplines commonly predict decision outcomes by means of algebraic “as-if” models that are not concerned with the actual decision process. While these models are convenient to use, past research has shown that they can lead to systematically wrong predictions because they cannot account for the influence of certain context effects. In contrast to this, recent psychological theories of choice explicitly model the underlying cognitive processes by means of sequential sampling models. Because these models can account for context dependencies, they are promising candidates to replace conventional “as-if” models. Yet so far, sequential sampling models have mostly been applied to perceptual tasks, constrained choice situations between pairs of risky gambles, or to historical data sets. To bridge this gap, the proposed research aims to test the applicability of two prominent sequential sampling models for predicting choices in a consumer context. Towards this goal, a series of four experiments is proposed to rigorously test these models. A better understanding of how people make decisions will lead to a more precise prediction of their choices, which is vital for basic research in psychology, marketing, and economics, and for practical applications.

• DFG Programme: Research Fellowships
• International Connection: Switzerland
• Host: Professor Dr. Jörg Rieskamp