Consumer Behavior Special Interest Group

Social media research faces a fundamental tension between internal and ecological validity. Vignette experiments often isolate single posts, which fail to capture how users browse feeds where content competes for attention. Field studies offer realism but are subject to algorithmic interference, which threatens internal validity. Against this backdrop, we introduce Digital In-Context Experiments (DICE), an experimental paradigm that bridges this gap and offers experimental control in scrollable feeds that mimic digital environments. Researchers can manipulate entire feed compositions (rather than individual posts in isolation). DICE provides researchers with post-level dwell times as behavioral proxies for (in)attention and combines these unobtrusive measures with traditional survey responses. In this session, we will discuss the type of research questions DICE is more (less) suited for and how it relates to similar methodological advances in marketing research.

We explore the effect of modality on intertemporal choice. Across five experiments and two supplemental studies conducted on online platforms (N = 6,890), we find that people are relatively more likely to choose smaller, sooner monetary rewards (vs. larger, later monetary rewards) when they hear the reward options presented to them than when they read them. We show that this effect occurs because of the greater difficulty of envisioning the receipt of larger, later rewards when these are presented aurally. These findings illustrate how presenting choice options in different modalities can meaningfully alter psychological processes and intertemporal decisions and are a first step toward understanding the effect of new, voice-based ways of presenting intertemporal choice options made possible by emerging technologies (e.g., robo-advisors and voice assistants).

Identity research has traditionally focused on social, relational, and personal identities—categories that can be understood as operating under an opt-out structure. Once formed, these identities tend to persist unless explicitly renounced or externally disrupted. This emphasis has reinforced a broader assumption: that identities, once acquired, remain stable by default.

This paper challenges that assumption by introducing the construct of reoptive identities—self-definitions like "runner," "writer," or "meditator" that require individuals to repeatedly opt in through self-directed, ongoing practice. Reoptive identities are structurally and experientially distinct: they shape what consumers attend to, how they evaluate themselves, and how they respond to market offerings.

This framework extends identity theory by shifting the analytic focus from identity as a stable, socially affirmed label to identity as a fragile, action-affirmed mode of engagement—internally defined, effortful to sustain, and deeply consequential.

Population statistics and predictions of how long a person is expected to live, or live in good health, are typically presented in future-age frame (e.g., until the age of 84) or in time-left frame (e.g., 34 more years). Across seven online studies (N = 4103) and one field experiment (N = 14,422) we show that the time-left frame makes total life expectancy and healthspan feel shorter than the future-age frame.

We propose that this effect occurs because, compared to the future-age frame, the time-left frame more strongly prompts individuals to engage in mental bucket-listing—thinking about the things they still want to do or achieve in their lifetime. We demonstrate the consequences of this effect on consumer decisions and behaviors concerning health and longevity.