NEW YORK, NY – For decades, marketers have believed that consumers form opinions on products and services only when they have a decision to make when choosing between a new pair of shoes, deciding on a snack at the grocery store, or picking a hotel for an upcoming trip. But recent research shows that consumers are surprisingly eager to express their likes and dislikes – they often evaluate products and services even when there is no decision at stake. This is because people derive a subtle pleasure from expressing that they like or dislike something. In research by Columbia Business School, Professor Michel Tuan Pham, the Kravis Professor of Business, finds that consumers often evaluate products or brands to derive pleasure rather than to make a decision, frequently rendering their evaluations in a seemingly gratuitous fashion.

In the study, The Pleasure of Liking (or Disliking), Professor Pham and co-authors NUS Business School Professor Daniel He and The Wharton School Professor Shiri Melumad, both former Columbia Business School doctoral students, conducted a series of eight experiments—and seven replications—involving more than 7,900 participants. Across the different experiments, the researchers focused on findings based on asking one group to make general observations on products, such as clothing on Abercrombie & Fitch’s website (such as “How colorful is this T-shirt?”), while asking the other group to state specifically if they liked or disliked a particular product. After completing this task, all participants were asked, “How fun was this task?” on a scale of 1 (“Not fun at all”) to 7 (“Very fun”). In all experiments, researchers found that the participants directed to report their like or dislike of products found the task more fun, rating the task a five or greater. Those asked to make a general observation about the same products rated the task a four and lower. Additionally, participants assessing their likes and dislikes experienced significantly greater pleasure if they were allowed to express their likes and dislikes externally than if they made their assessments only privately.

This study, published in the Journal of Consumer Research, informs how companies and organizations may seek customer feedback. The researchers argue that evaluating one’s likes, and dislikes enables a form of self-expression, as well as a sense of self-discovery. Companies and policymakers can use this new information to improve consumer survey response rates, increase consumer engagement with online materials, improve shoppers’ experience at retail, monetize consumers’ dislikes, and increase voter turnout.

To learn more about the cutting-edge research being conducted at Columbia Business School, please visit gsb.columbia.edu.

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