Selected Research
Consumer Decisions over Time from Goal-Management Perspective
How do people make trade-offs over costs and benefits across time in everyday decisions?
I examine how intertemporal choices are influenced by the heuristics and cues people use to track progress toward their various goals.
Cross-Period Impatience: Subjective Financial Periods Explain Time-Inconsistent Choices
Minkwang Jang and Oleg Urminsky, forthcoming at the Journal of Consumer Research (link)
People are more impatient, choosing the smaller-sooner outcome more, when choosing between options that they perceived as in different (vs. same) "subjective financial periods," the time categories they use to track progress toward their financial goals.
Impatient to Receive or Impatient to Achieve: How Goal Gradients and Time Discounting Jointly Determine Intertemporal Choice
Minkwang Jang*, Oleg Urminsky*, and Indranil Goswami, under review at the Journal of Experimental Psychology:General (link to manuscript)
People are not only impatient for the final rewards (e.g., compensation for doing a job) but also impatient to receive cues that symbolize that progress is being made for receiving the rewards (e.g., receiving an 'approval' on the compensation, or check in the mail).
The Time Framing Effect: How to Encourage Consumption Within a Product Lifespan
Minkwang Jang and Ayelet Fishbach, invited for revision at the Journal of Consumer Psychology
People are more likely to consume a product or service they own (i.e., expiring grocery products or streaming service) as it nears expiring when the current time is framed as "time remaining" until expiration (vs. time elapsed since purchase), which is consistent with how people keep track of their progress toward the goal of completing consumption and preventing waste.
Social Inferences in the Marketplace
How do consumers and marketers make inferences about others' preferences and valuations given limited information?
Who Likes It More? Inferring Others’ Preferences from Consideration Sets Size
Minkwang Jang, under review at the Journal of Marketing Research (link to manuscript)
People infer a person with a smaller consideration set (i.e., considers or likes fewer options for consumption) to hold a stronger liking for a specific option in the set than another person with a larger consideration set, including the same option. However, they infer the opposite about which person likes the category of options more.
The Downside of Generosity: When Giving More Undermines Social Connection
Minkwang Jang, Ayelet Fishbach, and Shereen Chaudhry, in preparation (link to manuscript)
Can being broadly generous (giving to many others) have downsides? While broad-givers (give gifts or donate to many) are perceived as more generous, people perceive broad-givers have a weaker social connection with each individual recipient.