University of Chicago<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wed., April 19, 2023 from 9-10am PT<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n Consumers often maintain budgets. Past research often assumed that consumers budget by thinking about categories of expenditures that are independent from each other such as \u201cfood\u201d and \u201centertainment\u201d. The present research proposes that consumers represent expenditures in hierarchical, nested categories. For example, consumers think about \u201ccereal\u201d as a member of the category \u201cbreakfast foods\u201d before they think about them as a member of the more general \u201cfood\u201d category. Fei and Bartels find, in both online experiments and observed grocery purchase behaviours, that people\u2019s adjustment in their spending behaviour can be predicted by their represented hierarchy of expenditures. This adjustment appears to be spontaneous\u2014these categories do not need to be primed directly by experimenters. Thus, the present research makes contributions by providing a methodology to study consumers\u2019 representations, advancing our understanding on how consumers budget, and providing implications for marketers who design categorical labels for consumers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/biwiki\/files\/2023\/03\/image-1.png\")
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