Biography
John G. Lynch, Jr. is the Ted Andersen Professor of Free Enterprise at the Leeds School of Business, University of Colorado Boulder, and the Director of the Center for Research on Consumer Financial Decision Making.
Lynch received his BA in economics, his MA in psychology, and his Ph.D. in psychology, all from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He was a member of the faculty at University of Florida from 1979-1996, where he was Graduate Research Professor. From 1996-2009 he was the Roy J. Bostock Professor of Marketing at the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University.
Lynch is a 2010 Fellow of the Association for Consumer Research, a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, and a Fellow of the Society for Consumer Psychology. Four of his papers have been honored as outstanding article of the year; he has twice been honored by the Journal of Consumer Research, once by the Journal of Marketing Research and once by the Journal of Marketing.
He is a member of the editorial boards of Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Psychology, and Journal of Marketing, and he was the 2008-2010 President of the Policy Board of the Journal of Consumer Research. Lynch is past president of the Association for Consumer Research, past associate editor for the Journal of Consumer Research and past associate editor and co-editor for the Journal of Consumer Psychology.
Education
- Ph.D., Psychology, University of Illinois
- M.A., Psychology, University of Illinois
- B.A., Economics, University of Illinois
- Undergraduate Studies, Tufts University
Research
Lynch studies the cognitive psychology of consumer decision-making.
Lynch and Srull’s (1982) “Memory and Attentional Factors in Consumer Choice: Concepts and Research Methods” introduced concepts of stimulus-based and memory based decision making and highlighted the role of information processing below the level of conscious awareness. Feldman and Lynch’s (1988), “Self-Generated Validity and Other Effects of Measurement on Belief, Attitude, Intention, and Behavior” put forth the “accessibility-diagnosticity model, the first general theory explaining the relative weights of different cues in decisions and an influential contribution to theory of “constructive preferences.”
His 1997 paper with Alba and colleagues on Internet shopping and his 2000 paper with Ariely on price sensitivity on the Internet are both among the most cited papers on any topic to appear in any marketing journal from the time of their publication to the present. His more recent research has focused on intertemporal choice and planning, including Zauberman and Lynch’s (2005 Journal of Experimental Psychology: General) resource slack theory of discounting, a general theory that explains why different resources are discounted at different rates and Lynch, Netemeyer, Spiller, and Zammit’s (2010 Journal of Consumer Research) generalizable scale of “propensity to plan” predicts credit scores, controlling for various demographics.
In addition to studying consumer decision making, about a quarter of Lynch's work concerns validity issues in research methodology. The underlying theme of his work is how the biggest threat to the validity of research findings is not failure to follow textbook prescriptions about research methodology but the inevitable incompleteness of his or her understanding of the phenomenon being studied. His best known papers in this area focus on external validity of experiments, confounding in experiments, understanding the mediators of how some cause produces an effect, and how questions early in a survey can bias answers to later questions and behaviors.
Current Research
The psychology of annuitization decisions, a mortgage recommender system to help consumers choose mortgages in line with their personal tastes and risks, the role of goals in discounting of future outcomes, and the role of financial literacy in consumers’ financial decisions.
Publications
Publication
April 2013
Authors: Stephen Spiller; Gavan Fitzsimons; John G. Lynch, Jr.; and Gary McClelland
We provide a tutorial for appropriate statistical tests for following up interactions of a measured variable X with a manipulated variable Z. We criticize existing practice for reporting "spotlight" tests of the simple effect of Z at plus and minus one standard deviation from the mean of X. We suggest instead that authors either choose spotlights at particular focal values or, when no particular values are focal, that they report the entire range of X over which the simple effect of Z is significant. We explain how to extend these principles to a wide variety of experimental designs.
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Supplemental Online Appendix
Publication
July 2012
Authors: Lynch, John G., Jr., Joseph W. Alba, Aradhna Krishna, Vicki Morwitz, and Zeynep Gurhan-Kanli
We distinguish among alternative research styles in terms of their philosophical orientation (theory-driven vs. phenomenon-driven) and their intended contribution (understanding a substantive phenomenon or understanding or expanding theory). We discuss the merits of different styles of research and suggest appropriate evaluative criteria for each.
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Publication
November 2011
Author: John G. Lynch, Jr.
This special issue focuses on consumer financial decisions: spending patterns and resource allocation for small items and big-ticket expenses like health care; borrowing and repaying; saving and investing, which can have emotional and irrational influences; and purchase of complex financial products.
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Article
August 2010
Authors: Xinshu Zhao, John G. Lynch Jr., and Qimei Chen
We explain the most common mistakes researchers make in statistical tests of "mediation" claims that some cause X influences an outcome Y through some mediator M, and we provide a step by step guide to doing it right.
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Article
June 2010
Authors: John G. Lynch, Jr.; Richard G. Netemeyer; et al.
We develop a scale of propensity to plan in a given domain, planning for time or money, in the short run or the long run. We show that, controlling to many demographic factors, those higher in propensity to plan for the use of their money over the next one to two years have much better credit scores, reflecting a positive relation of financial planning to responsible financial decision making.
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Article
June 2009
Authors: Lynch, John G., Jr., et al.
Two studies show that simply increasing
the size of an attribute’s scale systematically
changes its weight in both multiattribute preferences and
willingness to pay: Expanding scales on one attribute shifts
preferences to alternatives favored on that attribute.
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Article
June 2008
Authors: David Alexander, John G. Lynch, Jr., and Qing Wang
"Really New Products" offer new benefits not found in existing products, but consumers are uncertain they will get the benefits, uncertain of how to trade off benefits against costs, and they have to change their behavior to get the benefits. We show that the more psychologically new a technology is, the less likely consumers are to intend to acquire it, and the more those who say they will acquire it soon fail to follow through, particularly when intentions are measured months before the purchase decision.
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Article
May 2007
Author: John G. Lynch, et. al.
Construal-level theory articulates how psychological distance alters the mental representation of inputs. In the distance consumers weight abstract "high level" criteria, but when close at hand, concrete "low level" criteria get more weight. We explain how these shifts in perspective can change consumers' consideration sets and can lead regret and dissatisfaction with purchases.
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Full Publication
Article
February 2007
Author: Lynch, John G., Jr., et al.
In six experiments, the authors show conditions under which exactly the opposite can occur; that is, consumers judge the same offer to be more attractive when a seller offers a better price or more benefits to another group than when the seller treats everyone equally.
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Full Publication
Article
June 2006
Author: Lynch, John G., Jr.
I discuss how the Multiple Pathway Anchoring and Adjustment model is similar to and different from the Feldman and Lynch accessibility-diagnosticity model, elaborated as an anchoring and adjustment model by Lynch, Marmorstein, andWeigold.
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Full Publication
Article
April 2006
Authors: John G. Lynch, Jr. and Gal Zauberman
Consumers steeply discount future outcomes compared to similar outcomes in the present. We examine the implications of research on discounting the future for public policy in domains where consumers' impulsiveness can be harmful: under-saving for retirement; choice of tasty but unhealthy foods; falling for the lure of rebates one will never redeem.
Full Publication
Article
March 2006
Author: John G. Lynch, Jr. and Wendy Wood
This special issue is intended to start conversations between policy-makers and psychologists, behavioral economists, and consumer behavior scholars whose work challenges key assumptions in standard policy analyses.
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Article
May 2005
Author: John G. Lynch, Jr.
Professor John Lynch's Paul D. Converse Award Winning Paper.
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Full Publication
Article
January 2005
Author: Lynch, John G., Jr., Gal Zauberman
The authors demonstrate that people discount delayed outcomes as a result of perceived changes over time in supplies of slack.
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Full Publication
Article
January 2004
Author: Lynch, John G., Jr., et al.
In this work we examine the learning function that results from
these 2 general types of learning-smart agents.
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Full Publication
Article
June 2003
Author: Lynch, John G., Jr., Laura Kornish, Kristin Diehl
We argue that lowering quality search costs by smart agents can have the opposite effect on differentiation and price sensitivity.
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Full Publication
Article
December 2002
Author: Lynch, John G., Jr., et al.
Our research examines the role of prior knowledge in learning new product information.
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Full Publication
Article
December 2000
Author: Lynch, John G., Jr., et al.
We show that, despite using internally valid experimental designs such as this, aggregation biases can arise in which the theoretically critical pattern holds in the aggregate even though it holds for no (or few) individuals.
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Full Publication
Article
November 2000
Author: Lynch, John G., Jr., et al.
We test conditions under which lowered search costs should increase or decrease price sensitivity.
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Full Publication
Article
January 1999
Author: Lynch, John G., Jr.
External validity
can only be “assessed” by better understanding how
the focal variables in one’s theory interact with moderator
variables that are seen as irrelevant early in a research
stream.
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Full Publication
Article
July 1997
Author: Lynch, John G. Jr., et. al.
A study examines the implications of electronic shopping for consumers, retailers, and manufacturers.
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Full Publication
Article
June 1996
Authors: John G. Lynch, Jr.; et. al.
This paper explores the implications of making decisions by maximizing experienced utility ex post rather than ex ante.
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Article
January 1996
Author: Lynch, John G. Jr., et. al.
This paper reports two experiments that explore the welfare implications of advertising effects.
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Full Publication
Article
March 1995
Author: Lynch, John G. Jr., et. al.
This paper examines how advertisements that increase price elasticity in some decision environments decreased it in others
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Full Publication
Article
March 1995
Author: Lynch, John G. Jr., et. al.
Multiple experiments looking at the communication effects of advertising versus direct experience when multiple attributes are present
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Full Publication
Article
March 1995
Author: Lynch, John G. Jr., et. al.
We use a Bayesian analysis to examine what such measures contribute to researchers' beliefs about competing theories and suggest when and why manipulation and confounding checks add to the ability to differentiate among alternative theoretical explanations of empirical results.
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Full Publication
Article
March 1994
Author: Lynch, John G. Jr., et. al.
We
develop a bootstrapped method for formalizing each expert regulator's evaluation policy using
hierarchical conjoint analysis, and apply this method to the evaluation of local telephone companies
by the Florida Public Service Commission (FPSC). We show that experts within the
FPSC, the regulated utilities, and a large telephone customer exhibit very high agreement about
how the various dimensions of quality should be differentially weighted.
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Full Publication
Article
September 1993
Author: Lynch, John G. Jr., et. al.
This article discusses the implications of two experimental results for consumer judgement processes and for measurement of consumers attitudes and intentions.
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Full Publication
Article
September 1992
Author: Lynch, John G. Jr., et. al.
This paper presents a Bayesian analysis of hypothesis testing to model knowledge accumulation from a series of confounded or unconfounded experiments
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Full Publication
Article
January 1992
Author: Lynch, John G. Jr., Sanford Berg
The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of the measurement, evaluation and encouragement of telephone service quality.
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Full Publication
News
Leeds School of Business
June 21, 2012
The Center for Research on Consumer Financial Decision Making hosts a conference every summer bringing together the brightest minds in policy, finance industry, and academia to share research on consumer behavior in the areas of mortgages, debt, credit cards, retirement, college funds, and more.
Yahoo! Finance
July 21, 2011
The new and improved credit-card statements — required by federal law — are meant to help consumers. But despite the added disclosures and clarifications, plenty of people still read the numbers wrong, according to a new study at the Conference on Consumer Financial Decision Making held last month at the University of Colorado's Leeds School of Business in Boulder.
Leeds School of Business
June 14, 2011
The 2011 Boulder Summer Conference on Consumer Financial Decision Making highlights research about the problems of consumer financial decision making. Hosted by CU-Boulder's Center for Research on Consumer Financial Decision Making and by the Leeds School of Business.
Leeds School of Business
May 6, 2011
Professor John Lynch is awarded the 2011 MBA Teaching Excellence Award.
Yahoo! Finance
August 20, 2010
Yahoo! Finance is teaming up with researchers at the University of Colorado Leeds School of Business and Duke University on a new study of couples and money.
Past Events
Conference
June 24–26, 2012
St Julien Hotel
900 Walnut Street
Boulder, CO 80302
877.303.0900
Group Code: GRPCFD
Cutting edge research on consumer financial decision making by scholars across diverse fields: economics, psychology, sociology, anthropology, marketing, finance, and consumer sciences. Lively discussion of this research by scholars, regulators, consumer advocates, and financial services professionals.
Conference
June 26–28, 2011
St Julien Hotel
900 Walnut Street
Boulder, CO 80302
877.303.0900
Group Code: GRPLSB
Map & Directions
Cutting edge research on consumer financial decision making by scholars across diverse fields: economics, psychology, sociology, anthropology, marketing, finance, and consumer sciences. Lively discussion of this research by scholars, regulators, consumer advocates, and financial services professionals.
Conference
June 27–29, 2010
An exchange of ideas among researchers in different fields working on problems of consumer financial decision making.
