Areas of Expertise (8)
Behavioral Decision Theory
Word-Of-Mouth
Consumer Behaviour
Consumer Decision Making
Customer Insight
Consumer Psychology
Brand Equity
Judgement and Decision Making
Biography
Andy Gershoff is a marketing professor and an expert on consumer behavior, customer insight, judgment and decision-making. He serves as chair of the marketing department, ranked No. 4 in the U.S. News & World Report list of marketing undergraduate programs. Gershoff's research explores consumers’ evaluations and decisions as they relate to relying on and trusting others, brands, and products. Within this context he focuses on three major areas: 1) How do consumers evaluate others and where they stand relative to others? 2) How do consumers react to betrayals or violations of trust after relaying on individuals? 3) How do consumers evaluate the fairness of marketing and manufacturing tactics?
His research has been published in Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Consumer Psychology, and more. Before returning to the McCombs School of Business as marketing professor, Gersoff taught at Columbia University and the University of Michigan. In addition to teaching, Gershoff works as a consultant and executive educator. He has worked in the U.S., Spain, China, Kazakhastan, Croatia, Turkey, and Egypt for numerous clients including IBM, Pfizer, Bristol-Meyers Squibb, and USAID.
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Education (4)
The University of Texas at Austin, McCombs School of Business: Ph.D., Marketing 1999
The University of Texas at Austin, McCombs School of Business: MBA., Business Administration 1995
University of Massachusetts at Amherst: B.A., Sociology 1989
Berkshire Community College: A.A., Business Administration 1988
Media Appearances (5)
UT-Austin remembers tower shooting 50 years ago
USA Today online
2016-08-01
Andrew Gershoff, a UT marketing professor, said he was compelled to attend because the incident is a “real sad part of history at the University of Texas. It deserves to be remembered.”
Maker Movement Takes Off in Texas
Texas Public Radio radio
2015-04-01
The challenge is that a lot of gadgets don’t really sell well on store shelves. Andrew Gershoff teaches marketing at the McCombs School of Business. "There are some products right away you can look at and you can know what that product is," Gershoff says. "Then there’s these other types of products that we might consider more 'experience products' that are harder" to understand without playing with them, he says.
Why Johnnie Walker Scotch Whisky Doesn't Deserve Its Bad Rap
Eater online
2015-03-19
When we evaluate things, we evaluate them holistically," says Andrew Gershoff, associate professor of marketing at the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas. "It's in part because of how you perceive the context — people buy things for an experience and to be a part of something, knowing that other people are experiencing it in the same way. And that's kind of pleasant, don't you agree?"
Want Happy Customers? Bet Your 'Bottom Dollar'
Business News Daily online
2014-05-22
Regardless of the price, the more money your customers have in their pocket at the end of a transaction, the better they will feel about the purchase, new research suggests.
Study: Why People Reject Things That Keep Them Safe
TIME online
2011-01-20
“People rely on airbags, smoke detectors, and vaccines to make them safe,” wrote authors Andrew D. Gershoff, an associate professor of marketing at the Red McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin, and Johnathan J. Koehler, a law professor at Northwestern University School of Law. “Unfortunately, vaccines do sometimes cause disease and airbags sometimes injure or kill. But just because these devices aren’t perfect doesn’t mean consumers should reject them outright.”...
Availability
- Keynote
- Moderator
Articles (9)
Andrew Gershoff Citations
Google Scholar
Listing of top scholarly works by Andrew Gershoff.
When Boastful Word of Mouth Helps versus Hurts Social Perceptions and Persuasion
Journal of Consumer Research
2016-06-01
We theorize, and demonstrate in three studies, that although boasting is perceived negatively, such immodest self-presentations can either impede or enhance social perceptions and persuasion. ...Implications for consumer decision making and firms seeking to manage consumer social influence are discussed.
Marketing Actions That Influence Estimates of Others Also Shape Identity
Journal of Consumer Psychology
2015-07-01
Consumers' social identities stem from comparisons between themselves and others. These identities help determine consumption decisions. Unfortunately, perceptions of comparative traits and characteristics are frequently biased, which can lead to similarly biased consumption decisions. Five studies show that two incidental but commonplace marketing decisions can influence consumers' estimates of their relative standing and thus their social identities by influencing estimates of how other consumers are distributed.
What Makes It Green? The Role of Centrality of Green Attributes in Evaluations of the Greenness of Products
Journal of Marketing
2015-01-01
An increasing body of research addresses consumers' green product purchasing behavior, and yet little work has examined how consumers form perceptions of the greenness of products in the first place. Drawing on theories of attribute centrality (the degree to which an attribute is integral in defining an object), the authors argue that products with identical environmental benefits will be judged more or less green depending on whether the benefit stems from a central versus a peripheral attribute. ...The authors conclude the article with managerial and public policy implications, such as advice for firms on where to make green investments for maximum consumer impact and insight for public policy makers on the need for consumer assistance in objectively evaluating products with identical environmental benefits that achieve those benefits in different ways.
The Bottom Dollar Effect: The Influence of Spending to Zero on Pain of Payment and Satisfaction
Journal of Consumer Research
2014-01-01
In this study we show that the bottom dollar effect increases as effort required to earn budgetary resources increases, decreases in the presence of windfall gains, and decreases when there is less time between budget exhaustion and replenishment.
Consumer Respones to Versioning: How Brands' Production Methods Affect Perceptions of Unfairness
Journal of Consumer Research
2012-08-01
Six studies show how the production method of versioning may be perceived as unfair and unethical and lead to decreased purchase intentions for the brand. Building on prior work in fairness, the studies show that this effect is driven by violations of norms and the perceived similarity between the inferior, degraded version of a product and the full-featured model offered by the brand.
Safety First? The Role of Emotion in Betrayal Aversion
Journal of Consumer Research
2011-06-01
In five studies we find that betrayal aversion is reduced and safer alternatives are selected when factors that dampen the emotional response to potential betrayals are introduced or taken into account. These factors include changing the betrayal from an action to an omission (study 1), introducing positive imagery (study 2), introducing visual representations of risk (study 3), making the decision for another rather than oneself (study 4), and intuitive thinking style (study 5).
Knowing Where They Stand: The Role of Inferred Distributions in Misestimates of Relative Standing
Journal of Consumer Research - lead article
2011-01-01
In this study we demonstrate straightforward tools that can change consumers’ impressions of others and thus change relative assessments and purchase decisions.
What's Not to Like? Preference Asymmetry in the False Consensus Effect
Journal of Consumer Research
2008-06-01
In three studies, we show that the strength of the false consensus effect is moderated by the valence of one’s own opinion, such that overestimation of population consensus is greater when an individual likes an alternative as compared to when she or he dislikes it. Further, we show that this moderation of false consensus is driven by the availability of countervalence attributes, that is, disliked attributes in liked alternatives and liked attributes in disliked alternatives.
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