Kelly Haws

Anne Marie and Thomas B. Walker, Jr. Professor of Marketing Vanderbilt University

  • Nashville TN

Expert in food consumption choices, dieting, financial decision making, and self-control in consumption.

Contact

Vanderbilt University

View more experts managed by Vanderbilt University

View all Experts

Spotlight

1 min

Food decision-making expert on holiday food consumption

Kelly Haws, Anne Marie and Thomas B. Walker, Jr. Professor of Marketing, is available for commentary on holiday food choices. Kelly is a consumer psychologist, focused on food decision-making, including health-related issues and the underlying psychological processes involved. Topics she can speak to include: The importance of focusing on portion control rather than what types of food you eat The role of food in our social and cultural experiences Why it's okay to enjoy certain foods as a holiday treat, as a single food decision is less important to weight loss and diet than a pattern of eating habits over a period of time When and how the idea of food restriction can backfire

Kelly Haws

Multimedia

Biography

A prolific researcher with a focus on consumer behavior, Kelly Haws' work on food decision-making has garnered significant attention from marketers and consumers alike.

Haws was named a Young Scholar by the Marketing Science Institute (MSI) in 2009, and in 2013, she was awarded the Early Career Award by the Association of Consumer Research. In 2018, she was recognized as an MSI Scholar. She was previously a Vanderbilt Chancellor’s Faculty Fellow, and now holds the Anne Marie and Thomas B. Walker, Jr. Chair.

Haws is an Associate Editor for the Journal of Marketing and the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science and an editorial review board member for the Journal of Consumer Research, the Journal of Consumer Psychology, Journal of Retailing, the Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, Marketing Letters, and the Journal of Business Research. She is the co-chair of the Society of Consumer Psychology 2019 conference.

Haws' work has appeared in numerous publications, including the Journal of Consumer Research, the Journal of Marketing Research, the Journal of Marketing, the Journal of Consumer Psychology, the Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, Management Science, the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Appetite, the American Journal of Preventative Medicine, and others.

Haws teaches Consumer Analysis at the graduate level and Principles of Marketing at the undergraduate level.

Areas of Expertise

Diet
Food Decision Making
Financial Decision Making
Self-Control

Accomplishments

Marketing Science Institute Scholar

Marketing Science Institute Scholar

Outstanding Area Editor Award

Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 2018

Best Individual Paper, Society for Consumer Psychology

Finalist

Show All +

Education

University of South Carolina

Ph.D.

Mississippi State University

M.B.A.

Mississippi State University

B.B.A.

Selected Media Appearances

The Pumpkin Spice Latte Turns 20

Smithsonian Magazine  online

2023-08-29

The latte is only available in the fall, and the limited run is part of the company’s marketing strategy. “Taking it away, giving people something to look forward to … makes it all the more appealing to consumers,” Kelly Haws, a consumer behavior researcher at Vanderbilt University, tells CNN.

View More

Starbucks’ Pumpkin Spice Latte is back, and it’s celebrating its 20th anniversary

CNN  online

2023-08-28

Pumpkin pie is associated with Thanksgiving and crisp air — even in the summer, when the weather is still hot and humid. The flavor itself is such a powerful seasonal trigger that it doesn’t matter whether it comes in hot or cold, noted Kelly Haws, professor of marketing at the Owen Graduate School of Management at Vanderbilt University.

View More

Mom Dragged for Trying To Enforce 'Clear Your Plate' Rule on Friend's Kid

Newsweek  online

2022-07-11

Kelly Haws, one of the co-authors of the study who is a marketing professor at Tennessee's Vanderbilt University, explained: "Many of us were raised with this 'clean your plate' mentality, stemming from a desire to ensure one is not being wasteful or their children are eating well; however, this can also lead to overconsumption."

View More

Show All +

Research Grants

Research Grant

Center for Consumers, Markets and Politics, Ministry of Agriculture and Consumer Protection

Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany, with Sven Feurer

Selected Articles

Healthy Through Presence or Absence, Nature or Science?: A Framework for Understanding Front-of-Package Food Claims

Journal of Public Policy & Marketing

Quentin André, Pierre Chandon, Kelly Haws

2019

Food products claim to be healthy in many ways, but prior research has investigated these claims at either the macro level (using broad descriptions such as “healthy” or “tasty”) or the micro level (using single claims such as “low fat”). The authors use a meso-level framework to examine whether these claims invoke natural or scientific arguments and whether they communicate about positive attributes present in the food or negative attributes absent from the food.

View more

Justifying by “healthifying”: When expected satisfaction from consumption closure increases the desire to eat more and biases health perceptions of unhealthy leftovers

Appetite

Veronika Ilyuk, Lauren Block, Kelly L Haws

2019

Given ongoing concerns about worldwide obesity, a rapidly growing body of research has sought to identify factors that drive consumption of energy-dense foods and snacks with little nutritional value. The present research contributes to this literature by exploring the role of consumption closure—a state characterized by perceiving a given eating occasion as finished or complete—on people's desire to eat more.

View more

That’s Not So Bad, I’ll Eat More! Backfire Effects of Calories-per-Serving Information on Snack Consumption

Journal of Marketing

Andrea Heintz Tangari, My Bui, Kelly L Haws, Peggy J Liu

2019

This research investigates how provision of calories-per-serving information on serving size labels affects snack consumption quantity. Drawing from expectancy-disconfirmation theory, this research shows that providing calories-per-serving information can ironically create a consumption backfire effect (consumers eat more when presented with calories-per-serving information) for snacks perceived as unhealthy but not for snacks perceived as healthy.

View more

Show All +
Powered by