Lindsay Levine

Associate Professor | Georgia Southern University

Statesboro, GA, UNITED STATES

Lindsay Levine is an expert in consumer judgment and decision-making.

Biography

Lindsay Levine, Ph.D., associate professor of marketing, was born and raised in New York State. She studied learning and behavioral psychology as an undergraduate at Vassar College, where she worked on conditioning studies and animal behavior with birds and small mammals. As a graduate student in psychology at Yale University, she spent her first year working with Dr. Allan Wagner (Rescorla-Wagner Theory) on configural and elemental models in contingency learning. The remainder of her studies were completed with John A. Bargh, Ph.D., and Ezequiel Morsella, Ph.D., as a member of the (then) newly founded Automaticity in Cognition Motivation and Evaluation Laboratory. After completion of the doctorate, Levine held several faculty positions within Psychology Departments in New York, Vermont and Florida, teaching topics in cognitive psychology, social psychology, human development, and organizational psychology. While living in Florida, she began work on a post-doctoral bridge into the field of marketing at the University of Florida’s Warrington College of Business Administration, which was completed in 2011.

As a social psychologist, Levine’s research interests are focused on the nonconscious, automatic processes that act upon consumer emotion, judgment and decision-making. This interest has led to research projects on expertise and automaticity, pre-consumption mood states, design fluency, aesthetics, and the influence of activated mindsets. Her work has been published in several academic journals, book chapters, a chapter in the book “Expressing Oneself / Expressing One’s Self; Communication, Cognition, Language and Identity,” and has been presented at a variety of psychology and marketing conferences. Along with her co-authors, her work has been featured in publications such as the Wall Street Journal and HR Magazine. Levine recently received the Thomas Ponzurick best paper in conference award from the Association of Marketing Theory and Practice.

Levine currently teaches in the areas of marketing, consumer behavior and professional sales, and she received the Dean’s Citation for Excellence in Teaching in 2012. She serves as co-director of the Center for Sales Excellence for the Parker College of Business.

Areas of Expertise (3)

Social Cognition

Marketing and Sales

Consumer Behavior

Accomplishments (7)

Best Paper of the Year (professional)

Journal of Marketing Theory & Practice. Awarded, 2017 (Levine, Eastman & Bock, 2016)

Jane White Marketing Scholar Award (professional)

Georgia Southern University, College of Business. Awarded, 2016

Best Paper in Track: Services Marketing (professional)

Seeking complex health services in the age of self-referral (Levine & Bock) Association of Marketing Theory and Practice Conference. Awarded, 2016

Best Paper in Track: Marketing Education (professional)

The impact of shadowing within a University Sales Program (Mullen & Levine) Association of Marketing Theory and Practice Conference. Awarded, 2016

Competitive Research Grant Recipient (professional)

The effect of religious signaling on consumer perceptions of sales representatives Georgia Southern University, College of Business. Awarded, 2016

Thomas Ponzurik Best Paper in Conference Award (professional)

Association of Marketing Theory & Practice. Awarded, 2016

Competitive Research Grant Recipient (professional)

The consumer search for mental health professionals Georgia Southern University, College of Business. Awarded, 2015

Education (2)

Yale University: Ph.D., Social Psychology 2007

Vassar College: B.A., Psychology 2003

Links (1)

Faculty Page

Articles (6)

Online and In-Store Compulsive Buying Among Metrosexuals, and Other Male Consumers

Journal of Applied Marketing Theory

Michael Lee Thomas, Lindsay RL Levine, Luther Trey Denton, Kathleen Gruben

2017 This paper presents an exploratory study of compulsive buying behavior among male, and specifically metrosexual consumers who represent significant purchasing power, but have yet to be studied in both online and in-store environments. This research has significant importance for public policy, consumer behavior and marketing. The literature has largely ignored specifically male compulsive shopping behavior, and particularly how this behavior manifests itself in different shopping environments and among different subsets of male consumers. Research was gathered via an online survey of 193 males with special attention paid to acquiring equal representation of both urban (potential metrosexuals) and rural consumers. The study shows that metrosexuals have higher levels of compulsive behavior than other males, but these differences do not seem to vary significantly by shopping environment. Finally, the study discusses both online and in-store compulsive buying by various product categories.

Utilitarian and Hedonic Shopping Behavior in the Face of Natural Disaster

Presentation - Services Marketing Quarterly

Lindsay RL Levine, Hyunju Shin

2017-2018 The current study sets out to investigate the personal experiences and subsequent shopping behavior of those impacted by Hurricane Matthew in the coastal southeastern region of the United States. Beyond interest in the intersection between natural disaster and hedonic consumption behavior, marketers should also be concerned with the topic as it highlights utilitarian consumption, and the issue of need under-fulfillment and insufficient distribution of resources during natural disaster. Every year, natural disasters such as hurricanes, tornados, wildfires and floods occur around the world. However, scarce research has been conducted to understand customer reactions to these common but disruptive events. Using survey data from a sample of 231 Americans who were impacted by Hurricane Matthew, the current study aims to provide a link between fear experienced during a natural disaster, perceptions of shopping convenience and shopping behavior in times of a natural disaster. The results will help retail and service providers understand shopping motives and how to prepare their strategies in dealing with the occurrence of natural disaster.

Consumer Search and Satisfaction with Mental Health Services

Journal of Services Marketing

Lindsay RL Levine, Dora Elizabeth Bock

2016 Recent evidence on consumer decision-making suggests that highly complex choice scenarios lead consumers to use simplistic decision heuristics, often resulting in suboptimal decision-making. This study aims to investigate the relationships among consumers’ primary information source, patient satisfaction and patient well-being, specifically focused on the search for mental health professionals. The selection of a mental health provider is of interest, because practitioners work from a highly diverse set of theoretical bases, may hold a wide range of different credentials and provide drastically different therapeutic approaches, therefore making the selection complex and difficult for consumers to self-navigate.

Analyzing the Impact of a Sales Shadowing Program: Process and Outcomes

Journal for Advancement of Marketing Education

Linda G Mullen, Lindsay RL Levine

2016 Experiential learning opportunities, such as the chance to shadow a professional, can be an excellent tool allowing students to observe first-hand the material presented in the classroom. However, while shadowing projects are assumed to be beneficial to sales classes, empirical research presenting the benefits is limited. This paper describes the process of administering a sales shadowing project, reports findings on the benefits of such endeavors, and offers quantitative and qualitative data on project impact.

A Multi-Method Exploration of the Relationship between Knowledge and Risk: The Impact on Millennials’ Retirement Investment Decisions

Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice

Lindsay RL Levine, Jacqueline K Eastman, Dora E Bock

2016 The millennial cohort has faced a unique environment that may have a lasting impact on the financial investment decisions they make as adults. A multimethod set of studies investigates how knowledge and risk interact to inform millennial retirement investment choices. Study 1 suggests a decline in risk-taking for those with low confidence in their financial knowledge. Study 2 reveals that low financial literacy enhances susceptibility to the influence of “feelings as information” when making retirement decisions. Study 3 utilizes qualitative data to consider the connection between millennial financial decision making and the climate of risk brought on by the Great Recession.

eWOM Watchdogs: Ego-Threatening Product Domains and the Policing of Online Product Reviews.

Psychology & Marketing

Lindsay RL Levine, L. Trey Denton

2014 Suspicion regarding dishonest electronic word-of-mouth is a growing concern for consumers online. Individual consumers are occasionally seen acting as product review forum “watchdogs” within the websites they visit, posting vigilante comments against reviews they perceive to be fraudulent. This multimethod set of studies investigates consumer “watchdog comments,” and the way in which ego-threatening product categories themselves may actually induce a prosecutorial mindset, leading to greater levels of suspicion toward positive online product reviews and the impulse to prosecute potential fraudsters. In Study 1, laboratory-induced ego threat increased punitive severity against the act of falsifying online product reviews. In Study 2, a content analysis of actual Amazon.com reviews and consumer commentary indicates that the occurrence of watchdog comments is more common within ego-threatening product categories.