Papers

Published at Journal of Consumer Research
With Nick Reinholtz
Platforms often present both user-generated star ratings and certifications—like Airbnb’s “Superhost” badge—to signal quality. We find that quality certifications negatively influence ratings, in ways regular consumers do not correct for. Across over 1.5 million ratings and several follow-up studies, certified properties receive lower subsequent ratings. Troublingly, consumers do not correct for this when choosing properties to stay at.

Conditionally accepted at Journal of Marketing
With Nick Reinholtz
This paper examines how situational context—like weather—affects user-generated product ratings. Analyzing over 218,000 ratings from REI.com, we find that cold-weather gear receives lower ratings during unseasonably cold weather, despite being designed for those conditions. Other products are not affected. Follow-up experiments show that consumers consistently overlook how context shapes their experiences, and this bias proves difficult to correct.

Under review at Journal of Experimental Psychology: General
With Nick Reinholtz
This research questions at a more fundamental level whether user-generated star ratings help consumers make optimal choices. We show that ratings are influenced by the expectations a product creates, making them context-dependent and often incomparable across alternatives. Using four experiments, we find that higher expectations lead to lower ratings, and that consumers can mistakenly prefer higher-rated products even when they are objectively worse.

Conditionally accepted at Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes
With Joe Gladstone and Emily Garbinsky
This research finds that talking about money can reduce financial anxiety. Using experiments, large-scale surveys, and text analysis of online discussions, we find that communicating about finances—especially controllable topics like budgeting—significantly lowers anxiety. The effect is strongest when people feel a greater sense of control, such as when communicating online, suggesting financial communication is a scalable tool for improving well-being.

Under review at Management Science
With Katie Mehr
This research explores how the dispersion between advisors’ estimates affects whether people average their advice. When advisor estimates are similar, people are more likely to average them—but when estimates differ, people revert to their own prior beliefs and rely on advice less. This suggests people misinterpret disagreement as advisor incompetence, failing to recognize that averaging can reduce noise and improve accuracy.

Under review at Psychological Science
With Katie Mehr
This research investigates when people rely more on peers versus experts for advice. Across five preregistered studies, we find that people turn to peers for experience-based evaluations (like product ratings) and to experts for information-based predictions (like weather forecasts). This distinction arises because people view peers as more similar in experience and experts as better at interpreting information.