Behavior & Technology Lab

Academia and business have shown an increased interest in using neurophysiological methods, such as eye-tracking and electroencephalography (EEG), to assess consumer motivation. The current research contributes to this literature by verifying whether these methods can predict the effects of antecedent events as motivating functions of attention, neural responses, choice, and consumption. Antecedent motivational factors are discussed, with a specific focus on deprivation as such a situational factor. Thirty-two participants were randomly assigned to the experimental and control conditions. Water deprivation of 11-12 h was used as an establishing operation to increase the reinforcing effectiveness of water. We designed three experimental sessions to capture the complexity of the relationship between antecedents and consumer behavior. Experimental manipulations in session 1 established the effectiveness of water for the experimental group and abolished it for the control group. Results from session 2 show that participants in the experimental group had significantly higher average fixation duration for the image of water. Their frontal asymmetry did not provide significant evidence of greater left frontal activation toward the water image. Session 3 demonstrated that choice and consumption behavior of the relevant reinforcer was significantly higher for participants in the experimental group. These early findings highlight the potential application of a multi-method approach using neurophysiological tools in consumer research, which provides a comprehensive picture of the functional relationship between motivating events, behavior (attention, neural responses, choice, and consumption), and consequences.

Many travelers plan their trip using online
booking platforms. These often have recommendations for
things to do and explore in the target destination. The
suggestions could have either positive or negative
connotations. This study aimed to investigate if such
recommendations can trigger certain mood states that
impact consumers’ evaluation of hotels online. Web-based
mood induction procedures were used to see whether moods
as antecedent states had any impact on consumers’
evaluations of hotel bookings. The results of the conjoint
analysis demonstrate that the impact of location and hotel
reviews can change based on consumers’ mood. The impact
of mood can help online managers in developing more
effective hotel marketing and advertising strategies. This paper is published at the IEEE International Engineering and Enginering Management (IEEM) conference 2021.

An increasing number of global consumers use their smartphones to shop for goods. This short paper published in Procedia Computer Science aims to explore if a price-conscious decision-making style has a relationship with young adult consumers’ tendency to perform mobile shopping in retail stores. The study is conducted as a survey with a sample that includes two different nationalities. The results suggest interesting positive relationships between price consciousness and mobile shopping activities in retail stores. Furthermore, the results indicate that there are differences between the two markets studied. Price consciousness seems to have a stronger association with mobile shopping for the investigated Thai respondents than for the Finnish respondents.

The point of online purchase includes the location and conditions in which an online transaction takes place. The term usually comprises the presentation of the products available for purchase by consumers as well as the means of completing the transaction. Knowledge about how the online setting and the specific situation influence consumers at the point of online purchase setting may increase the success of online marketing activities. An online experiment was arranged for the analysis of motivating events at the point of the online purchase situation. The results show that the treatment group had a conversion rate of approximately 39% for up-sell offers. Also, results show an increased revenue of 87.94% for the treatment group compared to the control group. Results of the experiment are discussed in relation to the concepts of rule and rule-governed behavior at the point of online purchase. This study is published in Procedia Computer Science.

Valdimar Sigurdsson (Reykjavik University) and Asle Fagerstrøm (Kristiania University College) are guest editors for a special section on “Health, Technology, & Behavior Science” in Perspectives on Behavior Science. The aim of this section is to provide reviews and empirical research that integrates the latest technological innovations and behavior science. The contributors in this special section demonstrate that behavior science can aid an understanding of why people do or do not engage in a healthy lifestyle and help identify what is needed to design a successful health behavior intervention through the use of technology

Healthy food labels are a widely used form of intervention that nudges consumers towards healthier choices. This study is published in Procedia Computer Science and investigates the relative importance of healthy food labels on the consumers’ online choice of grocery. A conjoint study (n=111) shows that price, brand, and country of origin had a relatively higher impact on choice than health food labels. However, it is important to note that consumers are not completely indifferent to the presence of a healthy food label and it increases chances of a product being chosen online. The results also demonstrate gender differences, as healthy food labels had a stronger impact on female consumers.

This study investigates the impact of Internet of Things (IoT) services from a smartphone app in a retail grocery shopping situation. A scenario was arranged whereby 226 participants were to purchase, among other products, fresh salmon in a grocery store using the store’s smartphone app. Findings from a conjoint study show that the following IoT services; “updated expiry date”, “aggregated national customer experience index”, and “personalized offer based on product in the basket” evoked the approach and abated avoidance tendencies to explore the smartphone app, while simultaneously increasing the likelihood of buying based on information from the app. The IoT service “Real-time price” had a varied impact on participant approach-avoidance tendencies to interact with the app. Scenario simulation analysis shows that some IoT services can be a deal-breaker in a competitive grocery market. The study is published in Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, presented at Forskning.no and Kristiania.no.

This study analyzes online customer reviews in order to investigate customers’ preferences regarding cosmetic products. Based on the marketing firm theory, this research explores the possibility of enhancing the bilateral contingent relationships between the customer and the marketing firm within the cosmetics domain. Hence, this study applies market‐search concepts by extracting customer reviews and employing text analytics to identify reinforcers and factors in cosmetic products, which customers are expecting, and their sentiments towards them. Our results suggest that some reinforcers are shared among all customers, but some vary among the different customer segments based on their age and skin tone. The study is published in Managerial and Decision Economics and presented in Kunnskapsmagasinet Kristiania.

Internet of Things Applications in Healthcare: A Focus on Improving Patient Safety: A special issue of Journal of Healthcare Engineering

Call for papers

This special issue seeks to attract original research articles that discuss emerging IoT technologies with regard to their impact on patient safety in healthcare. This special issue especially welcomes analytical, computational, experimental, and clinical research, state-of-the-art reviews, and conceptual and theoretical developments and designs.