Abigail Sussman, Assistant Professor of Marketing, is interested in how consumers form judgments and make decisions, from underlying mechanisms to applications. She investigates questions at the intersection of consumer behavior, psychology, and economics, with the aim of improving human welfare. Her central research examines psychological biases that can lead consumers to commit errors in budgeting, spending, and borrowing. She also explores how the same biases extend beyond financial domains to choices in other areas.
Sussman’s prior experience includes work at Goldman Sachs in its equity research division. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Brown University in cognitive science and economics, and a joint PhD from the psychology department and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University.
2013 - 2014 Course Schedule
| Number |
Name |
Quarter |
|
37000
|
Marketing Strategy |
2014 (Spring)
|
|
37601
|
Marketing Workshop |
2014 (Winter)
|
Research Activities
Judgment and decision making, consumer welfare, financial decision making, mental accounting, causal reasoning, political decision making
Sussman, Abigail B., Kristina Petkova, and Alexander Todorov, 2013. Competence ratings in the US predict presidential election outcomes in Bulgaria. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 49 (4), 771-775.
Sussman, Abigail B., and Adam L. Alter, 2012. The exception is the rule: Underestimating and overspending on exceptional expenses. Journal of Consumer Research, 39 (December), 800-814.
Olivola, Christopher Y., Abigail B. Sussman, Konstantinos Tsetsos, Olivia Kang, and Alexander Todorov, 2012. Republicans prefer Republican-looking leaders: Political facial stereotypes predict candidate electoral success among right-leaning voters. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 3 (September), 605-613.
Sussman, Abigail B., and Eldar Shafir, 2012. On assets and debt in the psychology of perceived wealth. Psychological Science, 23 (1), 101-108.
Sussman, Abigail B., and Christopher Y. Olivola, 2011. Axe the tax: Taxes are disliked more than equivalent costs. Journal of Marketing Research, 48 (November), 91-101.
Khemlani, Sangeet S., Abigail B. Sussman, and Daniel M. Oppenheimer, 2011. Harry Potter and the sorcerer’s scope: Latent scope biases in explanatory reasoning. Memory and Cognition, 39 (3), 527-535.