Oleg Urminsky

Biography

Oleg Urminsky studies consumer and managerial decision making and its implications for marketing management. He is particularly interested in goals and motivations, intertemporal decision making, consumer beliefs and inference, statistical reasoning and customer relationship management (e.g., reward/loyalty programs and incentive systems). He teaches experimental research methods for MBA students.

Urminsky's research has been published in the Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, Journal of Marketing Research, and Psychological Science as well as other journals. His paper, "The Goal-Gradient Hypothesis Resurrected: Purchase Acceleration, Illusionary Goal Progress, and Customer Retention" was a finalist for the 2007 Paul Green award and 2011 O'Dell award. His recent research investigates the role of identity in decision making, how emotion relates to financial decision making, the factors affecting consumer impatience, how suggested default amounts affect donation behavior and the importance of field experiments for testing policies.

Urminsky's past experience includes serving as a research director and corporate vice president at Young Rubicam Advertising, where he worked on the largest worldwide study of brands, the Brand Asset Valuator, investigating the links between consumer perceptions and subsequent financial performance. Urminsky had previously worked in political polling and custom marketing research.

Urminsky earned a bachelor's degree in analytic philosophy and mathematics from Princeton University, holds a master's degree in statistics from the Stern School of Business and earned his PhD in applied statistics and psychological measurement from Columbia University.

Research Interests

Decision making; goals and motivation; intertemporal choice.

Academic Areas

• Marketing