Psychological Ownership and Consumer Behavior

Before Associate Professor of MarketingSuzanne B. Shu, PhD found her calling in academia, she had a career in industry. With undergraduate and advanced degrees in electrical engineering from Cornell University, Shu spent five years with Bell Communications Research. Earning an MBA was a logical part of her professional trajectory. While in business school, Shu realized that the phenomena that had always interested her ― behavioral economics, judgment and decision-making, consumer psychology ― were organized into formal areas of study. The MBA experience changed her life, she says, and sealed her decision to pursue a Ph.D. at the University of Chicago, where she worked closely with renowned behavioral science expert Richard H. Thaler. Shu’s numerous published papers address the psychological determinants around concepts like the endowment effect, whereby people ascribe higher value to things just because they own them; and the increasingly hot topic of decumulation, that is, spending savings, pension or other assets accumulated during one’s working life. She studies consumers’ behaviors around purchasing annuities ― or, more precisely, why they might not.