Research Highlights

Does it matter whether your donation helps someone in your neighborhood or someone across the world? We found that it does — but not in the way you might think.

Our research revealed that donors experience greater happiness when giving to socially distant beneficiaries (people far removed from their own social circle) compared to socially close ones. The key mechanism? Benevolence. Giving to distant strangers activates a stronger sense of selfless generosity, which amplifies the "warm glow" of giving.

What happens when AI agents do your shopping for you? We explored how the rise of AI-powered search and shopping assistants is fundamentally changing the way consumers discover products and make purchasing decisions.

In what we call the "delegate economy," consumers increasingly hand off decisions to AI agents. But here's the catch: only brands that AI systems recognize and recommend will survive. If an AI shopping assistant doesn't know your brand exists, neither will the consumer.

We're increasingly getting financial advice from AI assistants. But does making an AI look and feel more human-like change the financial risks we're willing to take?

My research found that when AI financial advisors are anthropomorphized — given human-like names, voices, or appearances — consumers become more risk-averse. In other words, a more "human" AI makes you play it safer with your money. This challenges the assumption that humanizing AI always makes consumers more comfortable and trusting.

Not everyone feels the same way about AI-powered services. We discovered that your political ideology — whether you lean liberal or conservative — significantly predicts how you respond to AI in service settings like tourism.

Conservatives, who tend to value tradition and personal control, showed more resistance to AI-driven services. Liberals, more open to novel experiences, were more receptive. This pattern held across multiple studies and contexts, from AI hotel concierges to automated travel planning.