ADELLE XUE YANG

http://home.uchicago.edu/~xyang4/
Adelle.Yang@ChicagoBooth.Edu

5870 S. Woodlawn Ave.

Chicago, IL 60637
Phone number: (979) 571-0858
EDUCATION

Ph.D. in Marketing, The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, 2016 (expected)
M.S. Management, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 2009
(M.S. E.M.Lyon Business School, Lyon, France, 2007-2008)
B.S. Statistics, Department of Statistics, East China Normal University, 2006
(Minor in French, Department of Foreign Languages, 2006)
RESEARCH INTERESTS
Judgment and Decision-making, Consumer Satisfaction, Consumer Welfare, Interpersonal
Decision-making, Dynamic Decision-making, Gift Giving, Affective and Cognitive Processing
DISSERTATION: A NEW LOOK AT GIFT GIVING
MSI Alden G. Clayton Best Dissertation Proposal Award Winner
Dissertation Committee: Oleg Urminsky (Chair), Ann McGill, Christopher Hsee, & Dan Bartels
Overview: My dissertation examines how people choose for others, with a focus on gift giving.
In Essay I (Smile-Seeking Givers and Value-Seeking Recipients: Why Gift Choices and
Recipient Preferences Diverge, under review at Journal of Marketing Research), I primarily
investigate motives of gift giving. Prior research on gift giving often used making recipients
happy interchangeably with improving recipients welfare. We propose givers motive to
make recipients happy is better understood as a desire to induce positive affective reactions, such
as a smile from recipients. This smile-seeking motive yields a mismatch between gift choices
and recipients preferences, because attributes that promote recipient happiness upon gift
reception are often not the same attributes that augment recipients overall welfare. We find a
considerable givers-recipients preference discrepancy that cannot be explained by extant theories
of perspective taking, is mitigated when the affective reactions are not immediately obtainable,
and is mediated by the anticipation of these affective reactions. Moreover, in a longitudinal field
survey, givers derive more enjoyment from their observation of the recipients initial affective
reactions than from their observation of recipients long-term satisfaction. Our findings
challenge extant assumptions about gift-giving motives, and attest to the importance of affective
reactions in interpersonal decision-making.
In Essay II (Choosing for Others From Prediction Errors to Interpersonal Accountability), I
aim to understand how people make decision for other in general. Prior research focused on

prediction errors evoked by self-other differences, and treated other-oriented decisions as

behavioral consequences of other-oriented judgment. Across four experimental studies, we
reveal a previously unrecognized role of interpersonal accountability in other-oriented decisions.
Focusing on intertemporal choices, we find that similar prediction errors prevail different types
of other-oriented decisions (e.g., gift, advice, vs. surrogate decisions), and on average, people are
more impatient when making choices (e.g. between a sooner-smaller or later-larger reward)
involving others than when choosing for themselves. However, the difference between
interpersonal and own decisions depends on the anticipated interpersonal accountability. We also
devise an index to measure the anticipated temporal changes in interpersonal accountability,
which predicts discount factors in other-oriented decisions.
PUBLICATIONS (Abstracts at the end of the C.V.)
Adelle X. Yang and Oleg Urminsky (forthcoming), The Foresight Effect: Local Optimism
Motivates Consistency and Local Pessimism Motivates Variety, Journal of Consumer Research.
Adelle X. Yang, Christopher K. Hsee, and Xingshan Zheng (2012). The AB identification
Survey: A Practical Method to Distinguish between Absolute and Relative Determinants of
Happiness, Journal of Happiness Studies, Volume 13, Issue 4, 729-744.
Adelle X. Yang, Christopher K. Hsee, Yi Liu and Li Zhang (2011). The Supremacy of Singular
Subjectivity, Journal of Consumer Psychology: Special Issue, 21, 393-404.
Christopher K. Hsee, Adelle X. Yang and Liangyan Wang (2010). Idleness Aversion and the
Need for Justifiable Busyness, Psychological Science, 21, 926-930.
UNDER REVIEW AND WORKING PAPERS
Adelle X. Yang and Oleg Urminsky. Smile-Seeking Givers and Value-Seeking Recipients: Why
Gift Choices and Recipient Preferences Diverge, (Dissertation Essay I) under review at
Journal of Marketing Research.
Adelle X. Yang and Oleg Urminsky, Choosing for Others From Prediction Errors to
Interpersonal Accountability, (Dissertation Essay II), completed data collection of 4 studies,
manuscript in preparation for Psychological Science.
Adelle X. Yang, Christopher Hsee, and Oleg Urminsky Eager to Help yet Reluctant to Give:
Pro-social Effort May Differ from Pro-social Choice, completed data collection of 5 studies,
manuscript in preparation for Journal of Consumer Research.
Oleg Urminsky, Adelle X. Yang and Lilly Kofler, Outcome Neglect: Expected Value
Maximization Failure in A Simple Game, completed data collection of 11 studies, manuscript
in preparation.

SELECTED WORK IN PROGRESS

Adelle X. Yang, Rebecca White, and Oleg Urminsky, Increasing Appreciation by Reducing
Freedom: Gift Card vs. Cash Gift Choices.
Adelle X. Yang, A Visceral vs. Cerebral Perspective of Product Attributes and Consumer
Consequences.
Adelle X. Yang, Min Zhao and Dilip Soman, Constructed Consumption: The Consequences of
Upfront Cost.
Adelle X. Yang, William Goldstein, Seamus Powell and Josh Bruce, Differential Generalizations of
Moral Judgments.
HONORS, SCHOLARSHIPS, AND FELLOWSHIPS
2015
2014

Fellow, AMA Sheth Foundation Doctoral Consortium, London

Award Winner, MSI Alden G. Clayton Dissertation Proposal

2014

Kilts Marketing Research Center Fellowship

2013

Fellow, Haring Symposium, Indiana University,

2011

Oscar Mayer Fellowship

2010-present

Katherine Dusak Miller PhD Fellowship

PROFESSIONAL SERVICES
Trainee Reviewer, Journal of Consumer Research, 2013 - 2015 (with Prof. Oleg Urminsky)
Trainee Reviewer, Journal of Consumer Research, 2013 2015 (with Prof. Chris Hsee)
Competitive Paper Reviewer, Association for Consumer Research, 2012, 2013
Poster Reviewer, Association for Consumer Research, 2011
TEACHING EXPERIENCES
Teaching Assistant for Marketing Strategy, Booth School of Business, 2011-2014
Teaching Assistant for Consumer Behavior, Booth School of Business, 2014
Teaching Assistant for Marketing Research Methods, Booth School of Business, 2012-2014
Teaching Assistant for Managing in Organizations, Booth School of Business, 2014
Teaching Assistant, Behavioral Research Method, Shanghai Jiaotong University, 2009
SELECTED CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS
Altruistic Behavior, Egoistic Choice, with Oleg Urminsky and Christopher K. Hsee, Paper
presented at the annual conference of Association of Consumer Research, Chicago, IL. 2013.
Outcome Neglect: How Guessing Heuristics Supersede Expected Value, with Oleg Urminsky,
Paper presented at the annual conference of Association of Consumer Research, Chicago, IL.

2013.
Change Fate Through Consumer Choices, with Oleg Urminsky, Paper presented at the annual
conference of Association of Consumer Research, Vancouver 2013.
Changing Myself, Changing My Fate: How Anticipating Future Outcomes Affects Experiential
Consumer Choices, with Oleg Urminsky, Paper presented at the annual conference of
Society of Judgment and Decision Making, Minneapolis, MN, 2012.
Outcome Neglect: How Guessing Heuristics Supersede Expected Value" with Oleg Urminsky,
Paper presented at the annual conference of Society of Judgment and Decision Making,
Minneapolis, MN, 2012.
The Consequences of Waiting and the Constructed Consumption, with Min Zhao and Dilip
Soman, Paper presented at the annual conference of Association of Consumer Research,
Vancouver, BC, 2012.
Changing Myself, Changing My Fate: How Anticipating Future Outcomes Affects Experiential
Consumer Choices, with Oleg Urminsky Paper presented at Behavioral Decision Research in
Management, Boulder, CO. 2012
The AB Identification Survey: A Practical Method to Distinguish between Absolute and Relative
Determinants of Happiness, with Christopher K. Hsee. Paper presented at the annual
conference of ACR, Jacksonville, FL, 2010
The Supremacy of Subjective Evaluations As Indicators of Inherent Preferences, with Christopher
K. Hsee. Paper presented at the annual conference of ACR, Jacksonville, FL. 2010.
PAPER ABSTRACTS
Adelle X. Yang and Oleg Urminsky (forthcoming), The Foresight Effect: Local Optimism
Motivates Consistency and Local Pessimism Motivates Variety, Journal of Consumer Research.
Abstract: Consumers sometimes prefer to repeat their past choices, while other times the same consumer
prefers to try something new. We propose that a consumers situational future outlook, that is, local
optimism or pessimism about an imminent outcome, has unique effects on consumers spontaneous
preference for self-continuity, which lead to differences in the sequential consistency of consumer choices.
Six experimental studies demonstrate this Foresight Effect, that local optimism increases preference for
self-continuity and yields more sequential choice consistency, whereas local pessimism decreases preference
for self-continuity and yields more sequential variety seeking. The Foresight Effect cannot be attributed to
differences in mood, causal attribution, or perceived control. These findings provide new insights for the
relationship between future-oriented cognition and consumer behaviors, and hold broad managerial
implications for when consumers will be more apt to repeat past purchases or more open to novel product
adoption.
Adelle X. Yang, Christopher K. Hsee, and Xingshan Zheng (2012). The AB identification Survey:
A Practical Method to Distinguish between Absolute and Relative Determinants of Happiness,
Journal of Happiness Studies, Volume 13, Issue 4, 729-744.
Abstract: People obtain happiness from myriad variables in daily life. Some variables exert an absolute
effect on happiness, and some affect happiness only through social context. This distinction is important
because investing resources on the absolute determinants of happiness can effectively increase the aggregate
welfare, whereas investing resources on the relative determinants of happiness will lead to a zero-sum game

and little aggregate welfare improvement over time. We introduce a simple survey method to identify the
absolute-relative nature of a variable. We first validated the survey method by comparing its results with a
theoretically superior but less practical experimental method. Then we administered surveys with two
distinct populations, and identified a variety of absolute and relative determinants of happiness for each
population. While these results shed light on the specific components of happiness for these representative
populations, our method suggests a new path to improve resource allocation from the perspective of
sustainable welfare improvement.
Adelle X. Yang, Christopher K. Hsee, Yi Liu and Li Zhang (2011). The Supremacy of Singular
Subjectivity, Journal of Consumer Psychology: Special Issue on Behavioral Decision Theory, 21, 393-404.
Abstract: Consumers often seek objective product information and direct product comparison in order to
make better purchase decisions. However, consumption is largely subjective and non-comparative. Results
from four experimental studies suggest that, contrary to conventional wisdom, purchase decisions can often
yield better consumption experiences if objective specifications are removed and direct comparison is
inhibited at the time of purchase, because, purchase decisions based on subjective and non-comparative
information are often more compatible with consumption. The supremacy of subjective and singular
evaluation even held when consumers could not experience the target products themselves and relied on
other consumers ratings ratings generated from singular evaluation of products lead to purchase decisions
that yielded better consumption experiences overall, compared with ratings generated from comparative
evaluation. Our findings highlight a potential conflict between consumer satisfaction with purchase
decisions and consumer satisfaction from consumption experience, and suggest a new way of marketing to
improve long-term consumer welfare.
Christopher K. Hsee, Adelle X. Yang and Liangyan Wang (2010). Idleness Aversion and the Need
for Justifiable Busyness, Psychological Science, 21, 926-930.
Abstract: There are many apparent reasons why people engage in activity, such as to earn money, to
become famous, or to advance science. In this paper we suggest a potentially deeper reason: People dread
idleness, yet they need a reason to be busy. In two experiments, we give people choices to either engage in a
task that keeps them moderately busy, or engage in nothing but idleness. We find that, 1) people are happier
when they are busy; 2) without a justification, people choose to be idle, despite being able to predict that
being busy will make them happier; 3) with a justification, even a specious one, people choose to be busy;
and 4) when deprived of the choice and forced to be busy by random assignment, being busy still makes
people happier. Our research suggests that many purported goals that people pursue may be merely
justifications to keep themselves busy. Yet it is probably beneficial for ones wellbeing to have a sound,
specious, or even a forced justification to engage in busyness.
Adelle X. Yang and Oleg Urminsky. Smile-Seeking Givers and Value-Seeking Recipients: Why
Gift Choices and Recipient Preferences Diverge, Under Review at Journal of Marketing Research.
Abstract: Prior research on gift giving often used making recipients happy interchangeably with
improving recipients welfare. We propose givers motive to make recipients happy is better understood
as a desire to induce positive affective reactions, such as a smile from recipients. This smile-seeking
motive yields a mismatch between gift choices and recipients preferences, because attributes that promote
recipient happiness upon gift reception are often not the same attributes that augment recipients overall
welfare. We find a considerable givers-recipients preference discrepancy that cannot be explained by extant
theories of perspective taking (Studies 1 & 2), is mitigated when the affective reactions are not immediately
obtainable (Studies 3 & 4), and is mediated by the anticipation of these affective reactions (Studies 4 & 5).
Moreover, in a longitudinal field survey (Study 6), givers derive more enjoyment from their observation of
the recipients initial affective reactions than from their observation of recipients long-term satisfaction.

Our findings challenge extant assumptions about gift-giving motives, and attest to the importance of
affective reactions in interpersonal decision-making.
WORKING PAPERS:
Adelle X. Yang and Oleg Urminsky, Intertemporal Choices for Others From Prediction Errors
to Interpersonal Accountability, (Disssertation Essay II), completed data collection of 4 studies,
manuscript in preparation for Psychological Science.
Abstract: How do people choose for others? Prior research focused on prediction errors evoked by selfother differences, and treated other-oriented decisions as behavioral consequences of other-oriented
judgment. Across four experimental studies, we reveal a previously unrecognized role of interpersonal
accountability in other-oriented decisions. Focusing on intertemporal choices, we find that similar prediction
errors prevail different types of other-oriented decisions (e.g., gift, advice, vs. surrogate decisions), and on
average, people are more impatient when making choices (e.g. between a sooner-smaller or later-larger
reward) involving others than when choosing for themselves. However, the difference between
interpersonal and own decisions depends on the anticipated interpersonal accountability. We also devise an
index to measure the anticipated temporal changes in interpersonal accountability, which predicts discount
factors in other-oriented decisions.
Adelle X. Yang, Christopher Hsee, and Oleg Urminsky Eager to Help yet Reluctant to Give:
Choice Activates Consideration of Self-interest and Reduces Pro-social Effort, completed data
collection of 5 studies, manuscript in preparation for Journal of Consumer Research.
Abstract: Are all solicitations created equal? We compare two conditions representing typical pro-social
requests: a helping condition where participants freely exert effort on a task to benefit a charity, and a
giving condition where participants earn money and make a choice between donating to the charity or
having the money for themselves. Five studies show that participants exerted more effort and derive more
meaning from the task in the helping conditions than the giving conditions. Despite the willingness to
help exhibited by their effort in the helping condition, few participants chose to donate in the giving
condition. Our findings suggest that people are highly motivated to help and find it and psychologically
rewarding to do so. However, donation appeals are viewed instead as a resource allocation decision,
activating the deliberate consideration of self-interest and undermining peoples desire to help, leading to
low willingness to give. These findings add important insights to the literature on egoism and altruism, and
have direct implications for fundraising.
Oleg Urminsky, Adelle X. Yang and Lilly Kofler, Outcome Neglect: Expected Value
Maximization Failure in A Simple Game, completed data collection of 11 studies, manuscript in
preparation.
Abstract: Expected value maximization is a straightforward idea. Yet surprisingly most people fail to use
expected value maximization as the optimal strategy, in the context of a simple guessing game: After a prize
is randomly determined from a discrete range (e.g., $1 to $1000) at equal probability, a person has one shot
to guess the prize, and wins the prize if she guesses the correct amount. The optimal strategy is to guess the
highest amount (e.g., guessing $1000), given the equal probability of each outcome. People considerably
deviate from this optimal strategy in real radio contests, in various lab experiments using lottery tickets and
dice rolls, and even among experts attendees at a decision research conference. Suboptimal strategies are
reduced, but not eliminated, with repeated plays, task simplification and statistical or economic training.
These findings challenge the view of expected value maximization as a default decision rule.

REFERENCES:
Oleg Urminsky (oleg.urminsky@chicagobooth.edu, 1-773-834-4710)
Associate Professor of Marketing, University of Chicago
Christopher K. Hsee (christopher.hsee@chicagobooth.edu. 1-773-702-7728)
Theodore O. Yntema Professor of Behavioral Science and Marketing, University of Chicago
Ann McGill (ann.mcgill@chicagobooth.edu, 1-773-702-7448)
Sears Roebuck Professor of General Management, Marketing and Behavioral Science, University of
Chicago
Daniel Bartels (bartels@uchicago.edu, 1-773-702-8325)
Assistant Professor of Marketing, University of Chicago