Imperial College London

Dr. Rajesh Bhargave

Business School

Associate Professor of Marketing
 
 
 
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Contact

 

+44 (0)20 7594 6448r.bhargave CV

 
 
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Location

 

395Business School BuildingSouth Kensington Campus

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Summary

 

Publications

Publication Type
Year
to

11 results found

Bhargave R, Pena Marin J, 2021, Comparing Estimates for Decision-Making: Numerical Processing and Preferences for Underestimates versus Overestimates, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied

Journal article

Bhargave RP, Montgomery NV, Redden JP, 2018, Collective satiation: how co-experience accelerates a decline in hedonic judgments, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol: 114, Pages: 529-546, ISSN: 0022-3514

ndividuals often mutually experience a stimulus with a relationship partner or social group (e.g., snacking with friends). Yet, little is currently understood about how a sense of coexperiencing affects hedonic judgments of experiences that unfold over time. Research on the shared attention state has suggested that hedonic judgments are intensified when individuals coexperience a stimulus (vs. experiencing it alone), and other related work has found that the social environment influences hedonic judgments in shared (vs. solo) experiences. Although this past work has focused on judgments of single instances of a stimulus, the present work examines how coexperience affects hedonic judgments of stimuli over time. This work documents the ‘collective satiation effect’ wherein satiation—a diminished enjoyment of pleasant stimuli with repeated experience—is accelerated by a sense of coexperiencing the stimulus with others. We propose that this happens because shared attention makes the repetitive nature of the experience more salient, by promoting and incorporating thoughts of others also repeatedly having the same shared experience. Five studies document the collective satiation effect, support the proposed mechanism, and show moderators of the effect. Taken together, this research contributes to an understanding of how the social environment influences the experience of hedonic stimuli, which has broad implications for the value individuals place on the time that they spend with others. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved)

Journal article

Bhargave RP, Mantonakis A, White K, 2016, The cue-of-the-cloud effect: when reminders of online information availability increase purchase intentions and choice, Journal of Marketing Research, Vol: 53, Pages: 699-711, ISSN: 0022-2437

In offline purchasing settings (e.g., retail stores), consumers often encounter reminders that product information can be found on the Internet. The authors refer to a reminder of the availability of online information as a ‘cue-of-the-cloud’ and explore its unique consequences on offline consumer behavior. This research finds that when consumers are presented with relatively large amounts of information in offline purchasing situations, a cue-of-the-cloud can enhance purchase intentions and choice behaviors. This occurs because the cue increases consumers' confidence in being able to retain and access the information seen in-store, which engenders positive feelings about the decision to purchase. Four studies, including two experiments in real brick-and-mortar field settings, demonstrate the consequence of a cue-of-the-cloud, along with some novel moderators of these effects.

Journal article

Pena-Marin J, Bhargave R, 2016, Lasting performance: Round numbers activate associations of stability and increase perceived length of product benefits, Journal of Consumer Psychology, Vol: 26, Pages: 410-416, ISSN: 1057-7408

Consumers prefer products that deliver benefits for a longer time. For instance, caffeinated drinks are consumed for energy, but the key characteristic that performs this benefit—caffeine—tends to wear off in its effects. How can marketers communicate the lasting performance of product characteristics? This work proposes that numbers used in conveying product characteristics—round (200 mg) or precise (203 mg)—influence consumers' perception of lasting performance and product attitudes. More specifically, product characteristics described in round (vs. precise) numbers are perceived as performing for a longer time, and this effect is driven by a symbolic association between round numbers and stability. This finding is important because numbers are commonly used in conveying product benefits and past work has mainly documented the advantages of using precise numbers (e.g., higher competence), whereas less is known about when and why using round numbers boosts product attitudes. Three studies, including one with actual consumption, offer triangulating evidence for this prediction and its underlying psychological mechanism. Overall, this work contributes to research on product perception, numerical cognition, and persuasion.

Journal article

Montgomery NV, Bhargave R, 2016, Indirect Social Influence at Work: The Effect of Anticipated Discussion on Thinking Style, The Psychology of Consumer and Social Influence: Theory and Research, Editors: Howard, Publisher: Nova Science Publications, ISBN: 978-1-63485-498-6

Book chapter

Bhargave RP, Montgomery NV, 2015, My Recency, Our Primacy: How Social Connection Influences Evaluations of Sequences, Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, Vol: 28, Pages: 382-394, ISSN: 0894-3257

Individuals have many life experiences (e.g., work and vacations) that consist of a series of interconnected episodes (i.e., temporal sequences). Assessments of such experiences are integral to daily life in that they facilitate future planning and behaviors for individuals. Therefore, these experiences often culminate in evaluations of their global affect. Past work has shown that retrospective, affective evaluations of these sequences generally exhibit an “end effect,” whereby a sequence's end intensity—but not its start intensity—is disproportionately weighted. Yet, researchers have largely investigated experiences that occur alone. In contrast, many real-world experiences vary in their extent of social connection to others (e.g., working in an office with others versus alone in a cubicle). The present work fills this gap by showing the moderating role of social connection on how episodes are weighted in global affective ratings. Five studies involving two autobiographical experiences spanning several days each (workweek and spring break) and two brief simulated experiences show that high social connection leads to greater (lesser) weighting of the first (last) episode. To our knowledge, we are the first to demonstrate that these effects persist across different forms of social connection (i.e., interpersonal interaction versus semantic priming tasks) and are supported regardless of whether social connection occurs at encoding or retrieval of an experience.

Journal article

Bhargave R, Chakravarti A, Guha A, 2015, Two-stage decisions increase preference for hedonic options, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Vol: 130, Pages: 123-135, ISSN: 0749-5978

When choosing from multiple options, decision-makers may directly choose an option (single-stage decision), or initially shortlist a subset of options, and then choose an option from this shortlist (two-stage decision). Past work suggests that these two decision formats should lead to the same final choice when information about the choice alternatives is held constant. In contrast, this research demonstrates a novel effect: two-stage decisions increase preference for hedonic (vs. utilitarian) options. A regulatory focus account explains this effect. In a two-stage process, after shortlisting, decision-makers feel that they have sufficiently advanced their prevention goals, and this reduces their prevention focus during the final choice stage. Reduced prevention focus, in turn, enhances hedonic preference. Four studies across different decision contexts illustrate this effect and support the underlying process mechanism. The findings suggest that the formal structure of a decision (single-stage vs. two-stage) leads to systematic differences in decision-makers’ choices.

Journal article

Miron-Shatz T, Bhargave R, Doniger GM, 2015, Milestone Age Affects the Role of Health and Emotions in Life Satisfaction: A Preliminary Inquiry, PLOS One, Vol: 10, ISSN: 1932-6203

Jill turns 40. Should this change how she evaluates her life, and would a similar change occur when she turns 41? Milestone age (e.g., 30, 40, 50)—a naturally occurring feature in personal timelines—has received much attention is popular culture, but little attention in academic inquiry. This study examines whether milestone birthdays change the way people evaluate their life. We show that life outlook is impacted by this temporal landmark, which appears to punctuate people’s mental maps of their life cycle. At these milestone junctures, people take stock of where they stand and have a more evaluative perspective towards their lives when making life satisfaction judgments. Correspondingly, they place less emphasis on daily emotional experiences. We find that milestone agers (vs. other individuals) place greater weight on health satisfaction and BMI and lesser weight on daily positive emotions in their overall life satisfaction judgments, whereas negative emotions remain influential.

Journal article

Bhargave R, Montgomery NV, 2013, The Social Context of Temporal Sequences: Why First Impressions Shape Shared Experiences, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol: 40, Pages: 501-517, ISSN: 0093-5301

Journal article

Kapitan S, Bhargave R, 2013, Navigating Residue Sensitivity in the Used Goods Marketplace, Psychology & Marketing, Vol: 30, Pages: 305-317, ISSN: 0742-6046

How does a previous owner's contact with used goods affect consumer judgments of these objects? This research identifies a trait measure of sensitivity to the residue of another's essence or taint found in a used possession. Those highly sensitive to residue respond to the transfer of contaminants from a previous owner of an object. Six samples in Study 1 show that residue sensitivity is a reliable and valid measure that is related to constructs of possession attachment and disease transfer. Still, residue sensitivity explains consumer behavior in the secondhand marketplace in ways that these existing constructs do not. Studies 2 and 3 illustrate how consumers highly sensitive to residue shift their judgments of secondhand goods according to information about the valence of a source of prior ownership.

Journal article

Zauberman G, Levav J, Diehl K, Bhargave Ret al., 2009, 1995 Feels So Close Yet So Far: The Effect of Event Markers on Subjective Feelings of Elapsed Time, Psychological Science, Vol: 21, Pages: 133-139, ISSN: 0956-7976

Why does an event feel more or less distant than another event that occurred around the same time? Prior research suggeststhat characteristics of an event itself can affect the estimated date of its occurrence. Our work differs in that we focused onhow characteristics of the time interval following an event affect people’s feelings of elapsed time (i.e., their feelings of howdistant an event seems). We argue that a time interval that is punctuated by a greater number of accessible intervening eventsrelated to the target event (event markers) will make the target event feel more distant, but that unrelated intervening eventswill not have this effect. In three studies, we found support for the systematic effect of event markers. The effect of markerswas independent of other characteristics of the event, such as its memorability, emotionality, importance, and estimated date,a result suggesting that this effect is distinct from established dating biases.

Journal article

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