Oleg Urminsky

Biographic Data

ID119120
NAMEOleg Urminsky
GIVEN NAMESOleg
FAMILY NAMEUrminsky
SIGNATUREURMINSKY O
AFFILIATIONSUniversity of Chicago
ORCID0000-0003-4390-386X
VERIFIEDYes
TOTAL WORKS42
TOTAL CITATIONS65
AUTHOR COUNT11
EDITOR COUNT31
FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR2006
LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR2026
H-INDEX4

  • The Benefits of Bundling Material Goods with Moderate Usage Complementarity

    Open AccessEugenia C Wu, Sarah G Moore et al.ARTICLEJournal of Consumer Research2026

    Firms can bundle material goods together in various ways, including based on their usage complementarity (i.e., the likelihood that the goods are used together). While prior research has investigated the consequences of bundling products that are high (vs. low) in usage complementarity, the current research uncovers the benefits of bundling products that are moderate in usage complementarity (e.g., a coffee mug and a folding chair). Thirteen pre-…

  • The Desire for Perfect Products

    Open AccessAprajita Gautam, Rajagopal Raghunathan et al.ARTICLEJournal of Consumer Research2026

    Some consumers evaluate products against demanding, ever-rising ideals of perfection. We introduce the desire for perfect products (DPP), a novel consumer trait capturing the extent to which consumers desire flawless products. Drawing on four qualitative studies, we identify three characteristics that distinguish high (vs. low) DPP consumers: (1) richer and more demanding ideal points, (2) greater susceptibility to upwardly revising those ideals …

  • A Mega-Replication of the Effect of Cash Versus Card Payment on Pain of Paying: Magnitude, Behavioral Outcomes, and Moderators

    Open AccessChristopher J Bechler, Rhia Catapano et al.ARTICLEJournal of Consumer Research2026

    We revisit the widely accepted finding that paying with cash is more painful than paying with card by conducting the first systematic mega-replication (including 13 large-scale preregistered replications; a total of 32,371 participants, 65 products, and 57 price points ranging from $1.09 to $400). The aggregate evidence reveals four insights: (1) leveraging a broad set of established paradigms, we replicate the finding that paying with cash is mo…

  • The Final Countdown: Temporal Frames of Environmental Threats

    Open AccessOzlem Tetik, David Faro et al.ARTICLEJournal of Consumer Research2026

    Scientists, NGOs, companies, and the press typically communicate temporal predictions about environmental threats in terms of the calendar date by which the threat is expected to occur (e.g., “Water shortage in the UK by 2040”). However, across eight online studies and a field experiment, we find that referring instead to the amount of time left until the threat (e.g., “Water shortage in the UK within 20 years”) makes the threat feel temporally c…

  • Inferences About Others’ Consumption Motives Influence What Consumers Expect from Similar Experiences

    Open AccessMatthew J Hall, Daniel M Zane et al.ARTICLEJournal of Consumer Research2026

    When consumers see someone else’s experience shared on social media, they often infer whether the sharer had relatively intrinsic or extrinsic motives for originally engaging in this experience. While prior research has documented how these inferred motives affect viewers’ social evaluations of the sharer, the present research demonstrates these inferences can shift viewer beliefs about the experience itself. The findings from six studies show th…

  • Brief Commentary: Theory Testing for Differences in Process—Hypothesizing, Testing, and Reporting Comparisons Between Indirect Effects

    Open AccessRomain Cadario, Dan R Schley et al.ARTICLEJournal of Consumer Research2026

    Consumer researchers often compare a proposed process across contexts (i.e., moderated mediation) or across mediators (e.g., ruling out an alternative process in parallel mediation). This article aims to help researchers in mapping process-related theoretical hypotheses onto statistical coefficients and in reporting their results. Researchers can formulate a variety of hypotheses about the conditional indirect effect (CIE) of a predictor X on an …

  • Skimpflation Penalty: Decreases in Product Quality Trigger Stronger Consumer Reactions than Decreases in Size or Increases in Price

    Open AccessIoannis Evangelidis, Andrew T Stephen et al.ARTICLEJournal of Consumer Research2026

    Rising costs have led to the emergence of skimpflation—reducing the quality of a product or service without changing its price. Although this practice is becoming increasingly common, little is known about how consumers perceive it relative to other cost-management strategies. Across multiple preregistered experiments, I find that consumers judge decreases in product quality as significantly more unfair than decreases in product size or increases…

  • Invisible Rankings: When Do Consumers Assume Best-to-Worst Ordinality When Choosing from an Unnumbered List?

    Open AccessMathew S Isaac, Milica Mormann et al.ARTICLEJournal of Consumer Research2026

    Consumers frequently use lists that were created by marketers, experts, or media platforms, such as a list of favorite restaurants. The authors refer to such lists as curated lists because they include items that appear to be endorsed or recommended by the list maker. Although these lists are typically ranked and numbered, marketers sometimes create lists that are not numbered, making it unclear whether the items have been ranked. Twelve studies …

  • Repair Service Signals: How Brand Repair Services Signal Unused Utility and Increase Product Repair

    Open AccessNathan Allred, Karen Page Winterich et al.ARTICLEJournal of Consumer Research2026

    Over the past several decades, there has been a shift toward disposable consumption resulting in a ‘throwaway society’, which includes replacing rather than repairing broken durable goods. Third-party repair services exist even as consumers choose to replace over repair, but more brands are offering repair services directly or supporting repair services through certifications. If consumers simply prefer newer products, brand repair services shoul…

  • A Framework for Understanding Consumer Response to the Depiction of Historically Underrepresented Identities in Marketing Communications

    Open AccessCory Haltman, Jianna Jin et al.ARTICLEJournal of Consumer Research2026

    In recent years, firms’ depictions of some historically underrepresented identities (HUIs) in marketing communications have elicited backlash, while depictions of other HUIs have been more broadly accepted. The present work develops a framework to explain when and why these divergent responses occur. We propose that, while liberals respond positively to the depiction of all HUIs due to their prioritization of the Fairness moral foundation, conser…

  • Limiting Accessibility: How Targeting Consumers with Disabilities Constrains Acceptable Prices for Innovations

    Open AccessMusa Essa, Johannes Boegershausen et al.ARTICLEJournal of Consumer Research2026

    People with disabilities constitute 15% of the world’s population with a total disposable income of more than $2.6 trillion. However, few companies offer products tailored to the needs of this segment, making it important to understand how mass-market consumers react to innovations that target people with disabilities. Nine studies and six supplementary studies (twelve preregistered) reveal that innovations targeting consumers with disabilities a…

  • The Effect of Online Cart Composition on Cart Abandonment

    Open AccessLiat Hadar, Yael Steinhart et al.ARTICLEJournal of Consumer Research2026References: 45

    Online shopping cart abandonment is widespread, causing major losses in potential revenues for e-commerce companies. We expand efforts to mitigate cart abandonment by investigating how the cart’s product composition affects abandonment and testing easy-to-implement interventions. We hypothesize that consumers are more likely to abandon carts containing a higher proportion of hedonic relative to utilitarian products. This cart composition effect a…

  • Starting Positive: The Impact of Self-Presentation Concerns on Consumer Reviews

    Open AccessElisa Solinas, Francesca Valsesia et al.ARTICLEJournal of Consumer Research2025References: 2

    This research investigates how reviewers’ self-presentation strategies influence their posting behavior. We find reviewers are less likely to post negative reviews early in their review history due to concerns that doing so would make them appear as lacking warmth. This concern diminishes as the number of reviews associated with their profile increases, resulting in a discernable negative trend in ratings at the reviewer level. We document this t…

  • Sustainability Cues Can Delay Consumption

    Open AccessFeifei Huang, Rafay A Siddiqui et al.ARTICLEJournal of Consumer Research2025

    With the rise of environmental concerns in recent decades, many companies have joined the initiative to advertise and promote sustainable consumption. The current research examines how providing sustainability cues to consumers might have unintended consequences of which practitioners and policymakers may not be fully aware. One pilot study and 10 main studies, including two real-choice studies, show that a sustainability cue may delay consumptio…

  • The “Confidence” Trap: When the Likelihood Is Low, Forecasters Look Less Competent When They Refer to Their Confidence in an Outcome Rather Than Its Probability

    Open AccessMauricio Palmeira, Haipeng Chen et al.ARTICLEJournal of Consumer Research2025References: 41

    Marketers make various forecasts, including those about new products, financial instruments, sporting events, and medical procedures, to influence consumer decisions. In communicating the likelihood that a forecaster assigns to an outcome, the forecaster can refer to their confidence in the outcome (e.g., “I’m 30% confident”) or the probability of the outcome (e.g., “There is a 30% probability”). The authors propose that the choice of language (e…

  • Promotion Architecture: A Deal Fairness Model of Restricted Price Promotions

    Open AccessShangwen Yi, David J Hardisty et al.ARTICLEJournal of Consumer Research2025References: 54

    This research examines the effectiveness of two common types of restricted price promotions: threshold promotions (conditional on spending more than a threshold amount; e.g., “Get $5 off on orders of $10 or more”) and capped promotions (limited to a maximum dollar value; e.g., “Get 50% off, up to $5 per order”). Results from seven preregistered studies, including one field study, show that threshold promotions lead to higher purchase intentions a…

  • The (Better) Road Not Taken: Setting a Goal Reduces Switching to More Effective Alternatives

    Open AccessElizabeth M S Friedman, Guy Voichek et al.ARTICLEJournal of Consumer Research2025References: 48

    We identify a novel way in which setting goals can backfire. In 13 studies and 4 supplemental studies, using both incentive-compatible and hypothetical designs across a range of domains, we demonstrate that setting an explicit goal and making progress toward it decreases the likelihood of switching to alternative means of pursuit. This occurs because means seem more effective relative to alternatives if they have been used to progress toward a re…

  • Let Me Show You What Your Tips Can Do! Materially Referenced Tip Recommendations Prompt Tipping

    Open AccessCe Liang, Lu Meng et al.ARTICLEJournal of Consumer Research2025References: 67

    Given the emergence of new technologies (e.g., online payment systems) and new service contexts (e.g., app-based services), the use of tip recommendations is becoming increasingly prevalent. Based on one large secondary dataset analysis (176,237 food delivery orders) and nine experiments, this research identifies an effective and easily implementable tip recommendation design—materially referenced tip recommendations (i.e., referencing a product …

  • Extremeness Aversion and Choice Set Composition: Exposure to Multiple Extreme Options Reduces Extremeness Aversion

    Open AccessMarissa A Sharif, Elizabeth Webb et al.ARTICLEJournal of Consumer Research2025References: 44

    Extremeness aversion—the tendency for consumers to prefer middling options in a choice set—is an incredibly robust and well-studied phenomenon. However, it has primarily been studied in the context of two- or three-option choice sets. In six studies (Ntotal = 9,377), we suggest that consumers’ aversion to extreme options depends on the frequency of similar options in the choice set. In particular, we find that consumers are relatively more likely…

  • Brief Commentary: Is “4 for $16” Better than “4 for $15.30”? Testing the Replicability of the Price Divisibility Effect

    Open AccessAmanda E Geiser, L D Nelson et al.ARTICLEJournal of Consumer Research2025References: 8

    Although higher prices generally lead to lower demand, research on the price divisibility effect suggests that consumers are sometimes willing to pay more for a multipack if its price is divisible by the number of units it contains. For instance, a seven-pack of shoelaces might be more appealing at the divisible price of $14 than at the lower, but non-divisible, price of $13. The original Journal of Consumer Research (JCR) article documenting thi…

  • The Confirmation Nudge: Prompts to Change or Confirm Initial Preferences Steer Consumer Choice

    Open AccessKellen Mrkva, Shannon M Duncan et al.ARTICLEJournal of Consumer Research2025References: 34

    Across two field experiments and several preregistered lab experiments, we demonstrate that confirmation nudges, which ask consumers whether they would like to confirm or change their initial choice, impact choice. First, consumers navigating a subscription company’s smartphone app were randomized to a control or confirmation nudge condition, which asked them to either confirm their initial choice or switch to an annual subscription. Confirmation…

  • Reparative Consumption: The Role of Racial Identity and White Guilt in Consumer Preferences

    Open AccessRishad Habib, Ekin Ok et al.ARTICLEJournal of Consumer Research2025References: 67

    In light of recent social and political movements advocating for racial equity and calls for more research on interracial marketplace interactions, this research explores the role racial identity plays in the consumption domain. Specifically, we investigate the marketplace consequences of U.S.-based White consumers’ feelings about their own racial identity by measuring and manipulating white guilt, defined as the sense of guilt and remorse experi…

  • Brief Commentary: A Reexamination of the Effect of Forced Choice on Choice

    Open AccessIoannis Evangelidis, Oleg Urminsky et al.ARTICLEJournal of Consumer Research2025References: 30

    When conducting studies in which the dependent variable is choice, researchers must decide whether to require participants to select one of the available alternatives or to provide a no-choice option. Prior research published in the Journal of Marketing Research proposed that no-choice options can disproportionately reduce the share of certain alternatives, particularly all-average or compromise options. In this commentary, I reexamine these prop…

  • Why Horizontal Organizations Don’t Fall Flat: Organizational Structure Shapes Perceptions of Egalitarianism and Company Warmth

    Open AccessGuanzhong Du, Darren W Dahl et al.ARTICLEJournal of Consumer Research2025References: 99

    In recent years, a growing number of companies have evolved toward relatively “flat” management structures with minimal hierarchical layers of management. Some even leverage this flatness as a key marketing message and defining element of corporate identity. Although organizational structure has been studied extensively throughout various disciplines, its influence on consumer response has received little attention. This research reveals that a c…

  • The Asymmetry of Gender-Fluid Trends

    Open AccessM P HOFF, Maren Hoff et al.ARTICLEJournal of Consumer Research2025References: 42

    Marketers and consumers are rapidly embracing gender-fluid products that fundamentally challenge the conventional associations of masculinity and femininity. In theory, manifestations of gender fluidity in the marketplace respond to shifting gender norms toward more inclusivity. Accordingly, consumers believe that the representation of traditionally male and female styles in these trends should be even. In contrast with these balanced views, this…