Mary Steffel
Biographic Data
| ID | 81036 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Mary Steffel |
| GIVEN NAMES | Mary |
| FAMILY NAME | Steffel |
| SIGNATURE | STEFFEL M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Northeastern University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2447-7797 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 9 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 54 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 9 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2008 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Are Apologies Always the Best Policy? Apologies for Service Failures Backfire When Consumers Are Not Aware of the Failure
Technological advancements enable firms to anticipate service failures and apologize to consumers more effectively than ever. However, are apologies always the best policy? Five experiments, including a large-scale field experiment, demonstrate that apologies backfire when consumers are not aware of the failure. Apologies decrease consumer satisfaction, trust, recommendation intentions, and repatronage behavior. This is because apologies increase…
Effect of Pharmacist Email Alerts on Concurrent Prescribing of Opioids and Benzodiazepines by Prescribers and Primary Care Managers: A Randomized Clinical Trial
ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT03887247
Consumers Value Effort over Ease When Caring for Close Others
Many products and services are designed to make caregiving easier, from premade meals for feeding families to robo-cribs that automatically rock babies to sleep. Yet, using these products may come with a cost: consumers may feel they have not exerted enough effort. Nine experiments show that consumers feel like better caregivers when they put more effort into caregiving tasks than when they use effort-reducing products to perform such tasks. The …
Perspective mistaking: Accurately understanding the mind of another requires getting perspective, not taking perspective
Taking another person's perspective is widely presumed to increase interpersonal understanding. Very few experiments, however, have actually tested whether perspective taking increases accuracy when predicting another person's thoughts, feelings, attitudes, or other mental states. Those that do yield inconsistent results, or they confound accuracy with egocentrism. Here we report 25 experiments testing whether being instructed to adopt another pe…
Delegating Decisions: Recruiting Others to Make Choices We Might Regret
Consumers typically prefer freedom of choice, but when faced with a choice they might regret, they may prefer freedom from choice. Eight experiments show that people delegate difficult decisions, regardless of the decision’s importance, and regardless of their potential surrogate’s expertise. Delegation stems from a desire to avoid responsibility for potentially making the wrong choice rather than simply the desire to avoid the possibility of a p…
Double Standards in the Use of Enhancing Products by Self and Others
Despite the growing prevalence of products that allow people to improve themselves, there is limited research to date on how consumers perceive the use of these products. We introduce a theoretical framework that explains how consumers interpret the effects of such products and how they judge the fairness of their use. Five experiments show that consumers perceive the same enhancing products as embellishing users' abilities to a greater extent wh…
Overindividuation in Gift Giving: Shopping for Multiple Recipients Leads Givers to Choose Unique but Less Preferred Gifts
This research examines how the social context in which gifts are selected influences gift choices. Six experiments show that, when givers select gifts for multiple recipients, they tend to pass up gifts that would be better liked by one or more recipients in favor of giving different gifts to each recipient, even when recipients will not compare gifts. This overindividuation does not seem to arise because givers perceive recipients' preferences d…
Happy by What Standard? The Role of Interpersonal and Intrapersonal Comparisons in Ratings of Happiness
Value revelations: Disclosure is in the eye of the beholder
In interpersonal interactions ranging from job interviews to romantic dates, it is common for people to tell each other about what they care about and value. Six experiments explored the general hypothesis that people view their disclosures about what they value as more revealing of themselves than do others. This effect is demonstrated across a variety of contexts, ranging from the brief and anonymous to the more in-depth and social. A source of…
Perspective mistaking: Accurately understanding the mind of another requires getting perspective, not taking perspective
Taking another person's perspective is widely presumed to increase interpersonal understanding. Very few experiments, however, have actually tested whether perspective taking increases accuracy when predicting another person's thoughts, feelings, attitudes, or other mental states. Those that do yield inconsistent results, or they confound accuracy with egocentrism. Here we report 25 experiments testing whether being instructed to adopt another pe…
Overindividuation in Gift Giving: Shopping for Multiple Recipients Leads Givers to Choose Unique but Less Preferred Gifts
This research examines how the social context in which gifts are selected influences gift choices. Six experiments show that, when givers select gifts for multiple recipients, they tend to pass up gifts that would be better liked by one or more recipients in favor of giving different gifts to each recipient, even when recipients will not compare gifts. This overindividuation does not seem to arise because givers perceive recipients' preferences d…
Delegating Decisions: Recruiting Others to Make Choices We Might Regret
Consumers typically prefer freedom of choice, but when faced with a choice they might regret, they may prefer freedom from choice. Eight experiments show that people delegate difficult decisions, regardless of the decision’s importance, and regardless of their potential surrogate’s expertise. Delegation stems from a desire to avoid responsibility for potentially making the wrong choice rather than simply the desire to avoid the possibility of a p…
Double Standards in the Use of Enhancing Products by Self and Others
Despite the growing prevalence of products that allow people to improve themselves, there is limited research to date on how consumers perceive the use of these products. We introduce a theoretical framework that explains how consumers interpret the effects of such products and how they judge the fairness of their use. Five experiments show that consumers perceive the same enhancing products as embellishing users' abilities to a greater extent wh…
Consumers Value Effort over Ease When Caring for Close Others
Many products and services are designed to make caregiving easier, from premade meals for feeding families to robo-cribs that automatically rock babies to sleep. Yet, using these products may come with a cost: consumers may feel they have not exerted enough effort. Nine experiments show that consumers feel like better caregivers when they put more effort into caregiving tasks than when they use effort-reducing products to perform such tasks. The …
Happy by What Standard? The Role of Interpersonal and Intrapersonal Comparisons in Ratings of Happiness
Value revelations: Disclosure is in the eye of the beholder
In interpersonal interactions ranging from job interviews to romantic dates, it is common for people to tell each other about what they care about and value. Six experiments explored the general hypothesis that people view their disclosures about what they value as more revealing of themselves than do others. This effect is demonstrated across a variety of contexts, ranging from the brief and anonymous to the more in-depth and social. A source of…
Value revelations: Disclosure is in the eye of the beholder
In interpersonal interactions ranging from job interviews to romantic dates, it is common for people to tell each other about what they care about and value. Six experiments explored the general hypothesis that people view their disclosures about what they value as more revealing of themselves than do others. This effect is demonstrated across a variety of contexts, ranging from the brief and anonymous to the more in-depth and social. A source of…
Happy by What Standard? The Role of Interpersonal and Intrapersonal Comparisons in Ratings of Happiness
Double Standards in the Use of Enhancing Products by Self and Others
Despite the growing prevalence of products that allow people to improve themselves, there is limited research to date on how consumers perceive the use of these products. We introduce a theoretical framework that explains how consumers interpret the effects of such products and how they judge the fairness of their use. Five experiments show that consumers perceive the same enhancing products as embellishing users' abilities to a greater extent wh…
Overindividuation in Gift Giving: Shopping for Multiple Recipients Leads Givers to Choose Unique but Less Preferred Gifts
This research examines how the social context in which gifts are selected influences gift choices. Six experiments show that, when givers select gifts for multiple recipients, they tend to pass up gifts that would be better liked by one or more recipients in favor of giving different gifts to each recipient, even when recipients will not compare gifts. This overindividuation does not seem to arise because givers perceive recipients' preferences d…
Perspective mistaking: Accurately understanding the mind of another requires getting perspective, not taking perspective
Taking another person's perspective is widely presumed to increase interpersonal understanding. Very few experiments, however, have actually tested whether perspective taking increases accuracy when predicting another person's thoughts, feelings, attitudes, or other mental states. Those that do yield inconsistent results, or they confound accuracy with egocentrism. Here we report 25 experiments testing whether being instructed to adopt another pe…
Delegating Decisions: Recruiting Others to Make Choices We Might Regret
Consumers typically prefer freedom of choice, but when faced with a choice they might regret, they may prefer freedom from choice. Eight experiments show that people delegate difficult decisions, regardless of the decision’s importance, and regardless of their potential surrogate’s expertise. Delegation stems from a desire to avoid responsibility for potentially making the wrong choice rather than simply the desire to avoid the possibility of a p…
Effect of Pharmacist Email Alerts on Concurrent Prescribing of Opioids and Benzodiazepines by Prescribers and Primary Care Managers: A Randomized Clinical Trial
ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT03887247
Consumers Value Effort over Ease When Caring for Close Others
Many products and services are designed to make caregiving easier, from premade meals for feeding families to robo-cribs that automatically rock babies to sleep. Yet, using these products may come with a cost: consumers may feel they have not exerted enough effort. Nine experiments show that consumers feel like better caregivers when they put more effort into caregiving tasks than when they use effort-reducing products to perform such tasks. The …
Are Apologies Always the Best Policy? Apologies for Service Failures Backfire When Consumers Are Not Aware of the Failure
Technological advancements enable firms to anticipate service failures and apologize to consumers more effectively than ever. However, are apologies always the best policy? Five experiments, including a large-scale field experiment, demonstrate that apologies backfire when consumers are not aware of the failure. Apologies decrease consumer satisfaction, trust, recommendation intentions, and repatronage behavior. This is because apologies increase…
Psychology (7 works) · Social Psychology (6 works) · Cultural Differences and Values (4 works) · Social and Intergroup Psychology (4 works) · Computer Science (3 works) · Interpersonal communication (3 works) · Interpersonal relationship (3 works) · Perception (3 works) · Behavioral Health and Interventions (2 works) · Business (2 works)