Jennifer Savary

Jennifer Savary is an award-winning behavioral scientist and educator. She earned her Ph.D. from Yale University and an MBA from University of Southern California, and is currently an Associate Professor of Marketing at the University of Arizona. She is an expert at consumer judgment and decision making and consumer psychology. She is especially interested in how identity aspirations and goals influence consumer behavior choice.

Jennifer’s research has been published in the top Marketing and Psychology journals such as Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Consumer Psychology, and Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. Her findings have been featured in popular outlets such as Harvard Business Review, Money.com and CNBC.com. She has been recognized by Eller College as the Outstanding Marketing Faculty Member of the year, Faculty Thesis Advisor of the Year and received the Department of Marketing Research Excellence Award in 2021. Most recently Jennifer was named a MSI Young Scholar in recognition of her contributions to the field and potential for future scholarship.

Previously, Jennifer worked in the public sector at the White House and the United States House of Representatives, and in private industry for PricewaterhouseCoopers and Toyota Motor Sales. She also owned and served as principal for Savary Associates, and over the last 25 years has consulted extensively with organizations ranging from startups to Fortune 500 brands. Jennifer currently lives with her husband and two young sons in Tucson, Arizona, where she can be found riding her road-bike on the loop most weekends.

Courses

• MKTG 440 Marketing Research
• Marketing 559 Innovation and New Product Design
• Experimental Design and Methods, Doctoral Seminar
• Behavioral Decision Theory, Doctoral Seminar

Selected Publications

Liang Huang and Jennifer Savary, “When Payments Go Social: Use of Person-to-Person Payment Methods Attenuates the Endowment Effect,” Journal of Marketing Research. 2022.

Taly Reich, Jennifer Savary and Daniella Kupor, “Evolving Choice Sets: The Effect of Dynamic (vs. Static) Choice Sets on Preferences” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 2021, 164, 147-157.

Jennifer Savary, Charis Li and George Newman, “Exalted Purchases or Tainted Donations? Self-signaling and the Evaluation of Charitable Incentives,” Journal of Consumer Psychology, 2020, 30(4), 671-679.

Jennifer Savary and Kelly Goldsmith, “Unobserved Altruism: How Self-signaling Motivations and Social Benefits Shape Willingness to Donate” Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 2020, 26(3), 538–550.

Jennifer Savary and Ravi Dhar, “The Uncertain Self: How Self-Concept Structure Affects Subscription Choice” Journal of Consumer Research, 2020 46(5), 887-903.

Elizabeth Friedman, Jennifer Savary and Ravi Dhar, “Apples, Oranges, and Erasers: The Effect of Considering Similar versus Dissimilar Alternatives on Purchase Decisions,” Journal of Consumer Research, 2018, 45(4), 725-742.

Jennifer Savary, Kelly Goldsmith and Ravi Dhar, “Giving against the odds: When tempting alternatives increase willingness to donate. Journal of Marketing Research, 2015, 52(1), 27-38.

Jennifer Savary, Tali Kleiman, Ran Hassin and Ravi Dhar, “Positive consequences of conflict on decision making: When a conflict mindset facilitates choice. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 2015, 144(1), 1. Lead Article.

Areas of Expertise

• Consumer psychology
• Judgment and Decision-making
• Motivation and goals
• Identity and Self-signaling

Degrees

• PhD in Marketing, Yale University, 2015
• MA and MPhil, Yale University
• MBA, University of Southern California
• BA, Cornell University (Summa Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa)