About

Amar Cheema is the William F. O'Dell Eminent Professor of Commerce and Senior Associate Dean for Faculty & Research at the UVA McIntire School of Commerce. His research interests include behavioral decision theory, consumer saving and spending, pricing and promotion effects, auctions and online purchase behavior, and word-of-mouth influences. Professor Cheema has worked as a sales executive with Asian Paints (India) Ltd. and has taught at the University of Colorado at Boulder and Washington University in St. Louis, where he served as an Assistant Professor of Marketing. He has contributed to the academic community through editorial roles, including serving as an associate editor for the Journal of Consumer Research and participating on review boards for several leading journals. His scholarly publications span prominent journals such as the Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Consumer Research, Marketing Science, Journal of Marketing, Journal of Consumer Psychology, and Psychological Science.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Business
• Advertising
• Artificial Intelligence
• Accounting
• Monetary economics
• Economics
• Actuarial science
• Finance
• Marketing

Selected publications

• Risk on the Edge: the Effect of Socio-Spatial Location on Consumer Preferences

  ACR North American Advances · 2020

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Computer Science
  • Business
  • Artificial Intelligence
  Publisher

• Path to Purpose? How Online Customer Journeys Differ for Hedonic Versus Utilitarian Purchases

  Journal of Marketing · 2020 · 158 citations

  • Computer Science
  • Business
  • Advertising

  The authors examine consumers’ information channel usage during the customer journey by employing a hedonic and utilitarian (H/U) perspective, an important categorization of consumption purpose. Taking a retailer-category viewpoint to measure the H/U characteristics of 20 product categories at 40 different retailers, this study combines large-scale secondary clickstream and primary survey data to offer actionable insights for retailers in a competitive landscape. The data reveal that, when making hedonic purchases (e.g., toys), consumers employ social media and on-site product pages as early as two weeks before the final purchase. By contrast, for utilitarian purchases (e.g., office supplies), consumers utilize third-party reviews up to two weeks before the final purchase and make relatively greater usage of search engines, deals, and competitors’ product pages closer to the time of purchase. Importantly, channel usage is different for sessions in which no purchase is made, indicating that consumers’ information channel choices vary significantly with the H/U characteristics of purchases. The article closes with an extensive discussion of the significant implications for managing customer touchpoints.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The Effect of Student Loan Debt on Spending: The Role of Repayment Format

  Journal of Public Policy & Marketing · 2019-08-26 · 10 citations

  articleSenior author

  Across three studies, the authors investigate the effect of student loan debt on spending. Evidence from consumer finance data and experimental scenarios reveals that borrowers with moderate student loan debt are less likely to spend than people with low (or no) debt. However, borrowers with high debt are more likely to spend relative to those with moderate debt. The latter effect is consistent with goal disengagement, as paying off high student loan debt seems difficult. Importantly, the spending propensity associated with high student loan debt is attenuated by presenting the debt in a monthly payment (vs. lump-sum) format, which reduces perceived payoff difficulty. From a public policy perspective, the authors recommend that estimated monthly payments be included in all student loan disclosures.

  PublisherDOI

• The Effect of Student Loan Debt on Spending: The Role of Repayment Format

  Journal of Public Policy & Marketing · 2019 · 1 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Economics
  • Business
  • Monetary economics

  Across three studies, the authors investigate the effect of student loan debt on spending. Evidence from consumer finance data and experimental scenarios reveals that borrowers with moderate student loan debt are less likely to spend than people with low (or no) debt. However, borrowers with high debt are <i>more</i> likely to spend relative to those with moderate debt. The latter effect is consistent with goal disengagement, as paying off high student loan debt seems difficult. Importantly, the spending propensity associated with high student loan debt is attenuated by presenting the debt in a monthly payment (vs. lump-sum) format, which reduces perceived payoff difficulty. From a public policy perspective, the authors recommend that estimated monthly payments be included in all student loan disclosures.

  PublisherDOI

• Do Evaluations Rise With Experience?

  Psychological Science · 2018-03-01 · 13 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Sequential evaluation is the hallmark of fair review: The same raters assess the merits of applicants, athletes, art, and more using standard criteria. We investigated one important potential contaminant in such ubiquitous decisions: Evaluations become more positive when conducted later in a sequence. In four studies, (a) judges' ratings of professional dance competitors rose across 20 seasons of a popular television series, (b) university professors gave higher grades when the same course was offered multiple times, and (c) in an experimental test of our hypotheses, evaluations of randomly ordered short stories became more positive over a 2-week sequence. As judges completed repeated evaluations, they experienced more fluent decision making, producing more positive judgments (Study 4 mediation). This seemingly simple bias has widespread and impactful consequences for evaluations of all kinds. We also report four supplementary studies to bolster our findings and address alternative explanations.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• My Experience Or My Expectations: the Effect of Expectations As Reference Points on Willingness to Recommend Experiential Purchases

  ACR North American Advances · 2018-01-01

  article
  Publisher

• Syria-Iraq

  2016-01-01

  other1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Price Expectations and Purchase Decisions: Evidence from an Online Store Experiment

  Customer Needs and Solutions · 2014-03-18 · 8 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The Effect of Red Background Color on Willingness-to-Pay: The Moderating Role of Selling Mechanism

  Journal of Consumer Research · 2012-10-25 · 207 citations

  articleSenior author

  The authors investigate the effect of red backgrounds on willingness-to-pay in auctions and negotiations. Data from eBay auctions and the lab show that a red (vs. blue) background elicits higher bid jumps. By contrast, red (vs. blue) backgrounds decrease price offers in negotiations. An investigation of the underlying process reveals that red color induces aggression through arousal. In addition, the selling mechanism--auction or negotiation--alters the effect of color by focusing individuals on primarily competing against other bidders (in auctions) or against the seller (in negotiations). Specifically, aggression is higher with red (vs. blue or gray) color and, therefore, increases bid jumps in auctions but decreases offers in negotiations.

  PublisherDOI

• Is Noise Always Bad? Exploring the Effects of Ambient Noise on Creative Cognition

  Journal of Consumer Research · 2012-10-25 · 328 citations

  articleSenior author

  This paper examines how ambient noise, an important environmental variable, can affect creativity. Results from five experiments demonstrate that a moderate (70 dB) versus low (50 dB) level of ambient noise enhances performance on creative tasks and increases the buying likelihood of innovative products. A high level of noise (85 dB), on the other hand, hurts creativity. Process measures reveal that a moderate (vs. low) level of noise increases processing difficulty, inducing a higher construal level and thus promoting abstract processing, which subsequently leads to higher creativity. A high level of noise, however, reduces the extent of information processing and thus impairs creativity. Creativity is ubiquitous in the realm of consumption. Onthe one hand, we as consumers engage in everyday creative behavior such as home decor, fashion, or planning meals with limited resources (Burroughs and Mick 2004; Burroughs, Moreau, and Mick 2008). On the other hand, many businesses thrive on consumers ’ ability and desire to be creative. For example, consumers ’ ability to understand

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Rajesh Bagchi

  Virginia Tech

  43 shared

• Dilip Soman

  University of Toronto

  18 shared

• Joseph K. Goodman

  The Ohio State University

  5 shared

• Vanessa M. Patrick

  University of Houston

  5 shared

• Utpal M. Dholakia

  Rice University

  4 shared

• Cynthia Cryder

  Washington University in St. Louis

  4 shared

• Dipankar Chakravarti

  Virginia Tech

  4 shared

• Michael H. Rothkopf

  4 shared