About

Michal Maimaran is a Clinical Professor of Marketing at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. She joined the faculty in 2008 after completing her Ph.D. in Marketing at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Her research focuses on studying judgment and decision making, with a particular emphasis on children's decision making. Her work has been published in leading academic journals such as the Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing Research, and Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. Notably, her 2024 article in the Journal of Marketing Research, titled "Using Price Promotions to Drive Children’s Healthy Choices in a Developing Economy," received the Paul E. Green/Vithala R. Rao Award and the AMA CBSIG Consumer Research in Practice Award, recognizing its significant contribution to marketing practice. Her academic background includes a Master's degree in Psychology from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a BSc in Mathematics and Psychology from the same institution. She has held various academic positions within the Kellogg School of Management, including Research Professor of Marketing since 2022, and has been recognized with awards for responsible research in marketing.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Business
• Marketing
• Biology
• Artificial Intelligence
• Food science
• Medicine
• Internal medicine
• Psychology
• Microeconomics
• Developmental psychology
• Advertising
• Economics
• Virology

Selected publications

• Using Price Promotions to Drive Children's Healthy Choices in a Developing Economy

  Journal of Marketing Research · 2024-02-22 · 1 citations

  article

  This research examines how price discounts—a classic marketing incentive—drive children's healthy choices in the understudied context of a developing economy. The authors partnered with UNICEF to launch three field experiments in Panamá among 2,418 children to examine four pillars of price discount promotions for children: what to discount (product selection), how to discount (message design), whom to target (children's age), and whether to discount again (repetition). They uncovered four previously undocumented insights. First, price discounts alone effectively increase demand among children 6–11 years of age, reconciling conflicting findings in prior literature. Second, product selection based on relative price—a particularly crucial factor in developing regions—drives opposing postpromotion effects: ironically, marketers should not discount expensive healthy options but rather moderately priced ones. Third, different from prior literature's practice of directly communicating final prices, discount messages that require older children to derive final prices are more effective. Fourth, repetition can amplify or undermine discounts’ efficacy depending on message complexity and children's age. This research offers concrete guidelines for researchers and practitioners, uncovering both positive and negative effects of price promotions on children, and shedding light on price promotion interventions that most powerfully nudge children of different ages to act.

  PublisherDOI

• Is there a “price that’s right” for at-home COVID tests?

  PLoS ONE · 2023 · 2 citations

  • Medicine
  • Virology
  • Internal medicine

  The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the daily lives of individuals across the world as multiple variants continue introducing new complexities. In December 2021, which is when we conducted our study, pressure to resume the normalcy of daily life was mounting as a new variant, Omicron, was rapidly spreading. A variety of at-home tests detecting SARS-CoV-2, known to the general public as "COVID tests," were available for consumers to purchase. In this study, we conducted conjoint analysis utilizing an internet-based survey by presenting consumers (n = 583) with 12 different hypothetical at-home COVID test concepts that varied on five attributes (price, accuracy, time, where-to-buy, and method). Price was identified as the most important attribute, because participants were very price sensitive. Quick turnaround time and high accuracy were also identified as important. Additionally, although 64% of respondents were willing to take an at-home COVID test, only 22% reported they had previously taken the test. On December 21, 2021, President Biden announced the U.S. government would purchase 500 million at-home rapid tests and distribute them for free to Americans. Given the importance of price to participants, this policy of providing free at-home COVID tests was directionally appropriate.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Leveraging the Social World: A Recipe for Moving the Study of Children and Food Forward

  Journal of the Association for Consumer Research · 2023 · 1 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Computer Science
  • Marketing
  • Advertising

  Marketing scholars have long been interested in understanding and promoting healthier eating among children. In this article, we identify key themes reflected in marketing research exploring children, food, and healthy eating, focusing on papers published in the field’s leading journals over the past 30 years. We then discuss new opportunities to move the field forward by leveraging children’s sociality in both in-person and online spaces. We end by proposing a research agenda that is responsive to children’s changing social environments.

  PublisherDOI

• Look Good and Work Hard? Only If You Are a Man Or in Preschool

  ACR North American Advances · 2020-01-01

  article1st authorCorresponding
  Publisher

• Children’s Variety Seeking in Food Choices

  Journal of the Association for Consumer Research · 2020 · 18 citations

  • Computer Science
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Psychology

  Across three studies, we examine the variety selections of 329 children (4–9 years of age) and 81 adults in the food domain. In studies 1 and 2, we find that, like adults, children prefer to diversify their selections given no established preference for one item over another. In study 3, we find that children (4–9 years) diversify their selections more and choose more healthy options when choosing items simultaneously (all on one day) versus sequentially (across several days). Together, our results provide novel insight into the potential for variety to serve as a tool to promote greater well-being in childhood.

  PublisherDOI

• Children Are Price Sensitive Too: Using Price Promotions to Increase Children's Choice of Healthy Food

  ACR North American Advances · 2019-01-01

  articleSenior author
  Publisher

• Variety‐Seeking and Perceived Expertise

  Journal of Consumer Psychology · 2019-04-20 · 35 citations

  articleSenior author

  People often infer expertise from the choice of unique, rare, or sophisticated options. But might mere variety‐seeking also serve as a signal of expertise, and if so, how? Six studies show that the relationship between variety‐seeking and perceived expertise is not unidirectional and depends on the perceiver's own level of expertise. Category experts perceive lower variety‐seeking as indicative of discernment, which in turn increases perceived expertise in that category. Consequently, experts choose less variety to portray themselves as experts. In contrast, novices perceive high variety‐seeking as indicative of category breadth knowledge, which in turn increases their perception of category expertise. Consequently, novices choose more variety to portray themselves as experts. The findings make novel theoretical contributions to research on variety‐seeking, consumer expertise, and social perception, as well as practical contributions for marketers of product assortments and bundles.

  PublisherDOI

• The effect of limited availability on children’s consumption, engagement, and choice behavior

  Judgment and Decision Making · 2019-01-01 · 14 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Three studies examine the effect of limited availability on the engagement, consumption, and choice behavior of four- to five-year old children. It is shown that children engage longer in an activity when the activity is presented as limited in time and consume more of a particular food when the food is presented as limited in quantity. It is also shown that the consumption ratio of a less preferred food to a more preferred one increases when the less preferred food is presented as limited in quantity. Finally, children are more likely to choose a less preferred option over a more preferred one when the less preferred option becomes less available.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The Unique Role of Anger among Negative Emotions in Goal-Directed Decision Making

  Journal of the Association for Consumer Research · 2018-11-30 · 8 citations

  articleSenior author

  While much of consumer choice is goal driven, consumers often fail to prioritize their goals when making decisions. Despite this relevance of goal pursuit to consumer behavior, relatively little work has examined the factors that facilitate it. The current research examines when and how different negative emotions influence such goal-directed decision making. Six studies show that anger leads to greater goal-directed decision making and more goal-consistent choices compared to sadness and fear. Consequently, anger results in both less susceptibility to contextual choice biases and greater post-choice satisfaction. We argue that the results arise because anger is characterized by appraisals of both high certainty and high control, which increase the likelihood that consumers will use goals as decision criteria. With anger becoming more common in the consumer space, thanks to contemporary social media and political polarization, we provide a framework for marketers and managers to put this negative emotion to good use.

  PublisherDOI

• Leveraging Means-Goal Associations to Boost Children’s Water Consumption: Persuasion in a Four-School, Three-Month Field Experiment

  Journal of the Association for Consumer Research · 2018-12-07 · 4 citations

  article

  We collaborated with UNICEF and launched a field experiment in Panama to test the effectiveness of communicating different means-goal associations in promoting children’s consumption of water. This research is the first to examine whether interventions that operate by highlighting strong means-goal associations have real consequences outside the lab in the noisy real world. Also important, means-goal associations have previously been examined exclusively among adults. Because prior research reveals that children and adults often respond differently to persuasion attempts, important theoretical insight is gained by investigating whether children’s use of a means can be increased by interventions that highlight means-goal associations. This research is also the first to explore whether highlighting means-goal associations of different strengths can produce not only positive but also potentially negative effects. Together, the current research advances the extant understanding of the divergent impact of means-goal associations on behavior, uncovers an intervention that increases children’s consumption of water, and provides valuable managerial implications as well as food for thought for future research.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Itamar Simonson

  Universitat Ramon Llull

  9 shared

• Sophie Nicklaus

  L'Institut Agro

  4 shared

• Aner Sela

  University of Florida

  4 shared

• Ayelet Fishbach

  University of Chicago

  4 shared

• Szu‐chi Huang

  4 shared

• Rima Toure-Tillery

  Northwestern University

  3 shared

• Paulo Albuquerque

  2 shared

• Daniella Kupor

  2 shared

Awards & honors

• Paul E. Green/Vithala R. Rao Award (2024)
• AMA CBSIG Consumer Research in Practice Award (2025)