Miguel Brendl

Professor (Marketing) at University of Basel

Biography

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Miguel Brendl is Full Professor of Marketing. Prior to joining the University of Basel he was Associate Professor of Marketing with tenure at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management with a co-appointment at the psychology department, being preceded by a tenured position as Associate Professor of Marketing at INSEAD. Previously, he taught at the psychology departments of the Universities of Heidelberg and Konstanz. He holds a PhD in psychology from Columbia University and did his undergraduate studies in psychology and business administration at the University of Mannheim.

Research

Miguel Brendl investigates the origins of psychological utility, that is, how people form preferences toward choice options. Behaviors include buying decisions, consumption behavior (e.g., eating, social media activity), investment decisions (e.g., saving for retirement), or brand preferences. He draws on theories of motivation, conditioning, and (social) cognition. The ongoing research focuses on two areas: 1. Understanding the role of motivation (wanting, desire) and anticipatory pleasure in influencing behavior. 2. Reversing negative emotional brand associations. In the past, his research has focused on goals and on uncontrollable influences on preferences, including work on implicit measures.

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Cases

Bonezzi, Andrea, Miguel Brendl and Matteo DeAngelis. 2011. Stuck in the Middle: The Psychophysics of Goal Pursuit. Psychological Science. 22(5): 607-612.

The classic goal-gradient hypothesis posits that motivation to reach a goal increases monotonically with proximity to the desired end state. However, we argue that this is not always the case. In this article, we show that motivation to engage in goal-consistent behavior can be higher when people are either far from or close to the end state and lower when they are about halfway to the end state. We propose a psychophysical explanation for this tendency to get stuck in the middle." Building on the assumption that motivation is influenced by the perceived marginal value of progress toward the goal, we show that the shape of the goal gradient varies depending on whether an individual monitors progress in terms of distance from the initial state or from the desired end state. Our psychophysical model of goal pursuit predicts a previously undiscovered nonmonotonic gradient, as well as two monotonic gradients.

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