Renee Richardson Gosline

Renée Richardson Gosline is a Senior Lecturer in the Management Science group at the MIT Sloan School of Management and a Principal Research Scientist at MIT's Initiative on The Digital Economy.

She is a 2020 honoree on the Thinkers50 Radar List of thinkers who are “putting a dent in the universe,” and has been named one of the World’s Top 40 Professors under 40 by Poets and Quants. Gosline is an expert on the intersection between behavioral science and technology, and the implications for cognitive bias in human decision-making. She is a leading thinker on the science of digital brand strategy and her research and expertise have been published in various academic and trade publications.

Renée’s research examines how social structure and technology (e.g., Digital Customer Experience, Status, Social Media) affect performance and self-perception (as featured in her Tedx talk, “The Outsourced Mind”). Her projects have examined: how cognitive style predicts preference for AI versus human input; the interaction of brand status and placebo effects in performance; how consumers determine “real” from “fake” products; the circumstances under which customers perceive value in platforms; and the effects of storytelling in social media on trust and persuasion. In order to address these issues rigorously, Gosline employs experimental methodology, both in the field and the laboratory.

Renée enjoys teaching MBA and Executive Education classes on CX (Customer Experience), Brand strategy, Nudge Strategy, and Experimentation. She has also collaborated with a variety of firms on CX, Digital Media Strategy, and Leadership. Prior to academia, she was a marketing practitioner at LVMH Moet Hennessy and Leo Burnett.

Renée conducted her Undergraduate, Master’s, and Doctoral education at Harvard University.

Publications

• "Reversing the Placebo: Performance-Branded Experiences Can Undermine Consumer Performance."
  Banker, Sachin, Renée Richardson Gosline, and Jeffrey K. Lee. Journal of Consumer Psychology. Forthcoming.

• "Can a Girl’s Best Friend Be Born in a Lab? The Role of Ritual in Production Process Conservatism."
  Ha, Jae Kyung, Ezra W. Zuckerman Sivan, and Renée Richardson Gosline. In Advances in Group Processes, edited by Edward Lawler and S.R.Thye, 1-27. Bingley, UK: Emerald Publishing Limited, 2018.

• "TEDx Talk: "The Outsourced Mind"."
  Gosline, Renée Richardson. TED, August 2017.

• "The Power of Behavioral Science for Emerging Economies: MIT Explores Cuba and Trinidad & Tobago."
  Gosline, Renée Richardson. HuffPost, February 9, 2017.

• "The Power of Consumer Stories in Digital Marketing."
  Gosline, Renée Richardson, Jeffrey K. Lee, and Glen Urban. MIT Sloan Management Review, 2017.

• "Chapter 11: From Stranger to Friend: Shaping Consumer-Brand Relationships with Social Media."
  Gosline, Renée Richardson. In Strong Brands, Strong Relationships, 161-171. New York, NY: Routledge, 2015.

• "Victims or Heroes?: How Media Portrayals of Anti-Gay Bullying Influence Attitudes toward Gays and Support for Gay Rights."
  Seth Goldman, Patrick J. Egan and Renée Richardson Gosline. In Proceedings of the 2012 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, New Orleans, LA: August 2012.

• "Candy from Strangers and Vitamins from Friends: How Expectations Affect the Valuation of Advice in Social Networks."
  Renée Richardson Gosline, Jeffrey Lee and Breagin Riley. In Proceedings of the Society for Consumer Psychology 2011 Winter Conference, edited by David Silvera, Maura Scott, and Naomi Mandel. Atlanta, GA: February 2011.

• "Counterfeit Labels: Good For Luxury Brands?"
  Gosline, Renée Richardson. Forbes, February 2010.

• "The Real Value of Fakes: Dynamic Symbolic Boundaries in Socially Embedded Consumption."
  Gosline, Renée Richardson. Harvard Business School Doctoral Thesis, 2009.