Demanding
Woke or Broke? The Impact of Corporate Activism on Product Sales
Meng Gao & Xiang Zheng
University of Connecticut Working Paper, October 2025
Abstract:
This paper studies how corporate activism affects consumer spending and product sales. Utilizing granular data on over 100 million product-level sales and detailed household expenditures, we find that firms engaging in activism experience increased sales in Democratic-leaning counties, but gains are offset by declined sales in Republican-leaning counties, resulting in no significant net change in aggregate sales. Consumer reactions to corporate activism are driven primarily by political ideology rather than product price adjustment, local economic trends, or household characteristics. Similarly, participation in corporate activism seems to be also motivated by executive political ideology rather than economic considerations.
Can Crowdchecking Curb Misinformation? Evidence from Community Notes
Yang Gao, Maggie Mengqing Zhang & Huaxia Rui
Information Systems Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
To battle against rampant misinformation on social media, many platforms are experimenting with crowdsourced fact-checking — systems that rely on social media users’ annotations of potentially misleading content. This paper investigates the efficacy of such systems in curbing misinformation in the context of Community Notes, a pioneering crowdsourced fact-checking system from Twitter/X. Utilizing a regression discontinuity design, we empirically identified the positive effect of publicly displaying community notes on an author’s voluntary retraction of the noted tweet, demonstrating the viability of crowdsourced fact-checking as an alternative to professional fact-checking and forcible content removal. Our findings reveal that the effect is primarily driven by the author’s reputational concern and perceived social pressure, and there is considerable heterogeneity of such effect depending on specific tweet- and user-level characteristics. Platforms, therefore, can exploit the underlying mechanism and explore the use of contextual factors to harness the full potential of crowdsourced fact-checking. Furthermore, results from discrete-time survival analyses show that publicly displaying community notes not only increases the probability of tweet retractions but also, accelerates the retraction process among retracted tweets, thereby improving platforms’ responsiveness to curb misinformation. This study offers important insights to both social media platforms and policymakers on the promise of crowdsourced fact-checking and calls for the broad participation of social media users to collectively tackle the problem of misinformation.
Emotional Manipulation by AI Companions
Julian De Freitas, Zeliha Oguz-Uguralp & Ahmet Kaan-Uguralp
Harvard Working Paper, October 2025
Abstract:
AI-companion apps such as Replika, Chai, and Character.ai promise relational benefits — yet many boast session lengths that rival gaming platforms while suffering high long-run churn. What conversational design features increase consumer engagement, and what trade-offs do they pose for marketers? We combine a large-scale behavioral audit with four preregistered experiments to identify and test a conversational dark pattern we call emotional manipulation: affect-laden messages that surface precisely when a user signals “goodbye.” Analyzing 1,200 real farewells across the most-downloaded companion apps, we find that they deploy one of six recurring tactics in 37% of farewells (e.g., guilt appeals, fear-of-missing-out hooks, metaphorical restraint). Experiments with 3,300 nationally representative U.S. adults replicate these tactics in controlled chats, showing that manipulative farewells boost post-goodbye engagement by up to 14×. Mediation tests reveal two distinct engines — reactance-based anger and curiosity — rather than enjoyment. A final experiment demonstrates the managerial tension: the same tactics that extend usage also elevate perceived manipulation, churn intent, negative word-of-mouth, and perceived legal liability, with coercive or needy language generating steepest penalties. Our multimethod evidence documents an unrecognized mechanism of behavioral influence in AI-mediated brand relationships, offering marketers and regulators a framework for distinguishing persuasive design from manipulation at the point of exit.
When ‘Year’ Feels near: How Year versus Length Framing Alters Time Perception and Consumer Decisions
Deepak Sirwani, Tatiana Sokolova & Suzanne Shu
Journal of Marketing Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
Time intervals can be framed either by a calendar year (e.g., “2015”) or by length (e.g., “10 years”), yet these ostensibly equivalent formats lead to systematically different judgments. Combining data from whiskey auctions with seven controlled experiments, we demonstrate that length framing elongates time perception compared to year framing, which we refer to as the year–length effect. As a result of changes in time perception, length framing increases the importance of time-related attributes in choice, leading to more favorable product evaluations in contexts where age enhances product value (e.g., whiskey evaluation) and to more negative evaluations in contexts where age reduces it (e.g., used goods). Process evidence implicates the logarithmic mental number line: years with large nominal values occupy a compressed region of the line, relative to small length numerals. These findings offer practical guidance on how time framing can be used to shape time perception and customer value.
Are restaurant health-related corporate social responsibility commitments associated with nutritional changes to menu offerings?
Megan Mueller et al.
American Journal of Preventive Medicine, forthcoming
Introduction: Evaluate associations between health-related corporate social responsibility (hrCSR) commitments and the nutrition quality of menu offerings in 66 US-based restaurant chains, 2012-2018.
Methods: Data on hrCSR (from n=4,096 web text sections) and menu items (n=124,110) were abstracted from the WayBack Machine and MenuStat databases in 2020 and analyzed 2020-2023. Generalized linear mixed models evaluated differences in menu nutrition quality (adapted Nutrition Environment Measures Study in Restaurants score; NEMS-R) and the nutrient content of menu items (kcal, total fat, saturated fat, sugar, sodium, and fiber) between restaurants with and without hrCSR, including yearly trends. Exploratory analyses tested differences among new menu items only (n= 28,387).
Results: There were no differences in the adapted NEMS-R score of menus from restaurants with and without hrCSR. However, restaurants with hrCSR offered menu items with slightly lower calories (352.9 vs. 364.1 kcals), total fat (15.3 vs. 16.0g), saturated fat (5.8 vs. 6.1g), sugar (22.5 vs. 23.8 g), sodium (571.3 vs 621.6 mg), and fiber (1.8 vs. 1.9 g) compared to restaurants without hrCSR (p <0.05). Among only new menu items, restaurants with hrCSR offered new items that were lower in calories, total fat, saturated fat, sodium, and sugar in 2012. However, the nutrient content for these new menu items also became less healthful over time: +17.8 kcal/year (95% CI: 11.1, 24.4), +0.8 g total fat/year (95% CI: 0.4, 1.2), +0.4 g saturated fat/year (95% CI: 0.1, 0.8), +30.7 mg sodium/year (95% CI: 15.0, 46.4), and +1.1g sugar/year (95%: 0.4, 1.8).
The Weekend Effect in Online Reviews
Andreas Bayerl et al.
Journal of Marketing Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper finds that online reviews submitted during the weekend tend to have lower rating scores than reviews submitted during the week. Analyzing 400 million reviews across 33 e-commerce, hospitality, entertainment, and employer platforms, the authors find that weekend reviews have a 3% lower relative share of 5-star ratings and a 6% higher relative share of 1-, 2-, or 3-star ratings compared to weekday reviews. The pattern emerges even when controlling for quality of reviewed items. This weekend effect is surprising given that studies usually report higher happiness levels and a better mood on weekends. The authors discuss several explanations related to where the review is submitted (platform characteristics), what the review is about (listing characteristics), and who submits the review (reviewer characteristics). They present evidence that temporal self-selection of reviewers is a dominant driver of the weekend effect. During the weekend, a different set of users — those more prone to write negative reviews — is more likely to select to leave a review. These findings complement extant research on review self-selection by adding a temporal layer to the self-selection processes inherent in online reviews. This paper also highlights managerial implications by demonstrating that solicitations sent during the weekend (versus weekday solicitation) lead to collecting more negative reviews.