Leif D. Nelson

Assistant Professor of Marketing

Professor Leif Nelson received his doctorate from Princeton University and comes to Rady having served on the faculty at the Stern School at New York University. He researches the psychology of consumer judgment and decision making. In particular he looks at when consumers have difficulty maximizing their enjoyment of an experience. For example, his work has shown that despite strong intuitions to the opposite, television advertisements can improve the TV-watching experience, and that sporting events are more fun to watch when the game outcome is already known. People think they know what they want, but what they want is sometimes not nearly as fun as what they avoid. His work has been published in a number of leading journals and has been presented at meetings for psychology, marketing, and business research.

Leif lives in La Jolla with beautiful and brilliant wife and his winsome and wondrous daughter.

Published Articles

Miller, D. and L. Nelson, “Seeing Approach Motivation in the Avoidance Behavior of Others: Implications for an Understanding of Pluralistic Ignorance,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 83, No. 5, (2002).

Sherman, D., L. Nelson, and L. Ross, “Naïve Realism and Affirmative Action: Adversaries are More Similar Than They Think,” Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 25(4), 275–289 (2003).

Simmons, J. and L. Nelson, “Intuitive Confidence: Choosing Between Intuitive and Nonintuitive Alternatives,” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, Vol. 135, No. 3, 409–428, (2006).

Sherman, D., L. Nelson, and C. Steele, “Do Messages About Health Risks Threaten the Self? Increasing the Acceptance of Threatening Health Messages Via Self-Affirmation,” (2000).

Nelson, L. and E. Morrison, “The Symptoms of Resource Scarcity: Judgments of Food and Finances Influence Preferences for Potential Partners,” Psychological Science, Vol. 16, No. 2, 167-173, (2005).

Nelson, L. and M. Norton, “From student to superhero: Situational primes shape future helping,” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 41, 423–430, (2005).

Working Papers

Simmons, Joseph P., LeBoeuf, Robyn and Nelson, Leif D., “When Motivation Increases Adjustment from Provided Anchors: Toward an Integrative Theory of Anchoring,” (July 2, 2007). Available at SSRN.

Nelson, Leif D. and Meyvis, Tom, “Interrupted Consumption: Adaptation and the Disruption of Hedonic Experience,” (September 1, 2006). Available at SSRN.

Simmons, Joseph P. and Nelson, Leif D., “Intuitive Confidence and the Prominence Effect: When Consumer Choices are Sensitive to Matching Prices,” (September 1, 2006). Available at SSRN.

Nelson, Leif D. and Simmons, Joseph P., “Literal Consequences of the Metaphoric Link Between Vertical Position and Cardinal Direction,” (2007). Available at SSRN.

Nelson, Leif D., Meyvis, Tom, and Galak, Jeff, “Mispredicting Adaptation and the Consequences of Unwanted Disruptions: When Advertisements Make Television Programs More Enjoyable,” (2007).