The Most Influential Age Hypothesis: Does the Self Cause Predictable Preferences?

An ongoing debate revolves around the assumption of preference stability. We investigate the hypothesis that certain preferences do indeed remain stable and propose that preferences formed in early adulthood tend to remain stable because of an increased likelihood of relating to people's identity. We present evidence from three studies showing that both experts and lay people have very strong preferences for movies they have seen as early adults. In addition, we show that preferences closely tied to one's identity at early adulthood (e.g., clothes) are more persistent than those less closely tied to one's identity at that age (e.g., cars).



Citation:

On Amir and Nina Mazar (2009) ,"The Most Influential Age Hypothesis: Does the Self Cause Predictable Preferences?", in NA - Advances in Consumer Research Volume 36, eds. Ann L. McGill and Sharon Shavitt, Duluth, MN : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 86-89.

Authors

On Amir, University of California, San Diego, USA
Nina Mazar, University of Toronto, Canada



Volume

NA - Advances in Consumer Research Volume 36 | 2009



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