Jason Riis
Assistant Professor of Business Administration
Marketing Unit
Research:
I study consumer behavior and health using the methods and theories of experimental psychology and behavioral economics. Particular problems that I am currently investigating include:
• Information use and decision making in food service and food retail environments
• Habits, behavior change, and preference change (particularly with respect to eating, exercise, and weight loss)
• Adherence and engagement in healthcare
• Consumer preferences for improvements in well-being, mental performance, and appearance
Health related papers:
1. Levy, D.; Riis, J.; Sonnenberg, L.; Barraclough, S. & Thorndike, A. (2012). Effectiveness of a color-coded labeling and choice architecture intervention on the food and beverage choices of minority and low-income employees. Under review.
2. Price, J.; Riis, J. (2012). Behavioral Economics and the Psychology of Fruit and Vegetable Consumption. Under review.
3. Schwartz, J; Riis, J; Elbel, B & Ariely, D (2012). Inviting consumers to downsize fast-food portions significantly reduces calorie consumption. Forthcoming at Health Affairs.
4. Thorndike, A.; Sonnenberg, L.; Riis, J.; Barraclough, S.; Levy, D., (2012). A 2-phase labeling and choice architecture intervention to improve healthy food and beverage choice. Forthcoming at American Journal of Public Health.
5. Riis, J (2010). Leveraging consumer psychology to make it easier to eat less. Obesity and Weight Management, June, 123-125.
6. Riis, J. & Ratner, R. (2010). Simplified Nutrition Guidelines to Fight Obesity. In Leveraging Consumer Psychology for Effective Health Communications. (Eds. R. Batra, V. Strecher, P. Keller).
7. Riis, J, Simmons, J., & Goodwin G. (2008). Preferences for enhancement pharmaceuticals: The reluctance to enhance fundamental traits. Journal of Consumer Research, 35 (3), 495-508.
8. Lacey, H.P., Fagerlin, A. Loewenstein, G., Smith, D.M., Riis, J. & Ubel, P.A. (2008). Are they really that happy? Exploring scale recalibration in estimates of well-being. Health Psychology, 27(6), 669-675.
9. Pochon, J.B., Riis, J., Sanfey, A., Nystrom, L. & Cohen, J.D. (2008). Functional imaging of decision conflict. Journal of Neuroscience, 28(13):3468-3473. (First three authors are listed alphabetically.)
10. Damschroder. L., Ubel, P., Riis, J., Smith, D. (2007). An alternative approach for eliciting willingness-to-pay: A randomized internet trial, Judgment and Decision Making 2(2), 18-28.
11. Lacey, H., Fagerlin, A., Loewenstein, G, Smith, D., Riis, J., Ubel, P. (2006). It must be awful for them: Healthy people overlook disease variability in quality of life judgments. Judgment and Decision Making 1(2), 146-152.
12. Kahneman, D. and Riis, J. (2005). Living and thinking about it: Two perspectives on life. The Science of Wellbeing: Integrating Neurobiology, Psychology, and Social Science. (Eds. F. Huppert, N. Baylis & B. Kaverne). Oxford University Press.
13. Riis, J., Loewenstein, G., Baron, J., Jepson, C., Fagerlin, A., & Ubel, P. (2005). Ignorance of hedonic adaptation to hemodialysis: A study using ecological momentary assessment. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 34, 3-9.
14. Baron, J., Asch, D., Fagerlin, A., Jepson, C., Loewenstein, G., Riis, J., Stineman, M., & Ubel, P. (2003). Effect of assessment method on the discrepancy between judgments of health disorders people have and do not have. Medical Decision Making, 23, 422-434.
Health related HBS cases:
1. PatientsLikeMe (with Sunil Gupta).
Links:
CV
Publications
HBS Faculty Profile
Contact:
Harvard Business School
Morgan Hall 187
Soldiers Field
Boston, MA 02163
Ph 617.495.6361
Fx 617.496.5853
jriis@hbs.edu