Abstract
Recent developments in the field of artificial intelligence and data analytics are facilitating the automation of some consumer chores (e.g., in smart homes and in self-driving cars) and allow the emergence of big-data-driven, micro-targeting marketing practices (e.g., personalized content recommendation algorithms). We contend that those developments can generate a tension for marketers, consumers, and policy makers: They can, on the one hand, contribute to consumer well-being by making consumer choices easier, more practical, and more efficient. On the other hand, they can also undermine consumers’ sense of autonomy, the absence of which can be detrimental to consumer well-being. Drawing on diverse perspectives from marketing, economics, philosophy, neuroscience, and psychology, we explore how consumers’ sense of autonomy in making choices affects their well-being. We discuss how new technologies may enhance or diminish consumers’ perceptions of being in control of their choices and how either of those can, in turn, enhance of detract from consumer well-being. Building on this, we identify open research questions in the domain of choice, well-being, and consumer welfare, and suggest avenues for future research.
Highlights
Today’s consumers face more choice options and more information about these options than ever before
Researchers, and policy makers generally assume that lowering search, transaction, and decision-making costs empowers consumers and increases consumer welfare [67]
Sophisticated algorithms plowing through vast amounts of consumer data, for example, allow online marketers to serve up just the right product or service, relieving consumers of the costs of searching and of the unpleasant and difficult tradeoffs, which consumer choice often entails [3, 49, 60]
Summary
Today’s consumers face more choice options and more information about these options than ever before. Drawing on a variety of perspectives, from philosophy to neuroscience, we provide a brief overview of extant research on consumers’ perceptions of choice and autonomy, discuss findings relevant to some of the unprecedented changes in the choice settings that consumers face, and identify directions for future research that are important to consumers, managers, and policy makers. We as khow recent technological advances may affect consumers’ perceptions of autonomy and well-being and suggest avenues for future research and applications
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