Feel strangely compelled to buy a Prius? Marketing strategies may not be the only thing driving you to do so. It may be in your genes.
Consumer preferences may reflect genetically heritable prudence dispositions, a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research suggests. Led by business professor Itamar Simonson and Aner Sela, an assistant professor of marketing at University of Florida, the study gives weight to the role of genetics in consumer decision-making.
“We try to identify underlying patterns by simultaneously testing a wide range of potentially related choices, judgments and personal characteristics,” Simonson wrote in an e-mail to The Daily.
Researchers compared study pools of fraternal and identical twins and found greater similarities between the latter group. Because identical twins share 100 percent of their genes, while fraternal twins do not, the researchers could therefore determine that genetics influenced those trends in consumer preferences.
According to a summary of the study provided by Simonson, largely heritable effects included, for example, tendencies to either engage in or refrain from compromising or gambling. Research also showed a heritable preference for specific products, such as mustard, hybrid cars, science fiction movies, chocolate and jazz, while tattooing and ketchup had no observed genetic linkage.
Other tendencies with no significant heritable effects included preferences between options that produced large rewards later versus smaller rewards sooner, as well as preferences in product variety.
This is not to say that people are born with a “Prius gene” or a “jazz gene.” Instead, these tendencies reflect a combination of genetic expressions influenced by the interaction between nature and nurture, say the researchers.
The study proposes as a “tentative hypothesis” that the observed heritability patterns reflect a genetic disposition for “living on the edge or in the mainstream.”
“At the present time, we do not know how genes might affect…the tendency to choose a compromise versus an extreme option, a risky versus safe option or batteries versus Godiva chocolate,” Simonson said. “This is a preliminary investigation, and given the difficulties of understanding such heritable tendencies, it may take decades until we have a good understanding.
The research suggests that environmental effects alone do not guide consumer behavior, but that heritable preferences play a key role as well.
Genetic research could reveal promising target consumer segments for certain types of products. For example, if a preference for motion sensitive devices is found to be heritable, the Nintendo Wii or Apple iPhone could benefit from understanding these genetic predispositions.
While there is still progress to be made on pinpointing the underlying biological causes for these consumer preferences, the researchers remain hopeful that the consumer market can benefit from further study of the role of genetics in judgment and choice.