Robert Mislavsky

Assistant Professor of Marketing - Johns Hopkins University

Critical Condition: People Only Object to Corporate Experiments If They Object to a Condition

Journal article

Robert Mislavsky, Berkeley Dietvorst, Uri Simonsohn
Marketing Science, vol. 39(6), 2020, pp. 1092-1104
DOI: 10.1287/mksc.2019.1166
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APA   Click to copy
Mislavsky, R., Dietvorst, B., & Simonsohn, U. (2020). Critical Condition: People Only Object to Corporate Experiments If They Object to a Condition. Marketing Science, 39(6), 1092–1104. https://doi.org/10.1287/mksc.2019.1166

Chicago/Turabian   Click to copy
Mislavsky, Robert, Berkeley Dietvorst, and Uri Simonsohn. “Critical Condition: People Only Object to Corporate Experiments If They Object to a Condition.” Marketing Science 39, no. 6 (2020): 1092–1104.

MLA   Click to copy
Mislavsky, Robert, et al. “Critical Condition: People Only Object to Corporate Experiments If They Object to a Condition.” Marketing Science, vol. 39, no. 6, 2020, pp. 1092–104, doi:10.1287/mksc.2019.1166.

BibTeX   Click to copy 

@article{robert2020a,
  title = {Critical Condition: People Only Object to Corporate Experiments If They Object to a Condition},
  year = {2020},
  issue = {6},
  journal = {Marketing Science},
  pages = {1092-1104},
  volume = {39},
  doi = {10.1287/mksc.2019.1166},
  author = {Mislavsky, Robert and Dietvorst, Berkeley and Simonsohn, Uri}
}
Why have companies faced a backlash for running experiments? Academics and pundits have argued that people find corporate experimentation intrinsically objectionable. Here we investigate “experiment aversion,” finding evidence that, if anything, experiments are more acceptable than the worst policies they contain. In six studies, participants evaluated the acceptability of either corporate policy changes or of experiments testing them. When all policy changes were deemed acceptable, so was the experiment even when it involved deception, unequal outcomes, and lack of consent. When a policy change was deemed unacceptable, so was the experiment but less so. The acceptability of an experiment hinges on its critical condition—its least acceptable policy. Experiments are not unpopular; unpopular policies are unpopular.
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