Hierarchical Bayesian Methods in Psychology of Consumer Behavior

心理学家和营销专家对人们为什么会做出这样的选择有不同的理论。 虽然心理学理论更准确地描述了简单情况下的个人选择行为，但它们通常不考虑营销理论必须能够处理的变量范围，如产品特征，消费者因素，供应商策略。 他们也没有考虑到个人行为相互作用形成和影响市场需求的事实。 在这个项目中，心理学家，营销专家和统计学家将合作合并这些理论。 这种合作将通过更好的营销理论和更完整的人类选择心理学理论来更深入地了解消费者行为。 统计学是研究的核心，它提供了统一的概念工具，通过分层贝叶斯模型等模型将各种理论和数据集结合起来。 分层贝叶斯结构允许人们同时和连贯地描述个体和群体行为，并将不同的心理学和营销理论和数据联合收割机结合起来。 这些模型的贝叶斯性质允许人们调整已知的影响，即使是在中等规模的实验中。 人类行为反映了一个复杂的、多阶段的过程，这个过程始于个人资源的分配，以影响他或她的环境，并改善他或她的生存状态。 这项研究将提高对市场和一般人类行为的理解。 该研究将在统计学、营销学和心理学这三个学科的结合点进行，对这三个领域都有好处。 该项目具有很强的教育重点，并将为参与的许多学生提供跨学科培训的独特机会。 这将有助于他们在学术，工业或政府的职业生涯。 该奖项是作为2004财政年度数学科学优先领域数学社会和行为科学（MSBS）特别竞赛的一部分得到支持的。

Psychologists and marketing experts have different theories about why people make the choices they do. While psychological theories more accurately describe individual human choice behavior in simple circumstances, they do not typically consider the range of variables, such as product features, consumer factors, vendor strategies, that marketing theories must be able to handle. Nor do they consider the fact that individuals' behaviors interact to form and influence marketplace demand. In this project, psychologists, marketing experts, and statisticians will collaborate to merge these theories. This collaboration will result in a deeper understanding of consumer behavior through better marketing theories and more complete psychological theories of human choice. Statistics is at the heart of the research, providing the unifying conceptual instrument for combining the varied theories and data sets through models such as the hierarchical Bayesian model. The hierarchical Bayesian structure allows one to describe simultaneously and coherently individual and aggregate behavior and to combine the disparate psychological and marketing theories and data. The Bayesian nature of these models allow one to adjust for known effects, even in experiments of modest size. The models also allow one to move from experimental settings to forecasting behavior in the marketplace.Human behavior reflects a complex, multi-stage process that begins with the allocation of an individual's resources to affect his or her environment and to improve his or her state of being. This research will improve understanding of human behavior both in the marketplace and in general. The research will take place at the nexus of the three disciplines, statistics, marketing and psychology, with benefits to all three fields. The project has a strong educational emphasis and will provide the many students involved with a unique opportunity for cross-disciplinary training. This will aid them in their careers in academics, industry, or government. This award was supported as part of the Fiscal Year 2004 Mathematical Sciences priority area special competition on Mathematical Social and Behavioral Sciences (MSBS).