Joseph P. Redden, Assistant Professor

One of the department's newest additions, Assistant Professor Joseph P. Redden is already making waves with his insightful research on consumer behavior and satiation. Stuck on a "hedonic treadmill", people hoping for happiness seem to become harder and harder to please, unable to stick to diets, or obsessed with the latest gadgets. Redden sought a solution.

Redden's dissertation, written at the Wharton School, led to an award-winning article titled "Reducing Satiation: The Role of Categorization Level," published in the Journal of Consumer Research in February 2008. In a series of studies, Redden demonstrated that one key to reducing satiation was to create a series of treadmills, breaking down experiences using subcategories.

Redden found that when consumer notice differences among choices, they don't get satiated as easily. "In one of the experiments, eating from a bowl labeled 'jellybeans' quickly bored my subjects, but eating 'cherry', 'lime', and 'orange' labeled jellybeans kept them happily munching away, even though they ate exactly the same jellybeans," Redden says. "Pointing out specific - yet obvious - aspects of products prevented satiation." With his novel studies, he showed that simply paying attention to differences makes sensory activities like snacking and cognitive ones like studying seem less repetitive and more enjoyable.

Redden's work has many practical applications for marketers and consumers and has received considerable coverage in the media from outlets such as WebMD, Psychology Today, and CBS News.

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