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Cautions and Concerns in Experimental Research on the Consumer Interest
Author(s) -
ROYNE MARLA B.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
journal of consumer affairs
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.582
H-Index - 62
eISSN - 1745-6606
pISSN - 0022-0078
DOI - 10.1111/j.1745-6606.2008.00120.x
Subject(s) - causation , consumer research , key (lock) , psychology , marketing , positive economics , actuarial science , econometrics , economics , computer science , business , political science , computer security , law
Most published consumer research presents data from surveys or other data analyses that, at best, report that certain things tend to happen at the same time. However, correlation does not mean causation; cause and effect relationships can only be concluded from controlled experiments. A key problem is that the use of experimental designs calls for various conceptual and pragmatic trade‐offs that cannot be ignored.