Abstract:
Experiences are vital to the lives and well-being of people. Over the course of their lives, people build up a portfolio of experiences that come to make up who they are. People derive enjoyment and value both from the initial experience as well as from the memories of the experience. Taking photos during these experiences has become a central and critical aspect of experiences and photo-taking can affect both enjoyment from the experience itself as well as the memories people have of the experience. Our research finds that, in general, taking photos during the experience increases engagement with and enjoyment of positive experiences. Further, we find that taking photos heightens peoples’ memories for visual aspects of the experience, but can decrease memory for non-visual aspects (e.g., auditory).
Apart from these immediate effects of photo taking on enjoyment and memory, photos also serve as tangible reminders of experiences. In fact people take photos mainly to have access to such tangible reminders in the future, which they hope allow them to relive the experience at a later point. Our research explores whether people correctly anticipate which photos will help them relive the experience better and whether they actually take photos that serve as good reminders in the future. We also examine how actually revisiting photos after the experience affects people’s memories for the experience.
Biography:
Kristin Diehl is Professor of Marketing at the Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California. She joined this USC from "the" (other) USC, the University of South Carolina, where she started her faculty career. Kristin graduate with a Ph.D. in marketing from Duke University after she had earned her degree of Diplom-Kauffrau from the Johannes Gutenberg Universität in Mainz, Germany.
Kristin’s research focuses on two areas: 1) how consumers search for and use information when search costs are low, assortments are large, and recommendation tools may be available. 2) how people anticipate, experience, and remember events that unfold over time. In particular, she is interested how taking photos during such events affects enjoyment and memories of the experience. Kristin has published in journals such as the Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Marketing, the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the Journal of Experimental and Social Psychology, and Psychological Science. In 2010 she received the ACR Early Career Award.
Kristin served as Associate Editor for the Journal of Consumer Research (2013-2018) and the International Journal of Marketing Research (2012-2015). She currently serves on the Editorial Review Boards of the Journal of Consumer Research, the Journal of Consumer Psychology, and the Journal of Marketing.
Contact: Please reserve your place by emailing mktoffice@warwick.ac.uk