Rachel Gershon, PhD│CHIBE Research Seminar

Speaker(s)

• Rachel Gershon, PhD — Assistant Professor of Marketing at the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley

Event Description

Topic: “In Service of the Streak: A Field Experiment on How Highlighting Patterns of Use Affect Social Media Usage.”

Registration is required to attend this virtual seminar. To register, please visit: https://upenn.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_QEJw08zrT-SNhSMy9MB4Sg.

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As firms increasingly adopt behavioral tracking to support consumer goals, it is important to understand the impact of such feedback on both goal-consistent and goal-inconsistent behaviors. This study explores the influence of highlighting streaks of behavior—resisting or engaging with social media—on behavior. Across a six-week field experiment using the behavioral intervention app “one sec”, we find that highlighting positive streaks (resisting social media) motivates users to maintain these streaks, while highlighting negative streaks (succumbing to social media) encourages users to break undesirable patterns. However, streak feedback also introduced new goals—maintaining or breaking streaks—which competed with consumers’ original objectives, ultimately leading to increased social media usage. Despite these goal-inconsistent behaviors, consumers found positive streak feedback enjoyable, fostering greater app retention. A follow-up lab experiment corroborates these findings, demonstrating streak messaging’s motivational effects and its influence on app perception. These results highlight the double-edged nature of streak tracking: while streaks can promote engagement and self-control, they risk encouraging behaviors misaligned with consumers’ primary goals. This research contributes to the literature on behavioral tracking, goal pursuit, and gamification, offering insights for firms aiming to balance consumer welfare with sustained engagement.

Rachel Gershon, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley. She earned her doctorate at the Olin Business School, Washington University in St. Louis, where she also completed her undergraduate studies in Philosophy, Neuroscience, and Psychology. Dr. Gershon’s research focuses on understanding consumer judgments and decision-making, with a particular emphasis on social, prosocial, and health-related behaviors.

Organizer(s)