SPECIAL SESSION SUMMARY New Directions in Reference Price Research

A remarkably robust finding in consumer behavior is that consumers typically evaluate attributes relative to a standard, rather than in an absolute manner. The influence of deviations from these standards on the assessment of the attributes is commonly called a reference effect. Reference price effects in brand choice have been particularly well documented in both experimental work and in research that uses secondary (e.g., scanner panel) data. Despite this, several key areas for research remain. These include: exploration of the fundamentals of the reference price construct and its interac-tion with consumer expectations, operationalization and empirical testing of multiple reference price constructs, and the notion that reference effects may be important in many consumer decisions (of which brand choice is just one example). In this note, we summa-rize findings of recent research that seeks to answer specific questions from each ofthese new research domains. Specifically