Gideon Nave

Gideon Nave
  • Carlos and Rosa de la Cruz Associate Professor
  • Carlos and Rosa de la Cruz Associate Professor of Marketing

Contact Information

  • office Address:

    749 Jon M. Huntsman Hall
    3730 Walnut Street
    University of Pennsylvania
    Philadelphia, PA 19104-6304

Links: CV

Overview

Technological developments of measurement instruments over the past two decades have granted firms, policy makers and researchers the access to individual-level data of unprecedented granularity and scale. Digital footprints of online behavior provide comprehensive measurements of attitudes toward content, language use and information search. Emerging biomedical innovations such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), genotyping and hormonal assays quantify the building blocks of the biological processes that shape our preferences, cognition and decision-making. Gideon Nave studies how these technological developments may advance efficiency, productivity and innovation, and evaluate the ethical challenges that they give rise to. To this end, he develops theories and methods that allow businesses and policy makers to focus their efforts in a more targeted fashion, with the premise of better addressing the needs of their customers and delivering the right products, services and messages to the right people, at the right time. He also assesses the unique threats that such technologies might impose on consumer autonomy and privacy.

Nave’s research was published in top academic journals such as Science, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, Management Science, Nature Human Behaviour, the Journal of Marketing and Journal of Marketing Research.

Nave holds a PhD in Computation & Neural Systems from Caltech. He completed his B.Sc and M.Sc in Electrical Engineering at the Technion – Israel institute of technology, specializing in Signal Processing.

More information is available in Gideon’s personal page and his blog.

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Research

  • Jonah Berger, Grant Packard, Reihane Boghrati, Ming Hsu, Ashlee Humphreys, Andrea Luangrath, Sarah Moore, Gideon Nave, Christopher Olivola, Matt Rocklage (2022), Marketing Insights from Text, Marketing Letters, 33, pp. 365-377.

  • Remi Daviet, Gideon Nave, Jerry (Yoram) Wind (2021), Genetic data: potential uses and misuses in Marketing, Journal of Marketing.

  • Gokhan Aydogan, Remi Daviet, Richard Karlsson Linner, Todd A Hare, Joseph W. Kable, Henry R Kranzler, Christian C Ruff, Philipp D Koellinger, Gideon Nave (2021), Genetic underpinnings of risky behavior relate to altered neuroanatomy, Nature Human Behaviour.

    Abstract: Previous research points to the heritability of risk-taking behaviour. However, evidence on how genetic dispositions are translated into risky behaviour is scarce. Here, we report a genetically informed neuroimaging study of real-world risky behaviour across the domains of drinking, smoking, driving and sexual behaviour in a European sample from the UK Biobank (N = 12,675). We find negative associations between risky behaviour and grey-matter volume in distinct brain regions, including amygdala, ventral striatum, hypothalamus and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC). These effects are replicated in an independent sample recruited from the same population (N = 13,004). Polygenic risk scores for risky behaviour, derived from a genome-wide association study in an independent sample (N = 297,025), are inversely associated with grey-matter volume in dlPFC, putamen and hypothalamus. This relation mediates roughly 2.2% of the association between genes and behaviour. Our results highlight distinct heritable neuroanatomical features as manifestations of the genetic propensity for risk taking.

  • Amos Nadler, Colin Camerer, David Zava, Triana L Ortiz, Neil V Watson, Justin M Carre, Gideon Nave (2019), Does testosterone impair men’s cognitive empathy? Evidence from two large-scale randomized controlled trials, Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

    Abstract: The capacity to infer others' mental states (known as ‘mind reading’ and ‘cognitive empathy’) is essential for social interactions across species, and its impairment characterizes psychopathological conditions such as autism spectrum disorder and schizophrenia. Previous studies reported that testosterone administration impaired cognitive empathy in healthy humans, and that a putative biomarker of prenatal testosterone exposure (finger digit ratios) moderated the effect. However, empirical support for the relationship has relied on small sample studies with mixed evidence. We investigate the reliability and generalizability of the relationship in two large-scale double-blind placebo-controlled experiments in young men (n = 243 and n = 400), using two different testosterone administration protocols. We find no evidence that cognitive empathy is impaired by testosterone administration or associated with digit ratios. With an unprecedented combined sample size, these results counter current theories and previous high-profile reports, and demonstrate that previous investigations of this topic have been statistically underpowered.

  • Uri Barnea, Robert Meyer, Gideon Nave, You Only Get One Shot: Restricting the Number of Times Consumers Can Access Content Increases Their Resource Allocation During Information Processing.

    Abstract: Many social media platforms, including leading apps such as Snapchat, Facebook Messenger and Telegram, limit the number of times audience can view content. We investigate how this restriction affects processing of received information. Building on the notion that people strategically allocate cognitive resources (Schneider and Shiffrin 1977), we propose that receivers increase resource allocation when processing information that they cannot reexamine. In six pre-registered studies (N = 7,048) we demonstrate that restricting people to a single view (vs. multiple views) leads to increased attention, better content recall (both cued and free recall), improved comprehension, and more favorable attitudes towards the content, as well as longer voluntary viewing time, both of the content and of ads preceding it. These results suggest that marketers can affect meaningful metrics by communicating with consumers via channels that limit their repeated access to the message.

  • Gideon Nave, Wi Hoon Jung, Richard Karlsson Linner, Joseph W. Kable, Philipp D Koellinger (2018), Are Bigger Brains Smarter? Evidence From a Large-Scale Preregistered Study, Psychological Science.

    Abstract: A positive relationship between brain volume and intelligence has been suspected since the 19th century, and empirical studies seem to support this hypothesis. However, this claim is controversial because of concerns about publication bias and the lack of systematic control for critical confounding factors (e.g., height, population structure). We conducted a preregistered study of the relationship between brain volume and cognitive performance using a new sample of adults from the United Kingdom that is about 70% larger than the combined samples of all previous investigations on this subject (N = 13,608). Our analyses systematically controlled for sex, age, height, socioeconomic status, and population structure, and our analyses were free of publication bias. We found a robust association between total brain volume and fluid intelligence (r = .19), which is consistent with previous findings in the literature after controlling for measurement quality of intelligence in our data. We also found a positive relationship between total brain volume and educational attainment (r = .12). These relationships were mainly driven by gray matter (rather than white matter or fluid volume), and effect sizes were similar for both sexes and across age groups.

  • Colin Camerer, Anna Dreber, Felix Holzmeister, Teck H. Ho, Jurgen Huber, Magnus Johannesson, Michael Kirchler, Gideon Nave, Brian Nosek, Thomas Pfeiffer (2018), Evaluating the replicability of social science experiments in Nature and Science between 2010 and 2015, Nature Human Behaviour.

    Abstract: Being able to replicate scientific findings is crucial for scientific progress. We replicate 21 systematically selected experimental studies in the social sciences published in Nature and Science between 2010 and 2015. The replications follow analysis plans reviewed by the original authors and pre-registered prior to the replications. The replications are high powered, with sample sizes on average about five times higher than in the original studies. We find a significant effect in the same direction as the original study for 13 (62%) studies, and the effect size of the replications is on average about 50% of the original effect size. Replicability varies between 12 (57%) and 14 (67%) studies for complementary replicability indicators. Consistent with these results, the estimated true-positive rate is 67% in a Bayesian analysis. The relative effect size of true positives is estimated to be 71%, suggesting that both false positives and inflated effect sizes of true positives contribute to imperfect reproducibility. Furthermore, we find that peer beliefs of replicability are strongly related to replicability, suggesting that the research community could predict which results would replicate and that failures to replicate were not the result of chance alone.

  • Gideon Nave (2018), Single-dose testosterone administration increases men’s preference for status goods, Nature Communications.

    Abstract: In modern human cultures where social hierarchies are ubiquitous, people typically signal their hierarchical position through consumption of positional goods—goods that convey one’s social position, such as luxury products. Building on animal research and early correlational human studies linking the sex steroid hormone testosterone with hierarchical social interactions, we investigate the influence of testosterone on men’s preferences for positional goods. Using a placebo-controlled experiment (N = 243) to measure individuals’ desire for status brands and products, we find that administering testosterone increases men’s preference for status brands, compared to brands of similar perceived quality but lower perceived status. Furthermore, testosterone increases positive attitudes toward positional goods when they are described as status-enhancing, but not when they are described as power-enhancing or high in quality. Our results provide novel causal evidence for the biological roots of men’s preferences for status, bridging decades of animal behavioral studies with contemporary consumer research.

  • Gideon Nave, Juri Minxha, David Greenberg, Michal Kosinski, David Stillwell, Jason Rentfrow (2018), Musical Preferences Predict Personality: Evidence from Active Listening and Facebook Likes, Psychological Science.

    Abstract: Research over the past decade has shown that various personality traits are communicated through musical preferences. One limitation of that research is external validity, as most studies have assessed individual differences in musical preferences using self-reports of music-genre preferences. Are personality traits communicated through behavioral manifestations of musical preferences? We address this question in two large-scale online studies with demographically diverse populations. Study 1 (N=22,252) shows that reactions to unfamiliar musical excerpts predicted individual differences in personality - most notably openness and extraversion - above and beyond demographic characteristics. Moreover, these personality traits were differentially associated with particular music-preference dimensions. The results from Study 2 (N=21,929) replicated and extended these findings by showing that an active measure of naturally-occurring behavior, Facebook Likes for musical artists, also predicted individual differences in personality. In general, our findings establish the robustness and external validity of the links between musical preferences and personality.

  • Colin Camerer, Gideon Nave, Alec Smith (2018), Dynamic unstructured bargaining with private information: theory, experiment, and outcome prediction via machine learning, Management Science.

    Abstract: We study dynamic unstructured bargaining with deadlines and one-sided private information about the amount available to share (the “pie size"). Using mechanism design theory, we show that given the players’ incentives, the equilibrium incidence of bargaining failures (“strikes”) should increase with the pie size, and we derive a condition under which strikes are efficient. In our setting, no equilibrium satisfies both equality and efficiency in all pie sizes. We derive two equilibria that resolve the trade-off between equality and efficiency by either favoring equality or favoring efficiency. Using a novel experimental paradigm, we confirm that strike incidence is decreasing in the pie size. Subjects reach equal splits in small pie games (in which strikes are efficient), while most payoffs are close to either the efficient or the equal equilibrium prediction, when the pie is large. We employ a machine learning approach to show that bargaining process features recorded early in the game improve out of sample prediction of disagreements at the deadline. The process feature predictions are as accurate as predictions from pie sizes only, and adding process and pie data together improves predictions even more.

Teaching

Current Courses (Spring 2024)

  • MKTG9430 - Research Methods Mktg B

    This course provides an introduction to the fundamental methodological issues that arise in experimental and quasi-experimental research. Illustrative examples are drawn from the behavioral sciences with a focus on the behavior of consumers and managers. Topics that are covered include: the development of research ideas; data collection and reliable measurement procedures; threats to validity; control procedures and experimental designs; and data analysis. Emphasis is placed on attaining a working knowledge of the use of regression methods for non-experimental and quasi-experimental data and analysis of variance methods for experimental data. The primary deliverable for this course is a meta-analysis of a research problem of the students choosing that investigates the effects of research methods on empirical results.

    MKTG9430302 ( Syllabus )

All Courses

  • MGMT6560 - Global Immersion Program

    The Global Immersion Program is a pass/fail, 0.5 credit course that is designed to provide students with an in-depth exposure to international business practices and first-hand insights into a foreign culture. In past years, programs were offered in India, the Middle East, China, South America, Southeast, Asia, and Africa. The program offers students the opportunity to learn about a foreign business environment by way of academic lectures and a multi-week study tour, allowing students to visit with corporate and government officials, network with alumni, and take cultural excursions.

  • MKTG2120 - Data & Anlz For Mktg Dec

    This course introduces students to the fundamentals of data-driven marketing, including topics from marketing research and analytics. It examines the many different sources of data available to marketers, including data from customer transactions, surveys, pricing, advertising, and A/B testing, and how to use those data to guide decision-making. Through real-world applications from various industries, including hands-on analyses using modern data analysis tools, students will learn how to formulate marketing problems as testable hypotheses, systematically gather data, and apply statistical tools to yield actionable marketing insights.

  • MKTG2340 - Creativity

    The ability to solve problems creatively and generate change is a recognized standard of success and plays an important role in gaining a competitive advantage in many areas of business management. This course is designed to teach students several creative problem solving methodologies that complement other managerial tools acquired in undergraduate and graduate studies. The course offers students the opportunity to learn how to solve problems, identify opportunities, and generate those elusive ideas that potentially generate enormous benefits to organizations. The objectives of this course are to enhance the students' (a) creativity, (b) ability to innovate and (c) ability to identify, recruit, develop, manage, retain, and collaborate with creative people. The course includes: 1. A review of the literature on creativity, creative people, innovation, and design as well as the leadership and management of creative people and innovation. 2. Hands on learning of approaches for generating creative ideas. Students will have the opportunity of implementing the techniques studied in class. 3. Applications of creativity to selected management domains - Approaches to the generation of creative options are not limited to the development of products and services or businesses, but can be applied to all areas of management, business, and life. The purpose of these sessions is to explore the applications of creative approaches to marketing, advertising, organizational design, negotiations, and other management challenges. 4. Integration - Both via individual assignments and a group project in which interdisciplinary teams of students generate a creative product/service/customer.

  • MKTG2380 - Consumer Neuroscience

    How can studying the brain improve our understanding of consumer behavior? While neuroscience made tremendous strides throughout the past few decades, rarely were meaningful applications developed outside of medicine. Recently, however, breakthroughs in measurement and computation have accelerated brain science, and created an array of opportunities in business and technology. Currently, applications to marketing research and product development are experiencing explosive growth that has been met with both excitement and skepticism. This mini course provides an overview of the neuroscience behind and the potential for these developments. Topics will range from well-known and widely used applications, from eye-tracking measures in the lab and the field, to emerging methods and measures such as mobile technologies, face-reading, and neural predictors of market response. This course is self-contained and has no prerequisites. However, students with some background in business, economics, psychology, and/or neuroscience are likely to find some of the material covered in this course complementary to their existing knowledge. Much of the foundational work in consumer neuroscience and neuroeconomics involves laboratory experiments. Accordingly, we will read and discuss several experimental papers and the craft of designing an experiment will occasionally be discussed. However, we will not dedicate significant time to the methodology of experimental design and analysis. As will become clear as the course progresses, “consumer neuroscience" can be used to study almost any aspect of consumer behavior.

  • MKTG3500 - Special Topics

    CONSUMER NEUROSCIENCE: How can studying the brain improve our understanding of consumer behavior? While neuroscience made tremendous strides throughout the 20th century, rarely were meaningful applications developed outside of medicine. Recently, however, breakthroughs in measurement and computation have accelerated brain science and created a dizzying array of opportunities in business and technology. Currently, applications to marketing research and product development are experiencing explosive growth that has been met with both excitement and skepticism. This mini-course provides an overview of the neuroscience behind and the potential for these developments. Topics will range from well-known and widely used applications, such as eye-tracking measures in the lab and field, to emerging methods and measures, such as mobile technologies, face-reading algorithms, and neural predictors of marketing response. The course will also discuss applications in branding and product development, including wearable physiological devices and apps, sensory branding for foods and fragrances, pharmaceuticals and medical devices, and neuroscience-based products designed to enhance cognitive functions. These applications stem from many subfields of cognitive neuroscience, including attention, emotion, memory, and decision making. This course is self-contained and has no prerequisites. However, students with some background in business, economics, psychology, and/or neuroscience are likely to find the material covered in this course complementary to their existing knowledge.

  • MKTG7120 - Data & Anlz For Mktg Dec

    This course introduces students to the fundamentals of data-driven marketing, including topics from marketing research and analytics. It examines the many different sources of data available to marketers, including data from customer transactions, surveys, pricing, advertising, and A/B testing, and how to use those data to guide decision-making. Through real-world applications from various industries, including hands-on analyses using modern data analysis tools, students will learn how to formulate marketing problems as testable hypotheses, systematically gather data, and apply statistical tools to yield actionable marketing insights.

  • MKTG7340 - Creativity

    The ability to solve problems creatively and generate change is a recognized standard of success and plays an important role in gaining a competitive advantage in many areas of business management. This course is designed to teach students several creative problem solving methodologies that complement other managerial tools acquired in undergraduate and graduate studies. The course offers students the opportunity to learn how to solve problems, identify opportunities, and generate those elusive ideas that potentially generate enormous benefits to organizations. The objectives of this course are to enhance the students' (a) creativity, (b) ability to innovate and (c) ability to identify, recruit, develop, manage, retain, and collaborate with creative people. The course includes: 1. A review of the literature on creativity, creative people, innovation, and design as well as the leadership and management of creative people and innovation. 2. Hands on learning of approaches for generating creative ideas. Students will have the opportunity of implementing the techniques studied in class. 3. Applications of creativity to selected management domains - Approaches to the generation of creative options are not limited to the development of products and services or businesses, but can be applied to all areas of management, business, and life. The purpose of these sessions is to explore the applications of creative approaches to marketing, advertising, organizational design, negotiations, and other management challenges. 4. Integration - Both via individual assignments and a group project in which interdisciplinary teams of students generate a creative product/service/customer

  • MKTG7380 - Consumer Neuroscience

    How can studying the brain improve our understanding of consumer behavior? While neuroscience made tremendous strides throughout the past few decades, rarely were meaningful applications developed outside of medicine. Recently, however, breakthroughs in measurement and computation have accelerated brain science, and created an array of opportunities in business and technology. Currently, applications to marketing research and product development are experiencing explosive growth that has been met with both excitement and skepticism. This mini course provides an overview of the neuroscience behind and the potential for these developments. Topics will range from well-known and widely used applications, from eye-tracking measures in the lab and the field, to emerging methods and measures such as mobile technologies, face-reading, and neural predictors of market response. This course is self-contained and has no prerequisites. However, students with some background in business, economics, psychology, and/or neuroscience are likely to find some of the material covered in this course complementary to their existing knowledge. Much of the foundational work in consumer neuroscience and neuroeconomics involves laboratory experiments. Accordingly, we will read and discuss several experimental papers and the craft of designing an experiment will occasionally be discussed. However, we will not dedicate significant time to the methodology of experimental design and analysis. As will become clear as the course progresses, “consumer neuroscience" can be used to study almost any aspect of consumer behavior.

  • MKTG8500 - Special Topics

    CONSUMER NEUROSCIENCE: How can studying the brain improve our understanding of consumer behavior? While neuroscience made tremendous strides throughout the 20th century, rarely were meaningful applications developed outside of medicine. Recently, however, breakthroughs in measurement and computation have accelerated brain science and created a dizzying array of opportunities in business and technology. Currently, applications to marketing research and product development are experiencing explosive growth that has been met with both excitement and skepticism. This mini-course provides an overview of the neuroscience behind and the potential for these developments. Topics will range from well-known and widely used applications, such as eye-tracking measures in the lab and field, to emerging methods and measures, such as mobile technologies, face-reading algorithms, and neural predictors of marketing response. The course will also discuss applications in branding and product development, including wearable physiological devices and apps, sensory branding for foods and fragrances, pharmaceuticals and medical devices, and neuroscience-based products designed to enhance cognitive functions. These applications stem from many subfields of cognitive neuroscience, including attention, emotion, memory, and decision making. This course is self-contained and has no prerequisites. However, students with some background in business, economics, psychology, and/or neuroscience are likely to find the material covered in this course complementary to their existing knowledge.

  • MKTG9430 - Research Methods Mktg B

    This course provides an introduction to the fundamental methodological issues that arise in experimental and quasi-experimental research. Illustrative examples are drawn from the behavioral sciences with a focus on the behavior of consumers and managers. Topics that are covered include: the development of research ideas; data collection and reliable measurement procedures; threats to validity; control procedures and experimental designs; and data analysis. Emphasis is placed on attaining a working knowledge of the use of regression methods for non-experimental and quasi-experimental data and analysis of variance methods for experimental data. The primary deliverable for this course is a meta-analysis of a research problem of the students choosing that investigates the effects of research methods on empirical results.

  • MKTG9950 - Dissertation

  • MKTG9990 - Independent Study

    Requires written permission of instructor and the department graduate adviser.

Awards and Honors

  • Poets & Quants Selection, “World’s Best 40 B-School Professors under the Age of 40”, 2021
  • National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER), 2020-2025 Description

    The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program is a Foundation-wide activity that offers the National Science Foundation’s most prestigious awards in support of early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education and to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization. Activities pursued by early-career faculty should build a firm foundation for a lifetime of leadership in integrating education and research.

  • APS Rising Star Award, 2020

In the News

Knowledge at Wharton

Wharton Stories

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Latest Research

Jonah Berger, Grant Packard, Reihane Boghrati, Ming Hsu, Ashlee Humphreys, Andrea Luangrath, Sarah Moore, Gideon Nave, Christopher Olivola, Matt Rocklage (2022), Marketing Insights from Text, Marketing Letters, 33, pp. 365-377.
All Research

In the News

Should Your DNA Data Be Used to Sell Products?

Data collected from genetic testing kits can help marketers customize products for consumers. But a new Wharton study raises red flags over ethics, privacy and the potential for misinformation.Read More

Knowledge at Wharton - 12/21/2020
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Wharton Magazine

Examining the ‘Replication Crisis’ in Research

Marketing professor Gideon Nave put the outcomes of social science experiments to the test.

Wharton Magazine - 04/19/2019

Wharton Stories

How Wharton Is Growing Diversity in Neuroscience

When Ileri Akinnola arrived at Penn to join the Summer Undergraduate Internship Program, he wasn’t sure what to expect from an Ivy League school. He figured it would be ultra-competitive, exclusive, and perhaps a bit unwelcoming to a rising senior from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. But he found…

Wharton Stories - 10/29/2021
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