Hans Baumgartner

Hans Baumgartner is the Smeal Professor of Marketing at the Smeal College of Business at Penn State.

His research interests are in the areas of consumer behavior and research methodology. Substantively, his research is concerned with how consumers form judgments about objects and events and how these judgments influence actual behavior.

He has conducted research on this topic in the following five areas:

• Extensions and modifications of the theory of reasoned action (e.g., the role of state- vs. action-orientation in consumers' coupon usage behavior)
• Emotional influences on consumer behavior (e.g., effects of the retrieval of emotionally charged autobiographical memories on ad and brand judgments)
• Goal-directed consumer behavior (e.g., goal-directed emotions as a motivational influence on weight control)
• Optimum stimulation level and exploratory consumer behavior (e.g., conceptualization and measurement of exploratory consumer behavior)
• Judgments of quality, value, and satisfaction (e.g., the role of consumption emotions in the satisfaction response)

Methodologically, his research has focused on the use of structural equation modeling in marketing, cross-cultural measurement issues, and citation analysis. Current research projects include the following: goal-relevant extraneous affect and persuasion; an extended paradigm for measurement analysis applicable to panel data; the impact of response styles on survey responses; measurement invariance in cross-cultural consumer research; typologies of consumer purchase decisions.