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Neal Roese
Neal Roese

MARKETING
Professor of Marketing

Print Overview
Neal Roese is an expert on bias in judgment and decision-making. His research examines basic cognitive operations underlying choice, focusing on how people think about decision options, make predictions about the future, and revise understandings of the past. In particular, this research focuses on the role of regret and counterfactual judgments in everyday choice. Professor Roese’s research has been applied to legal, managerial, and marketing contexts.

Professor Roese’s research appears in such leading scholarly journals as Journal of Consumer Psychology, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Perspectives on Psychological Science, Psychological Bulletin, Psychological Science, Psychology and Marketing, and Social Cognition. Professor Roese is a former Associate Editor of the journal, Social Cognition, and has performed panel review duties at the National Science Foundation. He sits on the editorial boards of the following scholarly journals: Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Journal of Management, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Psychology and Marketing, Psychological Inquiry, and Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. Professor Roese is a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science, and has been an Associate of the Center for Advanced Study at the University of Illinois. Professor Roese’s research has been funded by grants from the National Science Foundation, the National Institute for Mental Health, and the Ford Foundation.

Professor Roese’s scholarly insights have been profiled in such media outlets as NPR, New York Times, Chicago Tribune, and the Harvard Business Review. At Kellogg, Professor Roese teaches courses on consumer behavior and the psychology of decision making.

Areas of Expertise
Consumer Decision-Making
Group Decision-Making
Intergroup Behavior
Psychology
Print Vita
Education
PhD, 1993, University of Western Ontario, Canada
MA, 1990, University of Manitoba, Canada
BSc, 1987, University of British Columbia, Canada

Academic Positions
Professor, Marketing, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, 2009-present
Professor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2005-2009
Associate Professor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2002-2005
Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in Social Psychology, Simon Fraser University, Canada, 2000-2002
Assistant Professor, Northwestern University, 1994-2000
Postdoctoral Fellow, University of California, Santa Barbara, 1993-1994

Editorial Positions
Editorial Board, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 2012-Present
Editorial Board, Journal of Management, 2011-Present
Guest Editor, Psychology and Marketing, 2008
Editorial Board, Psychology and Marketing, 2005-Present
Editorial Board, Psychological Inquiry, 2002-Present
Editorial Board, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 2000-Present
Editorial Board, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology: Attitudes and Social Cognition, 1996-Present
Associate Editor, Social Cognition, 2008-2010
Editorial Board, Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2007-2010
Editorial Board, Social Cognition, 2005-2008
Editorial Board, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 1998-2001

 
Print Research
Research Interests
Judgment and Decision-Making; Counterfactual Reasoning; Regret; Hindsight Bias; Causal Inference

Articles
Morrison, M. and Neal Roese. 2011. Regrets of the typical American: Findings from a nationally representative sample. Social Psychological and Personality Science. 2: 576-583.
Fessel, F. and Neal Roese. 2011. Hindsight bias, visual aids, and legal decision making: Timing is everything. Social Psychology and Personality Compass. 5/4: 180-193.
Epstude, K. and Neal Roese. 2011. When goal pursuit fails: The functions of counterfactual thought in goal in intention formation. Social Psychology. 42: 19-27.
Kray, Laura J., Linda H. George, Katie A. Liljenquist, Adam D. Galinsky, Philip Tetlock and Neal Roese. 2010. From What Might Have Been to What Must Have Been: Counterfactual Thinking Creates Meaning. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 98: 106-118.
Epstude, K. and Neal Roese. 2010. Functional aspects of global versus local processing: Relations among the structure and content of goals, counterfactuals, and regrets. Psychological Inquiry. 21: 209-212.
Roese, Neal and K. Vohs. 2010. The visualization trap. Harvard Business Review. 88(5): 26.
Smallman, Rachel and Neal Roese. 2009. Counterfactual thinking facilitates behavioral intentions. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. 45: 845-852.
Fessel, Florian, Kai Epstude and Neal Roese. 2009. Hindsight bias redefined: It's about time. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. 110: 56-64.
Abstract
Hur, Taekyun, Neal Roese and Jae-Eun Namkoong. 2009. Regrets in the East and West: Role of intrapersonal versus interpersonal norms. Asian Journal of Social Psychology. 12: 151-156.
Roese, Neal, Kai Epstude, Florian Fessel, Mike Morrison, Rachel Smallman, Amy Summerville, Adam D. Galinsky and Suzanne C. Segerstrom. 2009. Repetitive regret, depression, and anxiety: Findings from a nationally representative survey. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology. 28: 671-688.
Roese, Neal and Eyal Amir. 2009. Speculations on human-android interaction in the near and distant future. Perspectives on Psychological Science. 4: 429-434.
Roese, Neal and Mike Morrison. 2009. The psychology of counterfactual thinking. Historical Social Research. 34: 16-26.
Smallman, Rachel and Neal Roese. 2009. Valence-dependent self-scruitiny in judgments of event impact. Social Cognition. 27: 834-846.
Summerville, Amy and Neal Roese. 2008. Dare to compare: Fact-based versus simulation-based comparison in daily life. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. 44: 664-671.
Saffrey, Colleen, Neal Roese and Amy Summerville. 2008. Praise for regret: People value regret above other negative emotions. Motivation and Emotion. 32: 46-54.
Smallman, Rachel and Neal Roese. 2008. Preference invites categorization. Psychological Science. 19: 1228-1232.
Roese, Neal, Sohee Park, Rachel Smallman and Crystal Gibson. 2008. Schizophrenia involves impairment in the activation of intentions by counterfactual thinking. Schizophrenia Research. 103: 343-344.
Summerville, Amy and Neal Roese. 2008. Self-report measures of individual differences in regulatory focus: A cautionary note. Journal of Research in Personality. 42: 247-254.
Epstude, Kai and Neal Roese. 2008. The functional theory of counterfactual thinking. Personality and Social Psychology Review. 12: 168-192.
Roese, Neal and James M. Olson. 2007. Better, stronger, faster: Self-serving judgement, affect regulation, and the optimal viligence hypothesis. Perspectives on Psychological Science. 2: 124-141.
Epstude, Kai and Neal Roese. 2007. Beyond rationality: Counterfactual thinking and behavior regulation. Behavioral and Brain Sciences. 30: 457-458.
Roese, Neal. 2007. Hätte ich doch...! Warum Reue ein nützliches Gefühl ist [If only...! Why regret is a useful emotion]. Psychologie Heute.: 20-25.
Roese, Neal, Amy Summerville and Florian Fessel. 2007. Regret and behavior: Comment on Zeelenberg and Pieters. Journal of Consumer Psychology. 17: 25-28.
Chen, Jing, Chi-yue Chiu, Neal Roese, Kim-Pong Tam and Ivy Yee-Man Lau. 2006. Culture and counterfactuals: On the importance of life domains. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology. 37: 75-84.
Burrus, Jeremy and Neal Roese. 2006. Long ago it was meant to be: The interplay between time, construal and fate beliefs. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. 32: 1050-1058.
Roese, Neal, Ginger Pennington, Jill Coleman, Maria Janicki, Norman P. Li and Douglas T. Kenrick. 2006. Sex differences in regret: All for love or some for lust?. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. 32: 770-780.
Roese, Neal, Florian Fessel, Amy Summerville, Justin Kruger and Michael A. Dilich. 2006. The propensity effect: When foresight trumps hindsight. Psychological Science. 17: 305-310.
Roese, Neal and Amy Summerville. 2005. What we regret most ... and why. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. 31: 1273-1285.
Pennington, Ginger and Neal Roese. 2003. Regulatory focus and temporal perspective. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. 39: 563-576.
Roese, Neal. 2000. Counterfactual thinking and marketing. Psychology and Marketing. 17: 277-280.
Hooker, Christine, Neal Roese and Sohee Park. 2000. Impoverished counterfactual thinking is associated with schizophrenia. Psychiatry. 63: 326-335.
Roese, Neal. 1999. Counterfactual thinking and decision making. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review. 6: 570-578.
Roese, Neal, Taekyun Hur and Ginger Pennington. 1999. Counterfactual thinking and regulatory focus. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 77: 1109-1120.
Roese, Neal and Michael W. Morris. 1999. Impression valence constrains social explanations: The case of discounting versus conjunction effects. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 77: 437-448.
Quinn, Kimberly A., Neal Roese, Ginger Pennington and James M. Olson. 1999. The personal/group discrimination discrepancy: The role of informational complexity. Personality and Social Bulletin. 25: 1430-1440.
Roese, Neal, Jeffrey W. Sherman and Taekyun Hur. 1998. Direction of comparison asymmetries in relational judgment: The role of linguistic norms. Social Cognition. 16: 353-362.
Roese, Neal and Taekyun Hur. 1997. Affective determinants of counterfactual thinking. Social Cognition. 15: 274-290.
Roese, Neal. 1997. Counterfactual thinking. Psychological Bulletin. 121: 133-148.
Roese, Neal and James M. Olson. 1997. Counterfactual thinking The intersection of affect and function. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology. 29: 1-59.
Roese, Neal and Sameep D. Maniar. 1997. Perceptions of purple: Counterfactual and hindsight judgments at Northwestern Wildcats football games. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. 23: 1245-1253.
Roese, Neal and James M. Olson. 1996. Counterfactuals, causal attributions and the hindsight bias: A conceptual integration. Journal of Experimental Psychology. 32: 197-227.
Maio, Gregory R., Neal Roese, Clive Seligman and Albert A. Katz. 1996. Rankings, ratings and the measurement of values: Evidence for the superior validity of ratings. Basic and Applied Social Psychology. 18: 171-181.
Roese, Neal and James M. Olson. 1995. Outcome controllability and counterfactual thinking. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. 21: 620-628.
Olson, James M. and Neal Roese. 1995. The perceived funniness of humorous stimuli. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. 21: 908-913.
Olson, James M., Neal Roese, Jennifer Meen and D. Joyce Robertson. 1995. The preconditions and consequences of relative deprivation: Two field studies. Journal of Applied Psychology. 25(944-964)
Roese, Neal and James M. Olson. 1994. Attitude importance as a function of repeated attitude expression. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. 30: 39-51.
Lanca, Margaret, Christine Alksnis, Neal Roese and Robert C. Gardner. 1994. Effects of language choice on acculturation: A study of Portuguese immigrants in a multicultural setting. Journal of Language and Psychology. 13: 315-330.
Roese, Neal. 1994. The functional basis of counterfactual thinking. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 66: 805-818.
Roese, Neal and Gerald N. Sande. 1993. Backlash effects in attack politics. Journal of Applied Social Psychology. 23: 632-653.
Roese, Neal. 1993. Self-esteem and counterfactual thinking. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 65: 199-206.
Roese, Neal and James M. Olson. 1993. The structure of counterfactual thought. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. 19: 312-319.
Roese, Neal and David W. Jamieson. 1993. Twenty years of bogus pipeline research: A critical review and meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin. 114: 363-375.
Kim, Kwon C., Neal Roese and John P.J. Pinel. 1992. Bidirectional contingent cross-tolerance between the anticonvulsant effects of pentobarbital and ethanol. Pharmacology, Biochemistry and Behavior. 41: 127-132.
Olson, James M., Neal Roese, Marianne N. Borenstein, Angela Martin and Alison L. Shores. 1992. Same-sex touching behavior: The moderating role of homophobic attitudes. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior. 16: 249-259.
Sharpe, Donald, John G. Adair and Neal Roese. 1992. Twenty years of deception research: A decline in subjects' trust. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. 18: 585-590.
Grabowski, Karen L., Neal Roese and Michael R. Thomas. 1991. The role of expectancy in hypnotic hypermnesia. International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis. 39: 193-197.
Book Chapters
Summerville, Amy and Neal Roese. 2009. "Counterfactual and Regret." In Cambridge dictionary of psychology, New York: Cambridge University Press.
Roese, Neal and Rachel Smallman. 2007. "Bogus pipeline." edited by R.F. Baumeister & K.D. Vohs, vol. 1, 123. New York: Sage.
Fessel, Florian and Neal Roese. 2007. "Counterfactual Thinking." In Encyclopedia of social psychology, edited by R.F. Baumeister & K.D. Vohs, vol. 1, 196-198. New York: Sage.
Roese, Neal and Jeffrey W. Sherman. 2007. "Expectancy." In Social psychology: A handbook of basic principles, edited by A.W. Kruglanski & E.T. Higgins, vol. 2, 91-115. New York: Guilford Press.
Galinsky, Adam D., Katie A. Liljenquist, Laura J. Kray and Neal Roese. 2005. "Finding meaning from mutability: Making sense and deriving significance through counterfactual thinking.." In The Psychology of Counterfactual Thinking, edited by D.R. Mandel, D.J. Hilton, & P. Catellani, 110-126. London, UK: Routledge.
Roese, Neal, Lawrence J. Sanna and Adam D. Galinsky. 2005. "The mechanics of imagination: Automaticity and control in counterfactual thinking.." In The New Unconscious, edited by J.A. Bargh, J. Uleman, & R. Hassin, 138-170. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Roese, Neal. 2004. "Twisted pair: Counterfactual thinking and the hindsight bias." In Blackwell handbook of judgement and decision making, edited by D. Koehler & N. Harvey, 258-273. Oxford: Blackwell.
Roese, Neal and James M. Olson. 2003. "Counterfactual thinking." In Encyclopedia of cognitive science, edited by L. Nadel, D. Chalmers, P. Culicover, B. French & R. Goldstone, vol. 1, 858-861. New York: Macmillan.
Pennington, Ginger and Neal Roese. 2003. "Counterfactual thinking and regulatory focus." In Motivated social perception: The Ontario Symposium, edited by S.J. Spencer, S. Fein, M.P. Zanna & J.M Olson, vol. 9, 277-298. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Roese, Neal. 2002. "Candadians shrinking trust in government: Causes and consequences." In Value change and governance in Canada, edited by N. Nevitte, 149-163. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press.
Roese, Neal and James M. Olson. 2002. "Relative deprivation and counterfactual thinking." In Relative deprivation: Specification, development, and integration, edited by I. Walker & H.J. Smith, 265-287. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Roese, Neal. 2001. "The crossroads of affect and cognition: Counterfactuals as compensatory cognitions." In Cognitive social psychology: The Princeton Symposium on the legacy and future of social cognition, edited by G. Moskowitz, 307-316. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Olson, James M., Oswald Buhrmann and Neal Roese. 2000. "Comparing comparisons: An integrative perspective on social comparison and counterfactual thinking." In Handbook of social comparison: Theory and research, edited by J. Suls & L. Wheeler, 379-398. New York, NY: Plenum.
Olson, James M., Neal Roese and Mark P. Zanna. 1996. "Expectancies." In Social psychology: Handbook of basic principles, edited by E.T. Higgins & A.W. Kruglanski, 211-238. New York, NY: Guilford.
Olson, James M., Neal Roese and Ronald J. Deibert. 1996. "Psychological biases in counterfactual thought experiments." In Counterfactual thought experiments in world politics: Logical, methodological and psychological perspectives, edited by P.E. Tetlock & A. Belkin, 296-300. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Roese, Neal and James M. Olson. 1995. "Counterfactual thinking: A critical overview." In What might have been: The social psychology of counterfactual thinking, edited by N.J. Roese & J.M. Olson, 1-55. Mahway, NJ: Erlbaum.
Roese, Neal and James M. Olson. 1995. "Functions of counterfactual thinking." In What might have been: The social psychology of counterfactual thinking, edited by N.J. Roese & J.M. Olson, 169-197. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Tett, Robert P., John P. Meyer and Neal Roese. 1994. "Applications of meta-analysis: 1987-1992." In International Review of Industrial and Organization Psychology, edited by C.L. Cooper & I.T. Robertson, vol. 9, 71-112. New York, NY: Wiley.
Books
Roese, Neal. 2005. If Only: How to Turn Regret Into Opportunity. New York, NY: Broadway Books.
Roese, Neal and James M. Olson. 1995. What might have been: The social psychology of counterfactual thinking. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

 
Print Teaching
Full-Time / Part-Time MBA
Models of Consumer Behavior (MKTG-458-0)

This course counts toward the following majors: Marketing, Marketing Management

This course covers the field of consumer psychology and provides a systematic framework for analyzing consumer behavior from the standpoint of the marketer. The focus is on generating consumer insights as a necessary basis for developing marketing strategies, as well as for improving marketing mix decisions. The psychological concepts we cover enable marketers to make better use of market research. The course is directed at students preparing for brand/product management, business development, or consulting positions.

Design Lab (MKTG-945-0)
A special course available to all Kellogg students will be offered in the Winter quarter of this year. The course covers the intersection of design and marketing. It looks at how design and design thinking can be incorporated into marketing thinking. The course has a special format. Three professors from the marketing department will lead the course- Professors Brendl, Calder, and Roese- as well as Steven Dupuis who is a Clinical Professor and the President of a leading design firm. Designers from several other design firms located in Chicago will participate on an ongoing basis as well. The format of the course will be experiential. Students, professors, and design professionals will work on a design project from the inception of a creative concept to complete design implementation. The project is based on the premise of creating a new type of outside-the-home movie watching experience. In addition to providing a valuable learning experience for students interested in design, the course is also intended to provide a vehicle for determining how to incorporate design into the Kellogg curriculum better in the future. Enrollment in the course will be restricted due to the experiential and interactive learning format. One goal is also to find ways of involving members to the Design Club in the project on an at-large basis. Note: This course may not be dropped after the second week of the quarter.

If you are interested in enrolling in the course please email Faye Palmer (faye-palmer@kellogg.northwestern.edu) for the enrollment request form..



Doctoral
Special Topics in Marketing: Judgement, Emotion, and Consumer Choice (MKTG-530-2)
coming soon