Navigating temporal dimensions: Consumer decisions from past to future

This dissertation extends existing understanding on the influence of time information and temporal perception on consumer judgements. The dissertation explores novel ideas on how consumers’ perceptions of time – encompassing between past, present, and future – affect their cognitive and motivational processes in decision making.
This work builds on the rich literature on intertemporal choices, goal pursuits, motivations, temporal categorization, autobiography memory recall, and media richness theory. She shows how task duration neglect affects consumer decision to act on now versus later (Chapter 2), what beliefs consumers have about temporal categorization of recent action and whether this belief is aligned with their decisions in pursuing a goal (Chapter 3), and whether consumer media preference changes when they reminisce about special events from the past (Chapter 4).
In sum, this dissertation highlights several novel factors that explain consumer decision making in the present, such as neglect for the duration, context dependent temporal categorization of actions, and emotional and motivational drivers for a recall. By doing so, it contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of consumer behavior across different temporal dimensions, with practical implications for enhancing decision-making strategies.