Scott Connors
Associate Professor
PhD Marketing, Carson College of Business, Washington State University
Office: SSC 4315
Phone: 519-661-2111 x84653
Email: sconnor4@uwo.ca
Scott’s research delves into consumer behavior to examine both the light and dark sides of consumers’ interaction with brands to develop strategies that either enhance or protect the brand accordingly.
On the light side of consumer-brand interaction, Scott dives into a fine-grained examination of the varying associations that can form between a brand and the multitude of identities that comprise the consumer’s self concept. This stream focuses on understanding the role of products and brands in consumers’ associative conceptualization of the self. Drawing upon theories such as balanced identity, self-identity, and psychological distance his work empirically tests the network of associations that unite one’s self-concept, attitudes, and relevant social groups with the products and brands that are associated with these concepts. In recent projects in this area Scott examines how dimensions of psychological distance shape the encoding and retrieval of self relevant products and brands, and how this knowledge can be used to foster and leverage consumer brand relationships.
On the dark side, Scott's research focuses on issues of skepticism, retaliation, and sub-optimal decision making in the face of brand transgressions. In recent projects in this area Scott examines how psychological distance can mitigate consumers’ inherent skepticism towards brands’ CSR claims, and how consumers will engage in unethical actions to punish brands that they perceive as harmful.
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS:
Connors, S., and Spangenberg, K. (2024). The Role of Psychological Distance in Enhancing Self-Relevant Brand Recall. Journal of Advertising.
Connors, S., Khamitov, M., Thomson, M., and Perkins, A. (2021) They’re Just Not that into You: How to Leverage Existing Consumer-Brand Relationships through Social Psychological Distance. Journal of Marketing
Connors, S., Spangenberg, K., Perkins, A, and Forehand, M (2021). Health-based Weight Stereotypes in Advertising: Perpetuating Unhealthy Responses Amongst Overweight-identifiers. Journal of Advertising
Connors, S., Spangenberg, K., Perkins, A, and Forehand, M. (2020). Crowdsourcing the Implicit Association Test: Limitations and Best Practices. Journal of Advertising
Rotman, J. R., Khamitov, M., Connors, S. (2018) Lie, Cheat, and Steal: How Harmful Brands Motivate Consumers to Act Unethically, Journal of Consumer Psychology
Connors, S., Anderson-MacDonald, S., Thomson, M. (2017). Overcoming the ‘Window Dressing’ Effect: Mitigating the Negative Effects of Inherent Skepticism towards Corporate Social Responsibility. Journal of Business Ethics.
Connors, S., Khamitov, M., Moroz, S., Campbell, L. (2016) Time, Money, and Happiness: Does Putting a Price on Time Affect Our Ability to Smell the Roses? Journal of Experimental Social Psychology .
