Consumer Choice and Autonomy in the Age of Artificial Intelligence and Big Data

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Consumer Choice and Autonomy in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

and Big Data

Quentin André

1,2

& Ziv Carmon

1,2

& Klaus Wertenbroch

1,2

& Alia Crum

Douglas Frank

& William Goldstein

& Joel Huber

& Leaf van Boven

& Bernd Weber

Haiyang Yang

Published online: 19 December 2017

The Author(s) 2017. This article is an open access publication

Abstract

Recent developments in the field of artificial intelligence and data analytics are facilitating the automation of some consumer

chores (e.g., in smart homes and in self-driving cars) and allow the emergence of big-data-driven, micro-targeting marketing

practices (e.g., personalized content recommendation algorithms). We contend that those developments can generate a tension for

marketers, consumers, and policy makers: They can, on the one hand, contribute to consumer well-being by making consumer

choices easier, more practical, and more efficient. On the other hand, they can also undermine consumers’ sense of autonomy, the

absence of which can be detrimental to consumer well-being. Drawing on diverse perspectives from marketing, economics,

philosophy, neuroscience, and psychology, we explore how consumers’ sense of autonomy in making choices affects their well-

being. We discuss how new technologies may enhance or diminish consumers’ perceptions of being in control of their choices

and how either of those can, in turn, enhance of detract from consumer well-being. Building on this, we identify open research

questions in the domain of choice, well-being, and consumer welfare, and suggest avenues for future research.

Keywords Artifical Intelligence

Automation

Consumer Autonomy

Big Data

Consumer Choice

Micro-targeting

1 Introduction

Today’s consumers face more choice options and more infor-

mation about these options than ever before. According to the

standard economic perspective of utility theory, this develop-

ment should help consumers find and choose options that best

suit their needs, allowing them to lower their search costs and

increase the utility they derive from their choices [4, 42, 61,

62]. Marketers, researchers, and policy makers generally as-

sume that lowering search, transaction, and decision-making

costs empowers consumers and increases consumer welfare

[67]. Sophisticated algorithms plowing through vast amounts

of consumer data, for example, allow online marketers to

serve up just the right product or service, relieving consumers

not only of the costs of searching but also of the unpleasant

and difficult tradeoffs, which consumer choice often entails [3,

49, 60]. Consider, for example, content recommendation sys-

tems such as those of Outbrain or Taboola, or content man-

agement systems such as that of Netflix or Amazon, which

utilize big data and artificial intelligence for behavioral

targeting. Such systems propose content that a person is likely

to enjoy consuming given their current choice, allowing con-

sumers to effortlessly discover content of interest. As another

example, autonomous cars (e.g., Mobileye and Google) not

only take over the arduous task of driving but they are also

expected to be capable of learning to predict the preferences of

different drivers for what type of route to take or what type of

driving style to adopt. Rapid technological advances are also

changing how the internet of things [30] affects consumption,

* Klaus Wertenbroch

klaus.wertenbroch@insead.edu

Douglas Frank

douglas.frank@analysisgroup.com

INSEAD, Fontainebleau, France

INSEAD, 1 Ayer Rajah Avenue 138676, Singapore

Stanford University , Stanford, CA, USA

Analysis Group, 800 17th Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20006, USA

University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

Duke University, Durham, NC, USA

University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA

University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany

Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA

Customer Needs and Solutions (2018) 5:28–37

https://doi.org/10.1007/s40547-017-0085-8

whether it is thermostats that learn about users’ temperature

preferences (e.g., Google’s Nest) or voice-recognition systems

that listen to and fulfill consumers stated desires and can learn

to predict their needs and preferences (e.g., Amazon’sAlexa,

Google’s Home, or Apple’sSiri).

In this speculative r eview art icle, we identify a poten-

tial paradox that can characterize choice in the age of

automation, of artificial intelligence, and data-driven

marketing (while this article focuses on marketing con-

texts, note that these issues have important im plications

in numerous other domains such as health care and care

for the elderly).We contend that some of the welfare-

enhancing benefits of those technologies can backfire

and generate consumer reactance if they undermine the

sense of autonomy that consumers seek in their decision-

making. Th at may occur when con sumers feel deprived

of their ability to control their own choices: predictive

algorithms are getting better and better at ant icipating

consumers’ preferences, and decision-making aid s are

often too opaq ue for cons umers to un derstan d (h ow they

might influence preferences and d ecisions). Autonomous

devices (such as sma rt cars or home a utomation solu-

tions) offer the opportunity to eliminate c ostly consumer

input altogether from certain decision environments—

these devices can reduce or even e liminate the effort that

a consumer must invest in choosing. The outcomes, de-

rived from vast amounts of data about the consumer in

question as we ll as abo ut o ther consumer s an d the envi-

ronmental context, may often correspond t o consumers’

preferences more closely than if they themselves had

chosen. A self- driving car can get a person to a desired

location faster, with less effort, and more safely than if

the consumer were controlling the vehicle. Yet, con-

sumers seem ambivalent about self-driving cars, with

many focusing on the efficiency gains but others reluc-

tant to rel inquish the driver ’sseat[50]. More generally,

we cons ider condition s und er which, rather t han feeling

more empowered in their choices, consumers may feel

more alienated from their ability to choose and the im-

pact this technologic al change may have on consumer

well-being.

Drawing on a variety of perspectives, from philosophy

to neuroscience, we provide a brief overview of extant

research on consumers’ perceptions of choice and autono-

my, discuss findings relevant to some of the unprecedented

changes in the choice settings that consumers now face,

and identify directions for future research that are impor-

tant to consumers, managers, and policy makers. We cover

this in four sections. First, we briefly review research that

explores consumers’ pervasive beliefs in the a utonomy of

their actions and choices. Second, we discuss benefits of

consumer autonomy and the benefits of choice for consum-

er well-being. The third section identifies circumstances

under which choice can backfire and outlines psychologi-

cal processes through which consumers can be harmed by

choosing and feeling a sense of autonomy. Finally, we as

khow recent technological advances may affect con-

sumers’ perceptions of autonomy and well-being and sug-

gest avenues for future research and applications.

2 The Need for Autonomy in Consumer Choice

Researchers from different academic quarters such as philos-

ophy, psychology, and consumer research have investigated

people’s need for autonomy, and in doing so, have used dif-

ferent terminologies: while some directly use autonomy,

others have relied on constructs such as self-determination

or free will. In our investigation, we treat those constructs

are interchangeable and use them broadly as referring to one’s

ability to B be [one’s] own person, and to be directed by con-

siderations, desires, conditions, and characteristics that are not

simply externally imposed upon one, but are part of what can

somehow be considered one’s authentic self^[19]. Autonomy

provides a foundation to personhood, giving rise to notions of

morality, character, ethics, or virtue [28]. As such, autonomy

in choice is akin to exercising free will, and self-determination

is a state of exercising one’s autonomy. When describing ex-

tant research in this section, however, we rely on the same

terminology as the authors.

Consumers think of themselves and their actions as if they

had free will [68], to the point that they consider the existence

of free will self-evident [9] and exhibit unshakeable confi-

dence in its existence [73]. They think about the processes

that lead them to a particular choice in terms of deliberation

and intentionality, see their own actions as internally driven

and motivated [69], and come up with internally consistent

reasons when the true drivers of choice are not immediately

available to them [45]. Even when other people’s actions are

described as driven by external circumstances, people are still

motivated to ascribe intent and responsibility [20].

Why would consumers appear to have such an unshakeable

belief in their own free will, and why do they, when prompted,

describe their actions as resulting from deliberate choices and

autonomous decisions? One stream of research views con-

sumers’ belief in free will as a basic tenet of human psychol-

ogy. DeCharms [22] proposed the concept of personal causa-

tion, which refers to people’s tendency to take ownership of

their actions and to attribute favorable outcomes to their own

actions. Nuttin [48] proposed that this tendency is hedonically

motivated, and that people experience causality pleasure, a

positive affect derived from personally causing an event, in-

dependently of the affect associated with the event itself. In

other words, he proposed that people derive pleasure from

seeing the impact of their actions on the world. His theory

was refined by Deci and Ryan [24], who found the experience

Cust. Need. and Solut. (2018) 5:28–37 29

of causality pleasure to be motivated by two basic psycholog-

ical needs: the need for competence—the ability to impact the

world in meaningful ways, and the need for autonomy—doing

so in self-determined and autonomous ways. From this per-

spective, the impetus to choose and feel ownership of one’s

choices is drivenby the resulting positive affect.

A second research stream takes a functional approach to

understanding people’s belief in their free will, self-determi-

nation, and autonomy. Baumeister et al. [7] propose that the

belief in self-determined choices is a higher-order cognitive

function that allows people to correct their behavior over time

and align their choices with their long-term goals by providing

them with a sense of continuity in intertemporal choices and a

sense of ownership in moral dilemmas [72]. Similarly, Wegner

[68] argues that the perception of their own free will allows

people to develop a sense of self and of moral responsibility.

As people experience continuity between their beliefs,

thoughts, actions, and the outcomes that result from them,

they can experience pride and closure when their actions are

consistent with those beliefs and thoughts. Similarly, they can

feel guilt, shame, and regret when their actions are inconsis-

tent with their beliefs and thoughts. In contrast to the previous

view, the belief in self-determination evolved to facilitate self-

regulation rather than serving hedonic purposes.

In light of the functional importance of people’sbeliefsin

the autonomy of their own decision-making, one may wonder

why these beliefs and perceptions are not constantly salient to

them. Although people make hundreds of decisions every day,

they are likely to spontaneously describe only few of those as

choices; and among those self-described as choices, even few-

er are expected to generate the subjective experience of auton-

omy. The two views presented above inform us about the

types of decisions that give rise to a feeling of autonomy.

According to the self-determination perspective, the belief

in free will responds to a need to connect one’s thoughts and

desires to outcomes—achoiceisanactionthathasBapparent

mental causation,^ for which one’s thoughts are seen as the

Bcause of the act^ [69]. Being free to choose from among

multiple options in the pursuit of a goal (for instance, choosing

one of several different ways to complete a task) imbues peo-

ple with a sense of autonomy, which can generate positive

affect and a heightened sense of motivation [24].

Conversely, feeling restrictions in choice has been shown to

undermine people’s motivation and to elicit psychological re-

actance [15]. As such, any action that is internally and freely

motivated and has discernable impact on the world is suscep-

tible to fulfill consumers’ need for autonomy, but the con-

scious awareness of the act of choosing and of not being

restricted in one’s decision-making are key to making the ex-

perience of autonomy salient.

The second perspective, which construes the experience of

free will as an adaptive process underpinning self-regulation,

entails a more restrictive view that the subjective experience

of autonomy emerges from decisions involving an

intertemporal or moral conflict [72]. Because such decisions

require acknowledging a contradiction between multiple

selves (e.g., the Bim patient^ vs. the Bpatient^ self, the

selfish^ vs

. the Bselfless,^ th e Bgood^ vs. the Bevil^)[5,

66], they make salient the mental process that arbitrates be-

tween the two options. In contrast, decisions that do not imply

any form of struggle or internal conflict do not necessitate the

resolution of the conflict, and the mental processes of the

decisions remain inconspicuous to the person.

These two perspectives, which have yet to be experimen-

tally pitted against one another, have different implications for

choice architecture, marketing, and public policy. Consider

the example mentioned in the introduction: a car manufacturer

trying to promote self-driving cars. The manufacturer would

want to avoid generating perceptions among users that they

renounce their autonomy by being transported in such a vehi-

cle. According to the first perspective (apparent mental cau-

sation), this could include assurances that users may still take

control of the vehicle if they so choose to do so to avoid

reactance or giving consumers the opportunity to customize

features of the self-driving algorithm (driving style, choice of

roads, etc.). On the other hand, if a feeling of struggle and

conflict is the key to generating a sense of agency, then the

manufacturer may paradoxically be better off emphasizing

moral aspects of renouncing to drive a car; for example, by

choosing to let a computer drive the vehicle, the consumer

contributes to making the roads safer and transportation more

energy efficient.

3 Benefits of Experiencing Autonomy

in Consumer Choice

Can a heightened or a diminished sense of autonomy affect

consumers’ experienced utility of choice outcomes and con-

sumer well-being beyond addressing the basic need for auton-

omy? In the present section, we review the various benefits

that arise from the subjective experi ence of autonomy in

choice.

Utility from Positive Self-Attributions Feeling in control of

one’s choices facilitates the attribution of positive outcomes

to the self, leading to heightened feelings of competence and

greater levels of positive affect. People have been shown to

feel a greater sense of responsibility for positive outcomes

when the chain of causality linking their thoughts, actions,

and the outcome is conspicuous [26]. For example, in situa-

tions requiring self-control (such as choosing between a tasty

but unhealthy dessert vs. a healthier but less tasty one), a sense

of agency can help consumers resist the temptation. Resisting

temptation and choosing the virtuous option may provide a

positive self-signal to consumers of their willpower and sense

30 Cust. Need. and Solut. (2018) 5:28–37

of virtuousness, enhancing the utility of the chose option,

whereas giving in to temptation signals a lack of willpower

and reduces the utility of the chosen option [25].

Utility from Agency Beyond utility from positive self-attribu-

tions, consumer preferences for product customization, or

even making the product themselves, can be understood as a

quest for autonomy and competence, which helps derive more

utility from consumption. The well-known BIKEA Effect^

(Mochon et al. [46, 53]), for example, illustrates that con-

sumers derive more pleasure from making certain products

themselves than from purchasing them and that this also en-

hances evaluations of the products.

Finally, choice allows dissonance reduction mechanisms to

kick in, which in turn enhance the satisfaction consumers de-

rive from the chosen option: the experience of freely choosing

leads consumer to bolster the features of the preferred option

and to minimize the attractiveness of the non-preferred option

[13]. Similarly, people have been shown to derive more satis-

faction from consuming hedonic products when they

hadmade the choice themselves, compared to when the choice

wasmadebyanexpert[11].

A heightened sense of control in one’s life can have far-

reaching implications for physical health and other physiolog-

ical outcomes, in addition to the psychological consequences.

In a classic experiment, nursing home residents who were told

that they were responsible for their own well-being, and were

assigned slightly more responsibility—given control over the

care of a plant—showed significant improvement in alertness,

active participation, and overall well-being [40]. In contrast,

residents who were told that the staff was responsible for their

well-being and who were only given the opportunity to tell the

staff how the plant should be taken care of (without enacting

those choices) did not show such improvements. This empir-

ical finding suggests that feeling in control over one’slifecan

have important consequences: among individuals living in

very similar conditions, those who perceive their environment

as empowering and enact (rather than merely state) their pref-

erences experience a higher quality of life.

Utility from Meaning The prediction that attributing behavior

to one’s own free choices can affect behavioral outcomes has

also been supported in a study of hotel housekeeping staff. In

this field experiment, one half of the staff (but not the other)

were told that the physical activities that their job entailed

(changing sheets, scrubbing bathrooms, vacuuming the floor)

met the surgeon general’s guidelines for daily exercise, thus

providing the staff with a reason for why they would choose to

engage in these activities. Remarkably, a few months after-

wards, those in the treatment group had lost more weight

and had a lower blood pressure [21]. Reminiscent of other

types of placebo responses [39, 59], these results suggest that

understanding of the modality and implications of an action

can alter its physical consequences, a nd highlights the

importance of communicating intent when designing public

policies. This point has interesting implications for the design

of customized policies and advertisements: it is more and

more and more common for communications to be data-driv-

en, and to target individual consumers based on their past

purchases or browsing history. From the observations that

understanding the modalities and implications of an action

has benefits, we wonder whether making consumers aware

of the reason for a particular recommendation (or advertise-

ments) may increase the take-up rate (click-through rate). For

instance, making explicit that a nutrition ad is displayed be-

cause the consumers expressed an interest in joining a gym

could increase the persuasiveness of the ad and the likelihood

that it will influence behavior.

Lack of Perceived Self-Determination Finally, what happens if

consumers do not feel and autonomous in their decision-

making further testifies to the benefits of choice. At its most

extreme level, a lack of self-determination can manifest when

consumers are unable to control and make sense of crucial

features of their environment. Research on learned helpless-

ness has proposed that people confronted with their inability

to influence a situation they strongly desire to change (e.g.,

repeatedly failing to find a job) will eventually withdraw and

experience severe psychological pain [1, 44]. At a less ex-

treme level, a series of studies has found that threatening con-

sumers’

belief in their own free will also have a variety of

undes

irable consequences such as reduced helpfulness and

higher levels of aggression [6]andlowerlevelsofself-

control in intertemporal choices [52].These effects are driven

by a weakened sense of personal responsibility, which pro-

vides a justification for behavior that would otherwise reflect

negatively on the self. This is once again concerning from the

perspective of data-driven marketing: if consumers entertain

the belief that marketers’ algorithm are getting more and more

persuasive and are predictive of their own preferences, it could

provide them with a justification to indulge more following

tempting ads.

4 Costs of Experiencing Autonomy

in Consumer Choice

Even though consumers generally prefer to view their deci-

sions as self-determined, with important benefits such as those

that we described, the act of choosing can also affect con-

sumers negatively. Below, we discuss several such triggers

of negative effects of perceived autonomy in consumer

choice.

Tradeoff Conflict Choices often consist of trying to pick the

best option (e.g., a product or service) from a set: as a first

step, consumers review and compare attributes of the different

options. This ta sk is r elat ively easy if a dominant option

Cust. Need. and Solut. (2018) 5:28–37 31

emerges from the choice set, one that is clearly superior to the

others. In contrast, when no such option exists, this process of

comparison is cognitively taxing and requires the consumer to

trade off and sacrifice some benefits in return for others (Alba

et al. 1997; [49, 60]). This can result in a less satisfying con-

sumption experience than if the same product had been con-

sumed without choosing it from other options [31].

Ease of Choice Although tradeoff conflict exacts cognitive

costs from decision makers, consumers sometimes seem to

desire to engage in making tradeoffs even though they would

be better off adopting a satisficing strategy [10]orwhenthere

is a seemingly dominant choice option [56]. This observation

has mixed implications for consumer welfare in the age of

artificial intelligence and big data. On the one hand, personal-

ized, targeted recommendations increase the likelihood that

the first option presented to the consumer will meet the satis-

faction threshold and therefore reduce the likelihood that con-

sumers engage in comparison shopping. On the other hand,

the breadth and convenience of search engines and compari-

son websites is making it easier for consumers to view a large

range of products, which may both decrease the likelihood

that a product will be purchased and the satisfaction the con-

sumers will have with the product.

Option Attachment Even when consumers do not explicitly

compare attributes (when evaluating options in a sequential

manner, for instance), they often imagine how they might use

a product, or what the experience would feel like. Such mental

simulation and elaboration to inform to actively support the

choice process triggers a sense of mental endowment of the

options in the choice set, which induces a sense of loss once an

option is foregone for another. This effect of Bop tion

attachment,^ triggered by the choice process, can then lead

consumers to bolster the value of the foregone options and

feel less confident about having made the right choice [16].

Choice Overload The act of choosing may also negatively

impact consumers’ motivation. When options are plentiful,

the act of choosing may become effortful, and consumers

might be discouraged from choosing altogether. In a well-

known study, a tasting booth for jams attracted more people

when it offered 24 different options than when it offered 6, but

there were more purchases from the set with 6 options than

from the set with 24 options [34]. This Bchoice overload^

effect may however be restricted to situations, in which the

consumers are unfamiliar with the options offered [18, 54].

More generally, people overestimate the benefits of choice: in

deciding how much time they should devote to selecting a

better option, they do not incorporate the temporal, cognitive,

and emotional costs of searching and of thinking. All too

often, the small benefits people get from selecting a margin-

ally better option do not offset the time and effort invested in

finding it, and choosing ends up being a dissatisfying

experience.

Guilt from Choices between Bads Consumers’ desire for au-

tonomy can have dramatic negative consequences when they

are faced with important decisions in which no choice is con-

sistent with their preferences. Botti et al. [12] interviewed

parents whose children died in neonatal intensive care units

(NICUs) to investigate the links between autonomy in the

choice process and emotional well-being. Specifically, they

used a natural difference between the French and the

American health care systems: in France, physicians decide

on the parents’ behalf whether to continue or withdraw life-

sustaining treatments, while in the USA, the physicians only

offer that option and the parents have to make the final deci-

sion. The authors’ findings revealed critical differences be-

tween the two groups: French parents reported experiencing

less emotional distress and coped with grief and bereavement

better than their American counterparts who had to make the

final decision themselves. The Ame rican parents reported

higher levels of guilt and self-blame. They felt a greater sense

of responsibility for interrupting the life-sustaining treatment

and had a harder time reaching a sense of closure with their

decision, often doubting that they had made the right choice.

Critically, parents had an ambivalent attitude regarding the

choice process: the majority of French parents were grateful

to the doctors for making the decision, but some wished they

had been more involved in the choice to interrupt the treat-

ment. In sharp contrast, American parents expressed anger

and pain at the medical staff for forcing them to make such a

difficult decision. This extreme exa mple shows that ev en

though most consumers desire choice a priori, in some cir-

cumstances, they wish a posteriori to be freed from the emo-

tional burden of choice and its consequences. In the marketing

domain, this finding could inspire interventions regarding dis-

tisfied consumers: if a firm openly claims responsibility for

a negative consumer experience, it could paradoxically lead to

less negative affect, and a higher likelihood of subsequent

purchases.

Ultimately, the same processes that allow consumers to

derive pride and satisfaction from self-determined choices (a

sense of personal responsibility and of ownership of the deci-

sion) can lead to guilt and dissatisfaction when the outcome of

a choice is negative. Providing consumers with a limited sense

of autonomy can thus, paradoxically, empower them and in-

crease their well-being and motivation. For instance, choosing

a dessert at a restaurant in which all the Bhealthy options^ are

out of stock will allow consumers to enjoy the full hedonic

experience of a chocolate cake without the guilt that would be

associated with an autonomous decision [17, 25]. In the same

way, acknowledging a limited sense of autonomy in others

can have positive consequences and make people more for-

giving: a weaker belief in free will has been shown to predict

less retributive attitudes regarding punishment of criminals or

other deviant behavior [58].

32 Cust. Need. and Solut. (2018) 5:28–37

5 Research Directions in Well-Being,

Autonomy, and Choice

The key questions that emerge from our discussion of the need

to experience autonomy in consumer choice are whether and

how the rapid automation of marketing and consumption tech-

nologies might affect that experience and its consequences.

An important related question is what the boundary conditions

are and under which an enhanced or diminished sense of au-

tonomy may have positive or negative effects. We offer these

questions as a simple initial framework, derived from our

discussion of the effects of autonomy, to guide and refine

researchers’ emerging conceptualizations of the effects of au-

tomation on consumer well-being. Our main objective is to

caution ma rketer s a nd technology enthus ias ts to consider

carefully how automation may affect an important driver of

consumer well-being: experienced autonomy in consumer

choice. We begin to answer these questions by identifying a

variety of potentially interesting areas of inquiry.

Boundary Conditions of the Preference for Autonomy in

Choice An important goal for future research is to explore

contextual, cultural, and even individual differences in the

preference for autonomous choices. Existing research high-

lights s ome factors that moderate the importance of self-

determined choices. For instance, consumers who are high

on reactance-orientation are known to react more negatively

to circumstances in which their ability to make autonomous

choices is restricted [27, 57, 70]. On the other hand, Markus

and Kitayama [43] argued that consumers with a collective

self-construal are more satisfied when an in-group member

chooses on their behalf than when they choose themselves.

Such differences have implications for policies and interven-

tions aimed at maximizing consumers’ well-being. For exam-

ple, they suggest that a policy that may be well-received in an

individualistic culture such as the USA might not be as suc-

cessful in more collectivist cultures such as China. That said,

other moderators of consumers’ need for autonomy in choice

have not received much attention. At the indi vidual level,

variables such as self-esteem or lay theories consumers hold

about free will are likely to matter. Contextual factors such as

the trust in the person or institution making the choice on one’s

behalf (e.g., a stranger vs. a friend), how strongly the choice is

connected to one’s identity (e.g., a luxury product vs. a routine

purchase), the level of competence that one feels in the choice

context (e.g., a medical decision vs. a choice of movie), or the

affective state (e.g., feeling anxious vs. calm) may affect con-

sumers’ preferences for self-driven choices.

Effects of the Need for Autonomy on Consumer Choice The

standard expected utility framework portrays consumers as

driven to choose the best option from a set, subject to a budget

or other constraint [23] and much research on choice focuses

on perceptions of the hedonic consequences and the utility of

the choice options [36]. Yet, the pursuit of optimal choice

options cannot fully explain the desire for choice. The strength

and pervasiveness of people’s belief in free will suggest that it

is an important contributing factor to their well-being that

consumers perceive their choice processes as autonomous,

even if these choice processes are effortful and do not always

lead to optimal decisions and outcomes. Robert Nozick’s[47]

famous thought experiment provides some intuition: Most

people would rather not want to exchange their everyday re-

ality for being put in an experience machine, which stimulates

the brain to produce simulated pleasurable experiences with-

out the hard work required to generate these experiences.

The realization that consumers are not only driven by he-

donism but also by a desire for autonomy has implications for

marketing, as it suggests that consumers are willing to sacri-

fice hedonic utility to bolster self-re levant values. Fo r in-

stance, Schrift et al. [55] find that making salient to consumers

that their choices are predictable can lead them to choose less-

preferred options in a consumption context. Specifically,

when consumers believe that a computer program can predict

their choices based o n their measured preferences, they

choose less-preferred options, consistent with a desire to re-

affirm their autonomy. In contrast, when consumers are told

that a computer program can determine how consistent their

choices are with their measured preferences, they do not de-

viate from their most-preferred options. This effect is specific

to the act of choosing: when consumers are asked to rank the

options from the most to the least preferred, predictability does

not lead them to deviate from their preferences. This finding

may have significant implications for the design of recom-

mendation algorithms, as it suggests that framing consumers’

tastes and preferences as Bpredictable^ could paradoxically

lead to behaviors making the algorithms less accurate.

e call for more investigations of how consumers trade off

hedonic and autonomy-driven motives—when do consumers

sacrifice preferred choice options to assert their autonomy, and

when does the quest for pleasure, comfort, and convenience

dominate their choices? We believe that micro-targeting and

data-driven marketing provide us with interesting settings to

study this tension. For instance, algorithms that can predict

our most preferred products or services by passively learning

our preferences are very likely to be judged practical and con-

venient in most settings. However, we also believe that this

service will be aversive in situations where consumers seek to

explore or reveal their own preferences and nature through their

choices [38]. Thus, people might not defer choices to such

algorithms that are relevant to their identity such as whom to

date, which charity to donate to, or which church to join.

Similarly, researchers have pointed out that Netflix’ focus on

its own content productions without streaming many classic

movies (in contrast to the offers from its DVD distribution

service) may shape consumer preferences for entertainment

without allowing consumers to more actively and deliberately

Cust. Need. and Solut. (2018) 5:28–37 33

develop and train their own entertainment preferences or devel-

op cultural tastes and capital [29].

Psychological Reductionism of Marketing Automation

Beyond consumers’ inclination to reveal their own preferences ,

data-driven marketing is inherently reductive in its description

of consumer behavior , and little research has explored those

limitations. Data-driven marketing mostly focuses on behavior ,

at the expense of higher-order psychological processes such as

preferences, emotions, and moral judgments: a machine that

analyzes revealed consumer preferences from Google searches

or browsing history on Amazon may ignore mental processes

that lead to individual behavior . This is particularly important in

contexts where consumers have aspirational preferences that

might differ from the preferences suggested by their past be-

havior. Those Bmetapreferences,^ or Bpreferences over

preferences^ [28, 35], are apparent in the case of a smoker

trying to quit, who would have an immediate preference for

cigarettes, yet a metapreference for not preferring to smoke;

or a person who sits in front of his TV every night but wishes

he would read more books instead. The link between prefer-

ences and metapreference soften reflects the inherent tension

discussed above between hedonism and autonomy, or between

who the person is now and the ideal representation that the

individual has of herself and would like to be. Ignoring

metapreferences (which may be inaccessible to the algorithm)

and instead focusing on the preferences suggested by past

choices, data-driven marketing might deprive consumers of

the ability to improve their own character and encourage them

to repeat choices that they would wish not to make again. A

recovering smoker with a long history of search and purchases

of cigarettes would find herself constantly reminded of her vice,

which might increase the probability of a relapse.

Automation and data-driven marketing practices might al-

so detract from consumers’ autonomy by depriving them of

opportunities to introspect about their preferences. Both aim at

streamlining choice processes and offering consumers a cus-

tomized set of attractive options from which they can easily

sample, thereby eliminating difficult deliberation or painful

tradeoffs. While spending much time choosing can put off

consumers, it nonetheless has implications for consumers’ au-

tonomy. For instance, research conducted on American voters

found that while they believe that the content of a policy

should weigh more than the party championing it, their votes

are driven more by party affiliations than by policy content.

However, asking people to introspect on this belief leads them

to choose in a way that is better aligned with their preferences

and to place more weight on the policy content when making

their choice [32]. Importantly, an algorithm trained on past

consumer votes would have recommended supporting poli-

cies that are consistent with the party line, not with the actual

content of the policy. Furthermore, the opacity of those algo-

rithms is such that voters would often not know why those

policies were recommended to them in the first place.

Relatedly, note that some platforms have started sharing the

rationale for their recommendations: on Facebook, consumers

can now click the Bwhy am I seeing this?^ button to learn

more about the reasons why they were targeted by a particular

advertisement (e.g., Byou are a white female younger than

40,^ Byou have liked the page Marketing Research on

Facebook^). Beyond the ethical character of this decision,

we wonder if such information can enhance consumers’ satis-

faction with using recommendation algorithm.

Finally, much attention has been devoted to reinforcing

effects of algorithmically curated content on consumers’ be-

liefs and behaviors, with many reporters, citizens, and scholars

arguing that people now live in Binformation bubbles^ that

suppress dissona nt f acts and promote groupthink [8

, 37].

wever, less attention has been devoted the possibility that

automated curation based on past preferences would make a

given individual’s opinions and preferences more stable over

time than they would normally be. Contrary to what common

wisdom suggests, individuals’ personality and tastes continue

to change significantly through adulthood [51]. However, an

algorithm predicated on best predicting consumers’ current

taste would encourage repetition of past behavioral patterns,

and make exposure to unusual, serendipitous content less like-

ly. Because of their narrow focus on past choices, those rec-

ommendations could force consumers into more predictable

patterns of consumption and deprive them of their ability to

evolve over time, or at the very least reduce the likelihood of

radical changes in their tastes.

Similarly to how the advent of social media has spurred a

rich stream of research on consumers’ privacy concerns (see

[2] for a review), we call for the study of consumers’ beliefs

about recommendation algorit hms, automati on, and data-

driven marketing, and to contrast them with their actual effects

on hedonic and non-hedonic well-being. The tension between

convenience and satisfaction from use is central to successful

product and policy design: automation is rife with opportuni-

ties to make products more convenient and easier to use.

Being data-driven might make consumer choice easier and

more convenient than before, and yet they might also risk

threatening the non-hedonic benefits consumers derive from

consumption. That said, we suspect that consumers and busi-

ness practitioners alike may not foresee some of those nega-

tive consequences. In the same way that a lack of concern for

privacy is generally associated with a lack of understanding

[14], the widespread adoption of recommendation systems

and the absence of concern over a potential loss of autonomy

might reflect consumers’ limited grasp of the stakes.

On the practitioners’ side, the use of artificial intelligence in

marketing practices has serious implications for our under-

standing of marketing ethics, and is posing unique challenges

to managers and lawmakers. First, autonomy has often been

treated as the ya rdstick of business practices [33]: if the

34 Cust. Need. and Solut. (2018) 5:28–37

consumer cannot give explicit consent, the contract is uneth-

ical (and often illegal). As we have discussed in this article,

however, autonomy has multiple facets, and data-driven mar-

keting is simultaneously b olst er ing some and thr eate nin g

others. Second, recent discussions on the ethics of nudging

[63–65, 71] have stressed the importance of intent, and that

what separates a nudge from a manipulative practice is often

the intent of the person promoting it [41]. In the context of

algorithmic practices, however, this notion may become ob-

solete. A bank using a machine-learning algorithm to identify

and target potential prospects may find itself preying on vul-

nerable segments, as th e a lgorithm learns that those con-

sumers are less likely to bring profit to the company.

Similarly, the algorithm might also learn to discrim inate

against certain consumers of a certain ethnicity, which would

be illegal in most countries. However, it would be impossible

to assign intent to the algorithm and therefore difficult to argue

that the practice is predatory or discriminatory.

In conclusion, we hope that this article will help sensitize

researchers and practitioners, consumers, and policy makers

to the significance of perceived autonomy in consumer choice

in the age of artificial intelligence and big data and spur re-

search on this important topic. Increasing levels of automation

of consumer chores (e.g., in smart homes and in self-driving

cars) and of automation of marketing in big-data-driven

micro-targeting (e.g., with personalized content recommenda-

tion algorithms) are undoubtedly helping empower consumers

by increasing their convenience and safety, lowering their

search costs, and more optimally satisfying their preferences

[67]. At the same time, the benefits of such automation make

questioning its effects on consumer autonomy and well-being

more important than ever.

Compliance with Ethical Standards

Conflict of Interest The author declare that they have no competing

interest.

Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative

Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://

creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use,

distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appro-

priate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the

Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.

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