Janina Steinmetz
Associate Professor (Reader) of Marketing
Bayes Business School, City University of London, UK
Before joining Bayes Business School in 2018, I was an Assistant Professor of Social and Organizational Psychology at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. Until 2016, I was a post-doc at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, USA. I received my PhD in 2014 from the University of Cologne, Germany.
My work investigates consumer motivation and self-control in a social context (Ferreira, Scopelliti, & Steinmetz, in prep; Fishbach, Steinmetz, & Tu, 2016; Steinmetz, 2024; Steinmetz & Mussweiler, 2017; Steinmetz & Pfattheicher, 2017; Steinmetz, Xu, Fishbach, & Zhang, 2016; Touré-Tillery, Steinmetz, & DiCosola, 2022). For example, I find that actions done in the presence of others are magnified. Consumers (falsely) believe that they ate larger portions of food when someone was watching them eat, because the social presence magnifies the action. This work suggests that consumers perceive the world in a fundamentally different way in the presence of others. I also find that consumers anticipate observers' thoughts and judgments about their actions, and strategically make consumption decisions to influence observers' beliefs.
In addition to my work on motivation, I’m interested in how consumers think about others and infer what others think about them (sometimes mistakenly). When thinking about others, I find that consumers apply what I call the first-member heuristic (Steinmetz, Touré-Tillery, & Fishbach, 2020): The first member of a group in a random sequence (e.g., the first student to have his or her test graded by a machine) is seen as more diagnostic for the rest of the group than any of the other group members. Thus, information about the first member (e.g., the first student's test results are bad) is used to larger extents to draw inferences about the rest of the group (e.g., all students' test results will be bad), which in turn affects behavior toward the group. When thinking about themselves, I have examined whether the way consumers' self-perceptions affect how they portray themselves in public. It shows that, when consumers project their self-perceptions onto others, systematic mishaps in impression management can occur (Steinmetz, 2018; Steinmetz, Sezer, & Sedikides, 2017).
In another major line of work, I study effects on mental simulation. For example, mental simulations of warmth and trust can affect consumers' response behavior in surveys towards greater affirmation of neutral items (Steinmetz & Posten, 2017, 2018). Mentally simulating physical states of hunger versus satiation (Steinmetz, Tausen, & Risen, 2018) also influence consumers' choices of food portion sizes.
Finally, I study how reviewers and readers perceive online reviews (Hansen & Steinmetz, 2019; Steinmetz & Pronin, in prep). For example, I find that readers' motivational states (e.g., being cold versus warm) influence whether they pay attention to individual reviews versus aggregated review information when evaluating cooling versus heating products. I also investigate reviewer characteristics that influence beliefs about their reviews' helpfulness, and test whether readers share reviewers' beliefs on review helpfulness.
Here's my CV.
Contact: janina.steinmetz(AT)city.ac.uk
See here for my Psychology Today blog, and for interviews I've done with the podcast 180 Grad (in German), with Deutschlandfunk Nova radio (in German), and with City Research Spotlight (in English).
Journal articles:
Steinmetz, J. (2024). Too Little Money or Time? Using Justifications to Maintain a Positive Image After Self-Control Failure. European Journal of Social Psychology, 54, 332-340. pdf
Huber et al. [#ManyDesigns including Steinmetz, J.] (2023). Competition and moral behavior: A meta-analysis of 45 crowd-sourced experimental designs. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), 120(23), e2215572120. link
Touré-Tillery, M., Steinmetz, J., & DiCosola, B. (2022). Feeling judged? How the presence of outgroup members promotes healthier food choices. Psychology & Marketing, 39, 1504-1510. pdf
Posten, A.-C., & Steinmetz, J. (2022). Who’s a yea-sayer? Habitual trust and affirmative response behavior. European Journal of Social Psychology, 52, 584-596. pdf
Steinmetz, J., Touré-Tillery, M., & Fishbach, A. (2020). The First-Member Heuristic: Group members labeled “first” influence judgment and treatment of groups. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 118, 706-719. pdf
Hansen, J., & Steinmetz, J. (2019). Motivated level of construal: How temperature affects the construal level of state-relevant stimuli. Motivation and Emotion, 43, 434-446. pdf
Steinmetz, J. (2018). Impression (mis)management when communicating success. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 40, 320-328. pdf
Steinmetz, J., Tausen, B. M., & Risen, J. L. (2018). Mental simulation of visceral states affects preferences and behavior. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 44, 406-417. pdf
Posten, A.-C., & Steinmetz, J. (2018). Temperatur und Zustimmung - ein bisher unbekannter Zusammenhang: Einblicke für Praxis und Forschung. Praxis der Rechtspsychologie, 28, 137-152. pdf
Steinmetz, J., & Pfattheicher, S. (2017). Beyond social facilitation: A review of the far-reaching effects of social attention. Social Cognition, 35, 584-598. pdf
Steinmetz, J., & Mussweiler, T. (2017). Only one small sin: How self-construal affects self-control. British Journal of Social Psychology, 56, 675-688. pdf
Steinmetz, J., Sezer, O., & Sedikides, C. (2017). Impression mismanagement: People as inept self-presenters. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 11:e12321. pdf
Steinmetz, J., & Posten, A.-C. (2017). Physical temperature affects response behavior. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 70, 294-300. pdf
Steinmetz, J., Xu, Q., Fishbach, A., & Zhang, Y. (2016). Being observed magnifies action. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 111, 852-865. pdf
Steinmetz, J., Bosak, J., Sczesny, S., & Eagly, A. H. (2014). Social role effects on gender stereotyping in Germany and Japan. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 17, 52-60. pdf
Steinmetz, J., & Mussweiler, T. (2011). Breaking the ice: How physical warmth shapes social comparison consequences. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 47, 1025-1028. pdf
Other publications:
Steinmetz, J. (in press). Social facilitation and social inhibition. In R. Prislin (Ed.), Research Handbook on Social Influence. Edward Elgar Publishing.
Hashim, N., Scopelliti, I., & Steinmetz, J. (2024). A Conceptual Replication of the Effects of Gamification on U.K. Adults’ Ability to Reach a Saving Goal. In D. Soman (Ed.), What Works, What Doesn't (and When): Case Studies in Applied Behavioral Science. University of Toronto Press.
Ferreira, K., Steinmetz, J., & Scopelliti, I. (2022). Forgoing consumption of products that others cannot access. Advances in Consumer Research, 50. pdf
Steinmetz, J. (2021). Rapid delivery grocery apps have flourished during the pandemic - but will they permanently change how we shop? The Conversation. link
Steinmetz, J., & Posten, A.-C. (2021). Akquieszenz in Umfragen: Eine wenig beachtete Fehlerquelle. Wirstchaftspsychologie Aktuell. pdf
Touré-Tillery, M., Steinmetz, J., & DiCosola, B. (2020). Feeling judged? The presence of outgroup members promotes virtuous choices. Advances in Consumer Research, 48.
Steinmetz, J., & Posten, A-C. (2020). Guidelines on acquiescence in marketing research. Advances in Consumer Research, 48. doc
Steinmetz, J., & Fishbach, A. (2020). We work harder when we know someone's watching. Harvard Business Review.
Steinmetz, J. (2020). How cameras in public spaces might change how we think . The Conversation. link
Steinmetz, J. (2019). Four common mistakes that can ruin your chances in a job interview. The Conversation. link
Steinmetz, J., & Posten, A.-C. (2018). White lies and black lies: What they have in common and how they differ. InMind Magazine, 37. pdf
Steinmetz, J., Toure-Tillery, M., & Fishbach, A. (2017). Not All Bad Apples Spoil the Bunch: Order Effects on the Evaluation of Groups. Advances in Consumer Research, 45, 248–252. pdf
Fishbach, A., Steinmetz, J., & Tu. Y. (2016). Motivation in a social context: Coordinating personal and shared goal-pursuits with others. In A. Elliot (Ed.), Advances in Motivation Science, 3, 35-79. pdf