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Valerie Folkes
USC Associates Chair in Business Administration and Professor of Marketing

USC Marshall School of Business
Los Angeles, CA 90089-0808

Phone: 
213-740-5056
folkes@marshall.usc.edu
Education: 
PhD, UCLA; BA, University of Texas

Overview

Valerie Folkes studies consumers' responses to negative information and attributions for service and product performance. Her research has been widely published, including in the Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Psychology, and Journal of Marketing. She serves on the editorial review board of the Journal of Consumer Research and Journal of Marketing, and was an area editor for the Journal of Consumer Psychology. Professor Folkes served as president of the Association for Consumer Research in 2001, and is a Fellow of the Consumer Psychology Division of the American Psychological Association.

Research

Changes in the Consequences of Consumer Envy Due to Ease of Coping and Social Comparison Targets • 2011
Consumers' Causal Inferences and Their Judgments • 2011
It's Unfair: Why Customers Who Merely Observe an Uncivil EMployee Abandon the Company • 2011
Witnessing Incivility Among Employees: Effects on Consumer Anger, Global Judgments and Repatronage • 2010
The Disciplinary Status of Consumer Behavior: A Sociology of Science Perspective on Key Controversies • 2010
Consumers' Inferences about Quality Across Diverse Service Providers • 2009
Promotional Bundles and Consumers' Price Judgements: When the Best Things in Life Aren't Free • 2009
Country-of-Origin Effects on Consumers' Attributions and Word-of-Mouth Communications about Services • 2008
The Influence of Information Valence and Managerial Control on Consumers' Inferences Across Service Providers • 2008
How Consumers' Assessments of the Difficulty of Manufacturing a Product Influence Quality Perceptions of the Firm's Other Products • 2007
How Much to Use? An Action Goal Approach to Understanding Factors Influencing Consumption Quantity • 2007
Inferences about Firms from Counter-Stereotypical Service Providers • 2005
The Effect of Package Shape on Consumers' Judgments of Product Volume • 2004
Effects of Seller-Supplied Prices on Buyers' Product Evaluations: Reference Prices in an Internet Auction Context • 2004
More Than Meets the Eye • 2004
Positivity Effects for Services: Seen One, Seen Them All? • 2003
Account-Giving for a Corporate Transgression Influences Moral Judgment: When Those Who 'Spin' Condone Harm-Doing • 2003
Hoping There's Nothing to Fear: A Matter of Framing • 2003
Approaching What We Hope For and Avoiding What We Fear: The Role of Possible Selves in Consumer Behavior • 2002
Consumer Behavior Is Different • 2002
Whodunnit? Accessibility of Blameworthiness in the Firestone Tire Recall • 2002
ACR from the 20th to the 21st Century: What the Numbers Tell Us • 2001
Consumer Response to Warnings and Other Types of Product Hazard Information: Future Public Policy and Research Directions • 2001
Consumers' Perceptions of Blame in the Firestone Tire Recall • 2001
Honoring and Recognizing Outstanding Consumer Research • 2001
Product Instructions as a Means of Fulfilling Consumer Usage Goals • 2001
Seeking Knowledge in Our Favorite Spots • 2001
Social Comparisons of Possessions: When It Feels Good and When It Feels Bad • 2000
Effects of Information about Firms Ethical and Unethical Actions on Consumers • 1999
Consumers' Affective Reactions to Product Problems When the Timing of Warranty Expiration Varies • 1998
Consumer Response to Rumor: Good News, Bad News • 1997
Consumers' Price Perceptions of Promoted Products • 1995
How Consumers Form Expectancies About Service Quality • 1994
When to Say When: Effects of Supply on Usage • 1993
Attributions for Being a Junkie • 1993
Explanations for Successful and Unsuccessful Marketing Decisions: The Decision Maker's Perspective • 1992
Social Cognition: Consumers' Inferences about the Self and Others • 1991
Attribution Theory: Applications to Achievement, Mental Health, and Interpersonal Conflict • 1990
Conflict in the Marketplace: Explaining Why Products Fail • 1990
Recent Attribution Research in Consumer Behavior: A Review and New Directions • 1988
Perceived Risk and the Availability Heuristic • 1988
A Field Study of Causal Inferences and Consumer Reaction: The View from the Airport • 1987
An Attributional Analysis of Excuse Giving: Studies of a Naive Theory of Emotion • 1987
Attributional Influences on Consumers' Desires to Communicate About Products • 1987
On the Submission and Processing of Division 8 Program Presentations for the APA Convention • 1987
The Role of Attributions in Consumer Decision-Making • 1987
Buyers and Sellers Explanations for Product Failure: Who Done It • 1986
Mindlessness or Mindfulness: A Partial Replication and Extension of Langer, Blank and Chanowitz • 1985
An Attributional Approach to Postpurchase Conflict Between Buyers and Sellers • 1984
Beauty and the Attributions of the Beholder • 1984
Consumer Reaction to Product Failure: An Attributional Approach • 1984
Communicating the Reasons for Social Rejection • 1982
Forming Relationships and the Matching Hypothesis • 1982
Account-Giving and Social Perception • 1981
Does Everybody Like a Liker? • 1977
Motivational Determinants of Coalition Formation • 1977
The Perceived Information Value and Affective Consequences of Choice Behavior and Intermediate Difficulty Task Selection • 1976
Effect of Implied Pressure Toward Commitment on Ratings of Choice • 1970
When a Product Takes on Characteristics of the Person Who Created It: Sometimes It Sounds Sweeter
Reprimanding the Wrongdoer: Expanding the Firm's Repetroire of Reponses to Customer Complaints
The Way a Salesperson Manages Service Providers influences Customers' Anger about Problems