{"id":243124,"date":"2026-04-01T07:15:38","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T11:15:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=243124"},"modified":"2026-03-31T09:53:34","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T13:53:34","slug":"uconn-researcher-how-people-communicate-about-shared-decisions-can-shape-the-outcome-satisfaction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2026\/04\/uconn-researcher-how-people-communicate-about-shared-decisions-can-shape-the-outcome-satisfaction\/","title":{"rendered":"UConn Researcher: How People Communicate About Shared Decisions Can Shape the Outcome, Satisfaction"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>New research from UConn marketing professor Danielle Brick finds that when people make purchasing decisions together, recurring communication patterns influence not only what they choose, but how satisfied they feel afterward.<\/p>\n<p>Whether buying a new couch, planning a vacation, or deciding what movie to see, those choices can become surprisingly complicated when another person is involved in the decision.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat\u2019s really interesting about this work is that it focuses on how people make decisions through spoken language. What you say when making a consumer decision can affect how you feel not only about your choice, but also about your relationship and your partner,\u201d Brick says.<\/p>\n<p>Brick\u2019s work appears in the Journal of Marketing Research. She co-authored the research with professors Kelley Wight at Indiana University, Holly Howe at HEC Montreal, and Gavan Fitzsimons at Duke University.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Researchers Studied Shoppers in Store and Online<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The research focuses on a common but often overlooked part of everyday life: the nuances of conversations people have with partners, family members, or friends as they work toward a shared choice.<\/p>\n<p>To conduct their research, Brick and her colleagues analyzed nearly 200 joint decision conversations across married couples, friends, parents and children and siblings as they shopped for everything from flooring to windows.<\/p>\n<p>The shoppers allowed them to listen to and record their conversations, providing the fodder for the research. In the in-store study context, participants used their own money to make or not make a purchase. In the online study context, participants were given a gift card to make a purchase. This allowed the researchers to observe conversations that both did and did not result in a purchase.<\/p>\n<p>Brick and her colleagues identified four primary communication patterns that serve as the building blocks of those interactions. They are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Coordination:<\/strong> when people try to align their decision by asking questions, clarifying preferences, or sharing information;<\/li>\n<li><strong>Contrast: <\/strong>occurs when one person introduces a different perspective or alternative, often with phrases like \u201cbut\u201d or \u201cwhat about?\u201d<\/li>\n<li><strong>Build:<\/strong> is a collaborative pattern in which one person affirms and expands on the other\u2019s idea \u2014 a kind of \u201cyes, and\u201d communication.<\/li>\n<li><strong>One-sided<\/strong>: when one of the participants response with \u201cwhatever you want\u2019\u2019 or a brief \u201cOK.\u2019\u2019<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Decision-Making Doesn\u2019t Follow a Straight Path<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Brick and her co-authors found that these patterns of persuasion are not equally effective in resolving a decision. For example, \u2018Build communication\u2019 was associated with more positive satisfaction outcomes for both the relationship and the choice itself.<\/p>\n<p>By contrast, persuasion-oriented exchanges and some forms of coordination were associated with less positive satisfaction outcomes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTrying to \u2018win\u2019 the choice could come at a cost,\u2019\u2019 she says. \u201cInstead, you should focus on expanding each other\u2019s ideas as this tends to be more beneficial.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n<p>The findings also challenge the idea that shared decision-making follows a tidy, linear sequence from recognizing a need to making a final choice. Instead, the research suggests that people often move back and forth across stages of the decision process, revisiting preferences, evaluating options again, and reframing what matters as the conversation unfolds.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Research May Benefit Retailers, Friendships<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>That discovery has practical implications for marketers, managers, and friendships.<\/p>\n<p>By recognizing the communication patterns that emerge, businesses may be able to better understand where consumers are in the decision process and encourage more productive interaction. The research suggests that nudging decision partners toward more collaborative communication \u2014 especially building on one another\u2019s ideas \u2014 may improve the customer experience and lead to greater satisfaction with the final decision.<\/p>\n<p>The research fits squarely within Brick\u2019s broader research agenda, which focuses on consumer relationships, consumer well-being, and shared decision-making. This new study extends that work by showing that many consumer decisions are shaped not only by what people prefer, but by how they talk through those preferences together.<\/p>\n<p>For consumers, the research offers a simple but useful takeaway: when making a decision with someone else, how the conversation unfolds may matter just as much as the options that are available.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8216;What you say when making a consumer decision can affect how you feel not only about your choice, but also about your relationship and your partner&#8217;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121,"featured_media":243125,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2460,2076,1862,2235],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2105],"class_list":["post-243124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faculty","category-research","category-busn","category-today-homepage"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-08 11:08:43","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/121"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243124"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243124\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":243126,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243124\/revisions\/243126"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/243125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243124"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=243124"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=243124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}