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The authors discuss the opportunities afforded by fMRI to better understand conditions and processes related to marketing and consumer domains. The methodology permits the measurement of participants’ psychological processes as they occur and can supplement self-reports, which may reflect biased responses. Neuroimaging permits the testing of models of processes that allow for more nuanced theories about marketing decisions. However, there are also several potential pitfalls associated with the use of fMRI. An important consideration is the appropriateness of the fMRI methodology given research questions. Because neuroimaging techniques are used to identify correlates of underlying processes, it is often difficult to interpret the results without proper conceptualization and operationalization before the fMRI experiment. Thus, it is essential that researchers develop an ex ante neurobiological model for the investigated psychological phenomena, along with the expected neural processes and correlates. In addition, behavioral researchers should not lose sight of their behavioral rigor in their rush to try out fMRI techniques on their favorite paradigm. The behavioral portion of the imaging study should stand on its own, with the fMRI component merely adding an additional variable to the paradigm. Finally, fMRI should not be used as a stand-alone methodology. Rather, the authors urge researchers to seek convergent validity by linking fMRI data to other behavioral measures (e.g., self-report, choice, purchase behavior, reaction time, eye tracking data), taking into account the critical roles of careful experimental design and rigorous hypothesis generation, and using abundant trials and large-enough samples to ensure sufficient explanatory power. 

Biography
Carolyn Yoon is Associate Professor of Marketing in the Stephen M. Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. She is also affiliated with the Department of Psychology and the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. Yoon received her PhD from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University. Her primary research interests are in the areas of consumer neuroscience, social and cognitive neurosciences, and cognition and aging.

Richard Gonzalez received his PhD from Stanford University in 1990; he is currently at the University of Michigan, with a primary appointment in psychology and affiliations with marketing, statistics, and the Institute for Social Research. His primary area of research is judgment and decision making broadly defined, including applications in marketing, legal decision making, engineering design, and medical decision making. His research interests have recently added imaging and other techniques from neuroscience. He also enjoys dabbling with statistical and mathematical models. He recently completed a five-year term as chair of the Department of Psychology at the University of Michigan.

James R. Bettman is Burlington Industries Professor of Business Administration and Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Duke. He received his BA (Mathematics/Economics) and his PhD (Administrative Sciences) from Yale University. His research focuses on consumer information processing and decision making, constructive preferences, how decision makers adapt, the effects of emotion and stress on decision making, and the integration of conscious and nonconscious processing in decision making. Professor Bettman’s publications include two books, An Information Processing Theory of Consumer Choice and The Adaptive Decision Maker; a monograph, Emotional Decisions: Tradeoff Difficulty and Coping in Consumer Choice; and more than 100 research papers. Professor Bettman has been the chair or cochair for 34 doctoral students in marketing. He has received the Paul D. Converse Award, the American Marketing Association/Richard D. Irwin/McGraw-Hill Marketing Educator of the Year Award, the SCP Distinguished Scientific Achievement Award, and the Leo Melamed Prize for outstanding scholarship by business school faculty.

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