index.qmd

---
title: "Overview"
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references:
- id: HainmuellerHopkinsYamamoto:2014
  author:
    - family: Hainmueller
      given: Jens
    - family: Hopkins
      given: Daniel J.
    - family: Yamamoto
      given: Teppei
  citation-key: HainmuellerHopkinsYamamoto:2014
  container-title: Political Analysis
  DOI: 10.1093/pan/mpt024
  issue: '1'
  issued:
    - year: 2014
  page: 1-30
  title: >-
    Causal inference in conjoint analysis: Understanding multidimensional
    choices via stated preference experiments
  type: article-journal
  volume: '22'

- id: SokolovaKrishnaDoring:2023
  accessed:
    - year: 2025
      month: 8
      day: 29
  author:
    - family: Sokolova
      given: Tatiana
    - family: Krishna
      given: Aradhna
    - family: Döring
      given: Tim
  citation-key: SokolovaKrishnaDoring:2023
  container-title: Journal of Consumer Research
  DOI: 10.1093/jcr/ucad008
  ISSN: 0093-5301, 1537-5277
  issue: '3'
  issued:
    - year: 2023
      month: 9
      day: 15
  language: en
  license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
  page: 468-491
  source: DOI.org (Crossref)
  title: >-
    Paper Meets Plastic: The Perceived Environmental Friendliness of Product
    Packaging
  title-short: Paper Meets Plastic
  type: article-journal
  URL: https://academic.oup.com/jcr/article/50/3/468/7008764
  volume: '50'

- id: ChapmanFeit:2019
  accessed:
    - year: 2023
      month: 8
      day: 12
  author:
    - family: Chapman
      given: Chris
    - family: Feit
      given: Elea McDonnell
  citation-key: ChapmanFeit:2019
  collection-title: Use R!
  DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-14316-9
  edition: '2'
  event-place: Cham, Switzerland
  ISBN: 978-3-030-14315-2 978-3-030-14316-9
  issued:
    - year: 2019
  language: en
  publisher: Springer Nature Switzerland
  publisher-place: Cham, Switzerland
  source: DOI.org (Crossref)
  title: R For Marketing Research and Analytics
  type: book
  URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/978-3-030-14316-9
---

blah blah blah intro stuff here

Conjoint experiments or forced choice experiments (where respondents are shown randomly shuffled combinations of features and are asked to choose their most preferred option, and then they repeat that over and over again) have long been popular in marketing, and since 2014 they’ve become popular in polisci, public policy, and social science more broadly. But even though the actual approach is used the same way across disciplines, the estimands that disciplines are interested in are completely different.

In marketing, they care about consumer preferences and market shares, so they use conjoint data to build simulations of hypothetical product profiles, ultimately measuring market preferences.

In polisci, they care about casual effects—e.g. how much does the favorability of a political candidate change if they are a lawyer vs. not a lawyer. In this world, analysts don’t look at aggregate market preferences, but look at the exact causal levers and effects associated with different experimental conditions.

**The two worlds know nothing about each other.**

Main point of book—bridging the two worlds of polisci-style causal effects (AMCEs and marginal means and AFCPs) with marketing/econ-style preference and utility descriptions + providing hands on code examples of the methods, from basic OLS from polisci to hierarchical Bayesian multinomial logit in marketing

## Running examples {.unnumbered}

### Product packaging {.unnumbered}

Study 5 from @SokolovaKrishnaDoring:2023 (and data from [ResearchBox](https://researchbox.org/712))

| Features/Attributes | Levels                             |
|---------------------|------------------------------------|
| Price               | \$2, \$3, \$4                      |
| Packaging           | Plastic + paper, Plastic + sticker |
| Flavor              | Nuts, Chocolate                    |


:::: {.callout-tip icon=false}
### Example conjoint question/task

**If these two granola bars were your only options, which would you choose?**

|   |   |   |
|----------------------|:--------------------:|:--------------------:|
| Price | \$3 | \$4 |
| Packaging | ![Plastic + paper](img/Study%205%20-%20Images%20used%20in%20conjoint%20plasticpaper.png) | ![Plastic + sticker](img/Study%205%20-%20Images%20used%20in%20conjoint%20plastic%20%20sticker.png) |
| Flavor | Chocolate chips | Nuts |
| **Choice** | <input type="radio" name="ex1"> | <input type="radio" name="ex1"> |

::::

### Political candidates {.unnumbered}

From @HainmuellerHopkinsYamamoto:2014

| Features/Attributes | Levels                                                                                            |
|----------------------|------------------------------------------------------|
| Military service    | Served, Did not serve                                                                             |
| Religion            | None, Jewish, Catholic, Mainline protestant, Evangelical protestant, Mormon                       |
| College             | No BA, Baptist college, Community college, State university, Small college, Ivy League university |
| Profession          | Business owner, Lawyer, Doctor, High school teacher, Farmer, Car dealer                           |
| Gender              | Male, Female                                                                                      |
| Income              | \$32,000; \$54,000; \$65,000; \$92,000; \$210,000; \$5,100,000                                    |
| Race/Ethnicity      | White, Native American, Black, Hispanic, Caucasian, Asian American                                |
| Age                 | 36, 45, 52, 60, 68, 75        

:::: {.callout-tip icon=false}
### Example conjoint survey question

**If you had to choose between them, which of these two candidates would you vote for?**

|                  |    Candidate 1   |      Candidate 2      |
|------------------|:----------------:|:---------------------:|
| Military service | Did not serve    | Served                |
| Religion         | None             | Mormon                |
| College          | State university | Ivy League university |
| Profession       | Lawyer           | Business owner        |
| Gender           | Female           | Female                |
| Income           | \$54,000         | \$92,000              |
| Race/Ethnicity   | White            | Asian American        |
| Age              | 45               | 68                    |
| **Choice**     | <input type="radio" name="ex3"> | <input type="radio" name="ex3"> |

::::

### Minivans {.unnumbered}

From chapter 13 in @ChapmanFeit:2019

| Features/Attributes | Levels                       |
|:--------------------|:-----------------------------|
| Passengers          | 6, 7, 8                      |
| Cargo area          | 2 feet, 3 feet               |
| Engine              | Gas, electric, hybrid        |
| Price               | \$30,000; \$35,000; \$40,000 |


::: {.callout-tip icon="false"}

### Example survey question

|            |            Option 1             |            Option 2             |            Option 3             |
|------------------|:----------------:|:----------------:|:----------------:|
| Passengers |                7                |                8                |                6                |
| Cargo area |             3 feet              |             3 feet              |             2 feet              |
| Engine     |            Electric             |               Gas               |             Hybrid              |
| Price      |            \$40,000             |            \$40,000             |            \$30,000             |
| **Choice**     | <input type="radio" name="ex2"> | <input type="radio" name="ex2"> | <input type="radio" name="ex2"> |

:::


## References {.unnumbered}