Gad Saad

Gad Saad

Saad in June 2010
Born 1964 (age 47–48)
Lebanon
Occupation Professor
Nationality Canadian
Alma mater McGill University, Cornell University
Genres Non-fiction
Subjects Consumer Behavior, Evolutionary Psychology, Decision Making
Notable work(s) The Evolutionary Bases of Consumption
The Consuming Instinct
Evolutionary Psychology in the Business Sciences
jmsb.concordia.ca/~gadsaad/

Gad Saad was born in 1964 in Beirut, Lebanon. His family emigrated to Montreal, Quebec, Canada in October 1975 to escape the brutality of the Lebanese civil war. Saad is an evolutionary behavioral scientist and Professor of Marketing at the John Molson School of Business (Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada). He holds the Concordia University Research Chair in Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences and Darwinian Consumption (2008-2013). He was recently appointed an advisory fellow of the Center for Inquiry. Professor Saad has a blog at Psychology Today titled Homo Consumericus.

For much of the past 15 years, Saad's research program has operated at the intersection of evolutionary psychology and consumer behavior[1][2] [3] . He is the author of The Evolutionary Bases of Consumption (Erlbaum, 2007), The Consuming Instinct: What Juicy Burgers, Ferraris, Pornography, and Gift Giving Reveal About Human Nature (Prometheus Books, 2011), and editor of Evolutionary Psychology in the Business Sciences (Springer, 2011). He has also guest edited a special issue of the journal Futures (Elsevier, 2011) on possible futures of evolutionary psychology across a wide range of disciplines.

In February 2011, Saad gave a TED talk titled The Consuming Instinct in which he discussed his books and several of his evolutionary-based empirical studies. Watch here.

Career

Saad joined Concordia University in 1994 as an Assistant Professor. In 1999, he was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure. In 2010 he was promoted to Full Professor. He has held Visiting Associate Professorships at Cornell University, Dartmouth College, and the University of California Irvine.

He has published 60+ scientific papers and has made over 110 academic presentations at leading conferences and universities. His work has garnered 690 total citations (as listed on Google Scholar). He was the recipient of the Distinguished Teaching Award of the Faculty of Commerce and Administration in 2000 and was listed as one of the "hot professors" of Concordia University in the 2001 and 2002 Maclean's reports on Canadian universities. Professor Saad obtained a B.Sc. (Mathematics and Computer Science) and M.B.A. from McGill University, and an M.S. and Ph.D. from Cornell University. His doctoral adviser was the mathematical/cognitive psychologist and behavioral decision theorist Dr. J. Edward Russo.

Saad's research is highly interdisciplinary as evidenced by the wide range of journals he has published in including in marketing, consumer behavior, economics[4] [5] [6] , psychology, medicine[7] [8] [9] , and bibliometrics[10] [11]. Most recently, along with several graduate students, he's been exploring the effects of hormones across numerous consumer and decision-making settings. These include the effects of conspicuous consumption on men's testosterone levels[12], the relationship between the digit ratio and men's proclivities for risk taking[13] , the link between testosterone and pathological gambling/financial risk taking[14] , and the effects of the menstrual cycle on women's beautification and food-related behaviors[15] .

He has published several studies of gift giving[16] [17] [18] , including a 2003 paper[19] that found that men more often than women report giving gifts to romantic partners for tactical reasons (for example, to flaunt wealth or to seduce).[20]

References

  1. ^ Saad, Gad; Gill, Tripat (2000). "Applications of Evolutionary Psychology in Marketing.". Psychology & Marketing 17 (12): 1005-1034. doi:DOI: 10.1002/mar.10096. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/mar.10096/abstract. 
  2. ^ Saad, Gad (2004). "Applying evolutionary psychology in understanding the representation of women in advertisements". Psychology & Marketing 21 (8): 593-612. doi:DOI: 10.1002/mar.20020. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/mar.20020/abstract. 
  3. ^ Saad, Gad; Gill, Tripat; and Nataraajan, Rajan (2005). "Are Laterborns more Innovative and Non-Conforming Consumers than Firstborns? A Darwinian Perspective.". Journal of Business Research 58 (7): 902-909. doi:doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2004.01.001. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296304000050. 
  4. ^ Saad, Gad; Gill, Tripat (2001). "Sex Differences in the Ultimatum Game: An Evolutionary Psychology Perspective". Journal of Bioeconomics 3 (2-3): 171-193. doi:10.1023/A:1020583425623. http://www.springerlink.com/content/h46240w567npv331/. 
  5. ^ Saad, Gad; Gill, Tripat (2001). "Gender Differences When Choosing between Salary Allocation Options". Applied Economics Letters 8 (8): 531-533. doi:10.1080/13504850010005251. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13504850010005251?journalCode=rael20. 
  6. ^ Saad, Gad; Gill, Tripat (2001). "The Effects of a Recipient’s Gender in the Modified Dictator Game". Applied Economics Letters 8 (7): 463-466. doi:10.1080/13504850010005260. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13504850010005260?journalCode=rael20. 
  7. ^ Saad, Gad (2006). "Sex Differences in OCD Symptomatology: An Evolutionary Perspective.". Medical Hypotheses 67 (6): 1455-1459. doi:10.1016/j.mehy.2006.05.017. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306987706003665. 
  8. ^ Saad, Gad (2007). "Suicide triggers as sex-specific threats in domains of evolutionary import: Negative correlation between global male-to-female suicide ratios and average per capita Gross National Income.". Medical Hypotheses 68 (3): 692-696. doi:10.1016/j.mehy.2006.08.012. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306987706006001. 
  9. ^ Saad, Gad (2010). "Munchausen by Proxy: The Dark Side of Parental Investment Theory?". Medical Hypotheses 75 (6): 479-481. doi:10.1016/j.mehy.2010.04.029. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306987710002033. 
  10. ^ Saad, Gad (2006). "Exploring the h-index at the author and journal levels using bibliometric data of productive consumer scholars and business-related journals respectively.". Scientometrics 69 (1): 117-120. doi:10.1007/s11192-006-0142-9. http://www.akademiai.com/content/b0355u0g53135151/. 
  11. ^ Saad, Gad (2010). "Applying the H-Index in Exploring Bibliometric Properties of Elite Marketing Scholars.". Scientometrics 83 (2): 423-433. doi:10.1007/s11192-009-0069-z. http://www.springerlink.com/content/bk477x327642l17k/. 
  12. ^ Saad, Gad; Vongas, John G. (2009). "The effect of conspicuous consumption on men’s testosterone levels". Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 110 (2): 80-92. doi:doi:10.1016/j.obhdp.2009.06.001. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0749597809000442. 
  13. ^ Stenstrom, Eric; Saad, Gad; Nepomuceno, Marcelo; and Mendenhall, Zack (2011). "Testosterone and domain-specific risk: Digit ratios (2D:4D and rel2) as predictors of recreational, financial, and social risk-taking behaviors". Personality and Individual Differences 51 (4): 412-416. doi:doi:10.1016/j.paid.2010.07.003. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886910003417. 
  14. ^ Stenstrom, Eric; Saad, Gad. "Testosterone, Financial Risk-Taking, and Pathological Gambling". Journal of Neuroscience, Psychology, and Economics 4 (4): 254-266. doi:10.1037/a0025963. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1937321X11600215. 
  15. ^ Saad, Gad; Stenstrom, Eric (2011). "Calories, beauty, and ovulation: The effects of the menstrual cycle on food and appearance-related consumption.". Journal of Consumer Psychology. doi:doi:10.1016/j.jcps.2011.10.001. 
  16. ^ Laroche, Michel; Saad, Gad; Browne, Elizabeth; Cleveland, Mark; and Kim, Chankon (2000). "Determinants of In-Store Information Search Strategies Pertaining to a Christmas Gift Purchase.". Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences 17 (1): 1-19. doi:10.1111/j.1936-4490.2000.tb00203.x. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1936-4490.2000.tb00203.x/abstract. 
  17. ^ Laroche, Michel; Saad, Gad; Cleveland, Mark; and Browne, Elizabeth (2000). "Gender Differences in Information Search Strategies for a Christmas Gift.". Journal of Consumer Marketing 17 (6): 500-522. doi:10.1108/07363760010349920. http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=856370&show=pdf. 
  18. ^ Laroche, Michel; Saad, Gad; Kim, Chankon; and Browne, Elizabeth (2000). "A Cross-Cultural Study of In-Store Information Search Strategies for a Christmas Gift". Journal of Business Research 49 (2): 113-126. doi:10.1016/S0148-2963(99)00008-9. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296399000089. 
  19. ^ Gad Saad, Tripat Gill (2003). "An evolutionary psychology perspective on gift giving among young adults". Psychology and Marketing 20 (9): 765–784. doi:10.1002/mar.10096. http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/abstract/104552658/ABSTRACT?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0. 
  20. ^ Richard A. Friedman, M.D. (2004-12-07). "UBIQUITY; This Is for You, Dear, But It's All About Me". The New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9402EED91631F934A35751C1A9629C8B63. 

External links