Jennifer Aaker

Jennifer Aaker (born January 15, 1967) is an American behavioural scientist and the General Atlantic Professor and Coulter Family Fellow at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Her research focuses on the relationship between time, money, and happiness. Aaker also focuses on the transmission of ideas through social networks, the power of story in decision making, and how to build global brands across cultures. She has received the Distinguished Scientific Achievement Award from the Society for Consumer Psychology and the Stanford Distinguished Teaching Award.

Early life and education Aaker was born in Palo Alto, California, to Kay Aaker and David Aaker, a marketing professor and brand consultant. Aaker attended the University of California, Berkeley, where she studied under social psychologist Philip E. Tetlock and Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman, receiving a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology in 1989. In 1990, Aaker began doctoral studies at Stanford Graduate School of Business, earning a PhD in marketing with a minor in psychology in 1995. Her dissertation on brand personality led to the publication of academic papers in Journal of Marketing Research and Journal of Consumer Research.

Career Aaker began her academic career in 1995 as an assistant professor at the UCLA Anderson School of Management. In 1999, she returned to the Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB) as an assistant professor, was promoted to associate professor in 2001, and earned a full professorship in 2004. In 2005, Aaker was named the General Atlantic Professor and Coulter Family Fellow, Stanford GSB. Her work has been published in scholarly journals in psychology and marketing and has been highlighted in The Economist, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, BusinessWeek, Forbes, NPR, CBS MoneyWatch, Inc., and Science. She serves as an advisory board member for several private and public companies.

In 2010, Aaker and her husband, startup advisor Andy Smith, wrote The Dragonfly Effect: Quick, Effective and Powerful Ways to Use Social Media to Drive Social Change.

Aaker and her students also founded 100K Cheeks, an organization dedicated to registering 100,000 South Asian donors in the National Bone Marrow Registry.

In 2021, Aaker published Humor, Seriously: Why Humor Is A Secret Weapon in Business and Life with co-author Naomi Bagdonas.

Books

Selected publications

How Happiness Impacts Choice (2012), Mogilner, Aaker and Kamvar, JCR Awe Expands People's Perception of Time and Enhances Well-Being (2012), Rudd, Vohs, and Aaker, Psychological Science. If Money Doesn't Make You Happy, Consider Time (2011), Aaker, Rudd, and Mogilner, JCP The Shifting Meaning of Happiness (2010) Mogilner, Kamvar and Aaker, SPPS Non-Profits Are Seen as Warm and For-Profits as Competent (2010), Aaker, Vohs and Mogilner, JCR The Time versus Money Effect (2009), Mogilner and Aaker, JCR The Happiness of Giving: The Time-Ask Effect (2008), Liu and Aaker, JCR When Good Brands Do Bad (2004), Aaker, Fournier, and Brasel, JCR Can Mixed Emotions Peacefully Co-Exist? (2002), Williams and Aaker, JCR Consumption Symbols as Carriers of Culture (2001), Aaker, Benet-Martínez, and Garolera, JPSP Dimensions of Brand Personality (1997), Aaker, JMR