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INTEREST CATEGORY: CONSUMER BEHAVIOR
POSTING TYPE: Calls: Journals

Posted by: James Ellis

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Control and Consumption

Issue Editors: Simona Botti, Eileen Fischer, and Gita Johar

Personal control, the feeling that one can master the environment to produce wanted outcomes and avoid unwanted outcomes, is a fundamental human need and has been associated with improved physical and psychological well-being. Personal control is also theoretically linked to other key psychological constructs, such as autonomy, choice freedom, empowerment, mastery and self-efficacy, power, and psychological ownership, which have been shown to significantly influence several aspects of consumer judgment and behavior. Personal control plays a central role in understanding current and emerging areas of interest among consumer researchers, such as autonomous technology and artificial intelligence, marketplace inequalities and more generally, societal debates on the use of information as a source of control and the tension between policy interventions and individual freedom. Because of its theoretical richness and practical relevance, personal control has been of interest to philosophers, economists, and sociologists, and it can be explored using different theoretical and methodological lenses. This issue of Journal of the Association for Consumer Research aims to systematize existing theories and findings, as well as uncover new consequences of desiring and having control, new mechanisms to restore control, and new ways in which having, or not having, personal control can enrich our understanding of consumers’ judgment, decision-making, and behaviors.

For a list of submission ideas and editor bios, please see the call for papers:

Editorial Timeline

Pre-conference workshop: October 2026
Submission portal opens: November 1, 2026
First submission deadline: January 1, 2027
Final decisions: November 15, 2027
Publication: April 2028