Gad Saad, PhD

Professor, Marketing
Concordia University Research Chair in Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences and Darwinian Consumption

Biography    Publications    Participation activities    Research activities   

Dr. Gad Saad is Professor of Marketing, holder of the Concordia University Research Chair in Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences and Darwinian Consumption (2008-2018), and advisory fellow at the Center for Inquiry. He was an Associate Editor of Evolutionary Psychology (2012-2015) and of Customer Needs and Solutions (2014- ).  He has held Visiting Associate Professorships at Cornell University, Dartmouth College, and the University of California-Irvine. Dr. Saad was inducted into the Who’s Who of Canadian Business in 2002. He was listed as one of the “hot” professors of Concordia University in both the 2001 and 2002 Maclean’s reports on Canadian universities. Dr. Saad received the JMSB Faculty’s Distinguished Teaching Award in June 2000. He is the recipient of the 2014 Darwinism Applied Award granted by the Applied Evolutionary Psychology Society and co-recipient of the 2015 President's Media Outreach Award-Research Communicator (International). His research and teaching interests include evolutionary psychology, consumer behavior, and psychology of decision making.

Professor Saad’s trade book, The Consuming Instinct: What Juicy Burgers, Ferraris, Pornography, and Gift Giving Reveal About Human Nature (Prometheus Books), was released in June 2011, and has since been translated to Korean and Turkish.  His 2007 book, The Evolutionary Bases of Consumption (Lawrence Erlbaum) is the first academic book to demonstrate the Darwinian roots of a wide range of consumption phenomena.  His edited book, Evolutionary Psychology in the Business Sciences, was also released in 2011 (Springer), as was his special issue on the futures of evolutionary psychology published in Futures (Elsevier).

He has over 75 scientific publications covering a wide range of disciplines including in marketing, consumer behavior, psychology, economics, evolutionary theory, medicine, and bibliometrics. A sample of outlets wherein his publications have appeared include Journal of Marketing Research; Journal of Consumer Psychology; Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes; Journal of Behavioral Decision Making; Evolution and Human Behavior; Journal of Neuroscience, Psychology, and Economics; Marketing Theory; Journal of Social Psychology; Personality and Individual Differences; Managerial and Decision Economics; Journal of Bioeconomics; Applied Economics Letters; Journal of Business Research; Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences; Psychology & Marketing; Journal of Consumer Marketing; Medical Hypotheses; Scientometrics; and Futures. His work has been presented at 170 leading academic conferences, research centers, and universities around the world.

Dr. Saad has supervised or served on the committee of numerous Master’s and Doctoral students, as well as one post-doc. He has been awarded several research grants (both internal as well as governmental). Using his own grant money, he created an in-house behavioral marketing lab.  He serves/has served on numerous editorial boards including Journal of Marketing Research; Journal of Consumer Psychology; Psychology & Marketing; Journal of Business Research; Journal of Social Psychology; Evolutionary Psychology; Open Behavioral Science Journal; Journal of Neuroscience, Psychology, and Economics; Journal of Social, Evolutionary, and Cultural Psychology/Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences; The Evolutionary Review; and Frontiers of Evolutionary Psychology; and is an associate member of Behavioral and Brain Sciences. He has consulted for numerous firms, and his work has been featured in close to 500 media outlets including on television, radio, newspapers, magazines, and blogs. He has been designated Concordia's Newsmaker of the Week five years in a row (2011-2015).  

Dr. Saad holds a PhD (Major: Marketing; Minors in Cognitive Studies and Statistics) and an MS from Cornell University, and an MBA (Specialization: Marketing; Mini-Thesis: Operations Research) and a BSc (Mathematics and Computer Science) both from McGill University (Montreal, Quebec, Canada). 

Professor Saad is a highly popular Psychology Today blogger. As of June 24, 2017, his posts have garnered 4,400,000  total views.  He started a YouTube channel (THE SAAD TRUTH) in August 2014, which has garnered 89,000 subscribers and 7,100,000 views as of June 24, 2017. 

Areas of Expertise

• Consumer behaviour
• Evolutionary psychology
• Psychology of decision making

Education

PhD (Cornell University)

Refereed Journal Articles

Saad, G. (forthcoming). On the method of evolutionary psychology and its applicability to consumer research. Journal of Marketing Research. http://journals.ama.org/doi/abs/10.1509/jmr.14.0645

Nepomuceno, M., Saad, G., Stenstrom, E., Mendenhall, Z., & Iglesias, F.  (2016). Testosterone & gift giving: Mating confidence moderates the association between digit ratios (2D4D and rel2) and erotic gift giving. Personality and Individual Differences, 91, 27–30.

Nepomuceno, M., Saad, G., Stenstrom, E., Mendenhall, Z., & Iglesias, F.  (2016). Testosterone at your fingertips: Digit ratios (2D:4D and rel2) as predictors of courtship-related consumption intended to acquire and retain mates.  Journal of Consumer Psychology, 26, 231–244.

Saad, G., Cleveland, M., & Ho, L. (2015). Individualism-collectivism and the quantity versus quality dimensions of individual and group creative performance. Journal of Business Research, 68, 578–586.

Saad, G. Convergent validity between metrics of journal prestige: Theeigenfactor, article influence, and h-index scores.  Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology.  (conditionally accepted)

Saad, G., & Greengross, G. (2014). Using evolutionary psychology to enhance the brain imaging paradigm. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 8:452. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2014.00452

Saad, G., & Gill, T. (2014). The framing effect when evaluating prospective mates: An adaptationist perspective.  Evolution and Human Behavior, 35, 184–192. 

Saad, G. (2013).  The consuming instinct: What Darwinian consumption reveals about human nature. Politics and the Life Sciences, 32 (1), 58–72.

Saad, G. (2013). Evolutionary consumption. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 23, 351–371.

Kenrick, D., Saad, G., & Griskevicius, V. (2013). Evolutionary consumer psychology: Ask not what you can do for biology, but… Journal of Consumer Psychology, 23, 404–409.

Saad, G. (2012). Nothing in popular culture makes sense except in the light of evolution. Review of General Psychology, 16, 109–120. 

Saad, G., & Stenstrom, E.  (2012). Calories, beauty, and ovulation: The effects of the menstrual cycle on food and appearance-related consumption. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 22, 102–113.

Stenstrom, E., & Saad, G. (2011). Testosterone, financial risk-taking, and pathological gambling.  Journal of Neuroscience, Psychology, and Economics, 4, 254–266.

Boyle, P. J., & Saad, G. (2011).  Product expertise: A moderator of information search in sequential choice.  The Marketing Management Journal, 21, 84–96.

Garcia, J. R., Geher, G., Crosier, B., Saad, G., Gambacorta, D., Johnsen, L., & Pranckitas, E. (2011).  The interdisciplinarity of evolutionary approaches to human behavior: A key to survival in the ivory archipelago.  Futures, 43, 749–761.

Saad, G. (2011).  Futures of evolutionary psychology.  Futures, 43, 725–728.

Stenstrom E., Saad, G., Nepomuceno, M., & Mendenhall, Z. Testosterone and domain-specific risk: Digit ratios (2D:4D and rel2) as predictors of recreational, financial, and social risk-taking behaviors (2011). Personality and Individual Differences, 51, 412–416.

Saad, G. (2010). Munchausen by proxy: The dark side of parental investment theory? Medical Hypotheses, 75, 479–481.

Saad, G. (2010).  Applying the h-index in exploring bibliometric properties of elite marketing scholars. Scientometrics, 83, 423–433.

Saad, G., & Vongas, J. G. (2009). The effect of conspicuous consumption on men’s testosterone levels. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 110, 80–92.

Saad, G., & Gill, T. (2009). Self-ratings of physical attractiveness in a competitive context: When males are more sensitive to self-perceptions than females.  Journal of Social Psychology, 149, 585–599.

Saad, G., Eba, A., & Sejean, R. (2009). Sex differences when searching for a mate: A process-tracing approach. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 22, 171–190.

Saad, G. (2009).  Revisiting Thorstein Veblen’s “Why is Economics not an Evolutionary Science.” Evolutionary Psychology, 7 (1), 1–5. [Book review of Michael Shermer, The Mind of the Market: Compassionate Apes, Competitive Humans, and Other Tales from Evolutionary Economics.]

Garcia, J., & Saad, G. (2008). Evolutionary neuromarketing: Darwinizing the neuroimaging paradigm for consumer behavior. Journal of Consumer Behaviour, 7, 397–414.

Saad, G. (2008). The collective amnesia of marketing scholars regarding consumers’ biological and evolutionary roots. Marketing Theory, 8, 425–448.

Saad, G. (2008). Advertised waist-to-hip ratios of online female escorts: An evolutionary perspective. International Journal of e-Collaboration, 4 (3), 40–50.

Kock, N., Hantula, D. A., Hayne, S., Saad, G., Todd, P. M., & Watson, R. T. (2008). Darwinian perspectives on electronic communication [introductory article to the special issue of the same name]. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, 51 (2), 133–146. [Authors other than lead author are listed in alphabetical order] 

Stenstrom, E., Stenstrom, P., Saad, G., & Cheikhrouhou, S. (2008). Online hunting and gathering: An evolutionary perspective on sex differences in website preferences and navigation. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, 51 (2), 155–168.

Saad, G. (2007). A multitude of environments for a consilient Darwinian meta-theory of personality: The environment of evolutionary adaptedness, local niches, the ontogenetic environment, and situational contexts. European Journal of Personality, 21, 624–626.  [commentary]

Saad, G. (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, 692–696.

Saad, G. (2006). Universal sex-specific instantiations of OCD. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 29, 629. [commentary]

Saad, G. (2006). Blame our evolved gustatory preferences. Young Consumers, 7 (4), 72–75. [invited article: special issue titled Responsible Food Marketing to Children].

Saad, G. (2006). Sex differences in OCD symptomatology: An evolutionary perspective. Medical Hypotheses, 67, 1455–1459.

Saad, G. (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.

Saad, G. & Peng, A. (2006). Applying Darwinian principles in designing effective intervention strategies: The case of sun tanning. Psychology & Marketing, 23, 617–638.

Saad, G. (2006). Applying evolutionary psychology in understanding the Darwinian roots of consumption phenomena. Managerial and Decision Economics, 27, 189–201. 

Saad, G., Gill, T., & Nataraajan, R. (2005). Are laterborns more innovative and non-conforming consumers than firstborns? A Darwinian perspective. Journal of Business Research, 58, 902–909.

Saad, G. (2004). Applying evolutionary psychology in understanding the representation of women in advertisements.  Psychology & Marketing, 21, 593–612.

Saad, G., & Gill, T. (2003). An evolutionary psychology perspective on gift giving among young adults. Psychology & Marketing, 20, 765–784.

Saad, G., & Gill, T. (2001). Sex differences in the ultimatum game: An evolutionary psychology perspective. Journal of Bioeconomics, 3, 171–193.

Saad, G., & Gill, T. (2001). Gender differences when choosing between salary allocation options. Applied Economics Letters, 8, 531–533.

Saad, G., & Gill, T. (2001). The effects of a recipient’s gender in the modified dictator game. Applied Economics Letters, 8, 463–466.

Saad, G., & Gill, T. (2000). Applications of evolutionary psychology in marketing.  Psychology & Marketing, 17, 1005–1034. [Lead Article]

Boyle, P., & Saad, G. (2000). Sequential decision-making strategies of expert and novice consumers. Academy of Marketing Studies Journal, 4 (2), 83-88.  A slightly different version was published in the Online Proceedings of the Allied Academies International Conference, Las Vegas, Nevada, October 1999, 32–36.

Laroche, M., Saad, G., Cleveland, M., & Browne, E. (2000). Gender differences in information search strategies for a Christmas gift.   Journal of Consumer Marketing, 17, 500–524.

Laroche, M., Saad, G., Kim, C. & Browne, E.  (2000). A cross-cultural study of in-store information search strategies for a Christmas gift.  Journal of Business Research, 49, 113–126.

Laroche, M., Saad, G., Browne, E., Cleveland, M., & Kim, C. (2000). Determinants of in-store information search strategies pertaining to a Christmas gift purchase. Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences, 17, 1–19.

Saad, G. (1998). The experimenter module of the DSMAC (Dynamic Sequential Multiattribute Choice) interface. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers, 30, 250–254.

Saad, G. (1996). SMAC: An interface for investigating Sequential Multiattribute Choices. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers, 28, 259–264.

Saad, G. & Russo, J. E. (1996). Stopping criteria in sequential choice. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 67, 258–270.

Books

Saad, G. (2011). The Consuming Instinct: What Juicy Burgers, Ferraris, Pornography, and Gift Giving Reveal About Human Nature. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books. [Translated to Korean and Turkish]

Saad, G. (Ed.) (2011). Evolutionary Psychology in the Business Sciences. Springer: Heidelberg, Germany.

Saad, G. (Ed.) (2011). Futures of Evolutionary Psychology (Special Issue). Futures, 43, 725–920.

Saad, G. (2007). The Evolutionary Bases of Consumption. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Book Chapters

Saad, G., (2015). Evolutionary consumer psychology. In David M. Buss (Ed.), Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology (2nd edition, pp. 1143-1160). New York: Wiley.

Saad, G. (2014). The evolutionary instincts of Homo consumericus. In Stephanie Preston, Morten Kringelbach, and Brian Knutson (Eds.), Interdisciplinary Science of Consumption (pp. 59-76), Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Saad, G. (2014). Evolutionary consumption. In Andrew M. Farrell and Nick Lee (Eds.), Wiley Encyclopaedia of Management – Marketing (Volume 9, pp. 184-189).  New York: Wiley. 

Saad, G. (2014). Behavioral decision theory. In Andrew M. Farrell and Nick Lee (Eds.), Wiley Encyclopaedia of Management – Marketing (Volume 9, pp. 33-35).  New York: Wiley.

Saad, G. (2014). Neuromarketing. In Andrew M. Farrell and Nick Lee (Eds.), Wiley Encyclopaedia of Management – Marketing (Volume 9, pp. 371-373).  New York: Wiley.

Saad, G. (2014). Conspicuous consumption. In Andrew M. Farrell and Nick Lee (Eds.), Wiley Encyclopaedia of Management – Marketing (Volume 9, 87-89).  New York: Wiley.

Saad, G. (2011). Discovering Homo consumericus. In X.T. Wang and Yan-jie Su (Eds.), Thus Spake Evolutionary Psychologists (pp. 303–310).  Beijing, China: Peking University Press.

Saad, G. (2011).  The missing link: The biological roots of the business sciences. In G. Saad (Ed.), Evolutionary Psychology in the Business Sciences (pp. 1–16).  Heidelberg, Germany: Springer.

Saad, G. (2011).  Song lyrics as windows to our evolved human nature. In Alice Andrews and Joseph Carroll (Eds.), The Evolutionary Review: Art, Science, Culture (Volume 2, pp. 127–133).  Albany, NY: SUNY Press.

Saad, G. (2010). The Darwinian underpinnings of consumption. In Pauline Maclaran, Michael Saren, Barbara Stern, & Mark Tadajewski (Eds.), The Handbook of Marketing Theory (pp. 457–475).  London: Sage.

Gill, T., & Saad, G. (2010). Consumer behavior in the realm of technology. In Hossein Bigdoli (Ed.), The Handbook of Technology Management (Volume 2, pp. 277–289), New York: Wiley.

Mendenhall, Z., Saad, G., & Nepomuceno (2010). Homo Virtualensis: Evolutionary psychology as a tool for studying videogames. In Ned Kock (ed.), Evolutionary Psychology and Information Systems Research: A New Approach to Studying the Effects of Modern Technologies on Human Behavior (pp. 305–328). Heidelberg: Springer.

Saad, G. (2010). Using the Internet to study human universals. In In Lee (Ed.), Encyclopedia of E-Business Development and Management in the Global Economy (pp. 719–724), Hershey, PA: IGI Global.

Stenstrom, E., & Saad, G. (2010). The neurocognitive and evolutionary bases of sex differences in website design preferences: Recommendations for e-business managers. In In Lee (Ed.), Encyclopedia of E-Business Development and Management in the Global Economy (pp. 725–733). Hershey, PA: IGI Global.

Mendenhall, Z., Nepomuceno, M., & Saad, G. (2010). Exploring video games from an evolutionary psychological perspective. In In Lee (Ed.), Encyclopedia of E-Business Development and Management in the Global Economy (pp. 734–742). Hershey, PA: IGI Global.

Durante, K. M., & Saad, G. (2010). Strategic shifts in women’s social motives and behaviors across the menstrual cycle: Implications in corporate settings. In Angela Stanton, Mellani Day, & Isabell Welpe (Eds.), Neuroeconomics and the Firm (pp. 116–130), Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar.

Saad, G.  (2003). Evolution and political marketing. In S. A. Peterson and A. Somit (Eds.), Human Nature and Public Policy: An Evolutionary Approach (pp. 121–138).  New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Saad, G. (1997). Pros and cons of setting-up a virtual laboratory on the Internet using the DSMAC process-tracing interface, Multimedia Technology and Applications, Vincent W. S. Chow (Ed.), Singapore: Springer-Verlag, p. 550–557.

Research areas

• Database and Knowledge Base Systems
  
• Uncertain Data Management and Reasoning
• Query Processing and Optimization
• Machine Leaning and Data Analytics