Notable Alumni | Aaron Reid Quantifies Consumer Emotional Response for Global Brands

Editor’s Note: The College of Arts & Sciences Notable Alumni Awards honor alumni for broad career accomplishments, commitment to community service, and valuable contributions to Ohio University and the College of Arts & Sciences.

Aaron Reid ’03 M.S., ’06 Ph.D. Experimental Psychology

Aaron Reid is the CEO of Sentient Decision Science Inc., which he founded in 2007, taking his graduate research on how “physiological emotional responses can be combined with symbolic information to predict preferences” to create a behavioral science based research and technology firm that informs the brand, product and advertising strategies of global corporations.

“Sentient Decision Science, Inc. was created to bring the visionary advances from the behavioral sciences to the business community in a practical and accessible form in order to move global business forward,” he explains on LinkedIn.

“Our mission is to become the most sought after resource for behavioral insight by providing unrivaled business advantage to our clients and advancing human knowledge on the drivers of behavior.”

Aaron Reid

Reid earned an M.S. and Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology from the College of Arts & Sciences at Ohio University.

Connect with Reid on LinkedIn.

“Dr. Reid founded Sentient Decision Science, Inc. to bring the visionary advances from the behavioral sciences to business in a practical and accessible format. Sentient builds behavioral science based technology that quantifies emotional response and improves sales forecast accuracy,” says his LinkedIn profile.

Reid is an expert in how emotion influences choice and the subconscious drivers of behavior. His publications include mathematical models of consumer irrationalities in top journals, such as the Journal of Experimental Psychology and the Journal of Behavioral Decision Making. His landmark publication of “Emotion as a Tradeable Quantity” (co-authored with Dr. Claudia González Vallejo, Professor of Psychology at Ohio University) was the first to quantify how emotion influences choice as a behavioral weighting mechanism.

Dr. Aaron Reid sitting at a desk — Dr. Aaron Reid

Under Reid’s direction, Sentient Decision Science has been named one of the Top 50 most innovative research firms in the world since 2016. Sentient is best know for developing technology that quantifies consumer emotional responses with brands, products, packaging and advertising. By building an automated behavioral science based research platform, including implicit associations, facial coding of emotion, eye-tracking and advanced choice methods, Reid believes human understanding of drivers of behavior can be accelerated, thereby increasing empathy for the human condition. Reid’s patent pending technology was recognized with the EXPLOR award in both 2011 and 2018 for being the most impactful application of technology in market research.

OHIO Memories

Dr. Aaron Reid and his wife outside their home in Athens — Aaron Reid and his wife at their apartment in The Plains

Dr. Reid and his mom in Athens — Aaron Reid and his mom at his small house near the bike path in Athens

Aaron Reid in his office in Porter Hall — “Also, a shot of me in my cubicle in Porter Hall. Interestingly, my cube mate (Paul Weiland), was the first person I hired to come work at Sentient!”

Aaron and his friends sit at a table — Aaron Reid having good conversation with friends at the bakery.

Tags:

Alumni

Department of Psychology

College of Arts and Sciences

Published

October 21, 2019

Author

Staff reports