Tito Grillo, PhD, University of Texas at Austin

Area of Study / Keywords

Consumer Psychology Analytical Methods

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Research

Substantive interests

Adverse experiences

Every day, people worldwide face battles to protect their livelihood and well-being, from long periods of stress to social discrimination, financial strain, and political tensions. I am interested in how these adverse experiences shape consumers' thinking and behavior.

Social issues

Systemic social issues—such as social discrimination and socioeconomic inequality—are often the underlying root of the adversity people face in their daily lives. I am especially interested in understanding how consumers perceive these issues and potential solutions to combat them.

Theoretical interests

I see consumer behavior as the interplay between things people learned while growing up, things humans are hardwired to do, and the stimuli consumers find in our modern world. In general, behavioral tendencies are very functional—we adopt thought processes and behaviors that have been rewarded while we were growing up, and our most fundamental natural tendencies exist because they helped our ancestors survive.

The twist is that many thing in the modern world—such as money, technology, political discussions, and social tensions—were part of neither our formative experiences nor the lives of our ancestors. I try to understand what happens when early-learned or “primitive” tendencies confront such modern, “grown-up” challenges.

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Teaching

Currently teaching Advanced Marketing Analytics (6-week lab-based course focused on data wrangling and drinking coffee).

Upcoming (2025):

Marketing Analytics (Winter): Undergraduate level course focused on the relevant methodological aspects of data analysis in marketing. Topics covered include data collection methods such as experiments, statistical modeling such as different types of regression, and algorithms employed to analyze consumer data such as decision trees and clustering techniques.

Advanced Marketing Analytics (Spring, 6 weeks): No lectures in this undergraduate level course, only hands-on problem-solving. Basically, each class involves new data and a set of challenges for us to solve. Students also receive a budget to conduct and analyze their own experiments during the course. Classes may involve going to coffee shops and ordering pizza. Limited spots.

Research Methodology in Marketing (Winter): PhD seminar on quantitative methods employed in academic research in marketing and consumer psychology.

All my courses involve learning and practicing techniques employed to analyze quantitative data and use R as the primary data analysis software. Other coding software (e.g., Python, Stata) can also be used and students are more than welcome to use them in class if they prefer them over R. Menu-based software like SPSS are not recommended.

MARK 488 - Selected Topics in Marketing

Normally restricted to third- and fourth- year Business students. Prerequisites: MARK 301 or consent of Department. Additional prerequisites may be required.

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MARK 710 - Research Methodology in Marketing

The nature of scientific inquiry and its relevance and application to research in marketing. The development and testing of marketing theory. Marketing measurement methodology. Prerequisites: Registration in the Business PhD Program or permission of instructor. Approval of the Business PhD Program Director is also required for non-PhD students. Students may not receive credit for both MARK 701 and 710.

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MMA 614 - Marketing Analytics

This marketing course equips students with tools to generate actionable insights by understanding consumers and market trends. It focuses on designing analytical plans to tackle marketing problems, covering aspects from data collection to communicating findings. Key skills include measuring variables, choosing appropriate analytical methods, interpreting data analysis techniques, and effective storytelling. The course prepares students for roles in marketing analytics across various sectors and emphasizes a hands-on approach, with project design and data analysis in class. Upon completion, students will be proficient in areas like marketing research, experimental design (e.g., A/B testing), data collection, regression analysis, segmentation, machine learning applications in marketing, and results communication. Restricted to students registered in the MMA Program. Non-MMA students require consent of home dept and the Masters Programs Office.

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Browse more courses taught by Tito Grillo

Tito L.H. Grillo, Shuhan Yang, Adrian F. Ward

Character & Context. 2025 February; (Article invited by the Society for Personality and Consumer Psychology for their general-audience online news portal.)

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Tito L.H. Grillo, Shuhan Yang, Adrian F. Ward

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. 2024 September; 115 10.1016/j.jesp.2024.104671

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Tito L.H. Grillo, Adrian F. Ward

Journal of the Association for Consumer Research. 2022 January; 7 (1):54-62 10.1086/711833

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Tito L. H. Grillo, Cristiane Pizzutti

Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. 2021 May; 47 (5):796-809 10.1177/0146167220946197

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Matthew Fisher, Adam H. Smiley, Tito L.H. Grillo

Memory. 2021 February; 30 (4):375-387 10.1080/09658211.2021.1882501