LaDonna and Charlie Johnson Assistant Professor of Marketing
University of Louisville College of Business
Email | LinkedIn | Scholar | ORCID | CV
3 working papers
Are collectivists always more persuaded by mixed emotions than individualists, or might different mixed emotions affect persuasion?
–with Srinwanti Chaudhury, Doreen Shen, Jennifer Stoner, and Carlos Torelli
Past work suggests that mixed emotions – those with opposing valence – have limited cross-cultural appeal. We consider mixed emotions that are culturally normative and motivationally compatible and find that collectivists (individualists) process affection-sadness (pride-anger) more fluently, and that this fluency is consistent with their choices.
How do lenders’ cues of interpersonal closeness affect borrowers?
–with Lorenzo Ceucutti and Wendy De La Rosa
Lenders often emphasize closeness to prospective borrowers to drive demand and promote trust. We find that greater closeness increases borrowers’ expectations of better interest rates, waived late fees, credit, and on-time repayment leniency, revealing a fundamental marketing trade-off between tactics that improve acquisition but also undermine on-time repayment behavior.
How do verb types affect persuasion?
–with Ann Kronrod
We explore how a foundational feature of language – whether describing an evaluation with stative verbs (“I love this place”) versus action verbs (“I visit this place”) – changes how persuasive the message becomes. We find that compared to action verbs, stative verbs evoke stronger perceptions of attitude permanence because people perceive mental states to be more permanent than actions, driving persuasion.
Click here for more of my ongoing work
3 published papers
Barnes, Aaron J. and Esther Uduehi (forthcoming), “The Danger of Inclusion as Low-Hanging Fruit or Forbidden Fruit: Towards Structural Legitimacy in Marketing Scholarship,” Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, Special Section: Reclaiming Marketplace Inclusion as a Marketing Imperative. | Pre-print
Uduehi, Esther and Aaron J. Barnes (2025), “The Minority Ownership Awareness Effect: When Promoting Minority Ownership Increases Brand Evaluations,” Journal of Marketing, 89(3): 60-77. https://doi.org/10.1177/00222429241283811 | Copy
Barnes, Aaron J., Yuanyuan Zhang, and Ana Valenzuela (2024), “AI & Culture: Culturally dependent responses to AI systems,” Current Opinion in Psychology, 58, 101838. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2024.101838 | Copy
Click here for more of my published work
3 classes I’m teaching
MKT 301 – Principles of Marketing
I really enjoyed this course. I liked that he incorporated what we learned in class into the projects and he makes an effort to help us understand the assignments.
–UofL student, Spring 2026
MKT 441 – Market Intelligence and Customer Insight
I really like the way Professor Barnes has put this course together. This is one of the only classes I’ve actually learned in since I’ve been in college. Thank you for all your hard work!
–UofL student, Spring 2026
MKT 451 – Multicultural Marketing Strategy
Click here to see more of what students say about my teaching