Explaining Individual and Task Differences in Consumer Attitudes toward Ambiguity

Abstract

Consumers frequently face choices involving ambiguity, or uncertainty about the probabilities of the various possible outcomes. Past research has found that attitudes towards ambiguity vary across tasks. It is the purpose of this paper to suggest that such variation in consumer attitudes can be explained by examining the nature of the source of the uncertainty. It is suggested that consumers will have different attitudes depending upon whether the ambiguity is generated internally (by the consumer) or externally (by some outside source). Exploratory evidence and propositions for future research are presented. The results suggest that marketing strategies and de-biasing methods for ambiguous situations should consider the source of the ambiguity.