The effects of attribute concreteness and prominence on selective processing, choice, and search experience

Abstract

The “concreteness” principle and the “prominence” hypothesis are used as a theoretical basis for hypothesizing the effects of two important information display factors, attribute concreteness and attribute prominence, on consumer selective information processing. The results of two studies indicate that attribute concreteness together with attribute correlation leads to the selective processing of attributes, while attribute prominence and attribute correlation results in the selective processing of alternatives. Moreover, selective processing mediates the impact of these display factors on choice, while reducing the amount of information search. Further, the amount of information search and experienced cognitive effort mediate the effects of selective processing on consumer affect during the search process. The research is important from a theoretical standpoint, because it fills an important knowledge gap in the literature on how information environment influences affect selective processing and choice. It is important from a marketing strategy perspective because it examines how a merchant can influence consumer choice by merely changing the manner in which attribute information is displayed or alternatives are initially organized (i.e., pre-sorted).