The Influence of Implicit Attitudes on Choice When Consumers Are Confronted with Conflicting Attribute Information

Abstract

An important issue in consumer behavior is whether affect created by low‐level processes, such as evaluative conditioning, will influence brand choice when consumers have also been exposed to relevant product information. To examine this issue, in two experiments implicit attitudes were created by evaluative conditioning where the participants were unaware of the contingencies. This creates an “I like it, but I don’t know why” effect. The participants also had conflicting product information available in memory. We find that the participants rely on their implicit attributes when making a brand choice if they have not formed an explicit evaluation based on the product attribute information. This occurs even when the attribute information is available in memory and the participants are highly motivated to retrieve it. These findings provide evidence that implicit attitudes can have a significant influence on behavior, despite conflicting product information, and increased levels of motivation and opportunity.