Consumer Judgments Research Articles

Exposure to Product Placement in Text Can Influence Consumer Judgments

SummaryFive experiments explored the consequences of exposure to product placement in text. In each experiment, participants read three short stories containing the names of several brand‐name products. When given a surprise judgment task asking them to rate their likelihood of purchasing a number of brands—some of which were placed and some of which were not placed—participants rated placed brands significantly higher than non‐placed brands. This effect of product placement was observed even when participants were warned about product placement prior to reading the stories, and even when participants reported having a negative opinion about product placement as a form of advertisement. Under some conditions, however, the effect did interact with brand familiarity, such that judgments of familiar brands were affected less by product placement than were judgments of unfamiliar brands. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Pièces de Résistance? Core and Casual Consumers’ Valuations of Aesthetically Incongruent Artworks

ABSTRACTResearch in consumer psychology suggests that there is limited room for acclaimed producers or brands to experiment with the aesthetic appearance and design of their products. This premise is rooted in consumers’ preference for aesthetic congruity and the cognitive difficulty associated with evaluating incongruent offerings. Yet examples of successful artists whose work clearly defies the imperative of congruity do exist. Although these artists are the exception rather than the rule, their success suggests that under certain conditions the audience may tolerate incongruity. The effects of the type of audience and the status of the artist on consumer valuations of aesthetically congruent and incongruent artworks were analyzed in a large within‐subjects experiment. The results show that congruity weighs more heavily for core consumers than for casual consumers, regardless of the status of the artist. Mediation analyses reveal that dislike (affective factor) and difficulty of evaluation (cognitive factor) fully explain the negative effects of incongruity on consumer judgments of aesthetic value, monetary value, and creativity. The positive effects of status are only partially mediated by liking and ease of evaluation. The article concludes with the implications of these findings for psychology and marketing, and specifically for “marketing the arts”.

Simulation Reduces Calorie Estimation

ObjectiveTwo studies demonstrate that deliberate and spontaneous simulations of food experience influence consumer judgments related to products' physical dimensions and energy. We specifically demonstrate that both deliberate and spontaneous simulations of food experience can influence and bias consumer judgments related to a product's physical dimensions and available energy for intake.Study Design, Setting, Participants, and InterventionParticipants were recruited from the participant pool of a behavioral lab in a large Northeastern University. They estimated hours of energy and weight of grocery items (cookies, chips, etc.).Outcome, Measures and AnalysisWe analyzed differences between conditions in estimated hours of energy and weight using repeated measures mixed models.ResultsIn the first study 5-hr fasting participants who simulated eating baked goods (bagel, donut, and cookie) estimated lower average weight per item (7.03 ounces) than did participants who did not (9.39 ounces): F(1, 56) = 5.16, p = .03. In the second study (N=59) participants who simulated eating bags of snacks estimated that food items provided fewer hours of energy (3.46) than did participants who did not simulate (4.88): F(1, 57) = 4.7, p = .03. There was a similar effect for estimated weight: participants who simulated eating estimated lower weight (21.2 ounces) than did participants who did not simulate (30.28 ounces): F(1, 57) = 6.65, p = .01.Conclusions and ImplicationsTogether, the studies demonstrate that simulation of eating reduces weight and energy estimates. Fantasizing about eating, then, appears to render it less caloric and so legitimize eating indulgent foods.FundingCornell University ObjectiveTwo studies demonstrate that deliberate and spontaneous simulations of food experience influence consumer judgments related to products' physical dimensions and energy. We specifically demonstrate that both deliberate and spontaneous simulations of food experience can influence and bias consumer judgments related to a product's physical dimensions and available energy for intake. Two studies demonstrate that deliberate and spontaneous simulations of food experience influence consumer judgments related to products' physical dimensions and energy. We specifically demonstrate that both deliberate and spontaneous simulations of food experience can influence and bias consumer judgments related to a product's physical dimensions and available energy for intake. Study Design, Setting, Participants, and InterventionParticipants were recruited from the participant pool of a behavioral lab in a large Northeastern University. They estimated hours of energy and weight of grocery items (cookies, chips, etc.). Participants were recruited from the participant pool of a behavioral lab in a large Northeastern University. They estimated hours of energy and weight of grocery items (cookies, chips, etc.). Outcome, Measures and AnalysisWe analyzed differences between conditions in estimated hours of energy and weight using repeated measures mixed models. We analyzed differences between conditions in estimated hours of energy and weight using repeated measures mixed models. ResultsIn the first study 5-hr fasting participants who simulated eating baked goods (bagel, donut, and cookie) estimated lower average weight per item (7.03 ounces) than did participants who did not (9.39 ounces): F(1, 56) = 5.16, p = .03. In the second study (N=59) participants who simulated eating bags of snacks estimated that food items provided fewer hours of energy (3.46) than did participants who did not simulate (4.88): F(1, 57) = 4.7, p = .03. There was a similar effect for estimated weight: participants who simulated eating estimated lower weight (21.2 ounces) than did participants who did not simulate (30.28 ounces): F(1, 57) = 6.65, p = .01. In the first study 5-hr fasting participants who simulated eating baked goods (bagel, donut, and cookie) estimated lower average weight per item (7.03 ounces) than did participants who did not (9.39 ounces): F(1, 56) = 5.16, p = .03. In the second study (N=59) participants who simulated eating bags of snacks estimated that food items provided fewer hours of energy (3.46) than did participants who did not simulate (4.88): F(1, 57) = 4.7, p = .03. There was a similar effect for estimated weight: participants who simulated eating estimated lower weight (21.2 ounces) than did participants who did not simulate (30.28 ounces): F(1, 57) = 6.65, p = .01. Conclusions and ImplicationsTogether, the studies demonstrate that simulation of eating reduces weight and energy estimates. Fantasizing about eating, then, appears to render it less caloric and so legitimize eating indulgent foods. Together, the studies demonstrate that simulation of eating reduces weight and energy estimates. Fantasizing about eating, then, appears to render it less caloric and so legitimize eating indulgent foods.

Does Style of Thinking Make Differences in Consumer Judgments on Brand Extensions?

Category similarity and benefit similarity have been identified as two important factors that determine a brand extension’s success. However, which of these two factors has a greater impact on consumers’ evaluations has received little attention. This study posits that the relative advantages are moderated by people’s style of thinking – holistic versus analytic. Specifically, analytic (holistic) thinkers have more favorable evaluations about benefit-similarity (category-similarity) extensions than category-similarity (benefit-similarity) extensions. Results from an experimental design supported this proposed hypotheses. Keywords: Style of Thinking, Culture, Brand Extension, Benefit Similarity, Category Similarity To cite this document: Shin-Shin Chang, Does Style of Thinking Make Differences in Consumer Judgments on Brand Extensions?, Contemporary Management Research, Vol.10, No.2, pp.165-178, 2014. Permanent link to this document: http://dx.doi.org/10.7903/cmr.12002

Shopping under the Influence: Nonverbal Appearance‐Based Communicator Cues Affect Consumer Judgments

ABSTRACTResearchers have conducted much work to examine the influence of advertising, branding, product appearance, and store layout on consumer judgments in retail contexts. Very limited research, in comparison, has assessed the impact of nonverbal employee cues on retail communication. The present work therefore examined the influence of nonverbal, dominance‐related communicator cues on perceivers’ judgments of information delivered by the communicator. Specifically, this research assessed the impact of communicator clothing color (Studies 1a–1c) and facial width‐to‐height ratio (Study 2) on perceived information accuracy. Perceivers judged the information presented by the communicator to be more accurate when the communicator (a) was wearing red rather than white or blue, or (b) possessed a high versus low facial width‐to‐height ratio. Thus, although explicit information in the retail environment undoubtedly affects consumers’ judgments, they may also be influenced by more subtle cues.

Deceptive advertising and third-person perception: The interplay of generalized and specific suspicion

The present research examines the extent to which consumers perceive deceptive advertising claims as effective (i.e., affect one's purchase decision) for themselves and others. Results in two experiments suggest that consumers tend to consider an advertising claim more effective for others than for themselves, when they realize the claim is highly deceptive. In contrast, when perceived deceptiveness is moderate or low, the self–others difference is moderated by consumer dispositional difference in skepticism toward advertising. The effect appears to be driven by the interplay of generalized and specific suspicion, which has a stronger impact on consumer judgment about the effect of deceptive advertising on the self than on others.

Social risk screening using a socio-political ambiguity approach: the case of organic agriculture in Iran

While ecological sustainability of organic agriculture (OA) has been frequently investigated, there are limited studies on its social sustainability, especially in developing countries. Given significant benefits of OA, screening the potential social risks associated with OA seems necessary. This paper introduces a socio-political ambiguity approach based on a hybrid model of ‘risk and social impact assessment’ for screening the risks of OA. As a case study, the paper focuses on the OA development in Iran using qualitative research to elicit opinions and judgments of farmers, consumers, and policy-makers. The results of the study revealed that there are serious ambiguities and risks associated with OA. This paper demonstrates that risks (especially social risks) of OA have received too little attention and were considered as can be neglected.

A Brunswik lens model of consumer health judgments of packaged foods

ABSTRACTConsumer health judgments of packaged food were compared with an objective healthfulness criterion using a Brunswik lens model. Consumer judgments were obtained from a representative consumer sample (N = 1329) who evaluated the healthfulness of 198 packaged food products. The objective healthfulness criterion was calculated for each product according to its specific nutrition values using a validated nutrition profile. The lens model included explicit cues such as nutrition values, nutrition and health claims, food category, and brand and implicit cues such a packaging design and category representativeness. The study revealed that the objective healthfulness criterion is highly predictable on the basis of cues such as the food category, brand, carbohydrate content, and whether the food is a typical “light” product. However, consumer judgments of food healthfulness are based almost entirely on the food category and to a lesser extent on the brand and consumer familiarity with the product. The results are in conflict with consumers' self‐reported use of nutrition information but are in accordance with findings from studies using implicit methods. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The consumer judgement of the price of the traditional foods

Price strategy is a peculiar aspect of the marketing model called Marketing Mix. Pricing related decisions usually constitute the hardest and most sensitive set of decisions that entrepreneurs have to make. The Hungarian consumers' high price sensitivity coupled with a high demand for low-cost products and services indicates the significance of pricing in Hungary. Pricing is crucial in raising interest and winning new customers. Prices might reflect product quality, brand strength and recognition, just like product differentiation or the image of a product or its producer. Consumers of traditional region-specific horticultural and agricultural products are willing to pay a higher price in appreciation of the high quality and special character of these products as this consumer segment tends to assign emotional functions to certain product features instead of solely focusing on the functionality and usefulness of the goods.

Exploring Online Double Deviation Effect from Psychological Contract Violation, Emotion, and Power Perspectives

Service recovery is a critical moment of truth in retaining customers and reinforcing customer relationships, and has been considered as an “Achilles' heel” in online marketplaces. Poor service recoveries exacerbate the negative effects of the failure, producing a “double deviation” effect. The double deviation effect may arise from the seller’s power misuse and then dissolve the buyer-seller relationship (e.g., violate consumer psychological contract), elicit consumer negative emotions which lead to customer coping behaviors. This study links the theories of psychological contract violation (PCV), emotion, and coping from the power perspective to investigate the double deviation scenario in online auction marketplaces. Two moderators (perceived power and perceived consumer empowerment) are considered in our proposed model. Data collected from 190 consumers of one auction website provide support for the proposed model. The results shed light on what constitutes the determinants of consumer judgments while facing double deviation scenario and how consumers react to and cope with it in online marketplaces. Finally, implications and limitations are discussed in the last part of this paper.

A Name You Can Trust? Personification Effects Are Influenced by Beliefs About Company Values

ABSTRACTAre consumers more likely to trust a product when it is branded with a human name rather than a nonhuman name? While the extant literature on brand personification reveals a positivity bias for personified products, other research suggests that many contemporary consumers harbor underlying feelings of mistrust toward companies more generally. The present research was the first empirical research to date to investigate the moderating role of consumers’ beliefs toward company values on brand trust judgments for human‐named and nonhuman‐named products. The results showed that although consumers significantly trusted nonhuman‐named products over human‐ named products (Studies 1a and 1b), this pattern only occurred for those who generally mistrusted companies (Study 2). These novel findings significantly shed light on the dynamics of brand personification by emphasizing the crucial role of individual differences in consumer judgment.

Employing Image Analysis for Predicting the Sense of Sameness

From the late 19th century on, psychological research is interested in humans’ sense of sameness, since perceived similarity between objects is fundamental for cognitive processes like object recognition and categorization. Product designers continuously emphasize how important yet difficult it is to create new products with designs similar enough for brand recognition, yet dissimilar enough for a unique positioning. Advancing the understanding of perceived design similarity would greatly help to systematically manage this balance. Design literature provides several concepts, which assess how much a new design deviates from the status quo based on consumers’ holistic similarity judgments. For management practice, however, tests of numerous design alternatives with consumers throughout the NPD process are time-consuming, costly and threaten confidentiality. In addition, holistic judgments cannot provide any insights about the design elements that explain perceived similarity. For designers it thus remains unclear which elements should be modified to increase or decrease perceived similarity between new and existing designs. It also prohibits predictions about similarities of alternative product designs, which have not been explicitly tested with consumers. To overcome these drawbacks, we introduce an objective, component-based measurement approach of design similarity. Based on standardized product images, we identify a set of objective measures for all relevant design elements. The results of an empirical study demonstrate that similarity judgments of consumers can be reproduced with these measures. Our approach, thus, makes measurement of design similarity more efficient, uncovers the design elements that drive holistic similarity judgments, and enables managers to predict the positioning of alternative product designs in the perceptual space.

Framing the Game: Assessing the Impact of Cultural Representations on Consumer Perceptions of Legitimacy

The purpose of this article is to understand how media frames affect consumer judgments of legitimacy. Because frames exist on the sociocultural and individual level, our research takes a multimethod approach to this question. On the sociocultural level, we conduct a content analysis of operant media frames for discussing online gambling and perform an event analysis, finding that a shift in consumer judgments follows an abrupt shift in frame. Then, on the individual level, the causal mechanism for these shifts is investigated in an experimental setting using the Implicit Association Test (IAT). These experiments show that framing affects normative legitimacy judgments by changing implicit associations. Further, users and nonusers respond differently to frame elements, with users favoring an established frame and nonusers favoring a novel, legitimating frame. This suggests that media frames play a critical role in establishing legitimacy at the sociocultural level and that framing potentially bridges cognitive and normative legitimacy.

The Role of Processing Fluency in Product Innovativeness Judgment

The metacognitive experience of the ease or difficulty with which new, external information can be processed, referred to as ‘processing fluency,’ has been shown to influence a wide range of human judgments including truth judgments, familiarity judgments, risk perception, evaluation, and preference (see Alter and Oppenheimer 2009 for a review). The current research explores the possibility of a consumer`s product innovativeness judgment based on the difficulty of processing new information. In specific, this study examines if the inferential link between (dis)fluency-(un)familiarity can feed into the perception of innovativeness. This study also explores how a consumer`s processing motivation can moderate the consumer`s reliance on processing fluency in judgments and how the influence of fluency can vary depending on judgment task orders. In an experiment, participants rated a new product`s innovativeness and then indicated their product attitude (or vice versa depending on the judgment task order condition) after reading a product review article that was printed in either an easy-to-read or a difficult-to-read font (for fluency manipulation). The findings show that low need for cognition individuals infer higher product innovativeness when processing product information is difficult rather than easy, consistent with the common assumption that ‘new information is more difficult to process than familiar information.’ The findings also suggest that once low fluency is attributed to innovativeness, it may no longer lead to a negative response to the product. High need for cognition individuals` judgments on product innovativeness are not affected by fluency. The findings also demonstrate a judgment task order effect on the use of fluency in judgments (e.g., Xu and Schwarz 2005). This study provides the first evidence that an individual`s fluency experience can be used as a source of information in product innovativeness judgments especially under low processing motivation conditions. The findings can help marketers better understand the malleability of consumer judgments and perceptions of product characteristics (e.g., product innovativeness) by demonstrating an interesting interplay of processing fluency, processing motivation, and judgment task-related contextual factors.

A perceptual measure of mobile advertising using fuzzy linguistic preference relation

The purpose of this study has been concretized in terms of impact of mobile advertising on the purchase decision of the consumer and aimed to answer to research questions: which is the underlying structure of criteria in mobile advertising? And which criteria are important for consumers in evaluating mobile advertising? A sample of consumers in Taiwan was surveyed and using fuzzy judgment to determine the vague perception of consumers. In addition, the proposed fuzzy linguistic preference relation (FLPR) is used to express the subjective preferences of consumers with respect to the considered criteria of mobile advertising, and also use the criterion gauges to evaluate the implementation of mobile advertising strategies. Finally, an empirical study is illustrated to demonstrate that the proposed method is more suitable than the traditional method, especially when the consumer judgments are likely be inconsistent in pair-wise comparison. The presented fuzzy linguistic preference relation method is an easy and practical way to provide a mechanism for improving consistency in perceptual measure of mobile advertising.

To purchase or not to purchase US products: role of religiosity, animosity, and ethno-centrism among Malaysian consumers

Purpose – The main purpose of this research is to empirically test how animosity, religiosity, and ethnocentrism interact to affect judgment about US products and purchase action of consumers in a progressive Islamic country like Malaysia. There are many studies that have been conducted in conservative Islamic countries such as Iran, Jordan, Morocco, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Design/methodology/approach – The product chosen for this research is US fast food restaurants. A questionnaire was constructed and responses were obtained from 410 Malaysian consumers from different ethnic backgrounds. The authors tested the framework using structural equation modeling (SEM). Findings – Based on the test results, the authors conclude the following significant relationships: animosity on purchase action of consumers, ethnocentric tendencies on animosity of consumers, religiosity on ethnocentric tendencies of consumers, religiosity on animosity of consumers, ethnocentric tendencies of consumers on judgment of foreign product, foreign product judgment of consumers on purchase action, and animosity and ethnocentrism play mediating roles. Originality/value – The current study adds significantly to the body of knowledge on consumer behavior, especially the roles of animosity, religiosity, and ethnocentrism. The findings can help marketing managers to formulate appropriate strategies when consumers decide to boycott US products.

Consumer Behavior in “Equilibrium”: How Experiencing Physical Balance Increases Compromise Choice

The authors propose that the physical sensation of balance can affect consumer judgments and decisions. A series of six experiments demonstrates that certain consumer behaviors, such as leaning back in a chair while shopping online, can activate the concept of balance and thereby affect the consumer decision-making process. Specifically, consumers experiencing a heightened sense of balance are more likely to choose compromise options. The authors propose and show evidence for the mechanism underlying these effects: that the concept of balance is metaphorically linked in the mind to the concept of parity and that activating balance increases the accessibility of the parity concept. The increased accessibility of parity changes consumer perceptions of the product offerings in a choice set, increasing the selection of compromise options because they provide parity on the described product attributes.

Process-induced decision costs on sequential value judgments

Effort-as-information and resource availability have been proposed to explain why people adhere to previously chosen alternatives in repeated-choice situations. These two theories differ in terms of the resource expenditure involved in subsequent decisions. In this study we investigate the impact of the process-induced decision costs of previous decisions on subsequent decisions. Results reveal the occurrence of a lower consistency rate in the layout change condition, implying that resource availability plays a significant role in sequential decision-making situations. Further, when the layout change impedes fluent processing, initial decisions that require longer reaction times produce greater decision inconsistency. Both consumers and managers should be aware that display changes, commonly observed in the popular use of dynamic web pages in online shopping, are likely to increase processing costs, which potentially impede sound consumer judgments.

Money and Thinking: Reminders of Money Trigger Abstract Construal and Shape Consumer Judgments

The idea of money reminds consumers of personal strength and resources. Such cues have been found to increase the level of mental construal. Consequently, it was hypothesized and found in five experiments that reminders of money trigger abstract (vs. concrete) mental construals. Participants were primed with money or money-unrelated concepts. Money primes caused a preference for abstract over concrete action identifications (experiment 1), instigated the formation of broader categories (experiment 2), and facilitated the identification of global (vs. local) aspects of visual patterns (experiment 3). This effect extended to consumer judgments: money primes caused a focus on central (vs. peripheral) aspects of products (experiment 4) and increased the influence of quality of parent brands in evaluations of brand extensions. Priming with a little money (experiment 3) or expenditures (experiment 5) did not trigger abstract construals, indicating that the association between money and resources drives the effect.

Sodium Claims or Health Focused Messages Help Consumers to Identify Sodium Levels in Foods Better than the Nutrition Facts Table

The aim of this study was to determine whether consumers can properly classify sodium levels (low, moderate, or high) based on the Nutrition Facts table (NFt) alone and whether sodium focused messages influence these judgements. Participants from a national online consumer panel (n=3,437) were randomly assigned to 1 of 5 treatment conditions on mock cheese products. Treatment group 1 was shown a Nutrition Facts table (NFt) with typical levels of sodium and groups 2 to 5 were shown a NFt with a 25% reduction. Groups 3 to 5 were shown various additional sodium focused messages. Groups 1 and 2 made similar classification judgements, regardless of whether or not the product was higher or reduced in sodium. By comparison, groups 3 and 4 who were shown a “reduced sodium” claim in addition to the NFt classified products as lower in sodium (P<0.05). This effect was even greater when consumers were shown a one‐page sodium advisory message (P<0.05). These results indicate that Canadian consumers generally have a poor understanding of what constitutes low, moderate, or high amounts of sodium based on information from the NFt only. Sodium focused messages significantly improve consumer judgements. Funding Source: Dairy Farmers of Canada