Knowledge that Transforms

How will the widespread diffusion of information technology change consumer research? I argue that information technology will profoundly change the way knowledge is generated and disseminated. In generating knowledge, consumer researchers will see the diminishing use of student subjects, an increase in the use of global samples, panels, secondary data, and information acquisition techniques. In disseminating knowledge, I suggest the possibility of self-organizing journals that would use the ratings of selected readers to determine the status of submitted research. Copyright 2001 by the University of Chicago.

Consumers often browse through many products (a product context) before evaluating a particular target product. We examine the influence of four product context characteristics on happiness with a target product: pleasantness, sequence, domain match with target (i.e., whether products in the context set belong to the same category as the target), and context set size. When context and target match, pleasant and improving (compared to less pleasant and worsening) contexts induce less happiness with the target product. When there is domain mismatch, however, the results are reversed. Furthermore, the assimilation effects are significantly influenced by set size, but the contrast effects are not. While the contrast effects appear to occur by default and appear to be driven by a process of comparison, the assimilation effects appear to be driven by mood. These effects hold even when perception of domain match is manipulated via instructional framing.

When deciding when to make a purchase, people often compare their outcomes to those that would have occurred had they purchased earlier or later. In this article, we examine how pre- and postpurchase comparisons affect regret and satisfaction, and whether consumers learn to avoid decisions that result in regret. In the first two experiments, we show that information learned after the purchase has a greater impact on satisfaction than information learned before the purchase. In addition, negative price comparisons have a greater impact on satisfaction than positive comparisons. These results imply that if consumers who receive postpurchase information wish to avoid future feelings of regret, they should defer their purchases longer. Our second two experiments demonstrate this phenomenon: Subjects who were exposed to postchoice information set higher decision thresholds, consistent with the minimization of future regret. Paradoxically, providing subjects with additional postchoice information resulted in decreased average earnings, suggesting that consumers may try to avoid future regret even when doing so conflicts with expected value maximization.

We compare the cognitive processing of words written in alphabetic scripts with the cognitive processing of words written in logographic scripts. We suggest that the processing of words written in alphabetic scripts relies more heavily on the storage of—and the serial rehearsal properties of—short-term memory's phonological loop. In contrast, the processing of words written in logographic scripts relies more on the storage of—and the spatial-relational rehearsal properties of—visual short-term memory. A series of three experiments investigates implications of these processing differences within a single language, Korean, where words can be written in the alphabetic Hangul or in the logographic Hancha. These experiments examine contextual interference from auditory and visual stimuli, relational memory between brand names and auditory and visual brand identifiers, and two qualitative processing outcomes, serial-order memory and spatial-relational memory.

Four studies show that consumers have not one but two distinct learning processes that allow them to use brand names and other product features to predict consumption benefits. The first learning process is a relatively unfocused process in which all stimulus elements get cross-referenced for later retrieval. This process is backward looking and consistent with human associative memory (HAM) models. The second learning process requires that a benefit be the focus of prediction during learning. It assumes feature-benefit associations change only to the extent that the expected performance of the product does not match the experienced performance of the product. This process is forward looking and consistent with adaptive network models. The importance of this two-process theory is most apparent when a product has multiple features. During HAM learning, each feature-benefit association will develop independently. During adaptive learning, features will compete to predict benefits and, thus, feature-benefit associations will develop interdependently. We find adaptive learning of feature-benefit associations when consumers are motivated to learn to predict a benefit (e.g., because it is perceived to have hedonic relevance) but find HAM learning when consumers attend to an associate of lesser motivational significance.

Consumers acquire and display material possessions for the purpose of feeling differentiated from other people and, thus, are targeted with a variety of marketing stimuli that attempt to enhance self-perceptions of uniqueness. Because the pursuit of differentness (or counterconformity motivation) varies across individuals to influence consumer responses, we develop and validate a trait measure of consumers' need for uniqueness. Consumers' need for uniqueness is defined as an individual's pursuit of differentness relative to others that is achieved through the acquisition, utilization, and disposition of consumer goods for the purpose of developing and enhancing one's personal and social identity. Following assessments of the scale's latent structure, a series of validation studies examines the scale's validity. The presentation of empirical work is followed by a discussion of how consumers' need for uniqueness could be used in better understanding consumer behavior and the role consumption plays in people's expression of identity.

It is generally accepted that repeated exposure to an advertisement can influence liking for an advertisement and for the brand names and product packages included in the advertisement. Although it has often been assumed that repeated exposure leads to a direct affective response, more recent evidence suggests that prior exposure leads to processing fluency at the time of judgment. It is a misattribution about the source of this processing fluency that results in preference for the stimulus. To date, the majority of research on the processing fluency/attribution hypothesis has focused on when people will make fluency-based attributions, while assuming the amount of the processing fluency is a direct function of exposure. In this article, we propose that stimulus characteristics and presentation factors will interact with repetition to determine the amount of processing fluency associated with a stimulus at various levels of exposure. Four studies are used to test whether two-factor theory or dual-process theory provides a better account of the source of the processing fluency. Implications for logo design are discussed.