Knowledge that Transforms

We find that for shopping trip decisions, consumers' driving time knowledge (how long it takes to get there) is both more accessible from memory and more accurate than their corresponding driving distance knowledge. In memory-based judgments, chronically more accessible time knowledge had a dominant influence on distance judgments. Given a map, consumers still relied on their time knowledge to infer trip distance. Moreover, consumers' estimated time and distance judgments showed inflated correlations regardless of underlying actual correlations, which may approach zero in urban environments. Consequently, there appears to be an asymmetric reliance on time knowledge when making trip decisions.

Prior research has viewed competitive interference as undesirable due to its negative effects on brand-attribute recall. We propose that competitive interference is not inherently bad but may be beneficial under certain conditions. In the context of an established brand promoting a new attribute, we show that the new attribute information is interfered with by the brand's old attributes, causing lower retrieval. However, in the presence of competitive advertising, old attribute information is suppressed, and new attribute information is successfully retrieved.

Contrary to the common wisdom that more choice is always better, selections made from large assortments can lead to weaker preferences. Building on the extant literature, this research identifies ideal point availability as a key factor moderating the impact of assortment on choice. It is proposed that, in the case of large assortments, ideal point availability can simplify choice, leading to a stronger preference for the selected alternative. In contrast, for choices made from smaller assortments, ideal point availability is proposed to have the opposite effect, leading to weaker preferences. Data obtained from four experiments lend support for the theory and the empirical predictions advanced in this article.

Previous research has demonstrated that people's preferences for an alternative can be reliably influenced by the other alternatives with which it is considered. This article examines the role of context effects in interactive decision making. Three studies examine people's intuitive abilities to influence others by leveraging context effects and their reactions when they believe others are manipulating the choice context to influence them. Experimental results show that people use context effects systematically when trying to influence others and, that under certain conditions, the perception of influence may enhance rather than decrease the effectiveness of this persuasion tactic. Copyright 2003 by the University of Chicago.

Prevailing wisdom assumes that brand equity increases when a brand touts its desirable attributes. We report conditions under which the use of attribute information to promote a product can shift the locus of equity from brand to attribute, thereby reducing the attractiveness of extension products. This effect is moderated by the degree of ambiguity in the learning environment, such that prevailing wisdom is refuted when ambiguity is low but is supported when ambiguity is high.

Self-reports are a key source of information in consumer research. Unfortunately, self-reports are highly context dependent, and this problem is compounded when comparisons across cohorts or cultures are of interest. Age-related changes in cognitive functioning and cultural differences in cognition and communication influence the response process, resulting in differential context effects that may reverse the ordinal placement of cohorts or cultures on the measure of interest. Any observed difference between age groups or cultures may therefore reflect a meaningful difference in attitudes or behaviors, a difference in the response process, or an unknown mix of both. Copyright 2003 by the University of Chicago.

Consumers respond more favorably to positively framed attribute information than to negatively framed attribute information, a finding that has been attributed to the affective associations evoked by each frame. We contend that framing effects also depend on the range and level of reference values used to evaluate attribute information. When the range of reference values is narrower for a positive frame than a negative frame, attribute values above expected performance levels favor the positively framed information and attribute values below expected performance levels favor the negatively framed information. When the range of reference values is wider for a positive frame than a negative frame, the opposite pattern emerges. Experience with a frame is one factor that reduces the range of reference values recruited to judge attribute information.

This study examines cognitive processes believed to be responsible for systematic distortions in the subjective experience of time. In two experiments, subjects were exposed to mock radio ads containing congruent or incongruent information and asked to estimate the ads' durations retrospectively. Consistent with a resource-matching hypothesis, perceived time depended on the interplay of cognitive resources required and available. When cognitive resources required match cognitive resources available (at either high or low levels), time estimates were longer than when resources were mismatched. Evidence also suggests that durations may be inferred from the amount of information reconstructed from and linked to a time interval.

This research investigates the processes by which consumers evaluate a family brand on the basis of information about its products. Findings from three experiments suggest that the expected variability of individual product quality within the brand and attribute uniqueness systematically influence information processing and family brand evaluations. On-line (vs. memory-based) processing of information to form family brand judgments is more likely when expected variability is low (vs. high) and when the attributes are shared (vs. unique) within the family brand. These different processes lead to differences in family brand evaluations due to primacy (on-line processing) and recency (memory-based processing) effects. Copyright 2003 by the University of Chicago.

Participants experiencing positive or negative affect judged products described by brand and attribute information. Four studies using parameter-estimation and reaction-time procedures determined whether the impact of affect on brand name was the result of its influence on (a) participants' perception of its evaluative implications at the time of encoding or (b) the importance they attached to it while integrating it with other information to compute a judgment. Results showed that positive affect increased the extremity of the brand's evaluative implications (i.e., its scale value) rather than the importance (or weight) that participants attached to it. A fifth experiment demonstrated the implications of these findings for product choices made 24 hours after affect was induced. Copyright 2003 by the University of Chicago.