Knowledge that Transforms

Abstract Consumer decision making has been a focal interest in consumer research, and consideration of current marketplace trends (e.g., technological change, an information explosion) indicates that this topic will continue to be critically important. We argue that consumer choice is inherently constructive. Due to limited processing capacity, consumers often do not have well-defined existing preferences, but construct them using a variety of strategies contingent on task demands. After describing constructive choice, consumer decision tasks, and decision strategies, we provide an integrative framework for understanding constructive choice, review evidence for constructive consumer choice in light of that framework, and identify knowledge gaps that suggest opportunities for additional research.

Abstract Although technological products are unavoidable in contemporary life, studies focusing on them in the consumer behavior field have been few and narrow. In this article, we investigate consumers' perspectives, meanings, and experiences in relation to a range of technological products, emphasizing lengthy and repeated interviews with 29 households, including a set of first-time owners. We draw on literatures spanning from technology, paradox, and postmodernism to clinical and social psychology, and combine them with data collection and analysis in the spirit of grounded theory. The outcome is a new conceptual framework on the paradoxes of technological products and their influences on emotional reactions and behavioral coping strategies. We discuss the findings in terms of implications for theories of technology, innovation diffusion, and human coping, and an expanded role for the paradox construct in consumer research.