This study explores consumers' inference strategies in a mixed choice task involving memory, external information, and missing information on attribute values for some brands. Accessibility of relevant information was manipulated, and both instructed and uninstructed or natural inferences were studied. Instructed inferences by low accessibility subjects conformed more with prior overall evaluations of the brands, displaying evaluative consistency. Instructed inferences by high accessibility subjects tended to follow a correlational rule linking missing information to other attribute information in memory, displaying probabilistic consistency. Choices conformed to inferences, and both were more variable when inferences were uninstructed.S ometimes only partial product information is available during choice, and consumers may have to infer how brands perform on specific features. For example, on an initial shopping trip, a consumer examines and evaluates some cameras based upon a then salient set of attributes. Later, at another store, the consumer examines more cameras. However, this store does not carry some of the previously examined brands, and a salesman now tells the consumer about an important feature not previously considered. The consumer has complete, externally available information on all cameras in the second store, but for brands examined earlier, some information (prior evaluations and brand features) must be retrieved and may not be readily accessible in memory. Moreover, for these brands, the new attribute information was never collected and, therefore, is missing.This scenario represents a "mixed" choice task with memory and external information Chakravarti 1983, 1986;Lynch, Marmorstein, and Weigold 1988; Lynch and Srull 1982). Moreover, missing information for some brands complicates choice of the best brand. The consumer may handle this situation in different ways. Sometimes, the missing information can be collected with minimal cost or effort, and the risks of a bad decision may make
Many facets of contemporary global problems posed by poverty pertain to the deprivation of consumption capability and are within the consumer psychologist's expertise domain. This article (based on my 2004 Presidential Address to the Society for Consumer Psychology [SCP]) outlines how consumer psychology research can contribute an understanding of the cognitive, motivational, and sociocultural dimensions of poverty, and how poverty depletes and alters the human need and capacity to consume. Consumer psychology research can also help suggest the nature and function of material and psychological interventions that can help ameliorate these conditions, focusing their design and monitoring their effects. These are important research priorities for consumer psychologists and deserve more and sustained attention from our community. Apart from garnering voice in policy conversations in government, industry, and academe, such research eventually will enhance our field's substantive contribution to improving the contemporary human condition.
This paper illustrates the use of laboratory experimental auctions in a pretest market research program for new products. We review the experimental auctions literature, discuss the range of auction mechanisms available and present the advantages and disadvantages of using a particular mechanism for a laboratory pretest market. We then present a step-by-step example of how a theoretically incentive compatible auction mechanism (fifth-price, sealed-bid) was used in a laboratory pretest market for vacuum-packaged beef. Based on the illustration, we discuss the potential for using laboratory experimental auctions in pretest market research. We present the limitations that may be encountered in such applications and outline research aimed at improving the behavioral properties of the technique.auctions, pretest market
Firms may choose to present the price of a multicomponent product bundle in partitioned (separate price for each mandatory component) or consolidated (single, equivalent price) fashion. In this article, we report on 2 experiments that examined the effects of such presentations on evaluations and choices as well as the underlying processing effects. In Experiment 1, consistent with a mental accounting analysis, a multicomponent product bundle was evaluated more favorably and chosen more often when its components were presented with partitioned (vs. consolidated) prices. The effects were, however, moderated by the component partitioned. In particular, it appeared that partitioning prices altered attention paid to the components partitioned and related product features. In Experiment 2, we found that different splits of the bundle price influenced evaluations and choices depending on how the focal product price related to that of a comparison option. These price‐split effects were also moderated by the component partitioned, suggesting attention effects similar to Experiment 1. The findings show that although the effects of price partitioning were consistent with mental accounting principles, they were moderated by information processing effects related to the partitioned component.
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