Research has not verified the theoretical or practical value of the brand attachment construct in relation to alternative constructs, particularly brand attitude strength. The authors make conceptual, measurement, and managerial contributions to this research issue. Conceptually, they define brand attachment, articulate its defining properties, and differentiate it from brand attitude strength. From a measurement perspective, they develop and validate a parsimonious measure of brand attachment, test the assumptions that underlie it, and demonstrate that it indicates the concept of attachment. They also demonstrate the convergent and discriminant validity of this measure in relation to brand attitude strength. Managerially, they demonstrate that brand attachment offers value over brand attitude strength in predicting (1) consumers' intentions to perform difficult behaviors (those they regard as using consumer resources), (2) actual purchase behaviors, (3) brand purchase share (the share of a brand among directly competing brands), and (4) need share (the extent to which consumers rely on a brand to address relevant needs, including those brands in substitutable product categories).Keywords: brand management, consumer behavior, marketing strategy, brand attachment, attitude strength . As a construct that describes the strength of the bond connecting the consumer with the brand, attachment is critical because it should affect behaviors that foster brand profitability and customer lifetime value (Thomson, MacInnis, and Park 2005). At the same time, marketers have long invoked the constructs of attitude valence and strength as key antecedents to consumer behavior. We define attitude valence as the degree of positivity or negativity with which an attitude object (in the current context, a brand) is evaluated. We conceptualize brand attitude strength as the positivity or negativity (valence) of an attitude weighted by the confidence or certainty with which it is held (i.e., the extent to which it is considered valid; see Petty, Briñol, and DeMarree 2007). Strong attitudes result from effortful thought about the attitude object (Petty and Cacioppo 1986), most often because of its personal relevance. This effortful thought and the confidence with which the attitude object is held guide behavior. Prior research has shown that brand attitude strength predicts behaviors of interest to firms, including brand consideration, intention to purchase, purchase behavior, and brand choice (Fazio and Petty 2007; Petty, Haugtvedt, and Smith 1995;Priester et al. 2004).The rich history of research on brand attitude strength raises questions about the need for a construct such as brand attachment. Does attachment provide value beyond measures of brand attitude strength? The answer to this question is elusive because research to date has not verified how brand attachment and brand attitude strength differ conceptually or empirically. Nor has research differentiated what unique consumer behaviors, if any, each predicts.The current researc...

This research examined the relationship between the measured (Study 1) and manipulated (Studies 2 and 3) positive and negative bases of attitudes and the psychological experience of attitudinal ambivalence. On the basis of these studies, the gradual threshold model of ambivalence (GTM) was advanced. The GTM holds that: (a) ambivalence increases in a negatively accelerating manner as the number of conflicting reactions (whichever of the positive or negative reactions are fewer in number) increases, (b) ambivalence is a negative function of the extent of dominant reactions, and (c) as the number of conflicting reactions increases, the impact of dominant reactions on ambivalence gradually decreases such that at some level of conflicting reactions (i.e, the threshold), the number of dominant reactions no longer has an impact on subjective ambivalence.

In the pain-flexor reflex, arm extension is temporally coupled with the onset of the unconditioned aversive stimulus, whereas flexion is associated with its offset; when retrieving desirable stimuli, arm flexion is more closely coupled temporally to the acquisition or consumption of the desired stimuli than arm extension. It was posited that these contingencies foster an association between arm flexion, in contrast to extension, and approach motivational orientations. Six experiments were conducted to examine this hypothesis. Ideographs presented during arm flexion were subsequently ranked more positively than ideographs presented during arm extension, but only when the Ss' task was to evaluate the ideographs when they were presented initially. Arm flexion and extension were also each found to have discernible attitudinal effects. These results suggest a possible role for nondeclarative memory in attitude formation.

A hypothesis derived from current two-route models of persuasion was examined-that a communicator's perceived honesty is a determinant of the extent to which attitude change is based on scrutiny of the substance of the persuasive message. Specifically, cognitive misers are expected to forgo effortful message scrutiny when a communicator can be assumed to be truthful. In a preliminary study, honesty was found to be the source characteristic most highly associated with providing an accurate message. Then, in three experiments, source honesty was manipulated either directly (by presenting information about past honesty of the source) or indirectly (using an expectancy confirmation! disconfirmation procedure). In all three studies, post message attitudes of individuals low in the need for cognition (NC) cognitive misers-were less dependent on message scrutiny when the source was assumed to be relatively honest. For high-NC individuals, message scrutiny did not differ depending on the source.

Researchers have conceptualized ambivalence as resulting from the conflicting positive and negative thoughts and feelings that a person holds toward an attitude object (intrapersonal discrepancy). The authors investigated the hypothesis that perceived interpersonal attitudinal discrepancies can also contribute to feelings of subjective ambivalence beyond that determined by intrapersonal discrepancy. Study 1 revealed that the perception of attitudinal discrepancy with one's parents was associated with greater feelings of ambivalence. Studies 2 and 3 found increased ambivalence as a function of manipulated interpersonal discrepancies. Study 4 replicated and reversed the effect, revealing that interpersonal attitudinal discrepancy with a disliked other was associated with less ambivalence. Together, these studies provide support for the proposition that, because of balance processes, interpersonal relationships influence feelings of subjective ambivalence.