In 2 studies, the authors examined whether or not G. Handler's (1982) schema congruity theory would explain students' evaluations of new products purportedly introduced by companies with established brand names that were congruent, moderately incongruent, or extremely incongruent in relationship to the product. Consistent with this theory, results showed that products associated with moderately incongruent brand names were preferred over ones that were associated with either congruent or extremely incongruent brand names. Results suggest that this finding may be mediated by students' greater elaboration of the incongruent brand name and related information and by the process of resolving incongruity.

Three studies examined attributional antecedents of selected consumer communications about products. Study One used the critical incident technique to examine the types of attributions consumers make about product performance when they want to complain to or compliment a firm. Studies Two and Three systematically manipulated causal inferences to determine their effects on consumer desire to complain to a firm, compliment a firm, warn against, or recommend a product to other consumers. Results indicate that attributional locus (buyer‐related versus seller‐related), controllability (under volitional control versus uncontrolled), and stability (fluctuating versus stable) influence consumers' desires to communicate about products.

This study examined hindsight bias for team decisions in a competitive setting in which groups attempted to outperform each other. It was anticipated that, because of self-serving mechanisms, individuals would show hindsight bias only when decision outcomes allowed them to take credit for their own team's success or to downgrade another team for being unsuccessful. MBA students playing a market simulation game made hindsight estimates regarding the likelihood that either their own or another team would perform well. Consistent with a self-serving interpretation, when decision outcomes were favorable individuals evaluating their own team, but not those evaluating another, showed hindsight bias. When outcomes were unfavorable individuals evaluating their own team did not show hindsight bias, but those evaluating another team did. Discussion focuses on implications of hindsight bias in team decision-making settings.

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This article reports the results of two studies where subjects' mood states (good, bad) were manipulated. In keeping with previous findings, subjects' evaluations were biased by their mood state. As predicted, however, this bias was only discernible when the product evaluation was perceived to be relatively unimportant. © 1994 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.