Relationships between Information Recall and Subsequent Attitudes: Some Exploratory Findings

Abstract

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. Relationships between recalled information and subsequent attitudes toward chosen and rejected alternatives were explored under different experimental conditions. Memory for product information and effects of amount recalled on subsequently reported attitudes varied as a function of the processing objective and chosen or rejected alternatives. Results are discussed in terms of recent theoretical models describing effects of memory on judgments. The University of Chicago Pressonsumers' attitudes toward a product or purchase of a product may often influence their purchase decisions. Such attitudes are presumably influenced by product information received from advertising or other sources. Numerous research studies have been conducted to better understand the factors that enhance consumers' memory for product information. However, the manner in which recalled product information influences the formation of purchase/product attitudes is surprisingly unclear. On some occasions consumers may recall bits of specific product information during a decision process (e.g., information recalled from a television advertisement) and may base their product attitudes on this information. There may be other occasions, however, when consumers form a product attitude prior to a purchase situation and retrieve the attitude from memory during the decision process (e.g., "I just remember that I liked the product."). In either case, memory processes are involved, but the content of the retrieved information and the way it is used differ considerably. The purpose of the present article is to (1) raise a number of theoretical issues relevant to understanding the relationship between product information recall and subsequently reported product attitudes, and (2) report onsumers' attitudes toward a product or purchase of a product may often influence their purchase decisions. Such attitudes are presumably influenced by product information received from advertising or other sources. Numerous research studies have been conducted to better understand the factors that enhance consumers' memory for product information. However, the manner in which recalled product information influences the formation of purchase/product attitudes is surprisingly unclear. On some occasions consumers may recall bits of specific product information during a decision process (e.g., information recalled from a television advertisement) and may base their product attitudes on this information. There may be other occasions, however, when consumers form a product attitude prior to a purchase situation and retrieve the attitude from memory during the decision process (e.g., "I just remember that I liked the product."). In either case, m...

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