The Role of Decision Importance and the Salience of Alternatives in Determining the Consistency between Consumers' Attitudes and Decisions

This research examines how the importance of a consumer decision influences attitude-decision consistency and choice in decision contexts that contain versus do not contain specified alternatives. Results demonstrate that decision importance moderates attitude-decision consistency when alternatives are not specified, but not when alternatives are specified. These results, in conjunction with the time participants devote to choice, suggest that importance plays a larger role in attitude-decision consistency when alternatives are unspecified versus specified because importance leads to greater effort in generation of alternatives when alternatives are unspecified (an unnecessary task when alternatives are specified in context). Implications for promotion are discussed.     

How Attitudes Toward Product Categories Drive Individual Brand Attitudes and Choice

Three experiments examine the role of attitudes toward the category to which a brand belongs in consumers’ attitudes toward individual brands. The core findings indicate that what consumers think generally about a category affects their evaluations of singular brands belonging to the category. Study 1 demonstrates that both consumers’ attitudes toward a category as well as their relative attitudes toward a brand versus intracategory competitors drive overall attitudes toward individual brands. Study 2 shows that manipulating attitudes toward a product category affects attitudes toward, and purchase intention of, individual brands belonging to that category. Study 3 demonstrates that more versus less favorably evaluated categories are more likely to exhibit brand positivity effects in judgments of singular brands. The results suggest the practical importance of measuring attitudes toward product categories, as well as the utility of marketing interventions aimed at the category level.