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The Role of Consumers' Intuitions in Inference Making

The Role of Consumers' Intuitions in Inference Making Abstract Traditional explorations of inference making have examined consumers' reactions to product descriptions that lack information about salient attributes. Such studies frequently report systematically lower evaluations of incompletely described alternatives along with a generally low incidence of unprompted attribute-to-attribute inference. We argue that the nature and likelihood of an inference are dependent on the cues available at the time of decision making, and that some cues may exert a disproportionate influence on inference behavior. In several experiments in which subjects were presented with competing cues that implied different values of a missing attribute, we show that intuitive beliefs about the relationships between attributes are perceived as a particularly reliable basis for interattribute inference. Strong beliefs appear capable of superseding other compelling cues and may induce consumers to generate inferences spontaneously. This content is only available as a PDF. Author notes * Susan M. Broniarczyk is assistant professor of marketing, University of Texas, Austin, TX 78712. Joseph W. Alba is J. C. Penney Professor of marketing, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611. We are grateful to Betsy Creyer, Carolyn Simmons, and Luk Warlop for their help. © 1994 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journal of Consumer Research Oxford University Press

The Role of Consumers' Intuitions in Inference Making

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References (48)

Publisher
Oxford University Press
Copyright
© 1994 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc.
ISSN
0093-5301
eISSN
1537-5277
DOI
10.1086/209406
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Abstract Traditional explorations of inference making have examined consumers' reactions to product descriptions that lack information about salient attributes. Such studies frequently report systematically lower evaluations of incompletely described alternatives along with a generally low incidence of unprompted attribute-to-attribute inference. We argue that the nature and likelihood of an inference are dependent on the cues available at the time of decision making, and that some cues may exert a disproportionate influence on inference behavior. In several experiments in which subjects were presented with competing cues that implied different values of a missing attribute, we show that intuitive beliefs about the relationships between attributes are perceived as a particularly reliable basis for interattribute inference. Strong beliefs appear capable of superseding other compelling cues and may induce consumers to generate inferences spontaneously. This content is only available as a PDF. Author notes * Susan M. Broniarczyk is assistant professor of marketing, University of Texas, Austin, TX 78712. Joseph W. Alba is J. C. Penney Professor of marketing, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611. We are grateful to Betsy Creyer, Carolyn Simmons, and Luk Warlop for their help. © 1994 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc.

Journal

Journal of Consumer Research – Oxford University Press

Published: Dec 1, 1994

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