Pseudocontingencies in consumer choice

• Verfasst von: Vogel, Tobias [VerfasserIn]
• Verfasst von: Kutzner, Florian [VerfasserIn]
• Titel: Pseudocontingencies in consumer choice
• Titelzusatz: preference for prevalent product categories decreases with decreasing set quality
• Verf.angabe: Tobias Vogel and Florian Kutzner
• E-Jahr: 2017
• Jahr: 5 September 2017
• Umfang: 13 S.
• Fussnoten: Gesehen am 21.12.2017
• Titel Quelle: Enthalten in: Journal of behavioral decision making
• Ort Quelle: New York, NY [u.a.] : Wiley, 1988
• Jahr Quelle: 2017
• Band/Heft Quelle: 30(2017), 5, Seite 1193-1205
• ISSN Quelle: 1099-0771
• DOI: doi:10.1002/bdm.2034
• Datenträger: Online-Ressource
• Sprache: eng
• Bibliogr. Hinweis: Erscheint auch als : Druck-Ausgabe: Vogel, Tobias: Pseudocontingencies in consumer choice. - 2017
• Sach-SW: consumer inference
• Sach-SW: contingency
• Sach-SW: ecological inference
• Sach-SW: market share
• Sach-SW: pseudocontingencies, choice
• K10plus-PPN: 1566627060

Abstract

Building on theorizing about contingency inferences, the present research deals with the impact of product category prevalence on consumer choice. We argue that a category's prevalence in the choice set can signal high quality, but the validity depends on the aggregate quality of the choice set. With ever more low-quality products in the set, high prevalence should increasingly signal poor rather than high quality. When choosing from a poor-quality set, choices should thus favor products from the rare category. In four experiments, we show that poor-quality sets increase the proportion of consumers choosing products from a rare category. Furthermore, we show that these effects increase when base rates of a category and quality become more extreme. Finally, Experiment 4 shows that contingency inferences partly mediate the effect of set quality on choice. The results extend previous research on contingency inferences, indicating the adaptive use of base-rate information in consumer decision making. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.