Abstract
Though most observers acknowledge that consumers make inferences among product attributes, the influence of such inferences on product evaluation is much less clear. Study respondents evaluated products for which information on one of two attributes was systematically omitted. A general model is built to estimate the directional effect of inferences on product evaluation. The effect of inferences to a missing attribute is statistically significant and in the expected direction. In one case, the marginal value of the remaining attribute (price) reverses in sign because of an inference. Thus, inferences are theoretically important and a potentially troublesome issue in the modeling and measurement of consumer choice processes.
Keywords
Product (mathematics)InferenceEconometricsSign (mathematics)Value (mathematics)Computer scienceEconomicsStatisticsMathematicsArtificial intelligence
Affiliated Institutions
Related Publications
Inferential Beliefs in Consumer Evaluations: An Assessment of Alternative Processing Strategies
The purpose of this research is to investigate the processing strategies consumers use to form inferences about missing product information. We evaluate the relative effect of a...
Price, brand name, and product composition characteristics as determinants of perceived quality.
While price and brand image have both been found to be determiners of product quality perception, the potency of these two cues has never been directly compared. Moreover, those...
Internet Recommendation Systems
Several online firms, including Yahoo!, Amazon.com , and Movie Critic, recommend documents and products to consumers. Typically, the recommendations are based on content and/or ...
Price-Induced Patterns of Competition
This research focuses on how price changes influence the observed pattern of brand competition. The paper begins with a basic utility model formulation and examines the implicat...
Consumer Perceptions of Price, Quality, and Value: A Means-End Model and Synthesis of Evidence
Evidence from past research and insights from an exploratory investigation are combined in a conceptual model that defines and relates price, perceived quality, and perceived va...
Publication Info
- Year
- 1982
- Type
- article
- Volume
- 19
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 324-333
- Citations
- 185
- Access
- Closed
External Links
Social Impact
Altmetric
PlumX Metrics
Social media, news, blog, policy document mentions
Citation Metrics
185
OpenAlex
Cite This
Joel Huber,
John M. McCann
(1982).
The Impact of Inferential Beliefs on Product Evaluations.
Journal of Marketing Research
, 19
(3)
, 324-333.
https://doi.org/10.1177/002224378201900305
Identifiers
- DOI
- 10.1177/002224378201900305