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Biases in Predicting Preferences for the Whole Visual Patterns from Product Fragments
Author(s) -
Zhao Shenghui,
Meyer Robert J.
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
journal of consumer psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 4.433
H-Index - 110
eISSN - 1532-7663
pISSN - 1057-7408
DOI - 10.1016/s1057-7408(07)70039-6
Subject(s) - psychology , attractiveness , anchoring , cognitive psychology , dilemma , product (mathematics) , sample (material) , social psychology , matching (statistics) , statistics , mathematics , psychoanalysis , chemistry , geometry , chromatography
This research examines the ability of consumers to predict the appeal of complete visual patterns from small sample fragments. In a task designed to mimic the dilemma of choosing wallpaper from small swatches, study participants are shown fragments taken from a large pattern design and are asked to predict how attractive they would find the complete image. Drawing on prior research on affective forecasting, predictions are hypothesized to be driven by an anchoring‐and‐adjustment process that skews forecasts toward the attractiveness of fragments when judged in isolation. Results from 3 laboratory studies support this basic hypothesis: Respondents consistently overestimate the degree to which their initial reactions to fragments predict their subsequent evaluations of wholes. The size of this projection bias is, in turn, conditioned by such moderators as prior familiarity with product fragment, cognitive load, and visualization abilities—effects that are consistent with an anchoring‐and‐adjustment explanation for the data.