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Additivity Versus Attenuation: The Role of Culture in the Resolution of Information Incongruity
Author(s) -
Aaker Jennifer L.,
Sengupta Jaideep
Publication year - 2000
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 - 10.1207/s15327663jcp0902_2
Subject(s) - persuasion , psychology , social psychology , dual (grammatical number) , cognitive psychology , product (mathematics) , resolution (logic) , information processing , computer science , artificial intelligence , art , geometry , literature , mathematics
Past research on dual process models of persuasion has documented that, when faced with information incongruity, individuals tend to form product evaluations by attenuating the less diagnostic information, relying solely on the more diagnostic information. The current research suggests that this way of resolving incongruity may be culture specific. Consistent with recent research in cultural psychology, this study shows that individuals in a North American culture tend to follow the attenuation strategy, whereas individuals in an East Asian culture tend to follow an additive strategy in which both pieces of information are combined to jointly influence evaluations (Experiment 1). Experiments 2 and 3 provide further support for the proposed psychological mechanism underlying these findings and also identify boundary conditions for these findings. Implications for understanding choice mind‐sets, the moderating role of justification on evaluations, and cultural limitations in incongruity resolution are discussed.