Premium
Overestimating the Importance of the Given Information in Multiattribute Consumer Judgment
Author(s) -
Sanbonmatsu David M.,
Kardes Frank R.,
Houghton David C.,
Ho Edward A.,
Posavac Steven S.
Publication year - 2003
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/s15327663jcp1303_10
Subject(s) - psychology , set (abstract data type) , domain (mathematical analysis) , social psychology , cognitive psychology , computer science , mathematics , mathematical analysis , programming language
Consumer judgment often is based on incomplete or limited knowledge of the relevant attributes. We performed 3 experiments to investigate why these judgments are often insensitive to set size and why evaluations based on limited information tend to be stronger (more extreme and confident) than is warranted. The findings indicate that the importance of the given or known attributes is often overestimated, leading to evaluations that are overly extreme. The experiments also revealed important factors moderating this insensitivity to limited information. The overweighing of the given evidence was attenuated when participants were knowledgeable of the target domain. Overweighing and the formation of extreme judgments based on limited information was also diminished when participants considered their judgmental criteria prior to evaluating a target or when a comparison target described by different attributes was present.