Consumer decision making and variety of offerings: The effect of attribute alignability

Psychology and Marketing

Volumn 26, Issue 4, 2009, Pages 333-358

  Herrmann, Andreas ^a   Heitmann, Mark ^b   Morgan, Robert ^c   Henneberg, Stephan C ^d   Landwehr, Jan ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF ST GALLEN   (Switzerland)

^b UNIVERSITY OF KIEL   (Germany)

^c CARDIFF UNIVERSITY   (United Kingdom)

^d UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 68049096104     PISSN: 07426046     EISSN: 15206793     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1002/mar.20276     Document Type: Article

References (78)

1. Alba, J. W., & Hutchinson, W. (1987). Dimensions of consumer expertise. Journal of Consumer Research, 13, 411-454.
2. Bayus, B. L., & Putsis,W. P. (1999). Product proliferation: An empirical analysis of product line determinants and market outcomes. Marketing Science, 18, 137-153.
3. Betancourt, R. R., & Gautschi, D. (1990). Demand complementarities, household production, and retail assortment. Marketing Science, 9, 146-161.
4. Boatwright, P.,& Nunes, J. C. (2001). Reducing assortment: An attribute-based approach. Journal of Marketing, 65, 50-63.
5. Borle, S., Boatwright, P., Kadane, J. B., Nunes, C. J., & Shmueli, G. (2005). The effect of product assortment changes on customer retention. Marketing Science, 24, 616-622.
6. Broniarczyk, S. M., Hoyer,W. D., & McAlister, L. (1998). Consumers' perceptions of the assortment offered in a grocery category: The impact of item reduction. Journal of Marketing Research, 35, 166-176.
7. Camerer, C., Loewenstein,G., & Prelec,D. (2005). Neuroeconomics: How neuroscience can inform economics. Journal of Economic Literature, 43, 9-56.
8. Chang, C.-C., & Liu, H.-H. (2008). Information format-option characteristics compatibility and the compromise effect. Psychology & Marketing, 25, 881-900.
9. Chapman, G. B., & Johnson, E. J. (1999). Anchoring, activation, and the construction of values. Organisational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 79, 115-153.
10. Chernev, A. (2003). When more is less and less is more: The role of ideal point availability and assortment in consumer choice. Journal of Consumer Research, 30, 170-183.
11. Chernev, A. (2006). Decision focus and consumer choice among assortments. Journal of Consumer Research, 33, 50-59.
12. Chernev, A., & Mcallister, L. (2005). Product assortment and variety seeking in consumer choice. Advances in Consumer Research, 32, 119-121.
13. Davenport, T., & Beck, J. C. (2001). The attention economy: Understanding the new currency of business. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
14. Dhar, R. (1997). Consumer preference for a no-choice option. Journal of Consumer Research, 24, 215-232.
15. Dreze, X., Hoch, S. J., & Purk, M. E. (1994). Shelf management and space elasticity. Journal of Retailing, 70, 301-326.
16. Fader, P. S., & Hardie, B. (1996). Modeling consumer choice among SKUs. Journal of Marketing Research, 33, 442-452.
17. Flynn, L., & Goldsmith, R. E. (1999). A short, reliable measure of subjective knowledge. Journal of Business Research, 46, 57-67.
18. Fitzsimons, G., Greenleaf, E., & Lehmann D. (2001). Decision and consumption satisfaction: Implications for channel relations. New York: Columbia University.
19. Friese, M., Wänke, M., & Plessner, H. (2006). Implicit consumer preferences and their influence on product choice. Psychology & Marketing, 23, 727-740.
20. Gentner, D., & Gunn, V. (2001). Structural alignment facilitates the noticing of differences. Memory and Cognition, 29, 565-578.
21. Gentner, D., & Markman, A. B. (1994). Structural alignment in comparison: No difference without similarity. Psychological Science, 5, 152-158.
22. Goldstone, R. L., & Medin, D. L. (1994). Time course of comparison. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 20, 29-50.
23. Gourville, J. T., & Soman, D. (2005). Overchoice and assortment type: When and why variety backfires. Marketing Science, 24, 382-395.
24. Grenci, R. T. (2004). An adaptable customer decision support system for custom configurations. Journal of Computer Information Systems, 45, 56-62.
25. Hair, J., Anderson, R., Tatham, L., & Black, W. (1998). Multivariate data analysis, 5th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
26. Hoch, S. J., Bradlow, E. T., & Wansink, B. (1999). The variety of an assortment. Marketing Science, 18, 527-546.
27. Huang,M. (2006). Flow, enduring, and situational involvement in the Web environment. Psychology & Marketing, 23, 383-412.
28. Huffman, C., & Kahn, B. E. (1998). Variety for sale: Mass customization or mass confusion? Journal of Retailing, 74, 491-513.
29. Iyengar, S. S., & Lepper, M. R. (2000). When choice is demotivating: Can one desire too much of a good thing? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79, 995-1006.
30. Iyengar, S. S., Jiang,W., & Huberman, G. (2004). How much choice is too much? Contributions to 401(k) retirement plans. In O. S. Mitchell & U. S. Utkus (Eds.), New lessons from behavioral finance (pp. 83-95). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
31. Johnson, E. J., & Russo, E. J. (1984). Product familiarity and learning new information. Journal of Consumer Research, 11, 542-530.
32. Johnson, E. J., Gaechter, S., & Herrmann, A. (2005). The nature of loss aversion. Working paper, Columbia Business School.
33. Johnson, M. D. (1984). Consumer choice strategies for comparing noncomparable alternatives. Journal of Consumer Research, 11, 741-753.
34. Kahn, B. E. (1995). Consumer variety-seeking among goods and services: An integrative review. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 2, 139-148.
35. Kahn, B. E. (1998). Dynamic relationships with customers: High variety strategies. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 26, 45-53.
36. Kahn, B. E., & Lehmann, D. R. (1991). Modeling choice among assortments. Journal of Retailing, 67, 274-289.
37. Kahn, B. E., & Morales, A. C. (2001). Choosing variety. In S. J. Hoch, H. C. Kunreuther, & R. R. Gunther (Eds.), Wharton on marketing decisions (pp. 63-77). New York: John Wiley & Sons.
38. Kahn, B. E., & Wansink, B. (2004). The influence of assortment structure on perceived variety and consumption quantities. Journal of Consumer Research, 30, 519-533.
39. Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1991). Loss aversion in riskless choice: A reference-dependent model. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 23, 1039-1062.
40. Kim, H. S., & Drolet, A. (2003). Choice and self-expression: A cultural analysis of variety-seeking. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85, 373-382.
41. Lassaline, M. E. (1996). Structural alignment in induction and similarity. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 22, 754-770.
42. Lehmann, D. R. (1998). Customer reactions to variety. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 26, 62-65.
43. Levav, J., Heitmann, M., Iyengar, S. S., & Herrmann, A. (2005). The effect of variety on sequential choice. Presentation at the Annual Conference for Judgment and Decision Making, Toronto.
44. Loewenstein, G. (1999). Is more choice always better? Costs and benefits of health- and retirement-related choice. In S. Burke, E. Kingston, & R. Uwe (Eds.), Social security and medicare: Individual vs. collective risk and responsibility (pp. 36-49). Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.
45. Loewenstein, G. F.,Weber, E., Hsee, C. K., & Welch, N. (2001). Risk as feelings. Psychological Bulletin, 127, 267-286.
46. Markman, A. B. (1996). Structural alignment in similarity and difference judgements. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 3, 227-230.
47. Markman, A. B., & Gentner, D. (1994). Splitting the differences: A structural alignment view of similarity. Journal of Memory and Language, 32, 517-535.
48. Markman, A. B., & Gentner, D. (1997). The effects of alignability on memory. Psychological Science, 8, 363-367.
49. Markman, A. B.,& Medin, D. L. (1995). Similarity and alignment in choice. Organizational Behaviour and Human Desicion Processes, 64, 117-130.
50. Medin, D. L., Goldstone, R. L., & Gentner, D. (1990). Similarity involving attributes and relations: Judgements of similarity and difference are not inverses. Psychological Science, 1, 64-69.
51. Medin, D. L., Goldstone, R. L., & Gentner, D. (1993). Respects for similarity. Psychological Review, 100, 254-273.
52. Moore, W. L., & Lehmann, D. R. (1980). Individual differences in search behavior for a nondurable. Journal of Consumer Research, 7, 296-307.
53. Novemsky, N., & Kahneman, D. (2005a). The boundaries of loss aversion. Journal of Marketing Research, 42, 119-128.
54. Novemsky, N., & Kahneman, D. (2005b). How do intentions affect loss aversion? Journal of Marketing Research, 42, 139-140.
55. Oppewal, H., & Koelemeijer, K. (2005). More choice is better: Effects of assortment size and composition on assortment evaluation. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 22, 45-60.
56. Park, J., Lennon, S. J., & Stoel, L. (2005). On-line product presentation: Effects on mood, perceived risk, and purchase intention. Psychology & Marketing, 22, 695-719.
57. Payne, J. W., Bettman, J. R., & Johnson, E. J. (1993). The adaptive decision maker. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
58. Rust, R. T., Thompson, D. V., & Hamilton, R. W. (2006). Defeating feature fatigue. Harvard Businesss Review, 84, 98-107.
59. Scarabis, M., Florack, A., & Gosejohann, S. (2006). When consumers follow their feelings: The impact of affective or cognitive focus on the basis of consumers' choice. Psychology & Marketing, 23, 1015-1034.
60. Sheng, S., Parker, A. M., & Nakamoto, K. (2005). Understanding the mechanism and determinants of compromise effects. Psychology & Marketing, 22, 591-609.
61. Shugan, S. M. (1980). The cost of thinking. Journal of Consumer Research, 7, 99-111.
62. Simonson, I. (1989). Choice based on reasons: The case of attraction and compromise effects. Journal of Consumer Research, 16, 158-174.
63. Simonson, I. (1990). The effect of purchase quantity and timing on variety seeking behavior. Marketing Research, 27, 150-162.
64. Simonson, I., & Tversky,A. (1992). Choice in context: Tradeoff contrast and extremeness aversion. Journal of Marketing Research, 29, 281-295.
65. Sojka, J. Z., & Giese, J. L. (2006). Communicationg through pictures and words: Understanding the role of affect and cognition in processing visual and verbal information. Psychology & Marketing, 23, 995-1014.
66. Steenkamp, J. B., & Wedel, M. (1991). Segmenting retail markets on store image using a consumer-based methodology. Journal of Retailing, 67, 300-320.
67. Thompson, D.V., Hamilton, R.W., & Rust, R.T. (2005). Feature fatigue: When product capabilities become too much of a good thing. Journal of Marketing Research, 42, 431-442.
68. Tsiros, M., & Mittal, V. (2000). Regret: A model of its antecedents and consequences in consumer decision making. Journal of Consumer Research, 26, 401-417.
69. Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1991). Loss aversion in riskless choice: A referencedependent model. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 106, 1039-1062.
70. Tversky, A., & Shafir, E. (1992). Choice under conflict: The dynamics of deferred decision. Psychological Science, 3, 358-361.
71. Weber, E., & Johnson, E. J. (2004). Constructing preferences from memory. In P. Slovic & S. Lichtenstein (Eds.), The construction of preference (pp. 56-71). New York: Cambridge University Press.
72. Yamauchi, T., Love, B. C., & Markman, A. B. (2002). Learning nonlinearly separable categories by inference and classification. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 28, 167-195.
73. Zeelenberg, M. (1999). Anticipated regret, expected feedback and behavioral decision making. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 12, 93-106.
74. Zeelenberg, M., Beattie, J., Pigt, J., & Vries, N. K. (1996). Consequences of regret aversion: Effects of expected feedback on risky decision making. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 68, 148-158.
75. Zhang, S., & Fitzsimons, G. J. (1999). Choice process satisfaction. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 77, 192-214.
76. Zhang, S., & Markman, A. B. (1998). Overcoming the early entrant advantage: The role of alignable and non-alignable differences. Journal of Marketing Research, 35, 413-426.
77. Zhang, S., & Markman, A. B. (2001). Processing product unique features: Alignability and involvement in preference construction. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 11, 13-27.
78. Zhang, S., Kardes, F. K., & Cronley, M. L. (2002). Comparative advertising: Effects of structural alignability on target brand evaluations. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 12, 303-311.