Jcr 34(1) - Procedural Priming and Consumer Judgment

Procedural Priming and Consumer Judgments:

Effects on the Impact of Positively and

Negatively Valenced Information

HAO SHEN

ROBERT S. WYER JR.*

The cognitive procedure that people use to search for information about a product

is influenced by the ease with which it comes to mind. Unrelated experiences can

activate a search process that governs the order in which favorable and unfavorable

product descriptions are identified and the evaluations that are made on the basis

of them. Five experiments examined the conditions in which these effects occur.

The effects of priming a search strategy on the attention to positively or negatively

valenced information are diametrically opposite to the effects of the semantic (e.g.,

attribute) concepts that are called to mind in the course of activating this strategy.

Suppose consumers wish to evaluate the cost of eating

at a restaurant on the basis of a menu that is posted in

the window. Their judgments can be influenced by different

factors. First, the semantic concepts associated with the typical

price can provide a standard to affect their judgment.

That is, they may evaluate the restaurant to be more expensive

if they have seen low-priced (vs. high-priced) meals

in other places. Moreover, the procedure that they employ

to search for information can also infiuence their judgment.

To form a judgment, they might first identify the most expensive

meal and then, after assessing its attractiveness, consider

cheaper ones. Or, they might identify and evaluate the

cheapest meal available before assessing the desirability of

more expensive ones. Often, however, consumers do not

have the time or motivation to consider all of the options

available. Then, the judgment they would make if they used

the first search procedure is likely to be based on higher

prices than the judgment they would make if they used the

second. Consequently, they might judge the restaurant to be

*Hao Shen (haoshen@ust.hk) is a doctoral student, and Robert S. Wyer

Jr. (mkwyer@ust.hk) is a visiting professor, in the Department of Marketing,

Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. The authors

thank the editor, associate editor, and reviewers, as well as Jaideep Sengupta

and Rami Zwick for their comments on an earlier version of the manuscript.

This research was supported in part by grants HKUST6053/01H,

HKUST6194/04H, and HKUST6192/04H from the Research Grants Council,

Hong Kong. Correspondence on the manuscript should be sent to Hao

Shen.

John Deighton served as editor and Geeta Menon .served as associate

editor for this artide.

Eiectronically pubiished October 5, 2007

relatively more expensive in the former case and might be

less inclined to patronize it.

As this example illustrates, consumers' responses to information

about a product, and their consequent evaluation

of it, can be infiuenced by two types of previously acquired

knowledge. First, consumers may have declarative knowledge

about the type of product they are considering (in our

example, semantic concepts associated with the typical

price, the type of food being offered, the reputation of the

restaurant, etc.). They may use this knowledge to interpret

the information they receive and to make inferences about

unspecified attributes. Declarative knowledge can also provide

standards of comparison for evaluating the attractiveness,

quality, or price of the alternatives being considered.

In addition, consumers acquire procedural knowledge

that they apply in construing the implications of the information

they receive. These cognitive procedures are employed

at several stages of processing. At the judgment

stage, for example, procedural knowledge comes into play

in determining how the implications of different pieces of

information are combined to form an overall evaluation of

either a single product or a group of products (Anderson

1971; Fishbein 1963; see also Houston, Sherman, and

Baker 1991; Huber, Payne, and Puto 1982; Park and Kim

2005). Or, as in our example, it may exert an infiuence at

an earlier stage of processing, when consumers seek information

to use as a basis for judgment. In either case,

the judgment can depend on which alternative process happens

to be applied.

Despite considerable research on the effects