CHAPTER 8
JUDGMENT AND DECISION MAKING BASED ON HIGH
CONSUMER EFFORT
CHAPTER SUMMARY
Judgments involve forming evaluations or estimates of the likelihood of events are not always
objective, whereas decisions entail a choice between options or courses of action. Two types
of judgments are likelihood and goodness or badness; both of which can be made by recalling
past judgments using imagery or an anchoring and adjustment process.
Once consumers recognize a problem, they may address it using cognitive decision making
models (deciding in a rational, systematic manner) or affective decision models (deciding on
the basis of feelings or emotions). Consumers face a number of other decisions in high-effort
situations: which brands to consider (developing the consideration set); what’s important to
the choice (affected by goals, timing and decision framing); what offerings to choose; whether
to make a decision now; and what to do when alternative cannot be compared.
In thought-based decisions about offerings, consumers may use compensatory or
noncompensatory models; process by brand or by attribute; and consider gains versus losses.
Feeling-based decisions about offerings may rely on appraisals and feelings, affective
forecasts and choices, and imagery. Finally, three types of contextual factors can influence
the decision process: 1) consumer characteristics; 2) decision characteristics; and 3) the
presence of a group.
CHAPTER LEARNING OBJECTIVES
At the end of this chapter, students will be able to:
1. Distinguish between judgment and decision making, and indicate why both processes are
important to marketers.
2. Describe the types of decisions consumers face in situations where motivation, ability, and
opportunity to process are high.
3. Identify two types of cognitive decision-making models and understand how consumers
make decisions based on brands, product attributes, and gains and losses.
4. Explain how affective decision-making models differ from cognitive decision-making
models, and discuss the role of appraisals and feelings, affective forecasting, and imagery
in high-effort decisions.
5. Discuss why, in a high-effort situation, consumers may delay a decision, and show how
they make decisions when alternatives cannot be compared.
6. Outline the ways that consumer characteristics, decision characteristics, and other people
can influence high-effort decisions.
CHAPTER OUTLINE
I. High-Effort Judgment Processes
A. Judgments of Likelihood and Goodness/Badness
1. Estimations of likelihood involve determinations of how probable it is that
something will occur. Judgments of goodness/badness are the consumer’s
evaluation of the desirability of product or service features.
Chapter 8: Judgment and Decision Making Based on High Consumer Effort
a) Consumers anchor a judgment based on some initial value.
b) They then make adjustments as additional information is considered.
c) Imagery (Visualization)
(1) Consumers attempt to construct an image of an event in order to
estimate its likelihood or its goodness/badness.
2. Mental and Emotional Accounting
a) Mental-to categorize spending and savings decisions into “accounts” for
certain goals or transactions
b) Emotional-the intensity of the positive or negative feelings associated with
each account is an important influence on cb
3. Biases in Judgment Processes
a) Because consumers possess a confirmation bias to acquire and process
confirming information, they tend to be overconfident in their judgments.
b) Consumers often exhibit a self-positivity bias, believing that bad things
are more likely to happen to others, rather than themselves.
c) Consumers seem to weigh negative information more heavily than
positive information, creating a negativity bias.
d) Mood, which can bias judgment, serves as your initial anchor for
judgment.
e) Prior brand evaluations can bias judgment.
4. Marketing Implications
a) Marketers can help guide consumers’ judgments by choosing an
appropriate anchor from which to adjust their attitudes.
b) In brand extensions, the existing brand name and its positive (or negative)
associations act as anchors for judgments of the new product
c) Country of origin can also be used as a judgment anchor.
d) Marketers can positively influence consumers’ judgments by priming, or
creating a positive mood in the consumer.
e) Marketers can also affect consumers’ perceptions of the likelihood of
events.
II. High-Effort Decisions and High Effort Decision-Making Processes
A. Deciding Which Brands to Consider
1. Consumers’ decisions sets include:
a) The consideration set, or the set of products/services they want to choose
from.
b) The inert set, or the set that is treated with indifference.
c) The inept set, or the set of unacceptable alternatives.
2. According to the attraction effect, changing the alternatives in the consideration
set can have a major impact on consumers’ decisions.
B. Deciding Which Criteria Are Important to the Choice
1. Goals
a) Goals can affect the criteria that will drive a consumer’s choice
b) Consumers’ goals may change during the decision-making process.
2. Time
a) The timing of a decision can affect which criteria drive a consumer’s
choice.
b) Construal level theory posits that whether abstract or concrete construals
are used depends on whether the decision is about something the
consumer will buy/use now or in the future.
3. Framing
Chapter 8: Judgment and Decision Making Based on High Consumer Effort
a) The way the task is represented, decision framing can affect how
important a criterion is to consumers’ choices.
b) Consumers are more willing to take risks when a choice is framed as
avoiding a loss rather than acquiring a gain.
c) Decisions can also be framed by how the problem is structured in the
external environment (e.g., choosing between beef that is 25% or 75%
lean).
d) Whether a decision is framed positively or negatively influences
evaluation differently.
e) Marketers can help prime consumers to focus on specific criteria in their
decision making.
4. Marketing Implications
a) Marketers can position (frame) an offering as being consistent with
consumers’ goal-related or usage categories.
III. Deciding What Brand to Choose: Thought-Based Decisions
A. Cognitive decision making models focus on how consumers use information about
attributes to reach a decision, while affective decision making models focus on
consumers’ choices based on emotions and feelings.
1. Compensatory Versus Noncompensatory Models
a) With compensatory models, consumers choose the brand that has the
greatest number of positive features relative to negative features. A
negative evaluation of one attribute can be compensated for by positive
features of other attributes.
b) With a noncompensatory model, negative information leads to immediate
rejection of the brand or service from the consideration set.
c) Noncompensatory models require less cognitive effort than compensatory
models because consumers set cutoff levels for each attribute, and reject
any brand below the cutoff level.
d) Marketing Implications.
(1) As different models can lead to different choices, marketers may
want to change the process by which consumers make decisions.
B. Decisions Based on Brands
2. Multiattribute models are brand-based compensatory models, including the
Theory of Reasoned Action (TORA) model.
a) Multiattribute models are cognitively and emotionally taxing as consumers
have to make tradeoffs among attributes.
3. Consumers simplify decisions by using noncompensatory, brand-based
models.
a) Using a conjunctive model, consumers set minimum cutoff levels for each
attribute.
(1) Unacceptable alternatives are quickly eliminated in a conjunctive
model
b) The disjunctive model is similar to the conjunctive model with two
important exceptions.
(1) The consumer sets up acceptable levels for the cutoffs, levels that
are more desirable
(2) The consumer bases the evaluation on several of the most
important attribute rather than all attributes.
4. Marketing Implications.
Chapter 8: Judgment and Decision Making Based on High Consumer Effort
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4
a) Brand-based models help marketers understand what attributes
consumers consider in decision making, and how the consumers evaluate
their brands.
(1) If a consumer does not rate a company’s brand high on a given
attribute, the marketer can focus communication efforts on improving
the consumers’ opinions.
b) Decision models can also help in the planning of comparative advertising.
C. Decisions Based on Product Attributes
1. Sometimes consumers process one attribute.
a) Although most consumers prefer attribute processing because it is
cognitively easier, they cannot always find information in the correct
format to facilitate attribute processing.
2. In an additive difference model, brands are compared by attribute, two brands
at a time.
a) Consumers compare each important attribute, evaluate the differences,
and combine them in an overall preference.
3. In a lexicographic model, consumers order attributes in terms of importance
and compare the alternatives one attribute at a time starting with the most
important attribute.
a) If one alternative dominates on the most important attribute, it is selected.
b) In the case of a tie, the consumer then considers the next most important
attribute until there is a clear preference.
4. In the elimination-by-aspects model, consumers again rank the attributes in
order of importance, but also consider acceptable cutoff levels for each
attribute.
a) This model is not as rigid as the lexicographical model as more attributes
are likely to be considered.
5. Marketing Implications
a) An additive difference model allows marketers to present which attributes
exhibit the largest differences between brands. They can use this
knowledge to improve and position their brands.
b) A lexicographical model illustrates the ranking of attribute importance. If
the brand is weak on the most important attribute, marketers will need to
improve this feature and effectively communicate that improvement.
c) Identifying consumers’ cutoff levels is also useful to marketers.
D. Decisions Based on Gains and Losses
1. Consumers’ decisions may differ depending on whether their goal is to seek
gains or avoid losses.
2. Prospect theory posits that losses loom larger than gains for consumers, even
when they are of the same magnitude.
a) For example, in the endowment effect, sellers typically ask for a higher
price (as they are losing the item) than buyers are willing to pay (as they
will be gaining the item).
b) Consumers have a stronger reaction to price increases than price
decreases.
c) Consumers’ promotion– and prevention-focused goals will impact this
decision process.
3. Marketing Implications.
a) Marketers must make an effort to reduce risks and potential losses for
consumers by offering guarantees or easy payment plans.
Chapter 8: Judgment and Decision Making Based on High Consumer Effort
b) Marketers need to carefully consider the amount of a price increase
because the greater the increase, the greater the negative reaction from
consumers.
c) Marketers should try to frame price increases as a gain to consumers,
such as an increase in product quality.
IV. Deciding What Brand to Choose: High-Effort Feeling-Based Decisions
A. When engaged in affective decision-making, consumers make decisions based on
what feels right rather than a detailed, systematic evaluation of attributes.
1. Consumers who make affectively based decisions tend to be more satisfied
than those who make decisions based on product attributes.
a) Positive feelings for brands may be based on past experiences and
associated feelings.
2. Appraisals and Feelings
a) Appraisal theory examines how our emotions are determined by how we
think about a situation.
b) The theory also explains how and why some emotions affect future
judgment and decisions.
3. Affective Forecasts and Choices
a) Affective forecasting is consumers’ predictions of how they will feel in the
future.
b) It involves how consumers think they will feel as a result of a decision,
how intense that feeling is, and how long the consumer will have the
feeling.
c) Consumers’ affective forecasts are not always accurate.
4. Imagery
a) Imagery occurs when consumers imagine themselves using a
product/service.
b) Imagery, either positive or negative, can affect consumers’ decisions.
c) Adding information will facilitate consumers’ imagery processing, whereas
in cognitive processing the consumer may experience information
overload.
d) Imagery encourages brand-based processing.
5. Marketing Implications
a) A variety of marketing techniques can be employed to enhance both
consumers’ emotional experience and imagery surrounding an offering.
V. Additional High-Effort Decisions
A. Decision Delay
1. Consumers may perceive that a decision is too risky or unpleasant right now
and delay the decision.
2. Another reason for decision delay is the uncertainty of where to find product
information.
3. Marketing Implications.
a) Marketers may want the consumer to make an immediate decision,
although sometimes encouraging decision delay may increase the
likelihood of a brand being selected.
B. Decision Making When Alternatives Cannot Be Compared
1. In making noncomparable decisions, consumers tend to use one of two
strategies.
a) Alternative-based strategy
(1) Consumers develop an overall evaluation of each option and make
the decision based on this evaluation.
Chapter 8: Judgment and Decision Making Based on High Consumer Effort
b) Attribute-based strategy
(1) Consumers make comparisons easier by forming abstract
representations of comparable attributes.
2. Marketing Implications
a) Marketers should look at the product’s competition in broad terms
because of the ability of consumers to compare noncomparable
alternatives.
b) Price may be an important attribute when consumers are deciding
between noncomparative alternatives.
VI. What Affects High-Effort Decisions?
A. Consumer Characteristics
1. Consumer expertise
a) Expert consumers have a larger consumption vocabulary and thus can
use more attributes and information in making a decision.
b) Expert consumers tend to use brand-based decision strategies.
2. Mood
a) Consumers in a good mood are more willing to process information and
take time in decision making.
b) Consumers in a good mood make more extreme (positive or negative)
evaluations.
c) One study says that consumers in a high-arousal mood tend to process
information less thoroughly.
d) Consumers in a bad mood are more likely to recall a marketing message.
e) Consumers in a good mood judge objects more positively.
f) Consumers in a good mood are more likely to try new products/services.
3. Time pressure
a) As time pressure increases, consumers initially try to process relevant
information faster.
b) Consumers under time pressure then will base their decisions of fewer
attributes and place more weight on negative information, thus eliminating
bad alternatives quickly using noncompensatory decision strategies.
c) Time pressure also affects consumers’ decisions to delay their choices.
4. Extremeness aversion
a) Options perceived as extreme on an attribute will seem less attractive
than those perceived as intermediate.
b) According to the compromise effect, a brand will gain share when it is
seen as an intermediate choice rather than an extreme choice.
5. Metacognitive experiences
a) Metacognitive experiences include factors such as how easy it is to recall
information in memory and form thoughts, and how easy it is to process
new information.
b) Metacognitive experiences influence retrieval ease, inferences and
biases.
B. Characteristics of the Decision
1. Information availability
a) The amount, quality and format of available information can affect the
decision strategies consumers use.
b) Having more information will lead to better choices up to the point of
information overload.
c) If information is useful and relevant, decision making is less taxing and
better decisions are made.
Chapter 8: Judgment and Decision Making Based on High Consumer Effort
d) If information is ambiguous, consumers will likely stay with their current
brand rather than risk trying a new brand.
2. Information format
a) If information is organized by brand, consumers will more likely use
brand-based decision strategies.
b) If information is organized by attribute or in a matrix, consumers will likely
use attribute-based strategies.
c) Consumers presented with a narrative format of information tend to
process information more holistically and thus negative information had
less impact.
3. Trivial attributes
a) Consumers sometimes finalize decisions by examining trivial attributes.
C. Group Context
1. Consumers’ decisions can be affected by the presence of a group. Group
members attempt to balance both individual-alone goals and individual-group
goals when making a decision.
2. In a group, consumers face three types of individual-group goals.
a) Self-presentation goals refer to the image that consumers hope to convey
by their decisions.
b) Minimizing regret refers to risk adverse consumers who tend to make
decisions similar to the rest of the group.
c) Information gathering can result when consumers are in a group and
share information.
D. Marketing Implications
1. Understanding what affects consumer decision making can influence pricing
and marketing communication strategies.
QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW AND DISCUSSION
Possible answers are as follows.
1. How does consumer judgment differ from consumer decision- making?
2. What is the anchoring and adjustment process, and how does it affect consumer
judgment?
The anchoring and adjustment process is when a consumer starts with an initial
3. How do consumers use compensatory and noncompensatory decision-making models?
Chapter 8: Judgment and Decision Making Based on High Consumer Effort
In theory, consumers combine items of information about attributes to reach rational,
4. Explain how consumers use their goals, decision timing, and framing to decide which
criteria are important to a particular choice.
Consumers will examine choice criteria that are consistent with their consumption goals.
5. Why do marketers need to know that attribute processing is easier for consumers than
brand processing?
When marketers realize situations in which it is easier for the consumer to compare
6. How do appraisals and feeling, as well as affective forecasting, influence consumer
decision-making?
Consumers’ decisions are often based on how they appraise a particular situation.
7. Under what circumstances do consumers use an alternative-based strategy or an
attribute-based strategy for decision making?
8. In what ways do the characteristics of consumers, the decision, and the group context
influence consumer decision making?
Consumer characteristics such as their level of expertise, their mood, and the amount of
Chapter 8: Judgment and Decision Making Based on High Consumer Effort
SUGGESTED EXERCISES AND TEACHER GUIDELINES
1. This chapter discussed several types of estimations of likelihood that consumers can
make (such as estimating quality or likelihood of satisfaction, goodness/badness). What
other types of judgments do consumers make? List as many as possible, and indicate
what these judgments have in common.
2. Select a product or service category for which you expect the consumers’ motivation,
ability, and opportunity to process information to be high. Ask five consumers to describe
in detail how they would go about making a decision for this product or service category.
First ask them which brands they would consider (consideration set), and then ask them
to describe the specific steps they would go through in making a decision. Which brand
would they choose? After collecting this information, answer the following questions: (a)
How do the descriptions provided by the consumers compare with the decision models
discussed in this chapter? (b) How do these processes vary for different consumers? (c)
Why did one brand tend to be chosen over another? (d) If these processes were
representative of many consumers, how might this information be used to develop a
marketing strategy?
3. Pick a product or service category that is likely to generate high-elaboration decision
making. Identify the most salient attributes for the decision, and collect information about
these attributes. Ask ten consumers to rate each attribute in terms of the bi and Ib ratings
from the compensatory model (see the box on page 234) for three major brands in this
category. Based on this information, answer the following: (a) What are the strengths
and weaknesses of each brand? (b) How would each model described in this chapter
provide insights into consumers’ decision processes in this situation? (c) How would the
information you have collected aid in designing marketing strategy?
Attribute
Importanc
e
Minimum
Cutoff
Acceptabl
e Level
Bali
Hawaii
San
Diego
Europ
e
Alaska
Icelan
d
Hot
5
-2
+3
+2
+2
+1
-2
-3
-2
Neat things
to do
10
+3
+3
+3
+3
+2
+3
+3
-3
Inexpensive
4
-2
+2
-2
-3
+1
-1
-2
+2
Accommoda-
tions
3
+1
+3
-1
+2
+1
+1
-1
+2
Wife wants
to go
7
+1
+3
+2
+2
+1
+1
+3
-3
Great
nightlife
1
-2
+3
+2
+1
+2
0
-3
-3
Chapter 8: Judgment and Decision Making Based on High Consumer Effort
Multi-attribute Model: B=45 H=49 SD=41 E=26 A=22 I= -50
Conjunctive: Att1=A eliminated; Att2=SD, I eliminated; Att3=H eliminated; Att4=B
eliminated; Att5=E not eliminated; Att6=E not eliminated
IN-CLASS ACTIVITY
WORKING WITH CONSUMER KNOWLEDGE
Your task is come up with an advertising and/or promotional campaign for a brand of your
choice that works with consumers’ existing knowledge structure and memory. You can focus
either on the brand as a whole or on a specific product or product line.
Some approaches you may want to consider:
• Increasing awareness of a brand or increasing memorability of the brand or related
information (e.g., web site address, phone number)
• Creating additional associations for a brand
• Ads that use priming to make consumers receptive to favorable beliefs
• Tying a product into a consumer associative network of knowledge
• Influencing a brand schema and/or personality
• Integrating a specific brand name into a script (either focusing on the choice of the
specific brand to represent the product category [e.g. Pillsbury flour] or presenting the
brand as a means of accomplishing a specific task [e.g., Brawney paper towel helps fix
messes when children’s friends come over]
• Graded structure—trying to promote or enhance a brand’s stature as the product
category prototype
• Integrating the brand into goal derived categories
• Strategies to prevent decay of brand knowledge or to generally enhance recall
• Creating ads to facilitate retrieval by frequently occurring retrieval cues.
Creativity—within limits of good taste—is encouraged.
Please prepare a brief talk to the rest of the class discussing your conclusions. The
presentation should not exceed 2.5 minutes in length.
ADDITIONAL DISCUSSION QUESTIONS WITH SAMPLE ANSWERS
These discussion questions can be used as in-class activities or as thought questions that the
students consider while reading the chapter or to test their understanding of the material after
the reading and lecture are complete.
Chapter 8: Judgment and Decision Making Based on High Consumer Effort
II. Experience
A. Group up.
1. Have students form groups of no more than five. This exercise will work in
groups of any size; however, room restrictions that do not allow for moving
furniture may make group work more difficult. If necessary, this exercise can
be run in a “fish bowl” format with two students put in the front of the
classroom, and most students observing and recording their own thoughts.
Several pairs might be run during a single class session.
B. Specific actions for groups
1. The groups are responsible for selecting a product for which a high-effort
decision would be required (alternatively, this could be assigned).
2. Next, the roles of interviewer, interviewee, and recorder/observer should be
assigned (or self-selected).
3. The interviewer should then proceed to ask the following questions, probing as
necessary to learn more about the interviewee’s answers.
a) Which brands would you consider (eliciting a consideration set)?
b) How would you go about making a decision among these?
c) Based on that process, which brand would you be most likely to choose?
4. Based on the notes and observations of the group members, they should then
prepare an analysis using the following questions:
a) How did the descriptions provided by the interviewee compare to the
decision models discussed in this chapter?
b) How are these processes likely to vary across consumers?
c) Why did this consumer choose one brand over another?
d) If this person was representative of a certain segment, how would
knowing that help in developing a marketing strategy?
5. Large-group discussions
a) First, have groups present their ideas about the first question, and then
proceed to discuss each of the subsequent questions.
b) If there are many groups, share the discussion among all groups, though
not all groups may answer all of the questions.
III. Debrief and Unveil Concepts.
A. Discuss the activity itself.
1. The purpose of this discussion is to allow students to express what they felt
about the experience itself.
2. Ask students to describe their experiences of doing the activity.
a) Likes and dislikes about what just happened
b) How they felt during the experience
c) What is realistic, unrealistic about the exercise?
d) What will be different when they do this for their own brand?
B. Discuss the content of the experience.
1. The purpose of this discussion is to ensure that students “take away” important
learning points.
2. Ask students to describe the important points the experience teaches.
a) The role of different high-effort judgment strategies among consumers
3. Use the chalkboard to record student responses.
a) Write down their ideas as they are presented.
b) Concentrate on the principles being discussed rather than the examples
being used.
c) Help them to see the interrelationships among their responses.
IV. Execute
Chapter 8: Judgment and Decision Making Based on High Consumer Effort
A. Apply what has been learned.
1. Lead a discussion on how the concepts can be applied in organizations.
a) What barriers may be faced in applying the concepts from the exercise?
b) What can be done to help others understand the concepts when you use
them at work?
B. Transfer and use the knowledge.
1. Encourage students to make a record in their notes about how they will use the
ideas in the workplace.
2. Even if they do not have a specific job, how will they remember to use what
they have learned?
i
C. Whan Park and Daniel Smith, “Product-Level Choice: A Top-Down or Bottom-Up Process?” Journal of