Abstract
Consumers frequently evaluate multiple sequential cues of varying strengths in order to draw inferences about a product's quality. The results of three experiments show that when consumers are not distracted, they judge a product's quality more favorably following a strong–weak cue sequence relative to a weak–strong sequence (a primacy effect). However once consumers are distracted from the evaluation task, the primacy effect reverses to a recency effect, whereby consumers judge a product's quality more favorably following a weak–strong cue sequence. Process tests suggest that distraction crowds consumers' short-term working memory and inhibits the spontaneous rehearsal and the subsequent recall of the cue presented first in the information sequence.
Suppose, while shopping for a vehicle at a car dealership a consumer comes across an unfamiliar brand of a navigational system. Upon asking for additional information, she first learns that the navigational system comes with a good warranty and, and after a while, she learns that the brand is highly reputed in the industry. Further, suppose that the consumer perceives a brand's reputation to be a stronger indicator of product quality relative to a brand's warranty. A potentially interesting question is whether the sequential order of these pieces of information or cues matters when the consumer makes a final judgment about the product's quality. That is, would the consumer's overall judgment of the navigational system be different if she learned about the stronger cue (e.g., brand reputation) first instead of last? Additionally, would we observe a different pattern of order effects if the consumer were distracted in her shopping task? In the present research, we attempt to provide answers to these questions.
We propose that, in a two-cue environment, a strong–weak cue sequence will result in a more favorable quality judgment of the product relative to a weak–strong cue sequence as long as the consumer is not distracted in her evaluation task. However, if distracted, the consumer will judge a product's quality to be superior following a weak–strong cue sequence relative to a strong–weak cue sequence. We build our hypotheses based upon prior work in the areas of order effects (e.g., Bond et al., 2007, Carlson et al., 2006 and Hogarth and Einhorn, 1992) and short-term working memory models (Atkinson and Shiffrin, 1968 and Cowan et al., 2005). Our rationale is that the first cue in a sequence has more diagnostic power (i.e., more indicative of product quality) relative to the other cues that consumers see down the line since the other cues are no longer unique to the consumer (Basuroy et al., 2006 and Biswas and Biswas, 2004). Consequently, a strong–weak cue sequence should result in more favorable product quality judgment relative to a weak–strong cue sequence. However if the consumer is distracted, her short-term working memory will be “crowded” and inhibit her from spontaneously rehearing the cue presented first in the information sequence (Barrouillet et al., 2004, Cowan et al., 2005 and Saito and Miyake, 2004). To the extent that distractions make it harder for the consumer to remember the first cue, her product quality judgment will be more favorable if the stronger cue appears last (instead of first) in the cue sequence.
Our research has two important implications. First, from a theoretical perspective, by combining the order effects literature with the literature on short-term working memory, our research attempts to reconcile the conflicting findings in the extant research on cue-sequence order effects on product evaluations. For example, as discussed in the next section, one stream of research suggests that consumers put more weight on the cue they see first in the sequence, thereby favoring a strong–weak cue sequence (see Gürhan-Canli, 2003 and Kruglanski and Freund, 1983). A second stream of research suggests that under certain conditions, consumers put more weight on the cue they see last in the sequence, thereby favoring a weak–strong cue sequence (see Johar et al., 1997, Olsen and Pracejus, 2004 and Richter and Kruglanski, 1998). Finally, a third stream of research suggests that consumers are indifferent to whether a cue is put first or last in the sequence, thereby suggesting no difference between a strong–weak sequence and a weak–strong sequence (see Lopes, 1985 and Shanteau, 1975). Our results suggest that the shift from giving greater weight to the first cue to giving greater weight to the last cue is likely to occur if the consumer is distracted enough that she is unable to rehearse the information content of the first cue, and hence subsequently have weakened recall of the first cue.
Second, from a managerial perspective, our research suggests that whether a marketer should present the most important piece of information first or last to the consumer is a tactical issue depending upon an accurate assessment of the distraction level of the target consumer. For example, recent research has shown that distracting consumers when they are sampling a food product (e.g., chocolates) actually increases the subsequent choice of the sampled food (Nowlis & Shiv, 2005; see also, Shiv & Nowlis, 2004). Our findings add to this research by suggesting that if consumers appear to be distracted from the shopping task, it is advisable to present the most important piece of information last, instead of first, to these consumers. Moreover, by using distraction tactics, marketers can also make it difficult for consumers to recall the characteristics of a competing product they might have seen earlier, and thereby get the consumers to think more favorably about the seller's own product.
