How lacking control drives fluency effects in evaluative judgment

Sean Blair

Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 2020, vol. 156, issue C, 97-112

Abstract: Everyday life is replete with situations that can undermine the perception of personal control. In the current research, the author demonstrates that these experiences can have a pronounced impact on judgment and decision making by increasing evaluative preferences for fluent stimuli. The author argues this occurs because fluent stimuli promote a sense of structure that helps compensate for low control. Consistent with a compensatory process, the data further show that this effect is attenuated when alternative compensatory control strategies are readily available. Six studies document this effect and its implications for how individuals evaluate an organization’s offerings, brand name, tagline, and stock—including two studies examining fluency effects in stock market valuations. Taken together, these findings provide convergent evidence in support of the author's theorizing that fluent stimuli represent a novel means by which individuals attempt to compensate for low control.

Keywords: Personal control; Control deprivation; Structure seeking; Compensatory control; Processing fluency; Metacognition; Motivation; Evaluative judgment; Consumer behavior (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0749597818309774
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jobhdp:v:156:y:2020:i:c:p:97-112

DOI: 10.1016/j.obhdp.2019.11.003

Access Statistics for this article

Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes is currently edited by John M. Schaubroeck

More articles in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().