A Polarization Model for Describing Group Preferences

Vithala R Rao and Joel H Steckel

Journal of Consumer Research, 1991, vol. 18, issue 1, 108-18

Abstract: This article develops a model for describing the preferences of a group of its individual members. The model incorporates the empirically observed group-polarization phenomenon. It Is interesting that the resulting group preference evaluation is essentially a weighted linear model of individual preferences with the addition of an intercept term. The polarization model is empirically tested in two experimental contexts, faculty-candidate and restaurant selection. For both experimental situations, the polarization model performed better for the majority of groups tested in predicting a holdout sample than did either the more common weighted linear model without an intercept (with weights summing to one) or the multilinear model. Copyright 1991 by the University of Chicago.

Date: 1991
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/209245 (application/pdf)

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:oup:jconrs:v:18:y:1991:i:1:p:108-18

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Consumer Research is currently edited by Bernd Schmitt, June Cotte, Markus Giesler, Andrew Stephen and Stacy Wood

More articles in Journal of Consumer Research from Journal of Consumer Research Inc.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().