Consumption Vocabulary and Preference Formation

Patricia M West, Christina L Brown and Stephen J Hoch

Journal of Consumer Research, 1996, vol. 23, issue 2, 120-35

Abstract: Consumers' understanding of their own preferences can be aided by a "consumption vocabulary"--a taxonomy or framework that facilitates identifying the relation between a product's features and one's evaluation of the product. In the absence of such a vocabulary, consumers' understanding of their own preferences will require more extensive experience and may never fully develop. The effect of such a vocabulary is tested in two experiments in which subjects provided with a vocabulary (1) exhibit better-defined and more consistent preferences than control subjects, (2) show improved cue discovery, and (3) show learning (i.e., increases in consistency over time). All results hold regardless of the functional form of the model used to assess subjects' preference formation. Copyright 1996 by the University of Chicago.

Date: 1996
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:jconrs:v:23:y:1996:i:2:p:120-35

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