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Egocentric Biases In Consumer Judgment Of Products With And Without Target Market Labels, David Norton

Theses and Dissertations

Consumer research to date has posited that if we are cued to think of others, then we are likely to be influenced by the type of others we consider. Thus, research on product evaluations has focused on motivational accounts of either favoring or disfavoring a product contingent upon which specific reference group the product is associated with. In this dissertation I advance the theory that product evaluations are also cognitive in nature. Due to egocentric biases of self availability and self positivity I propose that the cueing of an 'other' lowers the valence of thoughts available (relative to thoughts of …