DOES INVOLVEMENT MODERATE TIME-DEPENDENT BIASES IN CONSUMER MULTIATTRIBUTE JUDGMENT

When consumers' judgements are delayed rather than made immediately af ter learning information about products and services; they tend to be positively biased. The study presents the results of a field experimen t that examples tile role of involvement in reducing, and even complet ely eliminating this time-dependent positivity effect. Involvement was manipulated by means of availability information concerning a new mov ie delivery service among video store visitors. Our results showed the reduction in time-dependent positivity effect to be limited only to s ituations in which involvement is induced before or concurrently with the acquisition of product information. If involvement is induced only in delay, tile positivity bias is observed under both low- and high-i nvolvement conditions. It is shown that differences in delayed judgeme nts are likely to stent from better recall of the original information by highly involved consumers. The time sensitivity has an important i mplication when shopping goals vary because in some instances consumer s may want to accomplish the purchase of a product during the shopping tour whereas in other-cases they may consider postponing it. Thus, co mpanies may direct their efforts towards influencing immediate or dela yed purchases, depending upon the judgement favourableness at the deci sion stage. (C) 1998 Elsevier-Science Inc.