Global product stereotypes and heuristic processing: The impact of ambienttask complexity

This study examines consumer information processing heuristics in the conte xt of ambient task complexity. Individual consumers are often called upon t o make evaluations of product and advertising stimuli while ambient events not directly related to the purchase at hand may enter the evaluative proce ss and influence the way evaluations are made. Subjects facing a more compl ex task due to ambient events were found to evaluate the target stimulus in a way that was more consistent with category-based rather than piecemeal p rocessing. Additionally, the findings provide considerable evidence for ste reotype-driven evaluations and processing of attribute information. The the oretical and practical implications of this research are discussed. (C) 199 9 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.