Inferential Evaluations of Sustainability Attributes: Exploring How Consumers Imply Product Information

ABSTRACT Consumers are often confronted with incomplete product information. In such instances, they can eliminate the product from further consideration due to higher associated uncertainty or ask for more information. Alternatively, they can apply subjective theories about covariation to infer the...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Psychology & marketing 2014-06, Vol.31 (6), p.440-450
Main Authors: Gruber, Verena, Schlegelmilch, Bodo B., Houston, Michael J.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Consumer behavior
Information processing
Studies
Sustainability
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:ABSTRACT Consumers are often confronted with incomplete product information. In such instances, they can eliminate the product from further consideration due to higher associated uncertainty or ask for more information. Alternatively, they can apply subjective theories about covariation to infer the value of missing attributes. This paper investigates the latter option in the context of sustainability and provides an in‐depth exploration of consumers’ inference formations. Drawing from rich qualitative data, it offers a conceptualization of the underlying relationships consumers use to infer product sustainability based on other product attributes. The study further assesses whether these findings can be captured in a quantifiable way. To this end, inferred sustainability is conceptualized as a formative second‐order construct, thereby depicting the influence of inference‐triggering product attributes.
ISSN:0742-6046
1520-6793
DOI:10.1002/mar.20706