Beyond reference price: understanding consumers’ encounters with unexpected prices

The concept of reference price is a well‐established phenomenon in the marketing and consumer behavior literature. Given this, we investigate what happens when consumers, given a particular reference price, encounter unexpected prices. It is proposed that the theory of dissonance reduction provides a framework for studying situations in which consumers’ encountered prices are significantly different from their expectations. The three modes of dissonance reduction proposed: to change one’s attitude or cognition, to seek consonant information, and to trivialize some element of the dissonant relationship are demonstrated through theoretical interpretation and illustrated with in‐depth interviews.