Determinants of Product Evaluation: Effects of the Time Interval between Knowledge of a Product's Country of Origin and Information about Its Specific Attributes.

Concepts related to country of origin can affect interpretation of information about specific product attributes. However, these effects are likely to be pronounced only when country of origin is conveyed some time before attribute descriptions, allowing a separate concept of the product to be formed on the basis of it. When country of origin and intrinsic attribute information were presented in the same experimental session, subjects perceived country of origin as simply another product attribute. When presented the day before, however, country of origin not only had a greater influence on product evaluations but affected the interpretation of attribute descriptions. Copyright 1990 by the University of Chicago.