Essays on Three Price Judgments: Price Fairness, Price Magnitude, and Price Expectation

This dissertation addresses three important price judgments: price fairness, price magnitude, and price expectation. Developed over three chapters, the main objective of this research is to determine underlying differences in these three price judgments. These differences are based on conceptualizing price fairness as a combination of affective and cognitive components, whereas price magnitude and price expectation reflect different cognitive aspects of price judgment. Chapter 1 provides a literature review and identifies several research questions related to these three price judgments; Chapters 2 and 3 provide testable hypotheses and conduct three pretests and two experiments to test the hypotheses. Using structural equation modeling and repeated measures ANOVA, the interrelationships, the antecedents, and the consequences of these price judgments are described and analyzed. Chapter 2 examines the effects of focal price, locus of control, judgment environment, and judgment/intent order on price fairness, price magnitude, price expectation, and purchase intent. Chapter 3 examines the effects of focal price, judgment environment, mood, and processing fluency on the three price judgments and their subsequent effects on purchase intent and anger.