Leader-driven primacy in consumer choice uses initial product information to install a targeted brand as the early leader. Then the biased evaluation of subsequent attributes builds support for that brand. The end result is that the manipulation of information order impacts the proportion of...

Consumers generally establish a preference for one product early in a decision process. When this preference does not include consideration of product prices, the currently preferred product is called the benefits leader. This article proposes that consumers who switch to a cheaper product after...

This article examines the influence that emerging preferences (i.e., leaders) have on predecisional information search. We consider two possibilities. First, decision makers may seek information they expect will support their leader (leader-supporting search). Second, decision makers may seek...

For brands to thrive they must understand consumer sentiment; if consumers’ likelihood to share their opinion is a function of their attitude toward a brand, then brands’ perception of consumer sentiment may be systematically biased. While research in consumer-to-consumer sharing (i.e., word...

How do consumers resolve goal conflicts en route to making a choice? To answer this question, we examined choices in which two products were means to achieving different and conflicting goals. To glean insight into how consumers reconcile predecisional goal conflict, we tracked emerging...

How many positive claims should be used to produce the most positive impression of a product or service? This article posits that in settings where consumers know that the message source has a persuasion motive, the optimal number of positive claims is three. More claims are better until the...

When individuals obtain information about choice alternatives in a set one attribute at a time, they rapidly identify a leading alternative. Although previous research has established that individuals then distort incoming information, it is unclear whether distortion occurs through favoring of...

In situations in which consumers and sellers negotiate on price, the seller’s goal is to complete the sale at a profitable price. We demonstrate that sellers that pair a discounted offer with a favor request can increase the probability that a consumer will accept the deal, an effect we refer...

Extending previous work on biased predecisional processing, we investigate the distortion of information during the evaluation of a single option. A coherence-based account of the evaluation task suggests that individuals will form an initial assessment of favorability toward the option and then...

We show how decision makers can be induced to choose a personally inferior alternative, a strong violation of rational decision making. The binary choice process is traced to reveal the progress of the manipulation. First, the inferior alternative is installed as the leading option by starting...