Why, during a decision between new alternatives, do people bias their evaluation of new information to support a tentatively preferred option? We test three decision process goals as the potential drivers of such predecisional distortion of information: (a) to reduce the effort of integrating...

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...