Research On Consumer Choice Behavior Of Products With Convergent Or Divergent Attributes

Reference group is one of the important factors which affect consumer choice and generates consumers' conformity or counter-conformity behaviors under the interpersonal influence of group.However,consumers don't know the information of reference group when shopping at most of the time,and only make choices according to more or less of product attributes in products' choice set.For instance,people can always find out that there are similarities and differences in the attributes of different brands products on the supermarket's shelves or shopping websites,when consumers have no knowledge of the products themselves,and can only depend on the distributed information of the similarities and differences of products attributes to make inferences and decisions,then how will consumers choose?The above mentioned situation belongs to consumers' choice problems in the choice set with same and different attributes,it is a new topic of the context effect research in recent years.Context effects research reveals the systematic influences that multiple choice sets have on consumer choices,and by the studies on attraction effect and compromise effect,it is suggested that there is a unidirectional relationship between the structure of choice sets of quantity difference attributes(difference are reflected in quantity)and consumer choices.However,there are various relationships on attributes in choice set,similarities and differences among the attributes is very common and important.Recently academia proposes two context effects about choice set of same and different attributes---Perceptual focus effect and Feature convergence effect.But they find totally opposite behaviors of selection: Feature convergence effect holds that consumers tend to select products with attribute convergence;while Perceptual focus effect argues that convergence attributes can highlight divergence attribute and it is easy for consumers to notice and have a good impression of products with divergence attributes,which make consumers to tend to choose it.This fully indicates the complication of consumers' choice behaviors within the choice set of same and different attributes,it is possible that consumers' choice behavior is completely opposite in the same choice set.This means that consumer'choice on products with convergent or divergent attributes is a complex process,and the factors that affect this process are diversified,but the current research is still in the primary stage.In daily lives,with the gradual increase of alternative products and in order to find the optimum or to avoid omissions and errors,consumers' comparison of attributes of alternative products becomes a basic psychological process.At this moment,similarities and differences of products' attributes in the choice set will become important external cues driving consumer to make different interpretations for products with convergent or divergent attributes.For products with divergent attributes,consumers will consider them as innovative,exciting,unique,and distinctive;for products with convergent attributes,consumers will interpret them as safe,popular,normative and mature.As a result,consumer choice on products with convergent or divergent attributes is normally complicated and is possibly made under different perceptions and inferences.Then,under the influence of different external factors,how will consumer interpret the information about convergent or divergent attributes in choice set? What kind of product will consumer choose on this basis?Aiming at the above problems and on the basis of theoretical literatures of product attributes comparison,context effect,reference group and conformity,need for uniqueness and counter-conformity,perceived risk,this paper focuses on consumer choice problem in the multiple choice sets of same and different attributes and takes consumers' choice behaviors of products with convergent or divergent attributes as the research object,and it goes beyond of the limitation of study on a sole context effect,from product category,information completeness(product knowledge),consumer's personal feature(self-construal and regulatory focus),and systematically explores consumer choice behavior of products with convergent or divergent attributes in the condition of the change of different external factors.Concrete research content is as follows:Firstly,taking the perceived risk and product category into integrated research framework,from the aspects of perception,risk aversion and utility,the study explores consumer choice behavior of products with convergent or divergent attributes in situational simulation experiment.It is revealed that consumer choice of products with convergence feature at high perceived risk is significantly more than that of the lower perceived risk,and it is just opposite to that of the lower perceived risk.At the same time,the perceived risk and product category have an interaction with consumer choice,in the case of consumer choice of utilitarian products at high perceived risk,consumer tends to choose products with convergence feature;for the hedonic products,consumer prefers to make divergent choices at lower perceived risk;the difference is not significant in the other cases.Secondly,based on the perspective of cue utilization and combining with perceived risk theory,the study tests the difference in consumer choice of products with convergent or divergent attributes in the cases of high or lower perceived risk and with or without product knowledge and verified that consumers will only start using the cue of same and different attributes in choice set if they do not have product knowledge(information noncompleteness).Perceived risk will adjust this process at the same time.At high perceived risk,consumers who do not have product knowledge tend to choose products with convergence feature;at lower perceived risk,consumers who do not have product knowledge tend to choose products with divergence attributes.Thirdly,from the perspective of the social utility of the information,the study illustrates that self-construal has a significant impact on consumer choice of the products.It is revealed that interdependent self-construal consumer tends to choose products with convergence feature and dependent self-construal consumer prefers to make divergent choices.At the same time,self-construal and perceived risk have an interaction with consumer choice.At the high perceived risk,interdependent self-construal consumer prefers to make convergence choices;and the dependent self-construal consumer tends to make divergent choices at the lower perceived risk;the difference is not significant in the other cases.Finally,from the perspective of regulatory fit,the study tests that there is difference between consumer with promotion focus and consumer with prevention focus because of the pursuit of different goals.It is revealed that consumer with promotion focus prefers to choose products with divergent feature,it is opposite for consumer with prevention focus.At the same time,regulatory focus and perceived risk have an interaction with consumer choice.Consumer with promotion focus tends to choose products with divergent feature at the lower perceived risk;at the high perceived risk,consumer with prevention focus prefers to choose products with convergence feature;the difference is not significant in the other cases.Starting from the contradiction of bidirectional context effects(Perceptual focus effects and Feature convergence effect),introducing different external factors,the study systematically explores from multi angles the factors that influence consumer choice of products with convergent or divergent attributes and clarify the external conditions that influence consumer choice of the products in multiple choice set,revealed multiple utility of the cue of same and different attributes,and then bridges the contradiction of previous independent research.The research conclusion has important practical value for the enterprise strategy formulation,and it is helpful that enterprises develop differentiation strategy according to different situations.