Measuring the hedonic and utilitarian sources of consumer attitudes

Abstract

It has been suggested theoretically that consumer attitudes have distinct hedonic and utilitarian components, and that product categories differ in the extent to which their overall attitudes are derived from these two components. This paper reports three studies that validate measurement scales for these constructs and, using them, show that these two attitude dimensions do seem to exist; are based on different types of product attributes; and are differentially salient across different consumer products and behaviors, in theoretically-consistent ways.