More Than Meets the Eye: The Effect of Missing Information on Purchase Evaluations

Abstract

Information integration models have generally assumed that individuals making evaluations ignore attributes for which no information is available. However, recent evidence indicates that individuals make inferences about missing information and that these inferences have a predictable influence on the evaluations being made. The present study required individuals to evaluate television purchases, which were described by varying amounts of information—the greater the amount of missing information, the less favorable the evaluation. The evaluations' results are reported, as are the nonconfigural effects of the relationships among multiple attributes. Finally, the implications of this research for theory and marketing strategy are discussed.