The influence of price on the relationship between involvement and consideration set size

Abstract

This study examined the relationship between involvement and consideration set size for a product category featuring wide variability in the price and quality of choice alternatives. The use of a heterogeneous choice domain is considered important because it gives consumers the opportunity to make price and quality tradeoffs in the selection of their consideration sets. The results indicate that in such a choice context, the total effect of involvement on consideration set size is positive. A path analysis of the data indicates the reason for this positive relationship was that high-involvement subjects set wider latitudes of acceptance for price and thus were more likely to consider the more expensive models in the choice domain.