The effects of concrete and abstract consumer goals on information processing

Abstract

This article examines the implications of adopting concrete and abstract purchase goals over several stages of information processing. Results are reported from a computerized experiment that demonstrates three important goal effects. At the acquisition stage, goals guide information exposure, inducing tendencies to engage in attribute-based or brand-based elaboration. During encoding, goals influence the level at which information is encoded, causing it to be more attribute-level or conceptual in nature. Finally, under certain conditions, goals may continue to guide product-related thinking through successive generations of product judgments. Implications of these findings for marketing theory and practice are discussed. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.