Position‐based beliefs: The center‐stage effect

Abstract

Abstract This paper examines the existence and consequences of consumers' position‐based beliefs about product layouts. We propose that consumers believe that options placed in the center of a simultaneously presented array are the most popular. This belief translates into their choosing options placed in the center more often than those on the sides of a display: the center‐stage effect (Studies and ). Results are driven by inferences of product popularity rather than higher levels of attention to products in a given position (Studies and ). The preference for middle options is accentuated when people explicitly take into account other people's preferences, increasing the need to choose a popular option (Study ), but attenuated when layout‐based information is not diagnostic (Study ). Increasing the accessibility of own preferences for the intrinsic attributes about the products reduces the use of position‐based beliefs to make judgments and attenuates the center‐stage effect (Study ). Theoretical implications for marketplace meta‐cognitions, visual information processing, position effects, and the use of overall cognitive beliefs versus perceptual attention and memory‐based individuating information to make judgments are discussed.