Missing information, inferences, and evaluations

✍ Scribed by Sandra J. Burke

• Publisher: Springer US
• Year: 1996
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 957 KB
• Volume: 7
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0923-0645
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00435738

✦ Synopsis

Research has shown consumers either form inferences to fill in missing information or adapt processing to accommodate missing values. This article illustrates that processing may influence which attributes are deemed necessary for the choice task and consequently inferred and that attribute-based processing leads to inference use. The article also tests a framework that incorporates missing information, processing, inference use, and evaluation variables into a single parsimonious model that shows (1) the effects of missing information on processing and inference use and ( 2) the effects of inference use on evaluations.

The model incorporates a link between processing and inference use that may help explain mixed results regarding the degree and direction of impact of missing information on evaluations. Finally, it explores other variables such as missing information overlap, product familiarity and importance, and attribute type that may also influence inference use.