Preference‐inconsistent information and cognitive discomfort: a cross‐cultural investigation
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Purpose This study aims to examine cultural differences between Easterners and Westerners in processing preference‐inconsistent information. The focal question that the study addresses is as follows: When faced with negative information about their preferred alternative, do Easterners and Westerners respond differently? If yes, how do these differences impact purchase intentions? Design/methodology/approach A total of 102 students from a major Korean university and 96 students from a major Canadian university participated in the study. The experiment involved reading fictitious but realistic product reviews about a new car model and responding to survey questions. Findings The authors find that, compared to Eastern consumers, Western consumers are affected differently by preference‐inconsistent information. They experience a greater level of cognitive discomfort, exhibit a stronger motivation to reduce that discomfort, and attempt to resolve the conflict between their original preference and inconsistent information. These factors lead to a significant reduction in their purchase intentions. Research limitations/implications The use of student subjects may limit the generalizability of the study's findings. Practical implications Marketers can benefit by knowing that negative information about a product (as, say, in an online review) does not have a uniform effect across cultures. Consumers in Eastern cultures are more capable of handling negative information without reversing their product preferences. Western consumers, on the other hand, will strive to resolve the conflict between their preference (positive affect) and the negative product review (negative affect) by either changing their preference or discounting the review. Mostly, the damaging effects of a negative review are likely to be greater in Western cultures. Originality/value This study is the first attempt at examining the effect of cultural differences on processing preference‐inconsistent information. As organizations become more global, understanding culture‐based differences in information processing can help marketers create a more nuanced marketing strategy.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.003 | 0.006 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".