Consumer inference making about missing information.

• Main Authors: Goh, Ee Ling., Long, Mei Fong., Tang, Yuin Kay.
• Other Authors: Nanyang Business School
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2013
• Subjects: DRNTU::Business::Accounting
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/51153
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

In a buying situation , a consumer typically evaluates information about a set of brands. As different brands focuses on different aspects of a product, consumers may have to rely on possibly incomplete or incomparable information to make a choice. In a situation of insufficient information, a consumer may try to infer the brands' performance on the unknown attributes if there are still perceived information gaps on relevant evaluation criteria. A choice is made only when sufficient information is gathered or inferred. The purpose of our research is to find out how consumers make inferences about missing information. Our research proposes that consumers prefer to use between-brand processing to make inferences rather than within-brand processing. We also propose that in choosing between brands during purchases, consumers will evaluate the brand(s) less favourably as the amount of missing information increases. The experiment conducted involved a sample group and two sets of questionnaire. Half the sample group was exposed to an experimental questionnaire and. the other half was exposed to a control questionaire. 3 by 3 matrices were set up in the questionnaire with one or two pieces of information missing in some of the matrices. Respondents were required to infer values for the missing information. Data from the experiment was processed using a software, and the findings were documented in this report.