Discrepant Fluency in Self-Customization

Abstract

This research demonstrates that during self-customization, consumers use their experiences from prior feature decisions to form expectations about subsequent decisions. When the difficulty experienced during decisions later in the process deviates from that which occurs earlier in the process, consumer preference is affected by the discrepancy between actual and expected difficulty. Specifically, the results show that when the difficulty experienced during feature decisions deviates from expectations, consumers may spend more or less money on product features as a result of discrepant fluency than when they perform the same task and the level of difficulty is expected. The results demonstrate that discrepant fluency effects are not limited to sequential decisions but can influence a single feature decision, which was accomplished by altering consumers' expectations before the decision. These discrepant fluency effects emerge even when the attributes of the alternatives and the composition of the focal decision settings remain the same.