Coping with Ambivalence: The Effect of Removing a Neutral Option on Consumer Attitude and Preference Judgments

This article examines how the exclusion of a neutral or fence‐sitting option changes an expressed attitude or preference judgment. Over a series of six studies, we find that the exclusion of a neutral response option (1) affects the judgment of extreme options (strong positive and negative features)...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Journal of consumer research 2002-12, Vol.29 (3), p.319-334
Main Authors: Nowlis, Stephen M., Kahn, Barbara E., Dhar, Ravi
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Ambivalence
Brands
Consumer attitudes
Consumer research
Emotional expression
Fences
Marketing
Psychological attitudes
Questionnaires
Risk aversion
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Summary:This article examines how the exclusion of a neutral or fence‐sitting option changes an expressed attitude or preference judgment. Over a series of six studies, we find that the exclusion of a neutral response option (1) affects the judgment of extreme options (strong positive and negative features) more significantly than the judgment of options that are average on all features, (2) results in respondents favoring the option superior on the more important attribute, and (3) results in more risk aversion. We also provide evidence for the underlying process and show that our findings are moderated by individual differences on need for cognition and tolerance for ambiguity.
ISSN:0093-5301
1537-5277
DOI:10.1086/344431