Should consumer attitudes be reduced to their affective and cognitive bases? Validation of a hierarchical model

The authors argue that reducing consumer attitudes to their underlying affective and cognitive bases entails a loss of valuable information. They propose that consumer attitudes be best represented by a hierarchical structure that preserves, at the first level, clusters of attributes formed on the basis of their immediate vs. deliberative nature, these clusters being nested at the second level within affective and cognitive bases. The superiority of this hierarchical structure over alternative models is supported for food attitudes, in a sample of two cultures (French and Chinese) known for different relations between affective and cognitive bases (Study 1). The hierarchical model also demonstrates superior ability to predict behaviors for two food items for which the affective and cognitive bases have a different influence on consumption (i.e., chocolate and raw milk; Study 2). Theoretical and managerial implications of the results are discussed. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.