Goal-Derived Categories and the Antecedents of Across-Category Consideration

We employ the concept of goal-derived categories and examine when and why consideration sets might include alternatives from different nominal product categories. An experiment in stimulus-based choice was conducted wherein subjects were given a large, heterogeneous set of alternatives and asked to form consideration sets. A key finding was that across-category consideration was high when there was either goal conflict (i.e., a single product category could not deliver on all salient goals) or goal ambiguity (i.e., a lack of salient goals). However, goal-conflict and goal-ambiguity subjects engaged in across-category consideration for different reasons. Goal-conflict subjects potentially could have prioritized goals and eliminated entire categories prior to forming consideration sets. Instead, they formed mixed consideration sets in the service of salient goals and postponed conflict resolution to the final choice stage. Goal-ambiguity subjects, on the other hand, considered alternatives from different categories because they were influenced by extrinsic cues (e.g., leading brand names). Implications are discussed for consideration set formation and product-market structure.

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