The Differential Impact of Goal Congruency on Attitudes, Intentions, and the Transfer of Brand Equity

Various theories suggest that the perceived similarity of objects facilitates the transfer of knowledge, affect, and intentions from one object to the other. However, there is disagreement as to the meaning of similarity and how it should be operationalized among these various theories, and no effort to relate these various measures to one another exists in the literature. In an empirical study, the authors examine the relationships among measures of product similarity in three different contexts: (1) goal-congruent products, (2) moderately goal-incongruent products, and (3) extremely goal-incongruent products. The results of exploratory factor analyses revealed that perceived similarity is a multidimensional construct and that the number and structure of these dimensions of similarity are different when products differ in their degrees of goal congruency. Structural equation analyses of the measures based on a second sample confirmed the structure obtained in the earlier exploratory analyses and demonstrated that brand attitudes and purchase intention exhibit different relationships to the underlying dimensions of similarity in the goal-congruent and goal-incongruent conditions, consistent with expectations based on the theory of goal-derived categorization. The authors discuss implications of these findings for theory and practice.

[1]  Karin Ackermann,et al.  Categories and Concepts , 2003, Job 28. Cognition in Context.

[2]  R. Bagozzi,et al.  Goal Setting and Goal Striving in Consumer Behavior , 1999 .

[3]  P. Tuominen.  Managing Brand Equity , 1999 .

[4]  S. Fournier,et al.  Consumers and Their Brands: Developing Relationship Theory in Consumer Research , 1998 .

[5]  Jan P.L. Schoormans,et al.  The nature of differences between similarity and preference judgements , 1997 .

[6]  C. Sumiyoshi.  CATEGORY BASED INDUCTION , 1997 .

[7]  K. Holyoak,et al.  The analogical mind. , 1997, The American psychologist.

[8]  D. Gentner,et al.  Structure mapping in analogy and similarity. , 1997 .

[9]  Allan D. Shocker,et al.  Goal-Derived Categories and the Antecedents of Across-Category Consideration , 1996 .

[10]  J. T. Austin,et al.  Goal constructs in psychology: Structure, process, and content. , 1996 .

[11]  N. Dawar.  Extensions of Broad Brands: The Role of Retrieval in Evaluations of Fit , 1996 .

[12]  Susan M. Broniarczyk,et al.  The Importance of the Brand in Brand Extension , 1994 .

[13]  M. J. Houston,et al.  Goal-Oriented Experiences and the Development of Knowledge , 1993 .

[14]  Deborah Roedder John,et al.  Diluting Brand Beliefs: When Do Brand Extensions Have a Negative Impact? , 1993 .

[15]  D. Gentner,et al.  Respects for similarity , 1993 .

[16]  Cognitive Associations and Product Category Comparisons: the Role of Knowledge Structure and Context , 1992 .

[17]  Sandra J. Milberg,et al.  Evaluation of Brand Extensions: The Role of Product Feature Similarity and Brand Concept Consistency , 1991 .

[18]  E. Higgins,et al.  Handbook of motivation and cognition : foundations of social behavior , 1991 .

[19]  Barton A. Weitz,et al.  Substitution in Use and the Role of Usage Context in Product Category Structures , 1991 .

[20]  David M. Boush,et al.  A Process-Tracing Study of Brand Extension Evaluation , 1991 .

[21]  Allan D. Shocker,et al.  Managing Brand Equity , 1991 .

[22]  B. Loken,et al.  Alternative Approaches to Understanding the Determinants of Typicality , 1990 .

[23]  Kevin Lane Keller,et al.  Consumer Evaluations of Brand Extensions , 1990 .

[24]  Peter H. Farquhar,et al.  A Relational Model For Category Extensions of Brands , 1990 .

[25]  Allan D. Shocker,et al.  Determining the competitive structure of product-markets : practices, issues, and suggestions , 1990 .

[26]  Deborah J. MacInnis,et al.  Product Category Perceptions, Elaborative Processing and Brand Name Extension Strategies , 1990 .

[27]  S. Bridges,et al.  A schema unification model of brand extensions , 1990 .

[28]  Sharon Shavitt,et al.  Operationalizing functional theories of attitude. , 1989 .

[29]  R. Fazio.  On the power and functionality of attitudes: The role of attitude accessibility. , 1989 .

[30]  Michael D. Johnson.  Comparability and Hierarchical Processing in Multialternative Choice , 1988 .

[31]  James C. Anderson,et al.  STRUCTURAL EQUATION MODELING IN PRACTICE: A REVIEW AND RECOMMENDED TWO-STEP APPROACH , 1988 .

[32]  D. Medin,et al.  Family resemblance, conceptual cohesiveness, and category construction , 1987, Cognitive Psychology.

[33]  Douglas L. Medin,et al.  Category cohesiveness, theories, and cognitive archeology. , 1987 .

[34]  Susan T. Fiske,et al.  Category-based versus piecemeal-based affective responses: Developments in schema-triggered affect. , 1986 .

[35]  R. Fazio.  How do attitudes guide behavior , 1986 .

[36]  L. Barsalou.  Ideals, central tendency, and frequency of instantiation as determinants of graded structure in categories. , 1985, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[37]  D. Medin,et al.  The role of theories in conceptual coherence. , 1985, Psychological review.

[38]  Michael D. Johnson.  Consumer Choice Strategies for Comparing Noncomparable Alternatives , 1984 .

[39]  L. Barsalou,et al.  Ad hoc categories , 1983, Memory & cognition.

[40]  Amos Tversky,et al.  Studies of similarity , 1978 .

[41]  A. Tversky.  Features of Similarity , 1977 .