Expectations and Subjective Experience

copies of this document for non-commercial purposes by any means, provided that this copyright notice appears on all such copies. 1 Recent research on consumer behavior has indicated that, contrary to most models in economics, information can affect consumers ’ subjective experience with a good. When consumers receive information about the quality of a good before experiencing the sensory characteristics of the good, the consumers ’ stated preferences for the goods have been affected. However, a study has yet to examine whether this affects consumers ’ purchasing decisions, or is limited to stated preference. This field experiment looks at the release of appellation information prior to and after tasting of wine, and uses sales of the two wines tasted as a dependent variable. In economic models of consumer choice, the role of information about a product is potentially germane in two ways: it may refine the consumer’s assessment of the product set, and/or it may enter as a utility-bearing input itself (e.g. one might value the Napa Valley appellation attached to a bottle of wine for the prestige that accompanies it). The introduction of information should be a-temporal and independent of order. It ought not to matter whether a consumer receives information about the contents of a product before tasting or after; according to theory, thei