The Effect of Regulatory Orientation and Decision Strategy on Brand Judgments

Four studies investigate how consumers ’ regulatory orientation and the decision strategies used to process message information affect their judgments. Evaluations of the chosen brand were more favorable when individuals with a prevention focus used decision strategies that enhanced the accuracy of a decision outcome than when they used strategies that facilitated progress toward a decision, whereas the opposite outcome occurred for those with a promotion focus. These findings emerged whether the decision strategies were prompted by instructions about how to make a decision or by the message presentation format, and they were mediated by a subjective experience of confidence. These observations suggest that judg-ments are influenced by the decision makers ’ feelings about how information is processed that are independent of the message content. Investigations of consumer decision making suggest thatchoice is based on individuals ’ assessment of product attribute information that is guided by a decision strategy (Bettman, Luce, and Payne 1998; Payne, Bettman, and John-son 1993). Depending on the context, the decision strateg