1 Consumer-Product Skill Matching: The Effects of Difficulty on Relative Self-Assessment and Choice

Consumers infer their best product choice from comparative information about themselves and products (Prelec, Wernerfelt, and Zettelmeyer 1997). Though common, this “matching” process leads to unstable preferences when perceived product ranks change due to product array manipulations. This article proposes that another variable, task difficulty, also leads to inconsistent choices through the matching process. Accuracy resulting from matching is also assessed by exploring domains where comparative standing is based on measurable, objective skill. The present studies show that people rely heavily on their relative self-assessments in product choice, but these estimates are often inaccurate and thus lead to unintended and inconsistent choices. 4 It is a truism in marketing that consumers evaluate products not just on their inherent properties, but on where those products stand relative to other products. More recently, there is increasing evidence that consumers also evaluate products as a function of where they themselves stand relative to other consumers. For example, Moorman et al. (2004) showed that consumers rely on their perceived product expertise relative to other consumers as a guide for shopping behavior by searching and behaving in a way consistent with that level of expertise. Similar results have been shown regarding perceptions of relative susceptibility to disease (Menon, Block, and Ramanathan 2002) and relative success in future produc