Numerical information is ubiquitous in modern life. The prevalence of numerical information in the marketplace necessitates understanding how consumers handle and interpret that information, for both theoretical and practical reasons. Past research has largely focused on consumers’ encoding of numbers, calculative limitations, and usage of heuristics. This dissertation will contribute to this burgeoning literature in several ways. First, I identify a general tendency in how consumers calculate ratios based on an intuitive model of division. Specifically, consumers tend to divide larger numbers by smaller numbers. The intuitive model of division has marketing implications for both consumers’ evaluations of quantity offers and sensitivities to promotions. Next, I examine how consumers draw inferences from distributional information. In contrast to the assumption that consumers utilize means to assess central tendency, I demonstrate that consumers use the modal response to judge what is typical, with implications for consumers’ inferences about product ratings and other social distributions. / PHD / Numerical information is ubiquitous in modern life. The prevalence of numerical information in the marketplace necessitates understanding how consumers handle and interpret that information, for both theoretical and practical reasons. Past research has largely focused on how consumers’ mentally perceive numbers, how difficult it is to engage in calculation, and usage of mental shortcuts. This dissertation will contribute to this burgeoning literature in several ways. First, I identify a general tendency in how consumers calculate ratios based on an intuitive model of division. Specifically, consumers tend to divide larger numbers by smaller numbers. The intuitive model of division has marketing implications for both consumers’ evaluations of quantity offers and sensitivities to promotions. Next, I examine how consumers draw inferences from distributional information. In contrast to the assumption that consumers utilize means to assess central tendency, I demonstrate that consumers use the modal response to judge what is typical, with implications for consumers’ inferences about product ratings and other social distributions.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/94318 |
| Date | 09 April 2018 |
| Creators | Villanova, Daniel Joseph Bodin |
| Contributors | Marketing, Bagchi, Rajesh, Herr, Paul Michael, Kardes, Frank R., Ince, Elise C., Pandelaere, Mario, Chaxel, Anne-Sophie |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Dissertation |
| Format | ETD, application/pdf |
| Rights | In Copyright, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
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