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Article Excerpt
Consumer behavior is often driven by the extent to which consumers feel confident regarding their decisions, which frequently hinge, especially in high-stakes situations, on their information search. This article examines a multidimensional self-confidence concept to explore how consumer self-confidence influences information search. Findings of a mail survey document that high-confidence consumers engage in more intensive search activities and that demographic patterns shape consumer self-confidence scores. The findings empirically support a multidimensional measurement of self-confidence to predict search behavior and suggest avenues to enhance the self-confidence needed to produce positive marketplace experiences.
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The decisions that matter most in life are often the ones that we are least confident about making. While we may comfortably be choosing brands from supermarket shelves and finding the least-expensive gas station, the comfort level drops fast when decisions need to be made where consequences of a poor choice are large and, once made, difficult to reverse (Kunreuther et al. 2002). Trading off the ownership of a home versus debt repayment in mortgage decisions, quality of life versus longevity in complex health-care decisions, or high-quality private schooling versus student loan burdens in education decisions are complex and often stressful. Self-help books, talk shows, and magazine articles make a living from people's timidity in facing these decisions by identifying how these important decisions affect our future well-being and by offering solutions about how we should approach these high-stakes decisions in order to feel confident making these choices in the marketplace.
Although consumer confidence in the economy has been measured since 1967 in the U.S. Consumer Confidence Index, far less study has been devoted to consumers' perception of their own confidence in the marketplace, and further, whether their marketplace experiences are, by and large, positive. The academic literature supports the notion that CSC is closely related to positive experiences in the marketplace. Analyses of consumer behavior associate self-confidence, for example, with peoples' perceptions of their product knowledge (Park, Mothersbaugh, and Feick 1994), attention to product labeling (Barber, Almanza, and Donovan 2006; Barber, Ismail, and Taylor 2007), skepticism toward market claims (Brown and Krishna 2004; Tan and Tan 2007), market expertise and individualism (Chelminski and Coulter 2007a, 2007b), consumer utilitarian value, and hedonic orientation (Paridon 2006).
Among this research, the relationship between consumers' self-confidence and their efforts to acquire marketplace information assumes a significant role. The literature is divided on whether CSC, generally defined, encourages or inhibits consumers to acquire information; yet, this act has been hypothesized as a key predictor of high-quality decisions, and, presumably, positive marketplace experiences (Guo 2001; Payne, Bettman, and Johnson 1993; Payne, Bettman, and Schkade 1999). Thus, in the current research, we examine a multidimensional concept of CSC to determine its influence on acquiring information as measured by information search. By extension, our goal is to further understanding of those factors that enhance the ability of consumers to make high-quality, well-informed decisions, especially in high-stakes situations, to produce positive results. Thus, we also focus on the role of demographic predictors of the relationship between CSC and information search.
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
Consumer Self-Confidence
What makes a consumer a self-confident actor in the marketplace? Early research in consumer behavior and public policy addressed this question by resorting to measures of self-esteem developed in the psychological literature (Bearden, Hardesty, and Rose 2001). Among the most popular and well-utilized measures of self-esteem were the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (Rosenberg 1965) and the Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventories (Coopersmith 1981). Self-esteem refers to an individual's sense of his or her value or worth. High self-esteem has been related to making deliberate, well-planned, less compulsive purchasing decisions (Desarbo and Edwards 1996; Medina and Saegert 1996; Perry and Morris 2005; Roberts 1998; Scherhorn, Reisch, and Raab 1990) and to consumers who are more difficult to persuade and willing to pursue their consumer rights (Chaplin and John 2007; Ferraro, Shiv, and Bettman 2005).
Although self-esteem and CSC are closely related, efforts have been undertaken to develop measures of self-confidence that are specifically targeted to consumer and marketplace situations. These efforts are commendable because self-esteem scales themselves were originally developed with quite specific purposes and audiences in mind, such as young adults or adults' suffering from anxiety and depression (Blascovich and Tomaka 1991). In this line of thought, it was argued that a measure "more closely tied to consumer phenomena may prove useful in efforts to investigate the role of confidence in the understanding of consumer behavior" (Bearden, Hardesty, and Rose 2001, p. 122). In a ground-breaking paper, Bearden, Hardesty, and Rose (2001) (in short: BHR) propose a CSC measure that consists of the two higher level dimensions that had emerged in the original self-esteem research. One reflects people's perceived ability to make effective consumer decisions, including searching for information, identifying acceptable choice alternatives, and making personally and socially satisfying decisions. The other one reflects consumers' perceived ability to protect themselves, including their apprehending persuasion tactics used by marketers and expressing consumer rights in the marketplace.
Developed from the results of seven smaller studies in their 2001 publication, which included comparing the new measure to competing measures such as Rosenberg's (1965) self-esteem scale, Wright's (1975) information processing confidence measure, Bagozzi and Heatherton's (1994) structural self-esteem model, and Park, Mothersbaugh, and Feick's (1994) measure of subjective product knowledge, BHR's CSC measure provided stronger support to the hypothesized relationships than had been found earlier in consumer research. Their final multidimensional model, then, consisted of thirty-one statements that were grouped into six factors, which, in turn, represented the two dimensions, decision-making self-confidence and consumer protection.
The first factor in this multidimensional model, information acquisition (IA) and processing, measures individuals' perceived confidence in gathering and processing consumer information provided in the marketplace (Bearden, Hardesty, and Rose 2001). This CSC measure has been frequently cited as an important construct for understanding variations in situational and ongoing information search (Beatty and Smith 1987; Bloch, Sherrell, and Ridgway 1986; Guo 2001). Consideration set formation (CSF) measures consumer confidence in reducing choice alternatives to an acceptable set of options. Research on consumer choice processes document these selection processes as a necessary step in the decision making (Bettman, Luce, and Payne 1998; Payne, Bettman, and Schkade 1999). BHR proposed that consumers diverge in the confidence needed to select among alternative choices the ones that have the greatest effect on meeting consumption goals.
The personal outcomes (PO) and social outcomes (SO) measures of selfconfidence are defined as the confidence in one's ability to meet information search objectives such that choices generate positive outcomes for oneself and in the reactions of others. The PO measure recognizes "that consumers must make decisions routinely regarding the choice and purchase of information and that these decisions result in outcomes that elicit personal feelings of satisfaction" (Bearden, Hardesty, and Rose 2001, p. 123). The SO measure acknowledges the reaction from the consumer's social network to information choices that impact CSC in decision making. These four self-confidence measures gauge the consumers' belief regarding their ability to make sound judgments and are termed "decision-making self-confidence."
The challenges of the marketplace are the focus of the last two BHR multidimensional CSC measures. The persuasion knowledge (PK) measure evaluates the individuals' confidence in their ability to understand and manage tactics used by marketers to persuade consumers. It was based on research examining the relationship between consumer knowledge and their response to persuasion attempts (Friedstad and Wright 1994). The second dimension, marketplace interface, addresses consumer confidence in asserting and expressing their rights in the marketplace. These two measures, PK and marketplace interface, are termed "protection self-confidence."
BHR also suggest that consumer demographic characteristics are closely related to CSC and may serve as substitutes. Knowledge of relations between CSC and their demographic characteristics is suggested to increase the value of the construct since levels of CSC could then be described by more widely available demographic characteristics. This assumption is grounded in the findings of the self-esteem literature, which identified a number of relevant demographic factors such as age, sex, marital status, educational status, employment status, and income. While several studies have since used the CSC scale in survey research (Table 1), only a few have explored the relations between CSC constructs and demographic characteristics. As Table 1 shows, BHR identified women as expressing greater confidence in social outcome and CSF. Tan and Tan (2007) found a positive relation for age. Chelminski and Coulter (2007a, 2007b) found no relations for gender, education, age, or income.
Because the extant literature on CSC is limited, the corresponding self-esteem literature provides some direction in identifying potential relations with the most commonly used demographic factors. Self-esteem is considered to be stable over long periods in people's lives (McMullin and Cairney 2004; Trzesniewski, Donnellan, and Robins 2003). Similarly, differences in self-esteem in racial comparisons and rural versus urban location of residence appear to be small (Yang and Fetsch 2007; Zeigler-Hill 2007).
Evidence suggests that men have higher self-esteem than women (Kling et al. 1999; O'Brien 1991). The observed difference has been explained with social learning, gender development, and social role theory (Eagly, Wood, and Diekman 2000; Kite 2001), but it appears that the differences between the genders are receding as gender stereotypes continue to evolve over time (Hyde 2005). An increase in family size has been found to have a negative effect on self-esteem when comparing one child families versus those with several children (Hoelter and Harper 1987). With respect to marital status, lower self-esteem has been found in divorced or separated women, compared to married women (Shackelford 2001; Voss, Markiewicz, and Doyle 1999). Low self-esteem has also been related to lower levels of education (Smith 2002). In an indirect way, higher levels of formal education lead to higher status jobs, which, in turn, tend to have a positive impact on self-esteem (Bachman and O'Malley 1977, 1986). Taking into account variables such as age, previous occupational status, and degree of social support, an association between low self-esteem and unemployment is also likely (Feather 1982; Salsali and Silverstone 2003). Higher income has been found to be associated with higher self-esteem, with the effect size increasing over time for women (Rohe and Basolo 1997; Twenge and Campbell 2002).
Taken together, the demographic relationships with CSC have not been thoroughly examined, but the related self-esteem literature provides good guidance for commonly used demographics. The present study aims to examine the relationship between the CSC measures and the following nine demographic variables: age, gender, ethnicity, marital status, education, family size, household income, employment, and location of residence. Leaning on the self-esteem literature, it is likely that male, married, higher educated, full-time employed and higher income consumers living in larger families exhibit higher levels of self-confidence. Age, race, and location of residence would appear not to influence CSC.
Consumer Information Search
Consumer information search is commonly defined as the degree of attention, perception, and effort directed toward obtaining information related to consumer products and services (Beatty and Smith 1987). In a nutshell, consumer information search refers to everything but memory when searching for information (Srinivasan 1990). Our analysis of consumer information search focuses on general IA about current consumer topics of interest, such as nutrition, health, family, financial, environmental, business, and community matters. This approach follows the widely used, extended framework for consumer search behavior proposed by Bloch, Sherrell, and Ridgway (1986). This framework conceptualizes consumer search as "independent of specific purchase needs or decisions" (Bloch, Sherrell, and...
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