A Test of the Underlying Processes of the Price-Induced Quality Perception

Abstract

It is well known that consumer’s quality perception is strongly affected by price. Higher priced products tend to be perceived to have better quality than lower priced products although the objective product quality is the same. However, it is less known the process through which quality perception is affected by price cues. The existing literature suggests three potential hypotheses (i.e., the selectiveprocessing hypothesis, the selective interpretation hypothesis, and the representativeness heuristic hypothesis) that explain the underlying processes of the price-induced quality perception. The current research tests among the three competing hypotheses and also examines the role of consumer knowledge as a moderating factor. An experiment was conducted to test the moderating role of the knowledge in the price-quality relationship and to investigate the underlying process. The results indicate that theinfluence of price on perceived quality differs between novices and experts. Expert consumers’quality perception is not significantly influenced by price and this finding is consistent with the extant literature. On the other hand, novice consumers’ quality perception is affected by price and the tests on the underlying process support for the representativeness heuristic hypothesis. Novice consumers assess that a high-priced brand should have good product quality due to the belief that high (low) price brands represent better (worse) brand quality and such a representativeness heuristic occurs without involving selective attention or selective interpretation price-consistent information.