Effect of Disconfirmed Expectancy on Consumer Attributions: A Study of Durable Products

Abstract

The objective was to study the pattern of attributions under various conditions of expectancy disconfirmation in order to test the Zaltman & Wallendorf (1979) suggestions. Forty students of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, were selected as respondents. Two consumer durables, Color Television and Two-in-One (radio/tape player) were used as product stimuli to check on the generality of the attributional pattern.

The main findings of the present experiment are as follows.

1. Attribution processes in marketing and interpersonal situations are different. The differences are evident in the dominance of attributional factors and variations in information usage across products and in different disconfirmation conditions.

2. Raising consumer expectations in durable products seems to be a desirable marketing strategy. This is inferred from the pattern of attributions to product, company, and unrealistic consumers under high expectation conditions.

3. Product and company attributions, in general, dominate under different disconfirmation situations.

4. Building excessive attributes in a product does not lead to higher product attributions.

5. People did not distinguish between luck and chance factors. Also, both positive and negative disconfirmation situations Were partly attributed to chance factors.