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2008 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc.

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Vol. 35

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April 2009All rights reserved. 0093-5301/2009/3506-0006$10.00. DOI: 10.1086/593947

Specification Seeking: How ProductSpecifications Influence Consumer Preference

CHRISTOPHER K. HSEEYANG YANGYANGJIE GUJIE CHEN

We offer a framework about when and how specifications (e.g., megapixels of acamera and number of air bags in a massage chair) influence consumer prefer-ences and report five studies that test the framework. Studies 1–3 show that evenwhen consumers can directly experience the relevant products and the specifi-cations carry little or no new information, their preference is still influenced byspecifications, including specifications that are self-generated and by definitionspurious and specifications that the respondents themselves deem uninformative.Studies 4 and 5 show that relative to choice, hedonic preference (liking) is morestable and less influenced by specifications.

What’s in a name? That which we call a roseBy any other name would smell as sweet.(Shakespeare,

Romeo and Juliet

, 2.2.1–2)

his article seeks to address a marketing-relevant yetlargely under-studied topic—how quantitative specifi-cations influence consumer preferences. Virtually all con-sumer products carry quantitative specifications—numbersthat describe their underlying attributes. Examples includethe ISO rating of print film, the resolution (pixel count) of a digital camera, the output wattage of an audio amplifier,the calorie count of a serving of cookies, the number of airbags in a massage chair, the contrast ratio of a computermonitor, the horsepower of a sports car, and so on. Suchspecification information is ubiquitous—it is printed on the

*Christopher K. Hsee is Theodore O. Yntema Professor of BehavioralSciences and Marketing at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. Yang Yang and Yangjie Gu are graduate students and Jie Chenis an associate professor atthe ShanghaiJiao Tong UniversityAntaiCollegeof Economics and Management. The authors thank the Center for DecisionResearch at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, Tem-pleton Foundation, the Shanghai Jiao Tong University Antai School of Economics and Management, and the National Natural Science Foundationof China (grants 70832004 and 70672076)forresearch support.Theauthorsalso thank the following individuals for their helpful comments on earlierdrafts: Xianchi Dai, Moshe Hoffman, Dilip Soman, and Jiao Zhang. Cor-respondence concerning this article should be addressed to Christopher K.Hsee at chris.hsee@chicagogsb.edu.

John Deighton served as editor and Stephen Nowlis served as associateeditor for this article. Electronically published October 21, 2008

box of a product or on the body of the product itself, it iscirculated in advertisements, it is posted online, and it iscommunicated to us by our friends. Despitetheirwidespreadexistence, however, we know little about how quantitativespecifications affect consumer behavior. This article seeksto fill this gap.In many situations, quantitative specifications provideuseful information for potential buyers to predict their con-sumption experiencewith theproductstheyconsiderbuying.For instance, suppose that a person shopping for a laptopcomputer chooses between a model with a weight specifi-cation of 3 pounds and another model with a weight spec-ification of 4 pounds. He is shopping online and cannotdirectly experience the actual weight, but he has ownedlaptops in the past and knows what it feels like to carry a3-pound laptop and what it feels like to carry a 4-poundlaptop. Under these conditions, the weight specifications—3versus 4 pounds—are highly informative, and he should usethe information to guide his choice. Likewise, suppose thata person shopping for snacks chooses between a brand of cookies with a calorie count of 100 per serving and anotherbrand with a calorie count of 50 per serving. Obviously, atthe time of choice, it is impossible for her to experience thefuture health consequences of consuming these two typesof cookies. Yet we assume that she is knowledgeable aboutcalories and knows the expected health consequences of consuming different amounts of calories. Under these con-ditions, it is perfectly reasonable for her to use specifiedcalorie counts to guide her purchase decision.In other situations, however, buyers can immediately anddirectly experience the consequences of using the products

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JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

under consideration, and atthesametimetheyareunfamiliarwith the provided specifications and do not know how totranslate these numbers to their consumption experience. Inthese situations, the specifications carry little or no addi-tional useful information. For example, when shopping foran MP4 player in a physical store, consumers can usuallyview the relevant models and experience the quality of theirscreens, yet few know how to map a given resolution spec-ification (e.g., 76800) onto their viewing experience. Like-wise, when buying a stereo system in an audio store, con-sumers can usually audition the interested models, yet fewhave the knowledge of how specifications such as “anoutputpower of 200 watts” or “a distortion rate of 0.08%” relateto their listening experience. As one more example, whenpurchasing a massage chair, consumers can usually try theavailable models and experience the movements, yet fewunderstand what it means for a chair to have “36 air bags.”In situations like these, specifications convey little or noadditional information to help the buyers to predict theirfuture consumption experience beyond what they have al-ready known by directly trying the product. In these situ-ations, buyers should base their purchase choice on theirdirect experiences rather than on specifications.The present research resembles yet differs from existingresearch comparing experiential and nonexperiential infor-mation, such as research on direct and indirect experience(e.g., Hamilton and Thompson 2007; Thompson, Hamilton,and Rust 2005), on search and experiential attributes (e.g.,Kempf and Smith 1998; Wright and Lynch 1995), and onadvertisement and evidence (e.g., Deighton 1984). In mostprior research, nonexperiential information and experientialinformation pertain to different attributes. For example, asearch attribute of a pillow is its price, and an experientialattribute of a pillow is its softness. In the current research,quantitative specifications and consumption experience con-cern the same underlying attribute, for example, softness of a pillow. Moreover, existing distinctions, such as the onebetween direct and indirect experiences, are proposed to testdifferent hypotheses than ours. For example, Thompson andher coauthors (e.g., Hamilton and Thompson 2007; Thomp-son et al. 2005) hypothesized and demonstrated that an in-direct experience with a product (e.g., reading about it) trig-gers a high-level mental construal and promptstheconsumerto focus on its desirability, whereas a direct experience withthe product (e.g., trying it) triggers low-level mental con-strual and prompts the consumer to focus on its feasibility.In the present research we are not interested in testing theconstrual-level theory.The rest of the article is organized as follows. We firstreview relevant literature, offer our first general hypothesis(hypothesis 1) about the basic effect of specifications, andexamine its two concrete corollaries (hypotheses 1a and 1b).We then offer another general hypothesis (hypothesis 2)about a boundary condition of the basic specification effect.Next, we report five experiments, including one that in-volves real consumption (eating potato chips). Finally, wediscuss the implications of this research for marketing prac-tice and consumer welfare.

HYPOTHESIS 1: THE SPECIFICATIONEFFECT

In this research, we attempt to demonstrate that even insituations in which consumers can directly experience theconsumption consequence of the relevant options and spec-ifications add little or no additional information, they stillseek specifications—choosing options with better specifi-cations at the expense of other considerations.Our notion of specification seeking is inspired by severalexisting lines of research. The distinction between specifi-cations and underlying experiences is similar to the dis-tinction between proxy and fundamental attributes (Fischeret al. 1987; Keeney 1994; Keeney and Raiffa 1976). Afundamental attribute refers to an objective with which thedecision maker is concerned, and a proxy attribute is anindirect and imperfect measure of the fundamental attribute.Decision makers often fail to sufficiently distinguish proxiesfrom fundamentals. For example, in a study conducted byFischer et al. (1987), participants evaluated alternative pol-lution control programs either when informed of the fun-damental consequences of these options (pollution-relatedillness) or when informed of a proxy consequence (emissionlevels) and the relationship between the proxy and the fun-damental variables. They failed to adequately take into con-sideration the imperfect relationship between the proxy andthe fundamental attributes and weighted the proxy attributemore heavily than normatively warranted.Our research extends the literature on proxy and funda-mental attributes in two directions. First, it relates it to oneof the most relevant topics in marketing—the relationshipbetween specifications (proxies) and the underlying expe-riences (fundamentals). Second, our research has a differentobjective than prior research. Prior research (e.g., Fischeret al. 1987) tests whether decision makers who are providedonly with proxy attributes are able to convert those proxiesinto the underlying fundamentals. Ourresearchtestswhetherdecision makers who are presented with both the underlyingexperiences and superfluous specifications are able to ignorethose specifications. Our research also extends prior literatureon advertisement and experience showing that consumerswho can assess the quality of a product through direct ex-perience are unaffected by advertisements (Hoch and Ha1986). Our research seeks to show that even consumers whocan assess the quality of a product through direct experiencemay still be influenced by its specifications.The present work also builds on existing research on me-dium maximization (Hsee, Yu, et al. 2003; Kivetz and Si-monson 2003; Van Osselaer, Alba, and Manchanda 2004).A medium is a reward people receive after they exert effort,and it has no intrinsic value except that it can be exchangedfor desired goods. Examples of a medium include pointsfrom loyalty programs and miles from frequent flyer pro-grams. Decision makers often choose options that award

SPECIFICATION SEEKING

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more media rather than options that correspond to moredesirable final outcomes. For example, in a study reportedin Hsee, Yu, et al. (2003), participants were given a choicebetween a short proofreading task that would award 60points and a longer proofreading task that would award 100points and were told that 60 points would entitle them to aserving of vanilla ice cream and 100 points would entitlethem to an equally large serving of pistachio ice cream.Most participants opted for the longer task. But when askedlater which flavor they would enjoy more, most favored thevanilla ice cream. Medium maximization can be consideredas a special case of specification maximization. Likeaspeci-fication, a medium has no intrinsic value. Decision makersought to ignore media if they know which option corre-sponds to what final outcome and know which outcome theywill enjoy more. Likewise, buyers ought to ignore specifi-cations if they can experience the underlying attributes andknow which option carries more consumption utility. Butin reality such normatively superfluous numbers have a pro-found influence on decision makers.Another line of research that has inspired thepresentwork is on money illusion—a tendency to base judgment on thenominal value of money rather than on its real purchasingpower (Fehr and Tyran 2001; Raghubir and Srivastava2002;Shafir, Diamond, and Tversky 1997; Wertenbroch, Soman,and Chattopadhyay 2007). For example, travelers rely onthe nominal value of a foreign currency relative to theirhome currency to make purchasing decisions, even thoughthey are aware of the exchange rate between the foreigncurrency and their home currency. This, as well as otherresearch (e.g., Chinander and Schweitzer 2003; Silvera, Jo-sephs, and Giesler 2001), suggests that people pursue spe-cious proxies. Our research extends the prior research bypositing that consumers pursue specious specifications evenwhen fundamental experiences are available.To summarize, ourpropositionhereisthatconsumersseek quantitative specifications even in situations in which theydo not know how to use these numbers yet they can directlyexperience the relevant products. This proposition leads toour first general hypothesis:

H1:

Speciﬁcations can change consumer choice evenif experiences are available and speciﬁcationsprovide little or no additional predictive infor-mation.Formally, let

and

denote the speciﬁcations of twoproducts (A and B) on a given attribute, for example, thespeciﬁed screen resolutions of two MP4 players. Let

and

denote the corresponding direct experiences, for example,the experienced screen sharpness of the two MP4 players. Letdenote the likelihood that thebuyer willpurchaseproduct

A B

A instead of B. The likelihood can be modeled roughly as

s e

A A

+ (1



) ,

(1)

A B

s e

B B

where

, the weight of speciﬁcations, is greater than zero.We adopt a ratio form because people largely evaluate theadvantage of one option over another in relative terms (e.g.,Hsee, Yu, et al. 2003; Shaﬁr, Osherson, and Smith 1993).In the equation we assume greater

’s and

’s are better.The equation should be reversed in cases in which smaller

’s and

’s are better, for example, with the noise of an airconditioner.Normatively, if buyers have full access to

’s, and

’soffer no additional predictive information, they should ig-nore the

’s and base their decisions on the

’s. That is,

should be zero. Contrary to the normative perspective, whatour ﬁrst general hypothesis (hypothesis 1) posits is that evenin these situations buyers base their purchase decisions on

’s or on some combination of

’s and

’s. In other words,

is not zero.It is important to note that if were equal to ,

s e

A B A B

then would be the same regardless of whether buyers

A B

base their decisions on or on , that is, regardless

s e

A B A B

of what

is. In reality, however, and often differ,

s e

A B A B

and, therefore, the resulting will also differ depending

A B

on whether buyers rely on or on . For example,

s e

A B A B

suppose that a jade shopper who is fond of green jade en-counters two pieces of jade. By just looking at the jewelry,one piece looks only slightly greener than the other. But bysome greenness index (a type of specification) ascribed bythe jade producer, the greener piece has a much higher indexnumber. According to our model, the jade shopper is morelikely to buy the greener jade if she attends to the indexthan if she ignores it.The above general hypothesis yields two concrete andtestable subhypotheses (corollaries). The first concerns thepresence or absence of specifications and can be easily in-ferred from our model (eq. 1):

H1a:

Holding the underlying attributes constant, thepresence or absence of speciﬁcationscanchangeconsumer preference. Speciﬁcally, when facedwithtwooptions,AandB,where isgreater

A B

(smaller) than , people will be more (less)

A B

likely to choose A over B if the

’s are pre-sented than if they are not.The second subhypothesis concerns how the speciﬁca-tions are described. The same attributes may be describedin different ways, yielding different ratios. For ex-

A B

ample, the size of a circle can be speciﬁed either by its areaor by its diameter. Because area is a function of diametersquared, the ratio of a large circle over a small circle, whenexpressed in area versus in diameter, would be different. Acircle with a diameter of 4 centimeters is the same as onewith an area of 12.56 square centimeters; a circle with adiameter of 2 centimeters is the same as one with an areaof 3.14 square centimeters. In terms of areas, the ratio of the large circle over the small one is 4; in terms ofdiameters,it is only 2.Normatively, describing the same attributes differentlyshould not affect consumer preference. A rose will smell assweet, regardless of what it is called. However, according