Integrating Multiple Opinions: The Role of

Aspiration Level on Consumer Response to

Critic Consensus
PATRICIA M. WEST
SUSAN M. BRONIARCZYK*

Four studies examine the process by which consumers integrate critic opinions
and attribute information into their product evaluations and how critic consensus
affects this process. A reference-dependent model is proposed such that con-
sumer response to consensus depends on whether the average critic rating for
an alternative is above or below an aspiration level. Consensus is shown to be
preferred for alternatives above an aspiration level, whereas critic disagreement
is preferred for alternatives below an aspiration level. Consumers exhibited a
tendency to prefer critic disagreement for high-priced products or decisions asso-
ciated with high social risk because most alternatives fell below their high aspira-
tion levels.

O thers' opinions, such as reference groups and word-

of-mouth of friends, have been shown to influence
consumers' evaluations in addition to, or in place of, prod-
uct attribute information (Bearden and Etzel 1982; Rogers
1976). Although this research has demonstrated the im-
portance of others' opinions, surprisingly little attention
has been devoted to examining the process by which the
individual consumer integrates the opinions of mUltiple
others.
The purpose of this article is to examine the process
by which consumers integrate critic opinions and attribute
information into product evaluations and how critic con-
sensus affects this process. Consensus refers to the level
of agreement between critics. A high level of agreement
suggests that all concur on the product evaluation-albeit
favorably or unfavorably. When critics disagree, both fa-
vorable and unfavorable evaluations will tend to be aired.
We identify conditions under which consumers' evalua-
tions are influenced to a greater extent by agreement or
disagreement among critics using a simple argument
based on consumers' aspiration levels. An aspiration level
is a consumer's goal or expectation for the outcome of
the decision. In situations in which consumers have low
*Patricia M. West and Susan M. Broniarczyk are both assistant pro-
fessors of marketing at the University of Texas, CBA 7.202, Austin,
TX 78712. Thanks to Mark Alpert, Bart Bronnenberg, Steve Hoch,
Wayne Hoyer, Jay Koehler, Leigh McAlister, and participants at semi-
nars at the Wharton School and the University of Chicago for their
helpful comments on an earlier draft. Suggestions or feedback should
be forwarded to Patricia M. West.
38
expectations, disagreement among critics raises the possi-
bility that the product may fall short of an acceptable
level, and, hence, consumers prefer critic consensus. Al-
ternatively, when expectations are high, critic disagree-
ment improves the chance of meeting or exceeding the
goal, and, thus, consumers favor critic disagreement.
Importance of Others' Opinions
Consumers are likely to seek others' opinions to reduce
their cognitive effort or uncertainty as the perceived risk
associated with a purchase increases (Dowling and Stae-
lin 1994; Roselius 1971). Consumers may also seek out
others' opinions for guidance on novel products, products
with image-related attributes (King and Summers 1970),
or because attribute information is lacking or uninforma-
tive. Attribute information is often conflicting or difficult
to ascertain for experience attributes such as the handling
ability, comfort of ride, and driveability of an automobile
(Bone 1995; Hoch and Ha 1986).
Others' opinions are likely to be especially important
for experiential products because they offer indirect expe-
rience on sensory aspects not conveyed by tangible attri-
butes. Holbrook and Hirschman (1982) express dismay
at the traditional models of consumer evaluation, stating
that "many products project important nonverbal cues
that must be seen, heard, tasted, or smelled to be appreci-
ated properly" (p. 134). Examples of such products are
viewing a movie, eating at a restaurant, or sight-seeing.
Consumers purposefully seek out the opinions of others
for evaluating experiential products as demonstrated by
surveys that show that over a third of Americans seek the
1998 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc. - Vol. 25 - June 1998
All rights reserved. 0093-5301/99/2501-0003$03.00
INTEGRATING OPINIONS
advice of critics when selecting a movie (Wall Street
Journal 1994) and the advice of friends when selecting
a restaurant (Walker 1995).
The importance of others' opinions is corroborated by
the existence of critics, ranging from institutional critics
such as Consumer Reports to individual critics such as
Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, whose specific purpose is
to disseminate their evaluations of products. The influence
of critics on consumer judgments is substantial because
critics' access to product previews typically makes them
one of the first links in the diffusion of information about
new products. Furthermore, their professional status lends
them credibility. Our research examines consumer use of
others' opinions in the context of critic ratings of experi-
ential products. We focus on overall ratings rather than
on the information content contained in reviews, because
overall ratings have been shown to be more influential
than information content in affecting consumer interest
(Wyatt and Badger 1990).
However, an overall rating is dependent on the other's
perceptions of, and weighting function for, product attri-
butes and experiential aspects that may differ from one's
own (Einhorn and Koelb 1982). For example, a critic's
opinion of a restaurant may depend equally on service,
atmosphere, and food quality, whereas your own opinion
may be heavily influenced by food quality and less influ-
enced by atmosphere. In addition, experiential products
evoke many different emotional responses, thus rendering
the possibility for multiple interpretations of product ex-
perience (Eliashberg and Sawhney 1994; Hoch and Ha
1986). This suggests that an individual critic's opinion
may, or may not, be useful in assessing your own opinion.
When search costs are low, consumers may be moti-
vated to seek multiple critic opinions to resolve the prob-
lem (Payne, Bettman, and Johnson 1993; Shugan 1980).
In fact, some periodicals, such as Entertainment Weekly
and Premiere, compile film ratings of multiple critics in
a matrix format for their magazine readers and web site
viewers. The forecasting literature suggests that seeking
multiple opinions is the normatively correct strategy for
dealing with the idiosyncrasies of others' opinions (Cle-
men 1989; Clemen and Winkler 1986; Hogarth 1977;
Winkler 1989). Taking an average of these opinions in-
creases the reliability of the sensory information and re-
duces the influence of an outlier opinion. The simplicity
of an averaging strategy makes it attractive for consumers.
The conclusion of a vast number of studies on information
integration is that individuals combine separate pieces of
information into an overall evaluation by averaging them
(Anderson 1996; Kahn and Ross 1993).
Critic Consensus and Aspiration Level
Anecdotal evidence suggests that critic disagreement
is a salient cue to consumers. For instance, the popUlarity
of movie critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert is partially
a function of their spirited disagreements. Differences in
critic ratings are frequent (Boor 1990) because ofunrelia-
39
bility in sensory experiences, different latitudes of accep-
tance, or heterogeneity in personal preferences. Research
in decision making suggests that a lack of consensus in
opinions can create uncertainty for the consumer (Ells-
berg 1961; Hogarth 1989; Meyer 1981).
Prior research has shown that consumers respond nega-
tively to such uncertainty (Jaccard and Wood 1988). Spe-
cifically, consumers may completely reject an alternative
with conflicting opinions or ignore the inconsistent infor-
mation and use a discounted average value for the cate-
gory as a default valuation for the alternative (Jaccard
and Wood 1988; Meyer 1981; Ross and Creyer 1992).
Alternatively, consumers may use the critic information
by averaging the provided opinions but again discount
this value to adjust for critic disagreement (Meyer 1981 ) .
However, other research suggests that consumers' re-
sponse to uncertainty will depend on their reference point
(Kahneman and Tversky 1979; Levin et al. 1985; Payne,
Laughhunn, and Crum 1980, 1981). According to Kahne-
man and Tversky's (1979) prospect theory, when a deci-
sion outcome is framed as a gain (above the reference
point), individuals tend to be risk averse, preferring a
certain outcome over an uncertain outcome with equiva-
lent expected value. Conversely, when a decision outcome
is framed as a loss (below the reference point), individu-
als tend to be risk seeking, preferring an uncertain out-
come to an equivalent certain outcome.
This reference-dependent explanation of how consum-
ers respond to consensus is consistent with results ob-
served by Meyer (1981), whose subjects were asked to
evaluate restaurants given critic ratings. He found that for
restaurants whose average critic rating exceeded the mean
value across all restaurants, subjects exhibited decreased
utility when the critics' disagreed about the restaurant
quality. However, for restaurants whose average critic
rating fell below the mean restaurant rating, critic dis-
agreement did not increase utility but rather had no effect.
Further support for the reference-dependent model
comes from Kahn and Meyer (1991), who found that
consumer response to critic consensus regarding an attri-
bute's importance was dependent on whether the attribute
was framed as a gain (utility enhancing) or a loss (utility
preserving) relative to an implicit reference point, the
status quo. Their results show that in the face of critic
disagreement, consumers increased the importance of uti1-
ity-preserving attributes and decreased the importance of
utility-enhancing attributes in their overall evaluations of
the product. Our research extends and refines this work
by examining how shifting a consumer's reference point
for the decision outcome will influence response to critic
consensus for overall product utility.
We propose that to understand fully how a consumer
will respond to uncertainty in the form of critic disagree-
ment one must know the individual's aspiration level or
expectation for the decision outcome (Payne et al. 1980,
1981 ). Risk aversion is commonly observed for alterna-
tives that meet or exceed an individual's aspiration level,
whereas risk seeking can occur when an alternative falls
40
below an aspiration. For example, imagine two new mov-
ies have been released this week and rated by three critics.
Both movies received an average rating of three out of
four stars, but movie A had low consensus (two, three,
and four stars), whereas movie B had high consensus
(three ratings of three stars). We would predict that a
consumer with a high aspiration level (four stars) would
be more likely to choose movie A, whereas a consumer
with a low aspiration (two and one-half stars) would be
more likely to choose movie B. In situations in which
consumers have high expectations, critic disagreement
improves the chance of meeting or exceeding the goal
and, thus, consumers are expected to favor critic disagree-
ment. Alternatively, when expectations are low, disagree-
ment among critics raises the possibility that the product
may fall short of an acceptable level and, hence, consum-
ers are expected to prefer critic consensus.
Determinants of Aspiration Level
Tversky and Kahneman (1991) acknowledge that pros-
pect theory does not delineate the factors that influence
a consumer's reference point. For a decision outcome,
this reference point is likely to be an individual's aspira-
tion level as to what would constitute a satisfactory versus
an unsatisfactory outcome (Payne et al. 1980). For in-
stance, a wine connoisseur would be expected to have a
higher standard for an acceptable bottle of wine than an
occasional drinker and thus a higher aspiration or refer-
ence level. The connoisseur may therefore treat an aver-
age bottle of wine as a loss, whereas the occasional
drinker may treat the same experience as a gain.
We are interested in examining how variables associ-
ated with the decision context affect consumers' aspira-
tion level and thus their response to critic consensus. Four
studies are conducted to examine context factors that have
been shown to influence consumers' aspiration levels:
( 1) consumer expectations of product quality in a given
category (Meyer 1981;-Ross and Creyer 1992), (2) the
price of a product alternative (Bettman 1973; Huber and
McCann 1982; Levin, Johnson, and Faraone 1984), and
(3) the degree of social risk involved (Jacoby and Kaplan
1972).
The aspiration level may be determined by the average
quality in a given category, such that alternatives above
(below) the category average are viewed as gains
(losses). This average quality level may be data driven
by the average of the critic ratings across the alternative
set (Meyer 1981) or theory driven by consumer expecta-
tions from prior experience (Broniarczyk and Alba
1994). This is examined in study 1. Price may also influ-
ence consumers' aspiration levels, as prior research sug-
gests that consumers make price-quality inferences when
evaluating alternatives (Huber and McCann 1982; Levin
et al. 1984), with higher prices associated with higher
quality levels. Higher prices are also associated with
greater financial risk (Jacoby and Kaplan 1972) and thus
are related to a smaller percentage of outcomes deemed
JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH
acceptable by a consumer (Bettman 1973). Thus, in study
2 we expect to find that as price increases, consumers'
aspiration levels shift to a higher standard. Moreover,
the social risk associated with a decision is expected to
influence the location of the aspiration level. As social
risk increases, consumers' egos become more vulnerable
and they are expected to set higher standards for an ac-
ceptable outcome as a protection mechanism (Dowling
and Staelin 1994; Jacoby and Kaplan 1972). Thus, in
studies 3 and 4 we expect to find that as the perceived
social risk increases, consumers' aspiration levels shift
upward.
We propose that shifts in consumers' aspiration levels
that result from these changes in the decision context will
affect how they respond to critic disagreement. Specifi-
cally, we hypothesize that
HI: Consumer response to critic consensus will de-
pend on the aspiration level evoked by the deci-
sion context such that
(a) consumers will evaluate an alternative
more favorably when there is critic dis-
agreement than agreement if the average
of its critic opinions is below an
aspiration
level;
(b) consumers will evaluate an alternative
more favorably when there is critic agree-
ment than disagreement if the average of
its critic opinions is above an aspiration
level.
Critic Opinions and Personal Preference for
Product Attributes
Critic consensus may also have an impact on the rela-
tive weight consumers assign to critic opinions versus
their personal preference for product attributes. That is,
critic consensus may affect not only the valuation of the
critic ratings (Hypothesis 1) but also the weight this infor-
mation receives in consumers' final judgments. In the face
of critic disagreement, consumers may rely more on their
personal preference for product attribute values when
there is a lack of consensus among the critics than when
there is agreement about the quality of a given alternative
(Jaccard and Wood 1988).
H2: Consumers will respond to critic disagreement
by discounting the critic opinions and increas-
ing their reliance on product attribute informa-
tion in their evaluations.
Infonnativeness of Critic Opinions
Consumers may attempt to resolve inconsistency in
critic opinions by focusing on only a subset of the infor-
mation (Ganzach 1994). Differential attention to the indi-
vidual critics is expected to be influenced by critic infor-
mativeness. Assuming that each of the critics is equally
consistent in applying his or her judgment policy for eval-
INTEGRATING OPINIONS 41

uating alternatives, a critic whose ratings exhibit high TABLE 1

variance is more informative than a critic whose ratings CRITIC RATING INFORMATION
exhibit little variance (Coombs, Dawes, and Tversky
1970; Shannon and Weaver 1949). An earlier study Critic Critic Critic
(West 1996) found that consumers were sensitive to the Alternative A B C Average Variance
informativeness of others' opinions. Therefore, we expect
that they may weigh an informative critic's opinion more 1 9 9 4 7.33 8.33
heavily than the opinion of an uninformative critic. 2 9 5 6 6.67 4.33
3 8 4 6 6.00 4.00
H3: Consumers are sensitive to the informativeness 4 8 1 5 4.67 12.33
5 6 7 8 7.00 1.00
of critics when integrating their opinions for 6 5 6 4 5.00 1.00
evaluation of experiential products. 7 5 7 6 6.00 1.00
8 2 8 7 5.67 10.33
In summary, we expect to find that consumers use both 9 3 4 7 4.67 4.33
attribute information and critic opinions in evaluating 10 2 6 4 4.00 4.00
product alternatives. Critic opinions are used by consum- 11 10 10 5 8.33 8.33
ers to help predict their own preferences. These opinions 12 10 6 7 7.67 4.33
13 10 5 7 7.33 6.33
offer a form of indirect experience that is particularly 14 9 2 6 5.67 12.33
useful for experiential products. When multiple opinions 15 7 8 9 8.00 1.00
are provided, the consumer is faced with the task of inte- 16 6 7 5 6.00 1.00
grating the information. This task is relatively easy when 17 6 8 7 7.00 1.00
the individuals agree, but questions arise when there is a 18 3 9 8 6.67 10.33
19 3 4 7 4.67 4.33
lack of consensus. Consumers' response to disagreement 20 3 7 5 5.00 4.00
in critic opinions is expected to be influenced by the Average 6.20 6.15 6.15
aspiration level associated with their decision such that Variance 8.06 5.50 2.03
critic disagreement (agreement) results in more favorable
product evaluations for alternatives whose average critic
rating is below (above) the aspiration level. Consumers
may resolve critic disagreement by focusing more atten- cntlcs whose average ratings were approximately the
tion on product attribute values or attending to a subset same. Orthogonality among the critics was important to
of the critics who have shown a history of providing permit estimation of differential weighting of the three
informative opinions. critics; all critic intercorrelations in Table 1 are less than
.09. Second, in order to test the effect of aspiration level
METHODOLOGY on subjects' response to critic consensus we needed to
vary the average of the critic ratings as well as the level
Stimulus Development of agreement among the critics for a given alternative
(last column). In addition, we needed to have both high-
Two criteria guided the selection of product categories and low-consensus alternatives at all levels of average
for examining consumer response to critic consensus. First, critic rating. Critic consensus was operationalized as the
we required that the product category be relatively familiar variance among the three critic ratings for a given film.
to the subject. Familiarity with the evaluation task is im- This variance measure is consistent with Meyer (1981)
portant because it allows us to better capture how judgments and others who have examined cue consensus effects
are formed and how expectations and aspirations influence (Brannick and Brannick 1989; Ganzach 1994, 1995).
evaluations in a naturally occurring environment. This crite- Third, besides varying the level of critic disagreement,
rion rules out durable goods, which tend to be purchased we were also interested in manipulating individual critic
infrequently and for which many college students lack expe- informativeness. In order to accomplish this, the three
rience shopping. Second, we wanted a product for which critics must differ in the variance of their ratings across
consumers typically turn to the opinion of critics for advice. the set of 20 alternatives (last row). As indicated in the
The categories selected for testing were movies (study 1) table, Critic A (8.06) has a higher variance in ratings
and restaurants (studies 2-4). than Critic B (5.50), who has a higher variance in ratings
A core set of 20 alternatives, each induding three critic than Critic C (2.03). The set of alternatives presented in
ratings, was developed for use in studies 1- 3 (see Table Table 1 accomplishes all three of these objectives and
1 ) .1 Three goals were established for constructing this was used to construct the stimuli for the first three studies.
set of alternatives: First, we wanted to create orthogonal

lIn study 4, subjects were asked to make choices given pairs of
alternatives that had a common mean critic rating but differing levels
of critic consensus. Therefore, a separate set of alternatives was con-
structed for this task.
STUDY 1
The purpose of this study was to examine how critic
opinions and attribute information are integrated by sub-
jects to form product evaluations. The product category
42
used was movies, which is highly familiar to student parti-
cipants. We tested how an aspiration level, based on an
average movie quality, influenced subjects' response to
critic consensus.
Subjects and Design
Eighty-one undergraduate students participated in this
study. The subjects were recruited from a marketing re-
search class and given extra credit points and a coupon
for a free video rental as payment for participating. Each
subject's response to critic consensus was examined by
having individuals rate a series of 100 fictitious movie
descriptions. Each description included three critic ratings
(Critic A, Critic B, and Critic C), the film genre (action/
adventure, comedy, drama, drama/suspense, or romantic
comedy), and the principal and supporting performers
(chosen from a list of 50 top performers). The core set
of 20 alternatives, presented in Table 1, was used to con-
struct 100 movie descriptions by matching each of the
five film genres to one of the 20 triples of critic ratings
and then assigning a genre-appropriate cast of performers
to the film. 2
The order of presentation of the film information (critic
ratings vs. genre and performers) was counterbalanced
by presenting half of the subjects with movie descriptions
that displayed the critic ratings on top of the description,
while the other half of the subjects saw the critic ratings
below the film genre and performers. The ordering of the
three critics was also counterbalanced between subjects.
Each subject rated the 100 movies in one of three different
random orderings.
Procedure
Each subject was given a packet containing the experi-
mental materials. Subjects were told that the films that
they would be rating would soon be released in their area
and that a local cinema wanted to know about their level
of interest in the movies. Each of the 100 fictitious movies
was rated on either a lO-point "interest scale" (1 = not
at all interested, 10 = extremely interested) or a lO-point
"liking scale" (1 = horrible movie, 10 = excellent
movie) .3 Subjects completed the rating task at their own
pace.
A follow-up task to assess personal preference for prod-
uct attributes and average movie quality had subjects rate
80 recently released videos on a lO-point liking scale.
20ther factors are likely to influence consumer preference for a movie
including the director, film previews, and advertisements. However, for
the purpose of experimental control we have restricted our focus to
genre and performers that are often used for classifying movies both in
video stores and books. In order to avoid unrealistic combination~ of
genre and performers, two experts were asked to review the list of
fictitious movies, and changes were made based on their input.
3The results for the interest scale and liking scale were not statistically
different; therefore, the data were pooled together for all of the analyses.
JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH
For each video, only the title, genre, and performer infor-
mation were provided, and subjects were instructed to
rate only the videos they had seen. Finally, subjects se-
lected their five favorite performers from a list of 98
popular actors and actresses. The entire task took subjects
an average of 40 minutes to complete.
Aspiration Level. In this study, subjects' aspiration
level was not manipulated. Subjects' aspirations were based
on their expectations of averages movie quality (i.e., priors
for the category) and the average of the critic ratings pro-
vided (i.e., data driven by the alternative set). The average
rating (6.16) of previously viewed videos for the experi-
mental subjects was used as an estimate of "average movie
quality." This estimate of average movie quality was simi-
lar to that of an additional 60 pilot subjects and equivalent to
the average of the critics' ratings across the 20 alternatives
described in Table 1.
Measuring Personal Preference. The rank order of
genre and number of favorite performers were summed
together to create a variable labeled "personal prefer-
ence." To establish a rank ordering of the five film genres,
each subject's ratings of the previously viewed videos
were regressed on a set of dummy variables. The number
of favorite performers that a given fictitious movie con-
tained was computed on the basis of subjects' self re-
ported preference for popular actors and actresses.
Results
The following aggregate-level regression model was
used to test all model predictions using subject ratings as
the dependent variable:
Rating = bo + b l Critic A + b2 Critic B
+ b3 Critic C + b4 Consensus + b5 AL
+ b6 Consensus X AL + b7 Preference
+ bg Preference X Consensus (1)
+ b 9 Preference X AL
+ blO Preference X Consensus
X AL + e,
where the independent variables include the three critic
ratings, Critic A, Critic B, Critic C, the Consensus be-
tween the three ratings; AL is a dichotomous variable
representing whether the average of the critic ratings was
above or below the aspiration level (6.16), and Preference
captures the subject's personal preference for the film's
genre and performers. All two-way and three-way interac-
tions between Consensus, AL, and Preference were in-
cluded. The average parameter estimates of the models
are presented in Table 2.4
4For studies 1-3, hierarchical regressions including all main effects
first and then interactions were performed to test the robustness of the
predicted interaction between consensus and aspiration level. For all
three studies, the hierarchical results are consistent with the estimates
reported in Tables 2-3.
INTEGRATING OPINIONS 43

TABLE 2
RESULTS FROM STUDIES 1 AND 2

Study 1 Study 2

Source Estimate Standard error t-statistic Estimate Standard error t-statistic

Intercept 5.62 .06 102.20** 4.97 .03 164.63**

Critic A .19 .03 6.02** .49 .03 18.41**
Critic B .06 .04 1.54 .33 .02 13.37**
Critic C .07 .03 2.43* .16 .02 7.91**
Consensus -.22 .08 -2.77" -.26 .03 -10.10*'
AL .72 .11 6.35** 1.24 .05 22.59**
Preference .13 .02 6.99** .38 .02 16.08**
Consensus x AL .21 .12 1.80+ .16 .05 3.31*'
Preference x Consensus .01 .02 .69 -.01 .02 -.11
Preference x AL .12 .02 5.43** .11 .03 3.47**
Preference x Consensus x AL -.03 .03 -1.01 -.03 .03 -.93

+p '" .10.
'P'" .05.
"P'" .001.

Aspiration Level and Critic Consensus. We observed
a negative main effect of critic consensus, which indicated
that overall, subjects responded less positively to alterna-
tives when there was critic consensus than when there
was critic disagreement (bconsensus = -0.22, t(8,077)
= -2.77, p < .006). Consistent with Hypothesis 1, we
observed a marginally significant interaction between as-
piration level and critic consensus (bconsensus x AL = 0.21,
t(8,077) = 1.80, p < .07), which suggested that the
effect of critic consensus was dependent on consumers'
aspiration levels (see Fig. 1). 5 A follow-up analysis in
which the data were split by AL revealed that when the
average of the critic ratings fell below AL, subjects evalu-
ated alternatives more favorably when there was critic
disagreement than when there was critic consensus (p
< .005, one-tailed). Although the difference is not sig-
nificant, the pattern appeared to reverse when the critic
average exceeded the aspiration level, with subjects tend-
ing to evaluate alternatives less favorably when there was
critic disagreement, (p = .17, one-tailed).
Personal Preference for Product Attributes. As ex-
pected, we observed that preference for a film's genre and
performers is strongly associated with subjects' movie
evaluations (bPreference = .13, t(8,077) = 6.99,p < .0001).
We also observed that personal preference for product
attributes matters more for alternatives whose average
critic rating exceeds the aspiration level than for alterna-
tives whose average critic rating falls below the aspiration
level (bPreferencexAL = .12, t(8,077) = 5.43,p < .0001).
Inconsistent with Hypothesis 2, our analysis indicates
that subjects do not rely more heavily on their personal
5For graphic illustration purposes, alternatives were classified as high
or low consensus on the basis of a median split of the data; however,
consensus was represented as a continuous variable in the model.
preference for product attributes in the face of critic dis-
agreement (bPreference x Consensus = 0.01, t(8,077) = 0.69,
p > .50 and bpreference x Consensus X AL = -0.03, t( 8,077)
= -1.01, p > .30). Instead of discounting the critic opin-
ions when they disagree, subjects continue to pay atten-
tion to the critics. However, the focus of their attention
appears to shift either to the highest of the three critic
opinions for below AL alternatives or to the lowest of
the three critic opinions for above AL alternatives.
Critic Informativeness. Finally, we found support for
Hypothesis 3, the prediction that subjects are sensitive to
differences in the informativeness of individual critics,
and differentially weight them accordingly. The most in-
formative critic's opinion (Critic A) was weighted more
heavily than either the moderately informative critic
(bcriticA-CriticB = .13, P < .01), or the least informative
critic's opinion (bcriticA-CriticC = .12, P < .01), irrespec-
tive of the order of presentation of the three critic ratings.
Thus, consumers are sensitive to the diagnosticity of the
ratings provided by the critics.
Discussion
These results suggest a number of important findings
related to consumer information evaluation and predicted
preference. Not surprisingly, our results indicate that con-
sumers use more than product attribute information in
evaluating alternatives. The interaction between aspira-
tion level and personal preference for product attributes
indicates that an alternative needs to be high on both
average critic rating and preference for attributes in order
to receive a favorable evaluation. Surprisingly, critic opin-
ions are taken into consideration even in the face of critic
disagreement. We did not observe consumers shifting
their reliance to product attributes when there is a lack
of critic consensus. Consumers are sensitive to both the
44 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

FIGURE 1 is also clear that consumers are sensitive to the informa-

ASPIRATION LEVEL EFFECTS ON CONSUMER RESPONSE tiveness of others' opinions. Our results indicate that con-
TO CRITIC CONSENSUS sumers weight an informative critic's opinion more heav-
ily than an uninformative critic's opinion.
Study 1
8.50
STUDY 2
6.95
7.25
The purpose of this study was to replicate the results
5~82
C>

~ 6.00 -+- High Consensus found in study 1 in another product category, restaurants,
0:: ___ Low Consensus and to directly manipulate subjects' aspiration level via
4.75 5.42
the price of the alternatives.
3.50 - + - - - - - - + - - - - - - - 1
Below Above Subjects and Design
Aspiration Level
A total of 177 students (both business and nonbusi-
Study 2 ness) participated in the study and received either extra
course credit or payment of $7.00. Forty-five of the parti-
8.50 8.22 cipants were asked to provide additional information re-
garding their aspiration level.
7.25 Consumer reliance on critic opinions for evaluating
C>
c: various price-tier restaurants was examined by having
~ 6.00 subjects rate a series of 80 restaurant descriptions. Each
0:: -+- High Consensus
4.75 description included three critic ratings, the cuisine of the
--- Low Consensus
restaurant (Italian, Mexican, Chinese, or seafood), and
3.50
3.54
Below Above
the average price of the restaurants' entree offerings (low
= under $10; moderate = $10-$20; expensive = over
Aspiration Level $20). Once again, the core set of 20 alternatives, pre-
Study 3 sented in Table 1, was used to construct the 80 restaurant
8.50 descriptions by matching each of the four cuisines to one
7.79
of the 20 triples of critic ratings. As in study 1, the label-
7.25 ing of the three critics, as well as the order of presentation

4V
C> /57
c: of the critic ratings, cuisine, and price information, was
:a; 6.00 counterbalanced across subjects. Each subject rated the
0::
4.75 -+- High Consensus 80 restaurants in one of four different random orders. All
4.70 --- Low Consensus subjects were asked to rank order their preference for the
3.50 + - - - - - - - t - - - - - - - i cuisine types after completing the restaurant rating task
Below Above as a measure of personal preference.
Aspiration Level

degree of consensus among the critics and the informa-
tiveness of critic ratings.
Consumers' response to critic consensus is influenced
by their aspiration level. When the average rating of the
critics falls below the aspiration level, consumers prefer
variance in critic opinions because these alternatives offer
some opportunity to meet or exceed the consumers aspira-
tion level (one of the critics must have favorably evalu-
ated the product ). However, alternatives with equivalent
mean critic ratings that exhibit high critic consensus offer
no hope of achieving the desired level of utility or satis-
faction. Conversely, when the average rating of the critics
exceeds the aspiration level, consumers prefer consensus
in critic opinions because these alternatives are sure win-
ners. In these situations, consumers respond negatively
to critic disagreement because there is a chance their ex-
perience may fall short of their expectations (one of the
critics must have evaluated the product unfavorably). It
Procedure
The procedure used in this study was similar to that
used in study 1. Subjects were given a packet containing
all experimental materials. The opening instructions de-
scribed the rating task and explained that a new shopping
mall was going to open in the area and the management
was interested in getting students' opinions about poten-
tial restaurants to include. Subjects rated the hypothetical
restaurants at their own pace on the same 10-point interest
scale or liking scale used in study 1. 6 After the rating
task, all of the subjects were asked to rank order the four
restaurant cuisines presented. Forty-five of the subjects
were asked to provide additional information about their
aspiration level for the dining experience in the three
60nce again, the results for the interest scale and liking scale were
not statistically different; therefore, the data were pooled together for
all of the analyses.
INTEGRATING OPINIONS
price-tier restaurants. The entire task took subjects on
average 30 minutes to complete.
Aspiration Level. In order to check whether the price
manipulation influenced subjects' aspiration levels, we
asked 45 subjects to provide a self-report of their aspira-
tion level for the three price-tier restaurants. SpeCifically,
we asked subjects to provide the minimum standard that
they would find acceptable for an inexpensive, moderately
priced, and expensive restaurant. The response scale used
was identical to the restaurant rating scale (1 = horrible
restaurant and 10 = excellent restaurant). The average
aspiration level increased across the three price tiers
(Xlnexpensive = 4.44, XModeratelyPriced = 6.24, XExpensive = 8.32;
F(2, 122) = 97.24,p < .0001).
Results
A similar regression analysis to that performed in study
1 was used to test for the effect of aspiration level on
subjects' response to critic consensus. Subjects' aspiration
level was defined in terms of price and based on the self-
reports of 45 subjects (ALlnexpensive = 4.44, ALModerately Priced
= 6.24, ALExpensive = 8.32). Personal preference for res-
taurant cuisine was based on each subject's rank ordering
of the cuisines. The parameter estimates of the aggregate
model are presented in Table 2.
Aspiration Level and Critic Consensus. Once again,
we observed a negative main effect of critic consensus,
which indicates that overall, subjects responded less fa-
vorably to product alternatives in the face of critic consen-
sus than critic disagreement (bconsensus = -0.26, t( 13,229)
= -10.10, p < .0001). Consistent with Hypothesis 1,
we observed an interaction between critic consensus and
aspiration level (bconsensusxAL = 0.16, t(13,229) = 3.31,
p < .0001). The relationship between aspiration level
and critic consensus is illustrated in Figure 1. As in study
1, a follow-up analysis in which the data were split by
AL revealed that when the average of the critic ratings fell
below AL, subjects evaluated alternatives less favorably
when there was critic consensus than when there was
critic disagreement (p < .0001, one-tailed). The direction
of results for average critic ratings that exceeded the AL
was consistent with predictions; although marginally sig-
nificant (p = .09, one-tailed), subjects appeared to re-
spond move favorably when there was critic consensus
than when there was critic disagreement.
A second regression analysis was performed in order
to test whether the average of the product category or
aspiration level via price provides a better explanation of
subjects' response to critic consensus. This involved a
two-step process, similar to the procedure used for testing
for a mediating relationship between variables (Baron
and Kenny 1986). The model was first estimated using
the average of the critic ratings, AV = 6.17, as a dichoto-
mous variable to test for differential response to critic
consensus based on the set of alternatives. We observed a
negative interaction between consensus and average critic
45
rating (bconsensusxAV = -0.09, t(8,618) = -1.90, p
< .05). The price-tier-specific aspiration level, AL, was
then added to the model, along with interactions between
AL and Consensus, and AL and Preference. 7 When the
aspiration level was included in the model, this interaction
disappeared and instead we observed a positive interac-
tion between consensus and aspiration level (bconsensus x AV
= 0.08, t(8,618) = 0.90, p > .36; bconsensus x AL = 0.22,
t(8,618) = 2.95,p < .003) consistent with a reference-
dependent model.
Personal Preference for Product Attributes. We ob-
served that preference for a restaurant's cuisine is strongly
associated with subjects' ratings (bPreference = .38,
t(13,229) = 16.08,p <.0001). Consistent with study 1,
we observed that personal preference for product attri-
butes matters more for alternatives whose average critic
rating exceeds the aspiration level (bPreference x AL = 0.11,
t(13,229) = 3.47, p < .0005). Once again, we did not
find support for Hypothesis 2; there is no evidence that
subjects rely more heavily on their personal preference
of product attributes in the face of critic disagreement
(bPreferencexConsensus = -0.01, t(13,229) = -0.11, p >
.90). Subjects continue to pay attention to critic opinions
instead of discounting for disagreement. However, in the
face of disagreement the focus of their attention seems
to shift to either the high critic rating (below AL) or the
low critic rating (above AL).
Critic Informativeness. The results support Hypothesis
3 and indicate the subjects are sensitive to differences in
the informativeness of individual critics, and differentially
weight them accordingly. The most informative critic's
opinion was weighted more heavily than either of the
other critics' opinions (bcriticA-CriticB = .16, P < .001;
bCriticA- CriticC = .33, p < .0001; bCriticB-CriticC = .17, P
< .001).
Discussion
The results from study 2 indicate that aspiration level,
rather than the average of the product category, influences
how consumers will respond to a lack of consensus among
critic opinions. Here, a high price creates high aspirations,
and most product alternatives are likely to fall short of
subjects' expectations, placing them in the domain of
losses. Subjects respond with risk-seeking behavior,
whereby alternatives with critic disagreement are rated
more favorably than alternatives with critic agreement.
Conversely, a low price creates low aspirations, and thus
most product alternatives are likely to meet or exceed
subjects' expectations, placing them in the domain of
gains. Here we observe risk aversion, resulting in alterna-
tives with high critic consensus being rated more favor-
ably than alternatives where the critics disagree:
7Because the aspiration level for the moderately priced restaurants
was equivalent to the average of the critic ratings across alternatives,
we restricted this analysis to expensive and inexpensive restaurants only.
46
Our other results are also highly consistent with those
of study 1. Once again, we observed an interaction be-
tween aspiration level and personal preference for product
attributes, which indicated that critic opinions and/ or
product attributes appear to act as a screening mechanism
for evaluating alternatives. Again, we did not observe
consumers shifting their reliance to product attributes
when there was a lack of critic consensus. Finally, con-
sumers were shown to be sensitive to the informativeness
of others' opinions and weight an informative critic's
opinion more heavily than an uninformative critic's opin-
Ion.
STUDY 3
The purpose of this study was to replicate the aspiration
level results found in study 2 using another manipulation
of aspiration level, in this case social risk rather than
price. This is important because the financial limitations
of our student subject population in study 2 may have led
them to perceive high-price-tier restaurants as potential
options only if someone else was paying. Unlike in study
2, we did not incorporate subjects' personal preference
for restaurant cuisine because the joint nature of the deci-
sion task renders individual preference less relevant.
Subjects and Design
Fifty-three students participated in this study for com-
pensation and a lottery chance. Consumers' response to
critic consensus under different levels of perceived social
risk was examined by having subjects rate 20 restaurant
descriptions. Social risk was manipulated within subjects
by varying the decision context for evaluating restaurants,
either as a first date (high social risk) or dining with
a friend (low social risk). Each restaurant description
included only three critic ratings; alternatives were gener-
ated using the core set of 20 critic triples presented in
Table 1. Similar to studies 1 and 2, the ordering of the
three critics, as well as the random order of restaurant
presentation, was counterbalanced across subjects. Unlike
in study 2, subjects rated the 20 low-risk and the 20 high-
risk alternatives in separate blocks that were counterbal-
anced across subjects.
Procedure
The procedure used was similar to that used in studies
1 and 2. The opening instructions described a scenario in
which the subject had accepted a job and moved to an
unfamiliar city. The subject was asked to evaluate various
local restaurants for dining with a friend who came to
help them move or for dining with an attractive new
neighbor s/he met while moving in. Subjects were told
that all of the restaurants were in the same price range
and given an explicit budget constraint ( "your company
provides a $35 dining allowance"). All subjects were
exposed to both decision contexts (dining with a friend
JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH
and a first date). Subjects rated the hypothetical restau-
rants using the same lO-point liking scale as in studies 1
and 2. After the rating task, all subjects were asked to
provide additional information about their perceptions of
the risk involved in choosing a restaurant for a first date
versus for dining with a friend, as well as their aspiration
levels in the two dining situations. The task took an aver-
age of 25 minutes to complete.
Aspiration Level. In order to check whether the social
risk manipulation influenced subjects' aspiration levels,
we asked each of the subjects to provide a self-report of
their aspiration level for the two decision contexts. As in
study 2, subjects were asked to provide the minimum
standard that they would find acceptable for a restaurant
given the social context of the dining experience. The
response scale used was identical to the restaurant rating
scale (1 = horrible restaurant and 10 = excellent restau-
rant). As expected, the average aspiration level for the
two social contexts differed significantly (XPriend = 5.41,
XPirstDate = 7.00; F(1, 104) = 36.99,p < .0001).
Results
A regression analysis similar to that used in studies 1
and 2 was used to test the effect of aspiration level on
subjects' response to critic consensus. Gender was included
as a covariate in the analysis, as males and females may
differ in the perceived risk associated with dating. Al-
though males tended to rate restaurants lower, on average,
than females (bGender = - .09, t( 2,056) = -2.13, p < .04),
there is no evidence of gender differences in response to
critic consensus or aspiration level. A test for order effects
of the two scenarios revealed no difference in either sub-
jects' evaluations or response to critic consensus.
Subjects' aspiration levels were defined at the individ-
ual level based on their self-report for the two social
contexts. The parameter estimates of the aggregate model
are presented in Table 3.
Aspiration Level and Critic Consensus. We observed
a nonsignificant negative relationship between subject rat-
ings and critic consensus (bconsensus = -0.02, t(2,056)
= -1.03, p = .2). As predicted by Hypothesis 1, we ob-
served a significant interaction between critic consensus and
aspiration level (bconsensus x AL = 0.07, t( 2,056) = 2.04, p
< .04). The relationship between aspiration level and critic
consensus is illustrated in Figure 1. A follow-up analysis in
which the data were split by AL indicates a negative effect
of critic consensus below AL (p < .05) and a positive effect
of critic consensus above AL (p < .05).
As in study 2, we were interested in testing whether
the average of the product category or a risk-defined aspi-
ration level better explains subjects' response to critic
consensus. Therefore, a second regression analysis was
performed with the same two-step process reported ear-
lier. We found that when the model was estimated using
the average of the critic ratings to test for differential
response to critic consensus we observed a negative
INTEGRATING OPINIONS 47

TABLE 3
RESULTS FROM STUDIES 3 AND 4

Study 3 Study 4

Source Estimate Standard error t-statistic Estimate

Intercept 6.13 .05 131.40** .18 3.13*

Critic A .88 .02 37.15**
Critic B .70 .02 30.19**
Critic C .43 .02 20.03**
Consensus -.02 .04 -1.03 -.04 .11
AL -.09 .05 -1.90 -.10 .80
Gender -.09 .04 -2.13* -.14 1.80
Consensus x AL .07 .04 2.04* .21 3.99*
Gender x Consensus .03 .03 .79 -.22 4.11*
Gender x AL .03 .82 .41 -.09 .78
Gender x Consensus x AL .07 .08 .80 -.16 2.18

'p s; .05.
"p oS .001.

interaction between consensus and average rating
(bconsensus XAV = -0.11, t(2,111) = -2.03, p < .05).
However, when subjects' aspiration levels were included
in the model, this interaction disappeared and instead we
observed a positive interaction between consensus and
aspiration level (bconsensus x AV - 0.11 , t (2,109 )
= -1.49,p > .13; bconsensusxAL = 0.20, t(2,109) = 2.88,
p < .004).
Informativeness of Critics. Once again, the results
support Hypothesis 3 and indicate that the subjects are
sensitive to differences in the informativeness of individ-
ual critics and differentially weight them appropriately.
The most informative critic's opinion was weighted
more heavily than either of the other critics' opinions
(bcriticA-CriticB = .18, P < .001; bCriticA-CriticC = ,45, P
< .0001; bCriticB-CriticC = .27, P < .001).
Discussion
Consistent with studies 1 and 2, we observed that
changes in the decision context affect consumers' aspira-
tion levels and thus their response to critic consensus. As
social risk associated with the decision increased, subjects
set a higher standard for acceptability, resulting in the
average ratings of most product alternatives falling below
their aspiration level. In this loss domain, subjects rated
alternatives with critic disagreement more favorably than
critic consensus because those alternatives offered some
possibility, albeit sometimes remote, that the aspiration
level could be achieved. However, low perceived social
risk resulted in a low aspiration level, and subjects re-
sponded with risk aversion for the predominately gains
domain. The pattern of results corroborate the earlier
findings that the effect of critic consensus on product
evaluations depends on consumers' aspiration levels.
uation. Our results indicate a positive effect of critic dis-
agreement when an alternative falls below expectations,
and conversely a negative effect of critic disagreement for
alternatives exceeding expectations. This final study will
examine whether the proposed model can also account for
consumer choice. In choice, alternatives falling below the
aspiration level may be discarded from consideration with
minimal influence of critic consensus (Meyer 1981). As
in study 3, aspiration level is manipulated via the social
risk associated with the decision context.
Subjects and Design
One hundred thirty-nine students participated in this
study for extra course credit. Response to critic consensus
in differing social contexts was examined by having sub-
jects choose between restaurant pairs with equal mean
critic ratings but differing levels of critic consensus. Each
restaurant in the pair was rated by three critics on a 100-
point scale (100 = excellent restaurant, 0 = horrible res-
taurant).
Two pairs of restaurant alternatives were constructed
that varied in mean critic rating (40, 80); each pair con-
tained a low-variance (10.69) and high-variance (170.7)
option (low variance = 36, 40, 44; 76, 80, 84; vs. high
variance = 24, 40, 56; 64, 80, 96). Three filler pairs with
moderate variance were used to establish the range of the
scale (mean ratings of 30, 60, and 90). The presentation
of the alternatives was counterbalanced for mean critic
rating, position of the high-variance option, and order of
the critic ratings. As in study 3, social risk was manipu-
lated within subject by varying the decision context of
the choice task, either as a first date (high social risk) or
dining with a former roommate (low social risk). Deci-
sion context was counterbalanced between SUbjects.

STUDY 4 Procedure
In each of the previous studies, we have examined the As in study 3, the opening instructions outlined the
effect of critic consensus and aspirations on alternative eval- decision scenario (dining with a former roommate or a
48
first date). Subjects examined five pairs of restaurants in
each decision context and were asked to choose the pre-
ferred option in each pair. The three filler pairs preceded
the two focal pairs. A distracter task was completed prior
to examining the second decision context and subsequent
choices for the same five restaurant pairs. After the choice
task, subjects provided additional information about their
aspiration levels in the two dining scenarios. The task
took an average of 15 minutes to complete, including the
distracter task between the two decision contexts.
Aspiration Level. As in studies 2 and 3, subjects were
asked to provide the minimum standard that they would
find acceptable for a restaurant given the social context of
the dining experience. The average aspiration level for the
two social contexts differed significantly (XRoommate
= 59.45, XPirstDate = 74.87; t(l, 138) = 11.38,p < .0001).
Results
A categorical analysis was performed to test the effect
of aspiration level on response to critic consensus. A test
for order effects for the two scenarios revealed no differ-
ence in subjects' choices or response to critic consensus.
Gender was included as a covariate in the model, but,
unlike in study 3, we observed a gender difference in
response to critic consensus. In particular, males were
more likely to choose the low-consensus alternative than
females (male = 57 percent, female = 45.5 percent,
bGender x Consensus = -0.22, X2 (548) = 4.11, p < .05).
Once again, aspiration level was defined at the individ-
ual level on the basis of subjects' self-reports for the
two decision contexts. A disproportionate number of our
observations fell below (n = 425) rather than above (n
= 123) subjects' aspiration level because of relatively
high minimum standards. Consensus in critic ratings was
represented as a dichotomous variable (low vs. high).
The parameter estimates of the model are presented in
Table 3.
Consistent with studies 1-3, we observed a significant
interaction between critic consensus and aspiration level
(bconsensusxAL = 0.21, X2(548) = 3.99, p < .05). When
the pair's mean critic rating fell below their aspiration
level, subjects tended to choose the option with critic
disagreement (56.2 percent) more often than the option
with critic consensus (43.8 percent). However, when the
mean critic rating of the pair was above their aspiration
level, subjects were less likely to choose the option in
which critics disagreed (44.3 percent) than the option
with critic consensus (55.7 percent). A test for the simple
effects of the interaction once again indicates that critic
consensus had a negative effect below AL (p < .01, one-
tailed), and perhaps because of low sample size there
was a nonsignificant positive effect above AL (p = .17,
one-tailed) .
GENERAL DISCUSSION
We investigated how consumers integrate critic opin-
ions and attribute information into their product evalua-
JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH
tions. The results from all four studies indicate support
for the reference-dependent model. Consumers respond
differently to critic disagreement depending on whether
or not product quality or performance is perceived as
above or below their aspiration level. Our results show
that when experts' average opinions indicate that an alter-
native falls short ofthe aspiration level, consumers prefer
disagreement among opinions because at least one critic
rating (highest) suggests that they may meet or exceed
their aspiration level. However, when the experts are in
consensus that an alternative falls short of a consumer's
aspiration level, the consumer has no hope of achieving
the desired level of utility or satisfaction. Conversely,
when experts' average opinions indicate that a product's
quality or performance meets or exceeds the aspiration
level, consumers no longer prefer variance among opin-
ions and may actually prefer consensus. This suggests
that consumers are concerned about falling below their
aspiration level and thus focus their attention on the low
ratings. For these acceptable alternatives, consensus is
preferred because disagreement raises the possibility that
their experience may fall short of their expectations.
Prior research has demonstrated that consumers' aspi-
rations are influenced by the perceived risk associated
with a decision outcome. We directly manipulate the per-
ceived risk and thus aspirations via price and social risk.
Consumers exhibit a tendency to prefer critic disagree-
ment for high-priced products or decisions associated with
high social risk. This is due to the high expectations asso-
ciated with these contexts, which results in most alterna-
tives falling below the consumers' aspiration levels.
The interaction we observed between aspiration level
and consensus is consistent with what Ganzach (1994,
1995) refers to as evidence for use of simplifying heuris-
tics (i.e., conjunctive and disjunctive evaluation rules) to
deal with inconsistencies in information. Use of a disjunc-
tive rule is indicated by individuals' focusing more atten-
tion on high than on low values. Conversely, use of a
conjunctive rule is indicated by individuals' focusing
more attention on low than on high values. Cognitive
responses would need to be collected to confirm this pro-
cessing explanation.
Our results also shed further insight into consumer re-
action to information uncertainty (Jaccard and Wood
1988). Counter to prior research, we did not observe a
negative effect of disagreement on consumer evaluations;
in fact, we observed that alternatives are rated more favor-
ably in the face of disagreement than consensus. How-
ever, this result was driven by the fact that our subjects
had high aspiration levels, and thus the majority of alter-
natives fell within the domain of losses where we ex-
pected to see risk seeking. In addition, our mediation
analyses point out the need to measure consumer aspira-
tions (i.e., reference point) rather than rely on a central
tendency measure ( category average) to predict consumer
response to consensus. Finally, we did not find that con-
sumers attach less weight to critic opinions, relative to
product attribute values, in the face of critic disagreement.
INTEGRATING OPINIONS
This may be due to the fact that consumers recognize the
deficiency of product characteristics in capturing experi-
ential products or the difficulty of predicting the interplay
among attribute values. For instance, a consumer may
like both Meryl Streep and Mel Gibson but be unsure if
this acting combination has anyon-screen chemistry.
Consumers are more likely to face uncertainty for the
experiential products studied here because of their sensory
nature and the need for direct experience. The experiential
aspect of products is a continuum (Holbrook and Hirschman
1982) with even functional products composed of some
experience attributes such as dependability, convenience,
ease of use, and performance quality. Future research should
examine the impact of critic consensus for functional prod-
ucts and whether salience directed to experience attributes
reduces the importance of tangible attributes.
Of further interest is the integration of specific product
attribute information and summary evaluative ratings. Our
results indicate an interaction between aspiration level
and preference for product attribute values, which sug-
gests that one of these sources may be acting as a screen-
ing mechanism for evaluating potential alternatives.
Given our data, we cannot determine the exact order of
processing. However, it is clear that either personal pref-
erence for a product's attributes exerts a stronger influ-
ence on consumer evaluations for those receiving favor-
able critic evaluation, or critic ratings are given more
weight when an alternative's attributes are appealing. The
collection of process data would be required to resolve
this uncertainty. Future research also needs to examine
the role of the informative content in critic reviews in
shaping consumer learning of product attributes (West,
Brown, and Hoch 1996).
In addition, consumers appear to be sensitive to the differ-
ential informativeness of individual critics and weight their
opinions accordingly. An alternative explanation is that con-
sumers base their judgments on the extreme opinions for a
given alternative rather than learn the informational value
of a given critic. However, our results cast doubt on this
alternative explanation, given that Critic A and Critic B
were weighted differentially in studies 1-3 but were equally
likely to report extreme or outlier opinions. 8
8Two scoring rules were used for judging opinion extremity: (I) the
number of alternatives that a given critic gave the highest or lowest
rating among the three critics; (2) the number of "outlier" opinions
based on the endpoints of the scale (ratings of I, 2, 9, or 10). On the
basis of these scoring rules, and an examination of Table I, we observed
little difference in the number of times that Critic A (18) and Critic B
( 16) gave the highest or lowest rating relative to Critic C (8). Similarly,
Critic A (7) and Critic B (5) provided outlier opinions with roughly
the same frequency as Critic C (0). The extremity hypothesis would
predict little difference in weight between Critic A and Critic B, but
significantly less weight was assigned to Critic C. Alternatively, the
informativeness hypothesis would predict a linear ordering of the three
in terms of weight: Critic A > Critic B > Critic C. Our results indicate
that for study I, Critic A > Critic B = Critic C; and for studies 2 and
3 Critic A > Critic B > Critic C. This pattern is more consistent
with the informativeness hypothesis (Hypothesis 2) than the extremity
hypothesis.
49
In the real world, informativeness may act as a heuristic
for deciding to attend to a particular critic opinion. A
critic who consistently rates products as below or above
average runs the risk that his or her opinion will no longer
be valued by consumers. The task presented here did not
allow subjects to assess the level of fit between their own
opinion and the opinions of the individual critics. Future
research examining how consumers use critic opinions
when they have the opportunity to assess the value of
those opinions is warranted. Some research suggests that
critics may be hired on the basis of their ability to predict
the preferences of their target market (Eliashberg and
Shugan 1997). As our research design did not enable
examination of the interaction between critic consensus
and informativeness, future research might also examine
this topic.
This research allows us to extend the missing-informa-
tion paradigm (Levin et al. 1985) to account for how
consumers respond in the face of conflicting or inconsis-
tent information. Camerer and Weber (1992) recently
reviewed the research on ambiguity across multiple disci-
plines and concluded that "uncertainty about the compo-
sition of an urn of balls is just one kind of missing infor-
mation. Feeling ignorant about football or politics, having
doubts about which of several experts is right, wondering
whether your child has a predisposition to the side effects
of a vaccine, or being unsure about another country's
economy are all manifestations of missing information"
(p. 360). Consumer research has focused on missing in-
formation about product attributes and needs to examine
other forms of consumer uncertainty (Muthukrishnan
1995) . We expect that the results demonstrated here may
generalize outside of the domain of critic opinions to
any source of information with repeated observations. For
example, in financial markets where performance mea-
sures are readily available, response to stock volatility
may depend on both expected returns and consumer aspi-
rations.
Finally, there are two limitations of this work that war-
rant consideration. First, although our results are theoreti-
cally of interest and robust across decision contexts, driv-
ers of aspirations, evaluation, and intended choice, the
magnitude of the interaction between consensus and aspi-
ration level is not very large. This poses a practicallimita-
tion when there are individual differences in aspiration
level. However, it provides insight into why it may be
difficult to observe main effects of consensus in practice.
Second, Bettman (1973, 1975) points out that the per-
ceived risk involved in a decision is determined by the
importance of the decision outcome, as well as consum-
ers' perceptions of their chance of finding an acceptable
product. Although we have focused on the affect of aspi-
ration level on consumers' response to consensus, the
importance of the decision is also likely to influence their
response to uncertainty. As the importance of the decision
increases, the potential regret associated with making a
bad selection may cause consumers to exhibit caution in
their choices.
50
CONCLUSION
Critic opinions play an important role in consumer
evaluation of products, particularly so for experiential
products. But, critics do not always agree. Therefore, un-
derstanding how consumers react to critic disagreement
is of vital importance to companies who rely on expert
opinions to disseminate information about their products.
Our results suggest that consumers' expectations and aspi-
rations regarding the decision outcome playa crucial role
in determining how a person will respond in the face of
critic disagreement. The average expectation of product
quality in a category, price of given alternative, and social
risk associated with a decision are all shown to influence
a consumer's aspiration level. This aspiration level is im-
portant because it determines whether a given product is
perceived as meeting (a gain), or falling short of (a loss),
expectations. To the extent that consumers are driven to
meet or exceed their aspiration level, they are likely to
respond favorably to critic disagreement.
[Received April 1996. Revised August 1997. Brian
Sternthal and Robert E. Burnkrant served as editors
and Robert J. Meyer and Joel Huber served as
associate editors for this article.]
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