THE EFFECTS OF MISSING INFORMATION ON CONSUMER PRODUCT EVALUATIONS

Previous research on the effects of missing information on consumer evaluation tended to present attribute dimensions to consumers and then inform them that the information on those dimensions is missing. We argue that the mere presentation of an attribute dimension is sufficient to induce inferences that might otherwise not have been made by subjects. The results of an experiment where subjects were presented only those attributes on which information was available show that missing information has little effect on consumer evaluations. Implications for research on missing information are discussed.