Does involvement moderate time-dependent biases in consumer multiattribute judgment?

When consumers' judgments are delayed rather than made immediately after learning information about products and services, they tend to be positively biased. The study presents the results of a field experiment that examines the role of involvement in reducing, and even completely eliminating, this time-dependent positivity effect. Involvement was manipulated by means of availability information concerning a new movie delivery service among video store visitors. Our results showed the reduction in time-dependent positivity effect to be limited only to situations in which involvement is induced before or concurrently with the acquisition of product information. If involvement is induced only in delay, the positivity bias is observed under both low- and high-involvement conditions. It is shown that differences in delayed judgments are likely to stem from better recall of the original information by highly involved consumers. The time sensitivity has an important implication when shopping goals vary because in some instances consumers may want to accomplish the purchase of a product during the shopping tour whereas in other cases they may consider postponing it. Thus, companies may direct their efforts toward influencing immediate or delayed purchases, depending upon the judgment favorableness at the decision stage. J BUSN RES 1998. 41.95-103.