A Belief Updating Perspective of Combining Information From Sequential Sources: the Role of the Focal Hypothesis

Prior literature makes contradictory predictions as to how people might form product judgments while combining sequential information. Normative models, such as Bayes’ theorem or the averaging model, would be indifferent to the sequential position of the information sources. In contrast, research in the domain of primacy and recency effects have shown that the sequential position of an information source would influence consumer final product judgments. Using a belief-updating perspective, and building on Lay Epistemic theory, we find that under high focalism bias, consumer product judgments are maximized when the most credible information source is presented sequentially last.

Citation:

Dipayan Biswas, Anne Roggeveen, and Dhruv Grewal (2007) ,"A Belief Updating Perspective of Combining Information From Sequential Sources: the Role of the Focal Hypothesis", in E - European Advances in Consumer Research Volume 8, eds. Stefania Borghini, Mary Ann McGrath, and Cele Otnes, Duluth, MN : Association for Consumer Research.