Feeling Fatigued Leads to Feeling Certain: Regulatory Resource Depletion and Attitude Certainty

Prior research suggests that regulatory resource depletion affects attitudes by inhibiting consumers’ ability to counterargue and affecting the type of thoughts they generate. We propose that when consumers are sufficiently motivated to overcome depletion, exposure to the same product information will produce similar thought profiles and thus similar attitudes; however, under such circumstances, depletion will enhance the certainty consumers place in their attitudes, which will affect consumer purchase behavior. Results from three experiments support this prediction. We also document that the mechanism underlying this effect is one of perceived elaboration using both mediation and moderation approaches.

Citation:

Echo Wen Wan, Derek Rucker, Zakary Tormala, and Joshua Clarkson (2009) ,"Feeling Fatigued Leads to Feeling Certain: Regulatory Resource Depletion and Attitude Certainty", in NA - Advances in Consumer Research Volume 36, eds. Ann L. McGill and Sharon Shavitt, Duluth, MN : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 625-626.