The power of affective response and cognitive structure in product-trial attitude formation

Consumers' affective responses to and cognitive structures in thinking about a product, and the influence of these processes on the trial experience evaluation, are examined in experiments where product types (hedonic and functional) and involvements (low and high) are simultaneously manipulated. The results show that affective response overrode cognitive structure under all experimental conditions in forming product-trial attitudes (A(t)), whereas the roles of affective response and cognitive structure were similar in product trial-based product attitude (A(p)) formation. The implications of the varied roles of affective responses and cognitive structure in overarching models, and their roles in each experimental condition, are discussed.