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ABSTRACT
Consumers can face two types of judgment and choice situations: They may be considering products that are classified in a single product category, or products that may belong to several different product categories. This article compares these within- and acrosscategory judgments on the basis of the distinction between taxonomic and goal-derived categorization. The first study examines how products that belong to taxonomic and goal-derived categories are represented in memory. The findings support the view that taxonomic categories differ from goal-derived categories in terms of the ease with which the features shared between members of the category are accessible and the type of features that are used to represent the members. In turn, these differences influence consumer beliefs, judgments, and choice sets when consumers make within- and across-category product comparisons. A second study examines how consumers' familiarity with consumption situations influences the construction of choice sets. Results indicate that as familiarity with consumption situations increases, consumers construct more narrowly defined, within-category choice sets, whereas in less-familiar situations consumers construct broader, across-category choice sets. The implication of these findings on marketing action is discussed. - 2001 John Wiley &Sons, Inc.
The ways that consumers categorize products has significance for many issues in consumer behavior. Categorization processes have been found to facilitate the comprehension and assimilation of product information (Park, Milberg, &Lawson, 1991; Sujan &Bettman, 1989; Sujan &Dekleva, 1987), to influence product judgments (Meyers-Levy &Tybout, 1989), to determine the formation of consideration sets (Nedungadi, 1990), and ultimately, to influence choice among considered products (Lynch, Marmorstein, &Weigold, 1988). Consumers commonly choose between alternatives that belong to the same product category. Such within-category choice proceeds by comparing alternatives that belong to the same product category and then selecting the preferred alternative (Lynch et al., 1988; Nedungadi, 1990).
In contrast to within-category choice, consumers may also consider products that seemingly belong to different categories (Bettman &Sujan, 1987; Johnson, 1984, 1986, 1988, 1989; Park&Smith, 1989). For example, consumers may choose between cereal and fast food breakfast sandwiches as alternatives for breakfast or they may decide between a new high-de.nition television set and a vacation to France as alternative ways to spend savings. It is generally assumed that such acrosscategory consideration proceeds differently than within-category consideration because televisions and vacations, or...