Allen%2C M.W. %26 Ng%2C S.H. %281999%29. the Direct and Indirect Influences of Human Values on...

8/2/2019 Allen%2C M.W. %26 Ng%2C S.H. %281999%29. the Direct and Indirect Influences of Human Values on Product Ow

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The direct and indirect inuences of human values onproduct ownership

Michael W. Allen a,*, Sik Hung Ng b

a Department of Psychology, University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW 2308, Australiab Department of Psychology, Victoria University of Wellington, P.O. Box 600, Wellington, New Zealand

Received 1 April 1996; received in revised form 24 August 1997; accepted 11 May 1998

Abstract

The present study proposes a conceptual model of how consumers' choice of products may

be inuenced by the human values that they endorse. The model suggests that values can

inuence product choice directly or indirectly depending on the meaning of the product and

the kind of judgement used to evaluate that meaning. Specically, values would have a direct

inuence on product choice when consumers attend to a product's symbolic meaning and

make an aective judgement, and have an indirect inuence (via tangible attribute importance)

when consumers attend to a product's utilitarian meaning and make a piecemeal judgement.

To test the hypothesis, we developed scales to measure preferences for the two broad types of

meanings and judgements, and then tested the associations between these scales and the direct

and indirect inuences of human values on product ownership. Results based on the owner-ship of smaller or larger family cars and of sunglasses all conrmed the hypothesis. 1999

Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

PsycINFO classication: 3900; 3920; 2229; 3000

JEL classication: D11; D12

Keywords: Human values; Consumer attitudes; Consumer behaviour; Ownership

Journal of Economic Psychology 20 (1999) 539

* Corresponding author. Tel.: 61-2-4921-5951; fax: 61-2-4921-6980; e-mail: [email protected]

0167-4870/99/$ see front matter 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

PII: S 0 1 6 7 - 4 8 7 0 ( 9 8 ) 0 0 0 4 1 - 5


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1. The direct and indirect inuences of human values on product ownership

The aim of the present study is to develop a conceptual framework of how

consumers' choice of products may be inuenced by the human values that

they endorse. The framework couples traditional models of human valueinuence (e.g., Gutman, 1982; Feather, 1975; Lindberg, Garling & Mon-

tgomery, 1989; Rokeach, 1973; Scott & Lamont, 1973) with recent research

of the meanings that products convey to consumers and how those meanings

are judged (e.g., Chaudhuri & Buck, 1995; Fiske & Pavelchak, 1986;Hirschman, 1980; Keaveney & Hunt, 1992; McCracken, 1988; Richins,

1994). From the union, two structures of the valueattitudebehaviour hi-erarchy are proposed. First, when consumers are evaluating a product's

utilitarian meaning and making a piecemeal judgement, values should in-

uence the evaluation of the product's tangible attributes that in turn aectproduct choice. Second, when consumers are evaluating a product's symbolic

meaning and making an aective judgement, values should inuence product

choice directly.

2. Human values and the meanings of products

Schwartz (1994) dened human values as ``desirable trans-situational

goals, varying in importance, that serve as guiding principles in the life of a

person or other social entity'' (p. 21). Schwartz suggests that values promote

the interests of individuals and social entities by motivating action or servingas a standard with which individuals and groups can judge themselves,

others, events and objects. Schwartz (1994) states:

In order to cope with reality in a social context, groups and individualscognitively transform the necessities inherent in human existence and

express them in the language of specic values about which they can

then communicate. Specically, values represent, in the form of con-scious goals, responses to three universal requirements; needs of individ-

uals as biological organisms, requisites of co-ordinated social

interaction, and requirements for the smooth functioning and survival

of groups (p. 21).

Given that values are standards individuals use to judge objects in theirworlds, many theorists have concluded that values inuence consumer

6 M.W. Allen, S.H. Ng / Journal of Economic Psychology 20 (1999) 539


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evaluations of products (e.g., Corfman, Lehmann & Narayanan, 1991;

Gutman, 1982; Homer & Kahle, 1988; Lindberg et al., 1989; Prentice, 1987;Scott & Lamont, 1973). The rationale oered by most of those theorists for

how values inuence product evaluation is Rokeach's (1973) and Feather's

(1975) processes of `abstraction' and `generalisation'. Rokeach and Feathersuggest that an abstraction process begins when an individual has a positive

or negative experience with an object, resulting in him or her forming eval-

uative beliefs about the part of the object thought to be the cause of the

experience. The individual then summarises all his or her evaluative beliefsabout dierent aspects of the object to form a general attitude. Rokeach's

and Feather's suggestion is the same process outlined in expectancy-valuetheory (e.g., Fishbein, 1967; Rosenberg, 1956); each belief has an associated

evaluation and together these belief-evaluation dyads additively combine

with other belief-evaluation dyads to form the attitude. However, Rokeachand Feather take the abstraction process further than that taken in expec-

tancy-value theory by arguing that the individual then summarises his or her

attitudes towards all objects that are perceived as similar. The process of

abstraction continues to summarise even broader classes of objects until it

forms human values. Once the human value preferences are formed, they can

be generalised to new objects that the individual perceives as similar to theoriginal object. Moreover, human values may also be generalised to other

human values that are similar semantically. Thus, whilst a process of

abstraction created a hierarchical network between specic evaluative

beliefs and specic human values, once formed, a process of generalisation

expands the scope of the network at both the object and human value end.The association network is also known as the valueattitudebehaviour hi-

erarchy.

Most current models of the inuence of human values on product choice

are variations of the principles of generalisation and abstraction and thevalueattitudebehaviour hierarchy. Some models propose that human val-

ues inuence product choice via general product attitudes (e.g., HomerKahle, 1988; Grunert & Juhl, 1988; McCarty & Shrum, 1994), whereas other

models suggest that human values inuence product choice via the impor-

tance of product attributes (e.g., Gutman, 1982; Lindberg et al., 1989; Scott &Lamont, 1973; Reynolds & Gutman, 1988). Some of the latter value inuence

models suggest that the inuence of values on product attributes mediates

through an intervening variable such as consumption values (i.e., Scott &

Lamont, 1973) or consequences (i.e., Gutman, 1982; Reynolds & Gutman,1988). Nevertheless, regardless of whether the current models propose that

M.W. Allen, S.H. Ng / Journal of Economic Psychology 20 (1999) 539 7


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human values inuence product choice via product attitudes or attributes, or

that a construct moderates the inuence of values on product attributes, onecharacteristic that each of the current models share is their simultaneous

focus at both the `general' and `specic' levels of the valueattitudebehav-

iour hierarchy. At the general level, these models suggest that human valuesinuence general constructs such as attitudes, attributes, consequences, or

consumption values that in turn inuence product choice. At the specic

level, these models represent how certain human values inuence certain

product choice through particular association networks. Gutman (1982) andReynolds and Gutman (1988), for instance, developed the laddering inter-

view technique to uncover how certain product attributes are connected, inthe minds of consumers, to certain human values through a particular as-

sociation network.

One way, then, to advance current conceptions of the inuence of humanvalues on consumer choices is to model at mid-levels in the valueattitude

behaviour hierarchy and association networks. That is, we should attempt to

break-up the general valueattitudebehaviour system into major sub-sys-

tems. These `major sub-systems' are at a greater level of abstraction than

simply how certain human values inuence certain product choice through

particular association networks, and yet are more specic than the modellingof general constructs.

To achieve such an aim, two questions need to be addressed: (1) what are

the forms or structures of the major valueattitudebehaviour sub-systems,

and (2) what causes one sub-system rather than another to become activated

in any particular product evaluation. We suggest that two constructs couldhelp address both questions: what products mean to consumers and how

those meanings are judged. Product meanings have been given considerable

attention by consumer researchers in recent years (e.g., Abelson & Prentice,

1989; Dittmar, 1992; Hirschman, 1980; Richins, 1994), and one conclusionfrom that research is that the meanings of products are not monolithic, but

comprise major types and categories. Richins (1994), for example, outlinesfour major categories of such product meanings: utilitarian, enjoyment,

representation of interpersonal ties, and identity and self-expression. In

contrast, several other researchers propose a simple utilitarian-symbolicdistinction that seems to be borne out empirically (e.g., Abelson & Prentice,

1989; Dittmar, 1992; Hirschman, 1980). Moreover, research into how

product meanings are judged by consumers has found that dierent types of

product meanings are judged in dierent ways (e.g., Chaudhuri & Buck,1995; Keaveney & Hunt, 1992; Mittal, 1988), with utilitarian meaning, for



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instance, judged in a more rational, attribute-by-attribute manner, and

symbolic meaning judged holistically and intuitively.Therefore, if the meanings of products comprise major categories, such as

utilitarian and symbolic, then it is conceivable that dierent valueattitude

behaviour sub-systems become activated when consumers attend to each typeof product meaning, and consequently, human values could inuence prod-

uct choice through dierent routes and types of judgement. Immediately, for

instance, one can speculate that values have two important aects in regard

to product meaning. First, values can direct consumers' attention to productswith similar meanings to the human values, and second, the aect for the

human value could be transferred to the evaluation of the product meaning.For instance, an individual's preference for the human value `prestige' would

direct his or her attention to products that have meanings similar to prestige,

such as a Mercedes-Benz, and would contribute favourably to his or herpositive evaluation of the automobile. Accordingly, the conceptual starting

point for the model outlined in the present study is that the way in which

human values inuence product choice depends on the meaning of product

that the consumer attends to and how that meaning is judged, and as utili-

tarian and symbolic meanings appear to be the two major categories, we

suggest that human values operate through two routes, one for utilitarianand the other for symbolic.

3. Utilitarian meaning, piecemeal judgement, and the indirect route of human

value inuence

Human values are suggested to have an indirect inuence (via tangible

attribute importance) on product choice when consumers evaluate a prod-

uct's utilitarian meaning and make a piecemeal judgement. Utilitarianmeaning represents the overt function the product serves in allowing the user

to control his or her environment (e.g., Dittmar, 1992; Richins, 1994). Themeaning is derived from the product in-use and is intrinsically linked to

convenience, eciency and exchange in the traditional economic sense. Ex-

amples of utilitarian meaning might be that a vacuum cleaner is for cleaningthe carpet, or a car is for commuting from point A to B. Hirschman (1980)

suggests that as utilitarian meaning centres on the product and its physical

performance, the meaning is objective and `arises' from the object through

the ve senses. Similarly, Sheth, Newman and Gross (1991) argue that util-itarian meaning is `located' in objective and tangible attributes because



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tangible attributes reveal the quality of the product's physical performance,

degree of functionality and ability to control the environment. For example,the utilitarian meaning of a vacuum cleaner would be found in such tangible

attributes as the power of the motor, durability of construction, and prox-

imity to the carpet, all of which aect the product's ability to clean.Given that utilitarian meaning tends to be `located' in tangible product

attributes, one way consumers evaluate a product's utilitarian meaning is by

comparing the product's actual tangible attributes to their preferred tangible

attributesreferred to here as `tangible attribute importance'. Tangible at-tribute importance are evaluative beliefs and as such are specic (applicable

to a narrow range), objective (object-focused) and conceptually clear.Moreover, an important characteristic of utilitarian meaning `located' in

tangible attributes is that the meaning for any attribute tends to be inde-

pendent of other attributes (see also Holbrook & Moore, 1981). A 2000 cc carengine is always a 2000 cc engine independently of the car's other features.

Thus, the independence of tangible attributes suggests that utilitarian

meaning is evaluated through what Fiske and Pavelchak (1986) term a

`piecemeal-based aective response'. A piecemeal judgement proceeds at-

tribute-by-attribute to evaluate an object in a logical, systematic and com-

prehensive fashion, with overall product liking a result of the algebraiccombination of the aect associated with each attribute. Essentially, the

piecemeal aective response is the same judgement outlined in traditional

multi-attribute and information processing models (e.g., Ajzen & Fishbein,

1980).

Two complementary lines of research support the claim that consumersuse their tangible attribute importance to evaluate utilitarian meaning

through a piecemeal judgement. First, advertisements that use a product

information strategy (i.e., focus on tangible attributes and functional per-

formance) are judged analytically and rationally (Chaudhuri & Buck, 1995).Second, Spivey, Munson and Locander (1983) found that individuals who

rate attributes as important are more easily persuaded by utilitarian adver-tisements. However, although those studies show that utilitarian meaning is

judged on a piecemeal basis and that tangible attribute importance evaluate

utilitarian meaning, no study has investigated the full tripartite relationshipamong tangible attribute importance, utilitarian meanings, and piecemeal

judgements, nor, more important to the present study, have any of those

researchers considered the superordinate role human values play in inu-

encing tangible attribute importance. Human values inuence tangible at-tribute importance through the generalisation process described previously.



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4. Symbolic meaning, aective judgement, and the direct route of human value

inuence

Human values are suggested to have a direct inuence on product choice

when consumers evaluate a product's symbolic meaning and make an af-fective judgement. Symbols are subjective, complex sets of abstract beliefs

associated with an object or action that represent an entity extrinsic to the

physical form of the object (e.g., Dittmar, 1992; Friedman, 1986; Hirschman,

1980; Levy, 1959). Symbolic meaning is closely tied to the culturally consti-tuted world, and though one could argue that utilitarian meaning is also

culturally constituted, Verkuyten (1995) suggests that symbols are charac-terised by representation being central. As Kilbourne (1991) states, ``the term

symbolic possession is not intended to imply that there is no symbolism in

functional possession. Rather it is intended here to refer to possession inwhich the symbolic takes precedence over the functional'' (p. 450).

Examples of symbolic meaning are that Pepsi symbolises `vitality' or a

cellular phone may symbolise `yuppies'. These examples illustrate that sym-

bols can stand-for cultural principles (i.e., vitality) or social categories (i.e.,

yuppies). Cultural principles are human values, and other beliefs, which

evaluate and rank phenomena, and so when a product symbolises a culturalprinciple it has strong human value content. Social category symbolism oc-

curs when a product is conspicuously owned or consumed by a specic

group, resulting in the product symbolising both the group and its culturally

constituted characteristics (Douglas & Isherwood, 1979; McCracken, 1988).

These characteristics are critical to conceptualising value inuence because agroup contributes to the positive identity of its members only when it com-

pares favourably with or is distinct from other groups along some cultural

principle or value (see also Tajfel's social identity theory, e.g., Tajfel, 1981).

Consequently, when a product symbolises a social category it simultaneouslysymbolises the human values and principles that dene the category, and

therefore, whether the symbolism refers to cultural principles or to socialcategories, in either case, the symbolism would generally refer to human

values.

Thus, due to the strong human value content in symbolic meaning, whenindividuals evaluate a product's symbolic meaning their human values should

have a direct inuence on product preference. For example, a consumer's

preference for the human value of `vitality' would allow him or her to

evaluate the symbol of Pepsi, and by extension Pepsi itself. In a similar way,if yuppies are dened as high achievers then a consumer's preference for the



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human value of `achievement' would allow him or her to evaluate yuppies,

and by extension products that symbolise yuppies such as a cellular tele-phone. Researchers of other types of symbolism also suggest that individuals

evaluate symbols based on their human value content (e.g., Cobb & Elder,

1972; Firth, 1973; Guseld & Michalowicz, 1984; Sears, Huddy & Schaer,1986).

Moreover, not only would one expect that values have a direct inuence

on product choice when consumers attend to the product's symbolic

meaning, the resulting value inuence would likely comprise a holistic, Ge-stalt-like judgement. Keaveney and Hunt (1992) and McCracken (1988)

argue that symbolic meaning tends to be `located' on a particular congu-ration of tangible attributes, and so the evaluation of a product's symbolic

meaning results in the instantaneous evaluation of the product whole.

McCracken (1988) suggests that the symbolic meaning of clothing is judgedholistically because the meaning of some clothing outts (i.e., punk rockers,

business-persons, etc.) lose their interpretability (to mean `punk rocker' or

`business-person') if any part of the outt is changed. Interpretation is lim-

ited to form the product was in when meaning was initially transferred to it

via advertising or the fashion system. Hence, unlike the linguistic models of

meaning (and the expectancy-value model), the elements that comprisesymbolic meaning are not interchangeable and the creation of new meaning

is limited. Fiske and Pavelchak (1986) term this kind of judgement a cate-

gory-based aective response. In a category-based aective response the

stimulus is compared with an exemplar and with a match, the aect asso-

ciated with the exemplar category schema is automatically transferred to thestimulus. Thus, the stimulus must have a particular conguration of attri-

butes for its exemplar or prototype to be recognised and classied, but the

aect of the attributes does not independently contribute to the overall

evaluation.Although Keaveney and Hunt (1992) and McCracken (1988) suggest that

consumers make a category-based, holistic judgement to evaluate symbolicmeaning, more likely, the evaluation of symbolic meaning and application of

human value criteria is an `aective judgement'. Like a category-based

judgement, an aective judgement is holistic, but unlike a category-basedjudgement, an aective judgement is subjective and dicult for individuals to

verbalise (e.g., Mittal, 1988; Zajonc, 1980). Zajonc suggests that aective

reactions involve the interaction of the stimulus with some internal state or

condition of the individual, and so compared with cognitive judgements,aective judgements more directly and subjectively relate the self to the



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object. Such subjectivity and inexplicability suggest that values evaluate

symbolic meaning through an aective judgement because human values both those held by the individual and those represented in product symbol-

ism implicate the self (subjective) and can be conceptually unclear and

dicult to verbalise (cf. Kilby, 1993). Moreover, though McCracken (1988)and Keaveney and Hunt (1992) suggested that symbolic meaning is evaluated

through a holistic, category-based judgement, the hypothesis was never tes-

ted. In contrast, the association between symbolic meaning and an aective

judgement has been shown, with Mittal (1988) nding that the expressiveaspects of products, such as their sensory experiences, mood states attain-

ment and symbolism, are judged aectively. Similarly, Chaudhuri and Buck(1995) found that advertisements that use a mood arousal strategy, which

involve some symbols, are also aectively judged.

5. Summary and hypothesis

In sum, we propose that human values can inuence product choice di-

rectly or indirectly depending on the meaning of the product and the kind of

judgement used to evaluate that meaning (see Fig. 1 for a schematic rep-resentation and Table 1 for a more detailed tabular form). Not withstanding

that important distinctions among dierent types of products, consumers,meanings and judgements are over-simplied, the proposal is that values

generally have an indirect inuence (via tangible attribute importance) on

product choice when consumers evaluate a product's utilitarian meaningand make a piecemeal judgement, and values generally have a direct inu-

ence on product choice when consumers evaluate the product's symbolic

meaning and make an aective judgement. The proposal, however, needs

one further clarication. Utilitarian meaning and a piecemeal judgement willprobably be rated as more important than symbolic meaning and an af-

fective judgement because for most people and products, functionality ismore important than image. Thus, the primary distinction between the di-

rect and indirect inuences of values may not be the absolute preferences for

the respective meanings and judgements, but the relative preference is asfollows.

Hypothesis: An individual's preference for utilitarian meaning and a

piecemeal judgement to symbolic meaning and an aective judgement shouldbe greater when his or her human values have an indirect inuence (via



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tangible attribute importance) on product choice than when his or her values

have a direct inuence.

6. Method

6.1. Design

The aim of the design was to broaden the test of the hypothesis in two

ways: (1) to test the hypothesis on more than one type of product, and (2) test

the hypothesis on products that vary substantially in what they mean to most

consumers and how they are most often judged. Accordingly, the hypothesis

was tested separately for two product areas: automobiles and sunglasses.Automobiles have a high cost and risk and so are probably evaluated fore-

Fig. 1. The correspondence between the levels of prescriptive and evaluative beliefs and the levels of

product meaning.



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most with a piecemeal judgement of their utilitarian features and secondly

with an aective judgement of their symbolic meaning. On the other hand,the conspicuousness and low cost of sunglasses suggest that the aective

judgement of their symbolic meaning is nearly as common as the piecemeal

judgement of their utilitarian. Hence, automobiles and sunglasses have both

utilitarian and symbolic meanings and are evaluated with both piecemeal andaective judgements, but the products are at dierent ends along the utili-

tarian-symbolic and piecemeal-aective continua.

6.2. Respondents

Given that examining the hypothesis in a naturalistic setting with the

broadest range of phenomena possible is preferred, a general populationsample was used. The survey was distributed through the post to a random

sample of 750 adult heads of households in a medium-sized metropolitan

region in New Zealand. The random procedure selected every nth name

from the telephone directory and for married and cohabiting couples alter-nated between the male and female partner. Two hundred and seventy were

Table 1

Product meaning and type of judgement associated with the direct and indirect inuences of human values

on product choice

Routes of human value inuence on product choice

Indirect Direct

(Via tangible attribute importance)

Product meaning Utilitarian Symbolic

Content Overt function and utility Social categories and cultural

principles (e.g., ideals, values, traits)

Location Separate tangible attributes Product Whole

Focus Objective: product-focused Subjective: self-focused

Breadth Specic/Narrow Abstract/Broad

Conceptual clarity Clear Vague

Judgement type Piecemeal Aective

Reasoning Logical, comprehensive,

and systematic attribute-

by-attribute analysis

Holistic, intuitive and approximate

goodness of t to exemplar

Response type Piecemeal-based Category-based

Aect latency Delayed Immediate

Aect intensity Low: evaluative High: emotional states



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returned (36%), comprising 51% male, 49% female, and an average age of

approximately 40. A comparison with census data indicate that the samplecontains a representative proportion of men and women but under-represents

the younger age groups.

6.3. Questionnaire

The questionnaire measured human values, car tangible attribute impor-

tance and ownership, sunglasses tangible attribute importance and owner-

ship, and meaning and judgement preferences.

7. Human values

Human values were measured with the Rokeach value survey, which

consists of 18 instrumental and 18 terminal values. The 36 values weresupplemented with four additional values: social justice, equity, social power

and self-determination (denitions supplied by Ng, Hossain, Ball, Bond,

Hayaski, Lim, O'Driscoll, Sinha & Yang, 1982). Concerning the response

format, Rokeach (1973) originally instructed respondents to rst rank theinstrumental values and then the terminal values. The ranking procedure is

advantageous because it reduces response sets and assures wide within-sub-ject variably, but it has limited psycho-metric capabilities and is time con-

suming and taxing for the respondent. Several other methods have been

proposed and tested including rating (e.g., Braithwaite & Law, 1985; Ng,1982; Rankin & Grube, 1980) and paired-comparisons (e.g., Feather, 1973),

which generated roughly equivalent value system proles as ranking. How-

ever, whether these alternative formats ensure satisfactory within-subject

variability is unclear. Wide individual variability is crucial, as the aim of thecurrent study is to assess the ability of human values to predict the specic

events of product purchase and ownership.Due to the above concerns about rating and ranking procedures pilot

studies were undertaken that compared a standard 110, `least important' to

`most important', scale and a forced-distribution format in which respon-dents named the thirteen most important values and then the thirteen least

important. Those values marked as most important were coded as a 3, thoseas least important were coded as a 1, and those not marked were given a 2.

Instrumental and terminal values were inter-mixed in the same alphabeticallyordered list because previous research has been unable to substantiate their



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independence (see Crosby, Bitner & Gill, 1990; Heath & Fogel, 1978). The list

of values was also counter-balanced with half the respondents receiving analphabetical list in ascending order and the other half receiving an alpha-

betical list in descending order. The pilot study responses were subjected to

factor analysis (principal components extraction with no rotation) thatproduced a small rst factor in the forced-distribution method and a large

rst factor in the standard rating method. The factor structure suggested (but

not denitively) that the standard rating method suers from greater re-

sponse set or social desirability biases, and so the forced-distribution methodwas selected for the current study.

The means and standard deviations of the 40 values are reported inTable 2, which shows that honesty, self-respect, true friendship and family

security were the most important values whereas obedience, salvation and

social power were the least important. Forty human values would be un-manageable in the examination of the hypothesis, and so the values were

reduced through factor analysis to 15 factors that accounted for 62% of the

variance (see Table 2). A maximum number of factors were selected (to the

Eigenvalue 1.0 cut-o) so that a topmost amount of human value variance is

available for use in the prediction of tangible attribute importance and

product choice. A principal components extraction was selected and thesolution not rotated because the purpose of the factor analysis is not to

decipher the underlying structure but simply to reduce the number of items

for testing the hypothesis. For the same reason, the factors are not inter-

preted. However, the dimensionality of human values for a recent New

Zealand sample is fully discussed in Allen (1994), which uses multi-dimen-sional scaling to reduce the items to a small, meaningful number of dimen-

sions.

8. Tangible attribute importance

Using a 10-point scale anchored by `not at all important' (1) and `very

important' (10) respondents rated the importance of automobile and sun-

glasses tangible attributes. Unlike human values, sucient within-subjectvariability was expected and so a forced-distribution response format was not

necessary. Concerning the number of tangible attributes for respondents torate in importance, Fishbein (1967) suggests individuals can only consider

between 6 and 11 object attributes. However, the current study uses the at-tributes to cover entire product categories, not just specic brands or classes,



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Table2

Meansand

factorstructureofhumanvalues

Factors

Meant

StdDev

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

Obedient

1.49

0.64

0.590.10

0.040.12

0.05

0.060.02

0.300.060.01

0.120.160.19

0.02

0.18

Polite

2.01

0.78

0.530.28

0.070.060.09

0.210.17

0.02

0.220.01

0.050.060.08

0.07

0.05

Salvation

1.45

0.74

0.51

0.280.070.180.13

0.32

0.080.160.100.06

0.090.160.150.00

0.14

Excitinglife

1.86

0.79

0.480.05

0.26

0.060.12

0.38

0.120.01

0.030.02

0.140.020.050.08

0.28

Imaginative

1.71

0.71

0.48

0.080.260.020.15

0.04

0.180.15

0.090.25

0.310.160.22

0.09

0.01

Freedom

2.27

0.74

0.47

0.18

0.170.23

0.20

0.20

0.220.160.190.11

0.16

0.060.130.32

0.04

Self-determination

1.91

0.78

0.45

0.180.160.14

0.15

0.04

0.02

0.02

0.10

0.21

0.110.33

0.01

0.17

0.14

Responsible

2.49

0.60

0.41

0.090.270.01

0.11

0.16

0.04

0.140.23

0.02

0.030.00

0.25

0.05

0.40

Self-controlled

1.91

0.77

0.40

0.360.180.030.11

0.13

0.06

0.070.330.07

0.070.03

0.010.10

0.02

Honest

2.67

0.54

0.33

0.040.13

0.07

0.17

0.27

0.190.10

0.03

0.30

0.19

0.28

0.130.21

0.11

Logical

1.75

0.75

0.04

0.550.260.110.18

0.020.020.120.29

0.08

0.04

0.14

0.02

0.07

0.02

Ambitious

1.65

0.69

0.03

0.47

0.07

0.03

0.24

0.05

0.22

0.12

0.200.09

0.300.26

0.020.02

0.19

Clean

1.75

0.82

0.37

0.46

0.140.040.05

0.040.140.13

0.270.22

0.090.080.100.14

0.10

Forgiving

2.01

0.71

0.32

0.450.170.060.17

0.21

0.180.210.16

0.03

0.03

0.050.020.04

0.05

Innerharmony

1.93

0.84

0.03

0.440.15

0.09

0.17

0.220.180.310.16

0.10

0.240.30

0.09

0.02

0.18

Independent

2.22

0.77

0.26

0.420.13

0.05

0.17

0.150.13

0.21

0.09

0.14

0.33

0.130.250.11

0.13

Equality

2.04

0.77

0.07

0.39

0.090.23

0.36

0.19

0.28

0.290.250.25

0.02

0.140.13

0.04

0.11

WorldOfpeace

2.36

0.78

0.05

0.37

0.260.22

0.29

0.320.290.13

0.070.23

0.09

0.050.120.14

0.03

Helpful

1.97

0.65

0.35

0.360.050.06

0.05

0.11

0.08

0.09

0.03

0.02

0.17

0.140.130.05

0.30

Capable

2.15

0.69

0.21

0.340.220.030.19

0.05

0.050.260.29

0.18

0.27

0.090.250.18

0.06

Comfortablelife

1.88

0.88

0.18

0.35

0.50

0.120.06

0.070.05

0.110.14

0.02

0.120.06

0.050.28

0.01

Intellectual

1.81

0.76

0.34

0.060.43

0.04

0.03

0.040.25

0.33

0.050.06

0.14

0.29

0.21

0.11

0.17

Happiness

2.42

0.64

0.10

0.09

0.43

0.350.08

0.08

0.210.000.19

0.15

0.220.07

0.07

0.17

0.05

Wisdom

2.21

0.82

0.11

0.200.430.130.22

0.04

0.25

0.17

0.15

0.26

0.050.040.17

0.01

0.07

Socialjustic

e

1.78

0.86

0.14

0.15

0.310.560.18

0.020.08

0.430.100.04

0.020.14

0.10

0.01

0.19



15/35

Table2(co

ntinued)

Facto

rs

Meant

StdDev

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

Pleasurable

1.70

0.74

0.10

0.03

0.41

0.490.21

0.000.190.030.240.06

0.28

0.070.080.00

0.02

Socialpowe

r

1.26

0.50

0.04

0.170.17

0.42

0.20

0.390.14

0.20

0.040.36

0.12

0.060.000.02

0.19

Loving

2.43

0.64

0.09

0.33

0.07

0.360.18

0.04

0.23

0.27

0.000.06

0.120.080.05

0.29

0.27

Truefriendship

2.54

0.62

0.02

0.26

0.24

0.350.14

0.06

0.05

0.29

0.30

0.11

0.26

0.190.040.15

0.10

Cheerful

1.96

0.74

0.12

0.01

0.24

0.080.53

0.11

0.090.26

0.150.09

0.07

0.30

0.08

0.11

0.23

Nationalsecurity

1.63

0.74

0.06

0.07

0.270.10

0.47

0.170.230.28

0.010.06

0.14

0.09

0.16

0.19

0.06

Recognition

1.79

0.82

0.12

0.010.35

0.43

0.45

0.09

0.240.19

0.160.16

0.09

0.150.020.00

0.10

Broad-mind

ed

2.21

0.76

0.24

0.060.20

0.030.17

0.540.150.050.210.25

0.02

0.01

0.18

0.38

0.09

Self-respect

2.61

0.61

0.17

0.040.11

0.34

0.06

0.40

0.330.02

0.12

0.23

0.170.370.02

0.03

0.13

Worldbeauty

1.95

0.77

0.16

0.310.05

0.070.14

0.090.500.21

0.280.07

0.000.13

0.010.08

0.41

Courageous

2.25

0.67

0.09

0.010.010.410.09

0.11

0.330.05

0.45

0.20

0.10

0.200.07

0.13

0.15

Maturelove

2.00

0.81

0.31

0.300.20

0.10

0.01

0.27

0.15

0.140.10

0.34

0.20

0.09

0.150.20

0.05

Accomplishment

2.02

0.82

0.10

0.100.080.240.19

0.18

0.330.04

0.190.33

0.33

0.00

0.530.14

0.09

Familysecu

rity

2.58

0.61

0.17

0.01

0.320.05

0.18

0.110.060.06

0.05

0.39

0.230.09

0.400.03

0.11

Equity

1.65

0.71

0.10

0.18

0.360.15

0.24

0.290.020.110.04

0.22

0.02

0.260.20

0.51

0.00

Eigenvalue

3.19

2.85

2.35

1.98

1.71

1.62

1.54

1.41

1.37

1.33

1.13

1.09

1.08

1.06

1.02

Cumul.%v

ariance

8.0

15.1

21.0

25.9

30.234.3

38.1

41.6

45.1

48.4

51.2

54.0

56.6

59.361.9

Note:tScaleof1`leastimportant'to3`mostimportant'.



16/35

and thus a larger number of items (between 20 and 24) was considered es-

sential.

8.1. Automobiles

The car tangible attributes were gathered from previous research (e.g.,

Horsky & Nelson, 1992; Lim, Olshavsky & Kim, 1988; Vinson, Scott & La-

mont, 1977) and a pilot study in which respondents described the character-

istics of their favourite car. Attributes were selected that were more tangible

than intangible and objective more than subjective. The mean importance of

the tangible attributes to the current sample are presented in Table 3. Amongthe most important attributes are reliability, safety and few repairs needed,

whereas the least are large body size, large engine and air conditioning. In the

interest of manageability, automobile tangible attribute importance were

Table 3

Means and factor structure of automobile tangible attribute importance

Factors

Mean t Std Dev 1 2 3 4 5

Handling 8.64 1.49 0.76 0.18 0.07 0.11 0.10Smooth riding 8.05 1.73 0.73 0.04 0.09 0.22 0.06Quality 8.70 1.65 0.72 0.13 0.17 0.24 0.22Comfort 8.17 1.62 0.68 0.02 0.11 0.22 0.10

Safety 9.04 1.46 0.67 0.35 0.32 0.15 0.21Advanced engineering 5.85 2.81 0.63 0.40 0.20 0.16 0.24Few repairs needed 8.96 1.52 0.59 0.52 0.06 0.01 0.30

Reliability 9.37 1.06 0.57 0.54 0.15 0.05 0.30Heating 7.24 1.99 0.54 0.13 0.23 0.08 0.39Air conditioning 4.98 2.93 0.52 0.34 0.49 0.02 0.05

Spacious interior 7.00 2.10 0.48 0.16 0.36 0.08 0.34

Kilometres per litre 7.41 2.25 0.47 0.43 0.06 0.46 0.27High speed 4.92 2.44 0.28 0.63 0.10 0.22 0.01Luxurious interior 4.82 2.45 0.48 0.62 0.01 0.08 0.02

Large engine 4.73 2.39 0.41 0.59 0.39 0.28 0.09Large body size 4.34 2.35 0.38 0.56 0.49 0.26 0.06Colour 5.44 2.66 0.35 0.33 0.53 0.05 0.24

Compact 6.08 2.26 0.35 0.21 0.51 0.43 0.17Inexpensive 6.78 2.40 0.11 0.34 0.03 0.72 0.24Low pollution emission 7.17 2.47 0.50 0.27 0.01 0.09 0.51

Eigenvalue 5.72 3.01 1.59 1.35 1.11

Cumul. % variance 28.6 43.6 51.6 58.3 63.9

Note: t Scale of 1 `not at all important' to 10 `very important'.



17/35

reduced through factor analysis (principal components extraction with no

rotation) that with an Eigenvalue 1.0 cut-o maximised the number of factors;5 accounted for 40% of the variance (see Table 3). As with the human value

factor analysis, the content of these factors will not be interpreted.

8.2. Sunglasses

Previous research that developed or implemented sunglasses tangible at-

tribute importance was unavailable, and so sunglasses tangible attributes

were gathered exclusively from manufacture and retail outlet brochures (e.g.,

Ray-Ban, Sunglasses Hut, etc.). The pool of attributes gathered from thebrochures (more than 50) was reduced according to two criteria: rst, all the

attributes were ranked by frequency of occurrence and those most prevalent

were considered the most eligible and second, each attribute must be moretangible and objective than intangible and subjective. The application of the

selection criteria reduced the initial pool of attribute importance from morethan 5020. The mean importance of the 20 sunglasses tangible attributes are

presented in Table 4. Among the most important tangible attributes are ts

comfortably on face, reduces glare, and UV protection, whereas the least are

brand name printed on lens or frame, reective/mirrored lenses, metal frame,and nylon frame. Sunglasses tangible attribute importance were reduced

through factor analysis (principal components extraction with no rotation)that with an Eigenvalue 1.0 cut-o resulted in 6 factors accounting for 64%of the variance (see Table 4).

9. Product choice

In the interests of naturalism and investigating the broadest range ofphenomena possible, product choice was indexed as actual product purchase

and ownership. Indexing product choice as actual product purchase andownership are more naturalistic than simple product attitude or liking, and is

more stringent in that consumers must commit their resources such as

money, time to purchase and so on. However, many other factors contributeto product purchase other than human values or tangible attribute impor-

tance (e.g., nancial ability, family considerations and so on), and previouspurchase does not necessarily imply current preference. The latter limitation

is addressed, to some degree, by focusing on each respondent's multiple,recent purchases of products within the same class or category.



18/35

9.1. Automobiles

To measure car ownership, respondents named the make, model and yearof their current as well as two previously owned cars (if less than 10 years

old). Cars greater than ten years old were excluded to help ensure that

preferences measured by the meaning and judgement scales were still com-

mensurate with product ownership. Using the schemes developed by NewCar Buyers Guide (1991) and Which Car Buying Guide (1989), the cars were

grouped under ve classes: smaller family cars, larger family cars, luxurycars, sports cars and utility and minivans.

Table 4

Means and factor structure of sunglasses tangible attribute importance

Factors

Mean t Std Dev 1 2 3 4 5 6

Made of highest quality materials 6.53 2.73 0.71 0.03 0.05 0.36 0.02 0.35Scratch-resistant lenses 7.48 2.40 0.66 0.32 0.23 0.23 0.23 0.17Thin frame 4.72 2.64 0.64 0.24 0.18 0.06 0.22 0.29Engineered design 4.65 2.80 0.63 0.34 0.13 0.04 0.09 0.01Strong, rugged, impact resistant 7.32 2.56 0.61 0.28 0.18 0.02 0.17 0.35Suitable for a variety of sunlight

conditions

8.16 1.99 0.59 0.32 0.14 0.02 0.29 0.15

Precision ground optical glass

lenses

5.46 3.11 0.58 0.12 0.37 0.40 0.09 0.05

Lenses with a large coverage area 5.95 2.64 0.54 0.26 0.02 0.12 0.38 0.43Light-weight 6.63 2.63 0.54 0.05 0.22 0.24 0.23 0.29Metal frame 3.77 2.65 0.53 0.40 0.33 0.12 0.02 0.11High UV protection 8.67 1.74 0.52 0.39 0.17 0.01 0.12 0.37Nylon frame 3.54 2.65 0.49 0.23 0.13 0.44 0.14 0.30Brand name printed on lens or

frame

3.08 2.64 0.45 0.53 0.00 0.07 0.30 0.04

Reduces glare and increases image

clarity

8.95 1.41 0.46 0.51 0.27 0.04 0.36 0.16

Darkly tinted lens 5.19 2.80 0.20 0.48 0.33 0.05 0.19 0.05Reective/mirrored lenses 2.44 2.18 0.42 0.47 0.18 0.38 0.22 0.16Fits comfortably on face 9.30 1.08 0.39 0.45 0.45 0.03 0.20 0.07

Colour of frame 6.58 2.80 0.07 0.38 0.72 0.34 0.17 0.04Shape of frame (e.g., round,

square, etc.)

7.21 2.44 0.22 0.39 0.67 0.17 0.16 0.18

Inexpensive 6.19 2.57 0.19 0.15 0.17 0.65 0.51 0.15

Eigenvalue 5.04 2.41 1.92 1.34 1.13 1.01

Cumul. % variance 25.2 37.3 46.9 53.6 59.2 64.3

Note: t Scale of 1 `not at all important' to 10 `very important'.



19/35

Respondents' automobile preferences were scored as the percentage of

cars they owned in each class out of the total number of cars owned. Forexample, if an individual owned an Austin Mini, MGB GT and Honda

Integra, their smaller family cars score (Austin Mini) would be 0.33, their

sports cars score (MGB GT, Honda Integra) would be 0.66, and all other carclasses would be zero. The cars were scored in that manner to shift the focus

from general car ownership to an individual's preferred car class. The ex-

clusion of those respondents who did not own an automobile and whose

only automobile(s) was more than ten years old reduced the sample size bynearly one-half, from 256 to 142. Of the remaining 142 respondents, the

average proportion of smaller family cars owned was 0.50 (SD 0.46), largerfamily cars 0.37 (SD 0.43), luxury cars 0.08 (SD 0.24), sports cars 0.02(SD 0.10), utility vehicles and minivans 0.04 (SD 0.18) and miscella-neous/unclassiable 0.14 (SD 0.28). Sports cars, luxury cars and utility andminivans classes are skewed beyond repair by transformation and conse-

quently only smaller family cars and larger family cars will remain in the

analyses.

9.2. Sunglasses

The public was anticipated to own a wide range of sunglasses brands, andso the measure of sunglasses ownership needed to be multi-faceted in the

event that brand name became an unworkable index of product class own-

ership. For their current pair of sunglasses respondents reported the brand

name (e.g., Ray-Ban, Bill Bass, etc.), where and when the pair of sunglasseswas purchased, the price paid and the main purpose the pair of sunglasses

was bought (e.g., sports, driving, general use, etc.). For respondents who

listed more than one pair of sunglasses only the rst pair listed was retained,and for all respondents, sunglasses purchased more than three years prior to

the completion of the survey were excluded.

In the present sample, more than 50 brands of sunglasses were listed but12% of participants were unsure of the brand name of their sunglasses and a

further 17% did not answer the brand name question. Thus, due to a pro-

fusion of brands and many respondents not knowing which brand they own,

the price paid was considered the best indicator of quality and product class

ownership. The exclusion of respondents who did not own a pair of sun-

glasses and those whose only pair of sunglasses was more than three yearsold reduced the sample size by more than one-half, from 256 to 98. Of the



20/35

remaining 98 respondents, the mean price paid was 73.30 NZ Dollars

(SD 85.8).

10. Meaning and judgement preferences

Given that previous research has conrmed or suggested, which kind of

judgement evaluates each kind of meaning (e.g., Chaudhuri & Buck, 1995;

Keaveney & Hunt, 1992; Mittal, 1988), the scales will measure meaning and

judgement preferences conjointly. One scale will measure consumer prefer-

ences for attending to utilitarian meaning and making a piecemeal judge-ment, whereas the other scale will measure consumer preferences for

attending to symbolic meaning and making an aective judgement.

10.1. Utilitarian meaning and piecemeal judgement

The utilitarian meaning and piecemeal judgement scale measures a desire

to focus on the product's practicality and usefulness and judge with a rea-

soning that is attribute-by-attribute, logical, systematic, and comprehensive

and an aect that is delayed and is of low intensity. The nal version of theutilitarian meaning and piecemeal judgement scale was developed from a

pilot instrument in which the piecemeal judgement portion of the scale wasMittal's (1988) information processing mode scale. Mittal's information

processing mode scale was derived from Chaiken (1980) descriptions of a

judgement process in which consumers accumulate information about eachbrand, evaluate the levels of the attributes for each brand, and then combine

the attribute evaluations to form overall brand liking. Thus, the information

processing mode is a similar judgement to Fiske and Pavelchak (1986)

piecemeal judgement. Not explicitly tapped in Mittal's information pro-cessing mode scale is the meticulous and rational nature of a piecemeal

judgement, and so new items were constructed to more fully measure apiecemeal judgement. All the items measuring a preference for utilitarian

meaning are original.

In total, 12 utilitarian meaning and piecemeal judgement items were testedin a pilot study, which assessed the items' redundancy and sensitivity to

various product categories. The 8 nal items of the utilitarian meaning andpiecemeal judgement scale are listed in Table 5 along with the construct each

item is purported to measure. The Cronbach's alpha for the 8 item scale forthe current sample is an acceptable 0.78.



21/35

10.2. Symbolic meaning and aective judgement

The symbolic meaning and aective judgement scale measures a propen-

sity to focus on the product's image and judge with a reasoning that is ho-listic, approximate and intuitive, and an aect that is immediate and on the

level of emotional states. The nal version of the scale was developed from a

pilot instrument founded upon Mittal's (1988) aective choice mode and

expressiveness scales. Mittal's aective choice mode scale measures consumerpreferences for evaluating a product holistically and subjectively, andMittal's expressiveness scale measures consumers' attention to product

symbolism and ability to engender emotional and sensory experiences. Ab-

sent from Mittal's aective choice mode scale, however, are the deeper

emotional states associated with aective judgements, and thus to rectify thelimitation, two of Mittal's Expressiveness scale items, specically, the items

measuring an emphasis on emotional and sensory experiences, were re-classied as measuring an aective judgement. The pilot instrument also

contained newly constructed items to measure the remaining characteristicsof an intuitive and instantaneous liking and more thoroughly measure the

Table 5

Utilitarian meaning and piecemeal judgement scale

Construct

Type Sub-type

1. I think it is important to select the most practical product Meaning Practicality

2. When deciding on whether or not to buy a product

I think about how useful it will be

Meaning Usefulness

3. Before you make your nal selection of a product,

you would: Seek a lot of information about each product

Judgement Reasoning

4. believe in being logical and rational when deciding

on a product

Judgement Reasoning


you would: Consider the pros and cons for each product

Judgement Reasoning

6. I believe in selecting a product based on a careful examination

of all its features

Judgement Reasoning and

aect latency

7. I believe in making a responsible and well-considered

decision

Judgement Reasoning and

aect latency

8. I believe in exercising self-control and not being impulsive

when deciding on a product

Judgement Aect latency

and intensity

Note: Items rated on a scale of 17, `strongly disagree' to `strongly agree'.



22/35

attention to symbolic meaning. Concerning the latter, the newly constructed

items sought to be applicable for those consumers attending to symbolicmeaning for social-approval purposes and for those consumers attending for

self-consistency.

In total, 16 symbolic meaning and aective judgement items were tested ina pilot study, which assessed the items' redundancy and sensitivity to various

product categories. The 11 nal items of the symbolic meaning and aective

judgement scale are listed in Table 6 along with the construct each item is

purported to measure. The Cronbach's alpha for the 11 item scale for thecurrent sample is 0.88.

Table 6

Symbolic meaning and aective judgement scale

Construct

Type Sub-type

1. To what extent would you want your chosen product

to be: Most compatible with the image you have of yourself

Meaning Self-consistency

2. I prefer a product that reects who I am Meaning Self-consistency/

Social-approval

3. The image a product portrays is an important part

of my decision whether or not to buy it

Meaning Self-consistency/

Social-approval


to be: In fashion or in vogue

Meaning Social-approval


to be: Known to be expensive



to be: A product that you can proudly display


7. Usually my selection of a product is based on a gut feeling Judgement Reasoning

8. To what extent would you want your chosen productto be: Something that puts you in a good mood when

you use it

Judgement Aect intensity


to be: Something that feels pleasant to your senses

(i.e., sight, feel, etc.)

Judgement Aect intensity

10. The instant I see a product I know if I like it Judgement Aect latency

and reasoning


you would: Think a lot about yourself as a user of the

product (i.e., how you would look, feel, etc.)

Judgement Subjectivity

Note: Items rated on a scale of 17, `strongly disagree' to `strongly agree'.



23/35

11. Results

The hypothesis is that an individual's preference for utilitarian meaning

and a piecemeal judgement to symbolic meaning and an aective judgement

should be greater when values have an indirect inuence (via tangible at-tribute importance) on product choice than when values have a direct in-

uence. Two dierent procedures would enable the examination of the

hypothesis, what are termed for the purpose of the present article, the

`standard method' and the `residual method'.In the standard method, participants would be divided into two groups

according to their meaning and judgement preferences. One group wouldcomprise those individuals who strongly prefer utilitarian meaning and a

piecemeal judgement and the second group would comprise those individuals

who strongly prefer symbolic meaning and an aective judgement. Then, tworegressions would be performed separately on these two groups. The rst

regression would consist of two steps or blocks: in the rst block product

ownership would be regressed onto tangible attribute importance, and in the

second block human values would be added as another predictor. The extent

that human values predict product ownership beyond that predicted by

tangible attribute importance would show the strength of the direct route ofvalue inuence. To gauge the strength of the indirect route (via tangible at-

tribute importance), a second regression would be carried out in which

product ownership is regressed onto human values only. The strength of the

indirect route could then be calculated, though rather crudely, by subtracting

the multiple R of the direct route from the multiple R of the values onlyregression. Sensibly, for instance, if the multiple R in the regression of

product ownership onto human values alone is 0.40 and in the two-block

regression the direct inuence of human values is multiple R 0.10, then the

indirect inuence of human values on product ownership is, roughly, mul-tiple R 0.30. Thus, if standard method were employed to examine the hy-pothesis, then the indirect route multiple R should be greater for the groupthat strongly prefers utilitarian meaning and a piecemeal judgement and the

direct route multiple R should be greater for the group that strongly prefers

symbolic meaning and an aective judgement.The advantage of the standard method is that it maintains closeness with

the original data and is easily interpretable, but a critical limitation for the

current purpose is that values are probably weakly related to product

ownership. So, the multiple Rs would likely be small as would dierences



24/35

between groups, both of which make any comparison tenuous. However, a

second regression process, the residual method, can also be used to examinethe hypothesis without the limitations of the standard method. As evident

from the name, the residual method uses the regressions' standardised re-

siduals, rather than their multiple Rs, to assess the strength of each indi-vidual's direct and indirect inuences of values, which can then be compared

to his or her meaning and judgement preferences. To explain the method in

mathematical terms, for each of the subsequent formula assume that there

are v variables Vi, i 1Y F F F Y v which denote human values, that there are avariables Aj, j 1Y F F F Y which denote tangible attribute importance, and

that P denotes product ownership. All variables are vectors unless otherwisestated.

In the rst step of the residual method, a series of regressions are carried

out in which the dependent variables are human values and the independentvariables are tangible attribute importance. In this way, human value vari-

ance is divided into two portions: that which can be predicted from tangibleattribute importance and that which cannot be predicted from tangible at-

tribute importance. That which cannot be predicted from tangible attribute

importance is the residual of the regressions. Stated mathematically, the

subspace V spanned by the Vi variables is decomposed into a direct sum oftwo subspaces G and H, using the projection Pe onto the subspace spanned

by the Aj variables. This essentially means that every Vi can be writtenuniquely as a sum

i ei i eiY

where gi PeVi is in the subspace Gand hi Vi PeVi is in the subspace H.More simply, Gis the part of human values that can be predicted by tangible

attribute importance and H is the part of human values that cannot bepredicted by tangible attribute importance. H is the residual.

In the next step of the residual method, product ownership is regressedonto the residual of the previous regression, that is, P is regressed onto the

subspace H spanned by the vectors hi, so that:

r nY

where PrP is in H and

n r

is in the vector of the residuals. In other words, the regression of P ontosubspace H represents the extent that product ownership can be predicted



25/35

from that portion of human values that cannot be predicted from tangible

attribute importance. This regression, therefore, represents the direct inu-ence of human values on product ownership. n is the residual of that re-

gression and so indicates, for each individual, how accurately the direct

inuence of human values predicts his or her product ownership.In the third step, the residual of the previous regression is regressed onto

the original, full-variance human values, that is, the residual vector n is re-

gressed on the V subspace spanned by the Vi variables, resulting in a new set

of residuals, O. This regression is the extent that product ownership can be

predicted from that portion of human values that can be predicted from

tangible attribute importance, and so represents the indirect inuence (viatangible attribute importance) of human values on product ownership. O is

the residual of that regression and indicates, for each individual, how accu-

rately the indirect inuence of human values predicts his or her productownership. Incidentally, if P denotes the projection onto V,

n vn y

and it can be shown that

y X

Thus, in general, n and O are dierent.

Given that n indicates how accurately the direct route of value inuence

predicts each individual's product ownership and O indicates the accuracy

of the indirect route, the sample can be divided into two groups according

to which route yielded a more accurate prediction. Prior to separating

individuals into two groups, however, n and O are standardised, nstand andOstand, and converted to absolute values. n and O are converted to ab-

solute values because we are not interested in whether the regressions of

product ownership onto the direct and indirect inuences of human valuesover- or under-estimate their actual level of product ownership. We are

simply concerned with which regression was more accurate, specicallywhether

jnstandj b jystandj or jnstandj ` jystandjX

Having divided the sample into two groups according to which route of

value inuence more accurately predicts their product ownership, eachgroup's meaning and judgement preferences can then be compared. It is

noteworthy that meaning and judgement preferences are not used in any ofthe preceding regressions. To show support for the hypothesis, individuals



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for whom the indirect inuence of human values more accurately predicted

their product ownership than their direct inuence (i.e., jnstandj b jystandj)should prefer utilitarian meaning and a piecemeal judgement much more

than they prefer symbolic meaning and an aective judgement. In contrast,

individuals for whom the direct inuence of human values more accuratelypredicted their product ownership than their indirect inuence (i.e.,

jnstandj ` jystandj) should prefer utilitarian meaning and a piecemeal judge-ment only slightly more than they prefer symbolic meaning and an aective

judgement.

Thus, the advantage of the residual method over the standard method is

that by using the residual as an indicator of prediction strength, rather thanthe multiple R, the procedure can detect dierences among individuals even

when the absolute magnitude of prediction is low. One limitation of the

residual method, however, is that the abstraction of the data and themultitude of regressions performed may introduce some level of noise.

Nevertheless, given that human values are expected to weakly inuenceproduct ownership the residual method was chosen as the principal analysis

technique.

The residual method was used to examine the hypothesis separately for

smaller family cars, larger family cars, and sunglasses, and accordingly thehypothesis is tested three times. For each regression, factor scores were en-

tered instead of the individual items, and all independent variables were

entered simultaneously (i.e., full-entry method). Human values comprised 15

factors, car tangible attribute importance 5 factors, and sunglasses tangible

attribute importance 6 factors. The regressions carried out in the residualmethod examination of smaller family car ownership were:

The 15 human value factors were regressed separately onto the 5 automo-

bile tangible attribute importance factors.

The percentage of the individual's automobile ownerships that were smal-ler family cars were regressed onto the residuals from the preceding regres-

sion analyses (e.g., 15 human value factors minus their co-variation withautomobile tangible attribute importance). For each individual, the resid-

ual of the regression indicates how accurately the direct inuence of values

predicts his or her smaller family car ownership.

The residual of the preceding analysis (e.g., smaller family car ownership

minus the direct inuence of human values) was regressed onto the 15 hu-

man value factors. For each individual, the residual of the regression indi-

cates how accurately the indirect inuence of values predicts his or hersmaller family car ownership.



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The regressions carried out in the examination of larger family car ownership

were: The 15 human value factors were regressed separately onto the 5 automo-

bile tangible attribute importance factors.

The percentage of the individual's automobile ownerships that were largerfamily cars were regressed onto the residuals from the preceding regression

analyses (e.g., 15 human value factors minus their co-variation with auto-

mobile tangible attribute importance). For each individual, the residual of

the regression indicates how accurately the direct inuence of values pre-dicts his or her larger family car ownership.

The residual of the preceding analysis (e.g., larger family car ownership mi-nus the direct inuence of human values) was regressed onto the 15 human

value factors. For each individual, the residual of the regression indicates

how accurately the indirect inuence of values predicts his or her largerfamily car ownership.

Finally, the regressions carried out in the residual method examination of

sunglasses ownership were:

The 15 human value factors were regressed separately onto the 5 sunglass-

es tangible attribute importance factors.

The price paid for the individual's current pair of sunglasses was regressedonto the residuals from the preceding regression analyses (e.g., 15 human

value factors minus their co-variation with sunglasses tangible attribute

importance). For each individual, the residual of the regression indicates

how accurately the direct inuence of values predicts his or her sunglasses

ownership.

The residual of the preceding analysis (e.g., sunglasses ownership minus

the direct inuence of human values) was regressed onto the 15 human val-

ue factors. For each individual, the residual of the regression indicates how

accurately the indirect inuence of values predicts his or her sunglassesownership.

Due to the large number of regressions performed, only the results of thenal regressions, those used to separate individuals based on strength of their

direct inuence and indirect inuence, are reported. The direct inuence of

human values on smaller family car ownership resulted in multiple R of 0.30(F(15,119) 0.8, p 0.70), whereas the indirect inuence resulted in multipleR of 0.18 (F(15,119) 0.3, p 0.99). The direct route of value inuence onLarger Family Car ownership resulted in multiple R of 0.27 (F(15,119) 0.6,

p 0.86), and the indirect route in multiple R of 0.13 (F(15,119) 0.2,p 0.99). The direct route of value inuence onto sunglasses ownership



28/35

resulted in multiple R of 0.35 (F(15,79) 0.8, p 0.71), and the indirect route

multiple R of 0.16 (F(15,79) 0.3, p 0.99). Given that these direct and in-direct inuence regressions involve the regression of residuals onto residuals,

the multiple Rs and their signicance are not meaningful.

What is meaningful is whether for each individual, and for each product,the direct or indirect inuence of values yielded a more accurate prediction of

product ownership, and whether those predictions are associated with

meaning and judgement preferences in the direction hypothesised. The sep-

aration of the sample according to whether their direct or indirect value in-uence route more accurately predicted their smaller family car ownership

resulted in 67 respondents for whom the direct route was a superior predictorof their smaller family car ownership (direct inuence group) and 65 for

whom the indirect route was superior (indirect inuence group). For 65 re-

spondents, the direct route was a superior predictor of their larger family carownership, whereas for 67 participants the indirect route was more accurate.

Finally, the sunglasses residual method regressions resulted in 47 respondents

for whom the direct route was a superior predictor and 45 for whom the

indirect route was superior.

Each of the six groups' meaning and judgement preferences are reported in

Table 7. The groups' meaning and judgement preferences were comparedseparately for each product in a series of 2 (direct inuence group versus

indirect inuence group) 2 (Utilitarian meaning and piecemeal judgement

scale versus symbolic meaning and aective judgement scale) mixed ANO-

VAs. As each of the three ANOVAs show, meaning and judgement prefer-

ence had a signicant main eect with utilitarian meaning and piecemealjudgement scale being rated more highly than the symbolic meaning and

aective judgement scale. All three ANOVAs also show a signicant inter-

action between meaning and judgement preference and value inuence

group, in which the indirect inuence group rated the utilitarian meaning andpiecemeal judgement scale much higher than the symbolic meaning and af-

fective judgement scale, and the direct inuence group rated the utilitarianmeaning and piecemeal judgement scale only slightly higher than the sym-

bolic meaning and aective judgement scale. These signicant interactions

conrm the hypothesis for all three products.Lastly, given that the residual method was developed by the authors for

the present study, we felt it prudent to also report the results of the standard

method (see Appendix). As shown, for each of the three products, the

multiple R of the indirect route of value inuence (see far-right column) isgreater for those individuals who strongly prefer utilitarian meaning and a



29/35

piecemeal judgement (the UMPJ group) than for those individuals who

strongly prefer symbolic meaning and an aective judgement (the SMAJ

group). Likewise, though not as robust, the direct route of value inuence(see `Change in R' column) is greater for those who strongly prefer symbolic

meaning and aective judgement than those who strongly prefer utilitarian

meaning and a piecemeal judgement. This indeniteness, however, is dueprincipally to the small multiple Rs of the direct route making group

comparison tenuous, and the residual method more suitable to the current

purposes.

12. Discussion

Consistent with the hypothesis, the results show that an individual'spreference for utilitarian meaning and a piecemeal judgement to symbolic

Table 7

Results of residual method analysis

Product ownership tested

and value inuence groups

n Utilitarianmeaning &

piecemeal

judgement

preference

Symbolic

meaning &

aective

judgement

preference

2-way ANOVA

Smaller family car

Indirect inuence group 65 5.48 4.16 MAJ main eect:

F(1,130) 93.7

Direct inuence group 67 5.35 4.45 Interaction: F(1,130) 3.8

Larger family carIndirect inuence group 67 5.58 4.15 MAJ main eect:

F(1,130) 97.1


Sunglasses

Indirect inuence group 45 5.44 4.32 MAJ main eect:

F(1,89) 28.5


Notes: p ` 0.05.

p ` 0.01. p ` 0.001.2-way Anova: value inuence group by meaning and judgement preferences.



30/35

meaning and an aective judgement was greater when his or her values have

an indirect inuence (via tangible attribute importance) on product choicethan when values have a direct inuence. This pattern was found for each of

the three products tested (i.e., smaller family cars, larger family cars, sun-

glasses). Nevertheless, support for the hypothesis is tentative for severalreasons.

First, values had a weak relation to product purchase and ownership.

Some might argue that the weak inuence of human values on product

ownership suggests that values are not worthy of study. However, a moretempered position is warranted given that attempting to predict actual

product purchase and ownership made the study the most stringent test ofthe conceptual model. A stronger role of values may emerge when using

product choice measures that are not as severely aected by external factors

(e.g., family considerations, nancial limitations, and so on), such as per-suasiveness to advertising strategies or simple product attitude. Moreover, a

well-known axiom of Fishbein and Ajzen (1974) is that general attitudes

predict general behaviour and specic attitudes predict specic behaviour. To

obtain a strong prediction, a preference measure should be specic in four

ways; it should include the object of reference, the action the individual wants

to do with the object, the time he or she wants to do it, and the context.Human values have none of those features. Consequently, attempting to

trace the eects of general human values on specic consumer behaviours will

be plagued by low predictive power, and thus the primary contribution of the

current study is to show a particular pattern of relationships more so than

any absolute strength.A second reason that support for the hypothesis is tentative is that al-

though automobiles and sunglasses are dierent ends along the utilitarian-

symbolic and piecemeal-aective continua, each is not necessarily an ade-

quate indicator of utilitarian and symbolic products. One could easily thinkof more utilitarian products (e.g., a vacuum cleaner, tools) or symbolic ones

(e.g., family heirlooms). Such a limitation in conjunction with using only oneinstance of each meaning category suggests that caution is warranted when

attempting to generalise the ndings to other product categories.

A third reason that support for the hypothesis and conceptual model istentative is that respondents indicated their meaning and judgement prefer-

ences for `products in general', and therefore to link those preferences to the

direct and indirect inuences of values on the ownership of cars and sun-

glasses, the general meaning and judgement preferences were assumed totranslate to specic consumer behaviours. Thus, a major limitation of the



31/35

study was not obtaining meaning and judgement preferences for cars and

sunglasses in particular. Although the current study did nd that the gen-eralised meaning and judgement preferences were associated with the direct

and indirect inuences of values in the directions hypothesised, whether

meaning and judgement preferences are actually being applied in these spe-cic instances cannot be certain.

Future research should address the above mentioned methodological

limitations of the current study, but more important, future research should

attempt to qualify the operation and composition of the model. The con-ceptual model aimed to be broad enough to apply to most contexts, and

consequently the complex relationships among human values, tangible at-tribute importance, product choice and meaning and judgement preferences

were oversimplied. Most in need of clarication are the elements and levels

of elements that play the pivotal roles in causing human values to inuenceproduct choice through two separate routes. Conceivably, only one element,

such as either product meaning or its judgement, causes values to operate

through two routes and the other elements vary as a function of that element.

Likewise, tighter operational denitions and distinctions among the elements

are needed. The rationale that formed the basis of much of the conceptual

model was the elements' similarity and conceptual overlap; rationale that ismost apparent in Fig. 1. Fig. 1 illustrates how values were suggested to in-

uence product choice via tangible attribute importance when consumers

attend to utilitarian meaning because tangible attribute importance and

utilitarian meaning are conceptually similar: both are concrete, objective and

means-oriented. Similarly, human values were suggested to inuence productchoice directly when consumers attend to symbolic meaning because sym-

bolic meaning and values are similar: both are abstract and subjective.

However, now that the merit of the general approach has been empirically

supported by the current study, dierences among the elements and dier-ences between the levels of elements should be more tightly dened, in ad-

dition to the type of products and product meanings for which the conceptualmodel is either unsuited or moderated.

Acknowledgements

The current research was supported by a Victoria University IGC grant to

the rst author. We would also like to thank James Liu and Marc Wilson fortheir helpful comments and Brain Dawkins for statistical advice.



32/35

Appendix A. Summary results of standard method. All gures are multiple Rs.

Notes: p ` 0.10. p ` 0.05. p ` 0.01. p ` 0.001.t test of signicance unavailable.

To conserve degrees of freedom, independent variables were entered on a

stepwise basis (p ` 0.20 level).

SMAJ Symbolic meaning and aective judgement preference (HighSMAJ group n 97).

UMPJ Utilitarian meaning and piecemeal judgement preference (HighUMPJ group n 98).

Block 1 product choice onto tangible attribute importance.Block 2 human values onto remaining product choice not already ac-

counted by tangible attribute importance.

Change in R indicates direct inuence of human values.HVs via tangible attribute iimportance indicates indirect inuence of

human values and is calculated, somewhat crudely, by subtracting change inR from human values only.

Two-block regression

Block 1 Block 2

Productownership

Meaning& judgementpreferencegroup

Tangibleattributeimportance

Humanvalues

Changein R

Humanvaluesonlyregression

HVs viatangibleattributeimportance'

Smallerfamily cars

High SMAJ 0.51 0.64 0.13 0.30 0.17

Smallerfamily cars

High UMPJ 0.51 0.54 0.03 0.47 0.43

Largerfamily cars

High SMAJ 0.33 0.49 0.16 0.20 0.04

Largerfamily cars

High UMPJ 0.40 0.55 0.15 0.52 0.36

Sunglasses High SMAJ 0.66 0.78 0.12 0.23 0.11

Sunglasses High UMPJ 0.71 0.79 0.08 0.58 0.50



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References

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S. J. Breckler and A. G. Greenwald (eds.), Attitude structure and function (pp. 361381). Hillsdale, NJ:

Erlbaum.

Ajzen, I., & Fishbein, M. (1980). Understanding attitudes and predicting social behavior. Englewood Clis,

NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Allen, M. W. (1994). Personal values of Wellingtonians: A multidimensional scaling analysis. New Zealand

Journal of Psychology, 23, 7176.

Braithwaite, V. A., & Law, H. G. (1985). Structure of human values: Testing the adequacy of the Rokeach

Value Survey. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 49, 250262.

Chaiken, S. (1980). Heuristic versus systematic information processing

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