The Impacts of Knowledge Level and Need for Closure and on Overall Evaluations : Considering the Moderating Role of Situational Severity

지식수준과 종결욕구가 전반적 평가에 미치는 영향 : 상황적 심각성의 조절효과를 중심으로

This paper attempts to show that consumers' own information processing mode can play an important role in inducing favorable product evaluations, which is the most key goal of marketing. Th elaboration likelihood model contends that consumers' motivation and knowledge, in addition to the outside marketing information, affects the evaluation process. On the other hand, The resource matching hypothesis suggests that an excessively high level of information processing may lead to negative evaluations. In this study, Need for closure exacerbated overall evaluations of consumers. Such relationship was more salient in the condition of low severity that in the condition of high severity. Also under the situation of low severity, consumers with high level of relevant knowledge made evaluations more favorable, compared to the consumers of low knowledge. On contrast under the situation of high severity, relevant knowledge leaded to less favorable evaluations. This experiment identifies the appropriateness of the elaboration likelihood model and the resource matching hypothesis. Especially This study suggests an rare example that consumers' knowledge may not paly an desirable role in making their judgments.