Interesting Results

Predicting Product Preferences

Research has consistently shown that people are relatively poor at predicting others’ preferences — even (and possibly especially) when the person whose preferences they’re trying to predict is someone they know well. A series of experiments described in a 2006 article¹ suggests why. The results show that when predicting preferences of those with whom they are familiar, people tend to rely on general, pre-stored information about the person rather than using product-specific attitude information even when that type of information is available. This leads to poor predictions because product-specific information is more useful in making accurate predictions about product preferences than the general pre-stored information people have about those they know.

¹ Lerouge, Davy and Luk Warlop (2006), “Why is it so hard to predict our partner’s product preferences: The effect of target familiarity on prediction accuracy”, Journal of Consumer Research, 33(3), 393-402.