An Experimental Study of the Accuracy of Consumers’ Self-Reports of Their Information Acquisition Processes

Abstract

There has been a long-standing concern and controversy in the consumer behavior and related literature about the accuracy of consumers’ self-reports of their mental processes. While some researchers have found such reports to be susceptible to a number of inaccuracies, others have found them to be reasonably accurate. This study contributes to the debate by comparing consumers’ self-reports of their information acquisition processes in decision making with process-tracing measures of the same processes, and doing so within the context of research design recommendations suggested by Ericsson and Simon (1980, 1984, 1993) for collecting valid retrospective self-reports. Data for the study were collected in a decision-making experiment in which a custom-made computer software was used to administer two decision tasks and to unobtrusively measure subjects’ information acquisition patterns (process-tracing measures). Self-report measures were collected by means of a questionnaire administered after subjects completed both tasks. Descriptive discriminant analysis (with self-report measures as dependent and scores on process-tracing measures as independent variables) shows that subjects were able to accurately report their information acquisition patterns. For both decision tasks, the majority of subjects who were classified by the discriminant functions as using a particular information acquisition strategy actually reported using such a strategy. Implications of the findings are outlined and discussed.

Citation

Abdul-Muhmin, A.G. (2006), "An Experimental Study of the Accuracy of Consumers’ Self-Reports of Their Information Acquisition Processes", Belk, R.W. (Ed.) Research in Consumer Behavior (Research in Consumer Behavior, Vol. 10), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 185-207. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0885-2111(06)10008-3