Recent Attribution Research in Consumer Behavior: A Review and New Directions

Recent consumer behavior research testing attribution theory principles is sum-marized and critiqued. Most studies on antecedents of causal inferences focus on how information about a product influences attributions, how the discounting effect influences liking for products, and how self-perception processes influence willingness to participate in marketing research. Research examining consequences of causal inferences focuses on product satisfaction. Major trends in attribution theory and future research directions are indicated. A ttribution research is concerned with all aspects of causal inferences: how people arrive at causal inferences, what sort of inferences they make, and what the consequences of these inferences are. Nine years ago, Mizerski, Golden, and Kernan (1979) provided an overview of four major attribution theories and re-viewed the relevant consumer behavior research from 1971 to 1978. Since that time attribution theory has