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Abstract Consumer researchers describe Heider's (1958) balance theory without showing how the theory relates to recent theoretical developments in consumer behavior. Empirical examination of the theory is also lacking in consumer‐psychology literature. This article updates Heider's balance theory in consumer behavior by developing the theory's links to theories of perceptual, attitudinal, and behavior automaticity and controlled thinking (see Bargh, 1994; Bargh, Chen, Schank, 1990) methods aids in examining these theory developments empirically. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Woodside et al. (Mon,) studied this question.