The Influence of Different Meanings of Money Priming on Consumer’s Comparative Decision-Making

With the development of information dissemination, consumers have access to compare different information before making purchase decisions. The present research explores how money priming affects consumers’ comparative decision-making process. While prior research showed that consumers rely more on alignable than nonalignable attributes when evaluating alternative products, this research builds on the structural alignment model and money priming theory verifies that when the concept of abundant (vs. lack) money is primed, consumers will rely more on the nonalignable (vs. alignable) attributes in the comparative decision-making process (Study 1) and the mediating role of cognitive flexibility (Study 2).