Linear Attitude Models: A Study of Predictive Ability

Prediction of consumer preference and purchasing behavior has been a topic of deep interest to marketing researchers for many years. Until recently, most of these studies used socioeconomic or personality variables as independent variates in prediction, with results that were less than encouraging 10. In an attempt to find better predictor variables, researchers have recently turned to productand brand-specific measures, using as an underlying rationale the argument that brand preference is governed by a consumer's desire for specific and his beliefs about the ability of different brands to deliver these attributes 3, p. 272. In these studies, a subject's actual preference ordering for brands is compared with a predicted preference ordering based on his attitudes, where his attitude is considered as some composite of ratings on a number of specified 1, 2, 3, 13. The studies cited all used the Fishbein model 8, 9, in which attitude is composed of two components, beliefs and values, for the n dimensions on which the beliefs exist. The theory suggests that these components can be aggregated to yield a numerical index of attitude: