The Effect Of Need For Cognition And Framing Effect On College Students’ Purchase Decisions:an Empirical Research

Everyone needs to spend time and effort to make decisions in daily life, including all kinds of purchase decisions from the government buying bonds to individuals shopping. What kind of decisions consumers make and whether the decisions are effective is essential to individuals and organizations. Purchase decisions play an increasingly important role in the decision-making research filed. Many studies indicate that besides the method and environment of consumers’decisions, effective purchase decisions are influenced by decision-makers’psychological factors such as cognition, personality. This research introduces framing effect and need for cognition to explore the mechanism of purchase decisions in order to have a more rational knowledge of own purchase behaviors and provide a good reference to effective marketing of company.This research adopted the method of situational experiment. Study1was conducted to explore how the attribute framing effect and need for cognition influence college students’purchase decisions by2(attribute framing:positive vs. negative) X2(need for cognition:high vs. low) between-subjects design of experiment, the dependent variable was the consumers’purchase decisions (purchase intention, purchase attitude, willingness to pay). Study2was conducted to explore how the attribute framing effect, goal framing effect and need for cognition influence college students’ purchase decisions by2(attribute framing:positive vs. negative)×2(need for cognition: high vs. low) between-subjects design of experiment, the dependent variable was the consumers’purchase decisions(purchase intention, purchase attitude, willingness to pay). Results were listed as follows:First, the results suggested that attribute framing effect and need for cognition significantly influenced college students’purchase intention.(1) College students with low need for cognition revealed significantly higher purchase intention to the target product than their counterparts with high need for cognition.(2) College students in the positive attribute framing condition revealed significantly higher purchase intention to the target product than their counterparts in the negative attribute framing condition only among participants with low need for cognition. There is no significant difference among those with high need for cognition.Second, the experimental results suggested that attribute framing effect and need for cognition significantly influenced college students’ purchase attitude.(1) College students with low need for cognition had significantly more positive purchase attitude toward their counterparts with high need for cognition.(2) College students in the positive attribute framing condition had more positive purchase attitude toward their counterparts in the negative attribute framing condition only among participants with low need for cognition. There is no significant difference among those with high need for cognition.Third, the experimental results suggested that attribute framing effect and need for cognition significantly influenced college students’ willingness to pay.(1) College students with low need for cognition revealed significantly higher willingness to pay for the target product their counterparts with high need for cognition.(2) College students in the positive attribute framing condition revealed significantly higher willingness to pay for the target product than their counterparts in the negative attribute framing condition only among Participants with low need for cognition. There is no significant difference among those with high need for cognition.Forth, the experimental results suggested that goal framing effect did not significantly influenced college students’ purchase intention, purchase attitude and willingness to pay for the target product。...