Microsoft Word 2007 ichrie conference Proceedings Final-Final 06-06-07. doc

Judgmental Confidence
The underlying assumption in HSM is that people are motivated to hold valid and accurate perceptions that 
are congruent with relevant facts (Chaiken, Liberman & Eagly, 1989). Because of this functional assumption, the 
HSM assumes that the primary processing goal is to assess the validity of externally obtained information. An 
individual strives to achieve a threshold of judgmental confidence of the belief he/she is holding (Chaiken, Liberman 
& Eagly, 1989). As such, two aspects of consumers’ purchase decision were examined in this study: purchase 
intent (ie, valence of the judgment) and judgmental confidence (ie, strength of the judgment).
When the information acquired is not sufficient to make a judgment (e.g., a consumer with no established 
pre-decisional disposition), a consumer is likely to engage in further information search until a judgmental 
confidence threshold is achieved (Chaiken, Liberman & Eagly, 1989). The negative gap between actual confidence 
and the desired confidence level is believed to be the underlying motivator of processing effort (Maheswarn & 
Chaiken, 1991). We expect the effect of non-diagnostic traveler reviewss on consumers’ judgmental confidence to 
be a function of their pre-decisional disposition. With extra information provided in the traveler reviewss, 
consumers with no established pre-decisional disposition may have their post-decisional judgmental confidence 
boosted. This prediction is in line with the empirical evidence that dramatic increases in confidence were associated 
with access to additional information even though judgment accuracy remained unchanged (Dremen, 1982; Oskamp, 
1965). Conversely, we expect non-diagnostic traveler reviewss to waver the judgmental confidence of the 
consumers with an established pre-decisional disposition. Consumer literature suggests that inconsistent 
information requires a higher desired confidence level due to its inconsistency with the consumer’s prior cognitive 
structure (e.g., pre-decisional disposition). Consequently, inconsistent information is likely to lower actual 
confidence in these consumers (Jain & Maheswarn, 2000). Such effect may be especially salient for consumers with 
a favorable pre-decisional disposition when negative information makes them have a “second thought” about their 
predecsional disposition. The hypothesis is summarized as follows: 
H4:
Exposed to non-diagnostic traveler reviews, consumers with no established pre-decisional disposition will show 
greater increase in their post-decisional judgmental confidence than the consumers with established pre-decisional 
disposition.