User:Rhododendrites/Post-decision product evaluation

Post-decision product evaluation is a the process by which someone assesses goods or services following their purchase decision or selection. Psychological research has shown a tendency for people to ascribe positive attributes to products after making a personal investment in the decision to obtain them.

According to research by Cohen and Goldberg, human decision making processes benefit from a balance of cognitive flexibility and consistency, but when a person becomes personally involved with a decision, the balance is shifted towards consistency and a desire to reduce dissonance. They draw a distinction between evaluations preceding and following consumption/use, which can effectively confirm or disconfirm the decision. In their conclusions, writing for a marketing audience, the authors caution against looking for pre-consumption evaluations, as the purchaser would not have had a chance for disconfirmation, so "one may be recording the full effect of cognitive justification" to such an extent that follow-up research after consumption could be "biased by the increased commitment generated by the earlier response."

In a review of research in the area, Cummings and Venkatesan concluded the application of dissonance theory to consumer behavior was substantiated insofar as it is useful to understand determinants of consumer satisfaction prior to and following a decision.