Consumer Self-Confidence in Searching for Information

Consumer behavior is often driven by the extent to which consumers feel confident regarding their decisions, which frequently hinge, especially in high-stakes situations, on their information search. This article examines a multidimensional self-confidence concept to explore how consumer self-confidence influences information search. Findings of a mail survey document that high-confidence consumers engage in more intensive search activities and that demographic patterns shape consumer self-confidence scores. The findings empirically support a multidimensional measurement of self-confidence to predict search behavior and suggest avenues to enhance the self-confidence needed to produce positive marketplace experiences. ********** The decisions that matter most in life are often the ones that we are least confident about making. While we may comfortably be choosing brands from supermarket shelves and finding the least-expensive gas station, the comfort level drops fast when decisions need to be made where consequences of a poor choice are large and, once made, difficult to reverse (Kunreuther et al. 2002). Trading off the ownership of a home versus debt repayment in mortgage decisions, quality of life versus longevity in complex health-care decisions, or high-quality private schooling versus student loan burdens in education decisions are complex and often stressful. Self-help books, talk shows, and magazine articles make a living from people's timidity in facing these decisions by identifying how these important decisions affect our future well-being and by offering solutions about how we should approach these high-stakes decisions in order to feel confident making these choices in the marketplace. Although consumer confidence in the economy has been measured since 1967 in the U.S. Consumer Confidence Index, far less study has been devoted to consumers' perception of their own confidence in the marketplace, and further, whether their marketplace experiences are, by and large, positive. The academic literature supports the notion that CSC is closely related to positive experiences in the marketplace. Analyses of consumer behavior associate self-confidence, for example, with peoples' perceptions of their product knowledge (Park, Mothersbaugh, and Feick 1994), attention to product labeling (Barber, Almanza, and Donovan 2006; Barber, Ismail, and Taylor 2007), skepticism toward market claims (Brown and Krishna 2004; Tan and Tan 2007), market expertise and individualism (Chelminski and Coulter 2007a, 2007b), consumer utilitarian value, and hedonic orientation (Paridon 2006). Among this research, the relationship between consumers' self-confidence and their efforts to acquire marketplace information assumes a significant role. The literature is divided on whether CSC, generally defined, encourages or inhibits consumers to acquire information; yet, this act has been hypothesized as a key predictor of high-quality decisions, and, presumably, positive marketplace experiences (Guo 2001; Payne, Bettman, and Johnson 1993; Payne, Bettman, and Schkade 1999). Thus, in the current research, we examine a multidimensional concept of CSC to determine its influence on acquiring information as measured by information search. By extension, our goal is to further understanding of those factors that enhance the ability of consumers to make high-quality, well-informed decisions, especially in high-stakes situations, to produce positive results. Thus, we also focus on the role of demographic predictors of the relationship between CSC and information search. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND Consumer Self-Confidence What makes a consumer a self-confident actor in the marketplace? Early research in consumer behavior and public policy addressed this question by resorting to measures of self-esteem developed in the psychological literature (Bearden, Hardesty, and Rose 2001). Among the most popular and well-utilized measures of self-esteem were the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (Rosenberg 1965) and the Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventories (Coopersmith 1981). …