The Interrelation of Analytical and Affective Assessments in the Virtual Choice of Goods by the Consumer

One of the controversial issues in modern behavioral economics is associated with the role of emotional and rational criteria for the consumer's choice of goods for purchase. Until recently, the economic theories of such a choice were dominated by an intellectualistic approach, in which the decisive role was attributed to the rational criterion. Recently, both the opposite point of view and the recognition of the role of the interaction of both criteria in making a decision by the buyer have appeared. This article presents the results of a pilot experiment in which the subjects evaluated the images of a pair of cars and made a decision about the possible purchase of one of them. The assessments were made in two ways: either on a 7-point “like-dislike” scale (global emotional assessment), or on four specified criteria (rational assessment). The main issue of the experiment was to determine the predictive power of one or another type of assessment in the final choice of the purchased car. From the data obtained in the experiment, the main conclusions follow: 1) affective estimates are inferior in predictive power to total analytical estimates if the choice of an object is made immediately after its analytical estimates, but they are not significantly inferior in the condition when the choice is made when it is postponed; 2) affective assessments are inferior in the success of election predictions to analytical assessments in the younger age group (subjects under 40), but do not differ significantly in this in the older age group; 3) affective assessments are most closely related to analytical assessments of car design, which, in turn, are the closest in terms of the success of election predictions to the total analytical assessments. All this suggests that there is no absolute advantage of any strategy (rational or emotional) choice in the presence of several alternatives.

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