Abstract (eng)
Past research on the impact of products’ country-of-origin (COO) upon consumers’ evaluations shows the shortcoming of almost exclusively relying on explicit measurement whilst neglecting the implicit measurement of COO. Findings in the area of cognitive psychology indicate that people can have explicit and implicit attitudes at the same time (Wilson, Lindsey, & Schooler, 2000) but depending on the type of behavior involved, either the one or the other becomes relevant to behavioral outcome (Dovidio, Kawakami, Johnson, Johnson, & Howard, 1997). Therefore, the present study investigated the relationship between explicit measured (questionnaire) and implicit measured (IAT) country stereotypes and product choice made either spontaneously or deliberately. For the purpose of operationalizing country stereotypes the stereotype content model was used (SCM; Fiske, Cuddy, Glick, & Xu, 2002), which partitions stereotypes into the two dimensions warmth and competence. Participants had to evaluate Germany and the USA upon these dimensions and were to choose between a German and a US-made product, while processing resources were manipulated. Germany was perceived as more implicitly and explicitly competent and more implicitly warm than the USA. Further, regression analyses showed that perceived implicit warmth of a country became especially relevant when the product choice was made spontaneously, whereas perceived explicit competence of a country was predictive in deliberate product choice. Thus, higher implicit warmth perceptions in spontaneous and higher explicit competence perceptions in deliberate evaluation situations in favor of Germany, induced the selection of a German digital camera. Possible reasons for these results, suggestions for future research, and limitations of the present study are discussed.