Calibration of consumer knowledge of the web
Introduction
Consumer knowledge has been a topic of considerable research interest in marketing for the past three decades (Alba and Hutchinson, 1987, Bettman and Park, 1980, Brucks, 1985, Mitchell and Dacin, 1996, Roy and Cornwell, 2004). The importance of consumer knowledge can be located in the fact that knowledge is central to understanding consumer behaviors such as information search and information processing. Researchers have examined the antecedents and consequences of prior knowledge of consumers (Alba, 1983, Chase and Simon, 1973) and the different types of consumer knowledge such as product class knowledge, price knowledge, knowledge of the World Wide Web, etc. (Brucks, 1985, Estelami et al., 2001, Page and Uncles, 2004). Researchers have also attempted to distinguish between objective knowledge, which refers to the absolute knowledge possessed by the consumer, and subjective knowledge, which refers to consumers' perception of their own knowledge (Raju, Lonial, & Mangold, 1995).
An aspect of knowledge that has been omitted from the discourse in consumer research is knowledge calibration. Knowledge calibration refers to the correspondence between accuracy and confidence in knowledge. Notions of correct and incorrect knowledge tap into only the first dimension, i.e., accuracy. A person can be well calibrated even when possessing inaccurate knowledge. Being well-calibrated means that a person is realistic in his or her assessment of the level of knowledge that he or she possesses. This, in turn, is likely to facilitate appropriate actions such as information search or optimal decision making. Hence, examination of this construct is likely to unravel processes that have not been brought to light by the research on consumer knowledge. The latter construct has attracted considerable research, while research on calibration of consumer knowledge is relatively new. Alba and Hutchinson (2000) highlighted the importance of this construct and its implications in consumer research and called for research in this area. This paper responds to the call by examining the calibration of consumer knowledge of the web, a topic that is of considerable relevance, given the increasing importance of the web for consumers. The paper proposes a model of calibration of knowledge of the web and examines the antecedent roles of involvement with the web, experience, usage, knowledge type, and gender on calibration of consumer knowledge of the web.
The paper's contribution is threefold. One, it seeks to empirically examine knowledge calibration in the consumer domain. Second, in doing so, it adds a new dimension to the research on knowledge and usage of the web. Third, it contributes to the larger stream of research on knowledge calibration through the examination of knowledge type as an antecedent of calibration.
We start by introducing the concept of knowledge calibration, followed by a brief review of the literature on knowledge calibration. The hypotheses for the study are presented afterwards. Subsequently, the method and the results of the study are presented. The results indicate the antecedent effects of involvement and knowledge type in enhancing calibration. Broadly, the results imply that calibration of knowledge of the web in particular and calibration of knowledge in general could be determined by knowledge variables such as types of knowledge. The study discounts the role of individual specific factors, other than involvement, as antecedents of knowledge calibration.
Section snippets
Knowledge calibration
As defined earlier, calibration of knowledge refers to the correspondence between accuracy and confidence in knowledge. High accuracy and high confidence together lead to high calibration. Similarly, low accuracy and low confidence lead to high calibration. Lack of correspondence between the two lead to low calibration; thus, low accuracy along with high confidence (overconfidence), and high accuracy along with low confidence (underconfidence) are instances of poor calibration, termed as
Sample
We used two samples to test the hypotheses. Sample 1 comprised 151 students enrolled in undergraduate business courses in a large university in the southeastern United States, who participated in the study for course credit. Sample 2 comprised 153 adults in a British city. The adults included (a) community members (40%) who were contacted in libraries, parks, residential apartments, and retail stores, (b) nonacademic staff members (25%) and faculty members (5%) in a leading British university
Scale reliability
The ten-item involvement scale had acceptable reliability (alpha = .875). The reliability of the knowledge of the web scale, computed using KR 20, fell below the threshold of .7 (overall .52; specialized = .83; common = .13; procedural = .35; declarative = .39). This is not deemed to be a cause for concern due to the following reasons: (a) the construct of knowledge of the web is necessarily multidimensional and a scale that attempts to tap into the various dimensions will have to compromise on
Discussion
We organize the discussion section into two parts. In the first part, we continue the discussion of the model, examining some potential antecedents and, more importantly, the consequences of calibration of consumer knowledge of the web. In the second part, we examine the implications of the study and outline future research directions.
Acknowledgments
The authors thank Professor Hubert Gatignon and three anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments throughout the review process.
References (99)
- et al.
Perception in chess
Cognitive Psychology
(1973, January) User acceptance of information technology: system characteristics, user perceptions and behavioral impacts
International Journal of Man–Machine Studies
(1993)- et al.
Macro-economic determinants of consumer price knowledge: A meta-analysis of four decades of research
International Journal of Research in Marketing
(2001) Confidence in judgment
Trends in Cognitive Sciences
(1997)- et al.
Gender differences in self confidence and educational beliefs among secondary teacher candidates
Teaching and Teacher Education
(1994) Calibration of probability judgments: Conceptual and methodological issues
Acta Psychologica
(1991)The depth/breadth tradeoff in the design of many-driven interfaces
International Journal of Man–Machine Studies
(1984)- et al.
Consumer search for information in the digital age: An empirical study of prepurchase search for automobiles
Journal of Interactive Marketing
(2003) Models of human behavior and confidence in judgment: A review
International Journal of Forecasting
(1989)The relationships of prior knowledge and involvement to advertising recall and evaluation
International Journal of Research in Marketing
(1992)
Influences on the appropriateness of confidence in judgment: Practice, effort, information, and decision-making
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes
Differential effects of subjective knowledge, objective knowledge, and usage experience on decision making: An exploratory investigation
Journal of Consumer Psychology
Gender, internet, and computer attitudes and behavior
Computers in Human Behavior
Problem–problem solver characteristics affecting the calibration of judgments
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes
Country-of-origin effects in consumer processing of advertising claims
International Journal of Research in Marketing
The effects of product knowledge on the comprehension, retention, and evaluation of product information
Dimensions of consumer expertise
Journal of Consumer Research
Knowledge calibration: What consumers know and what they think they know
Journal of Consumer Research
The architecture of cognition
How advertising works at contact
Cognitive psychology
Effects of prior knowledge and experience and phase of the choice process on consumer decision processes: A protocol analysis
Journal of Consumer Research
Direct measures of availability and judgments of category frequency
Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society
The influence of product knowledge and brand name on internal price standards and confidence
Psychology and Marketing
The effects of product knowledge on the evaluation of warranted brands
Psychology and Marketing
Consumer search: An extended framework
Journal of Consumer Research
The effects of instruction and experience on the acquisition of auditing knowledge
The Accounting Review
The effects of product class knowledge on information search behavior
Journal of Consumer Research
A typology of consumer knowledge content
Advances in Consumer Research
Factors influencing the likelihood of customer defection: The role of consumer knowledge
Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science
The Nurnberg funnel: Designing minimalist instruction for practical computer skill
The role of involvement in attention and comprehension processes
Journal of Consumer Research
Gender and computers: The beneficial effects of experience on attitudes
Journal of Educational Computing Research
Physician's use of probabilistic information in a real clinic setting
Journal of Experimental Psychology. Human Perception and Performance
Measuring service quality in e-retailing
Journal of Service Research
Beyond boredom and anxiety
Flow: The psychology of optimal experience
The relationship of antecedents of search and self-esteem to adolescent search effort and perceived product knowledge
Psychology and Marketing
Determinants of success for computer usage in small business
MIS Quarterly
A study of web use and attitudes amongst novices, moderate users, and heavy users
The gender gap on Wall Street: An empirical analysis of confidence in investment decision making
Journal of Psychology: Interdisciplinary and Applied
Learning and maintaining rules for decreasing judgment accuracy
Journal of Personality Assessment
A little learning…: Confidence in multicue judgment tasks
Priming and frequency estimation: A strict test of the availability heuristic
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
Probabilistic mental models: A brunswikian theory of confidence
Psychological Review
Gender differences in perceived and real knowledge of financial investments
Psychological Reports
Knowledge calibration
The influence of individual differences on skill in end-user computing
Journal of Management Information Systems
Cited by (38)
How individual differences in knowledge over-/underconfidence impede dietary consumer decision making under time pressure
2022, Personality and Individual DifferencesPerformance effects of trust-dependence congruence: The mediating role of relational behaviors
2021, Journal of Business ResearchUnderstanding motivated consumer innovativeness in the context of a robotic restaurant: The moderating role of product knowledge
2020, Journal of Hospitality and Tourism ManagementOnline customers’ habit-inertia nexus as a conditional effect of mobile-service experience: A moderated-mediation and moderated serial-mediation investigation of mobile-service use resistance
2019, Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services