Experience Distortion by Quality and Motivational Signals

Consumers’ experienced utility is often shaped not only by intrinsic aspects of consumption experiences themselves, but also by extrinsic pre-consumption information about those experiences. For instance, consider critics’ ratings of a film, the price or country-of-origin of a bottle of wine, the brand-name of a cola, whether a meal is made from organic ingredients—in these and countless other scenarios, an individual’s actual consumption experience may be altered by extrinsic cues about that experience.