Scale-dependent automatic shifts in brand evaluation standards

Different schema-based expectations for competing brands can produce shifting evaluative standards in consumers' relative ratings of these brands. This shift in standards differentially affects objective (number-based) and subjective (word-based) rating scales. Several studies support the proposition that a brand rated as objectively inferior to another can be subjectively perceived as equivalent to—or even better than—the same brand. Such anomalous response inconsistency originates in consumers' recourse to different expectations for the competing brands and their automatic adjustment of expectations for the inferior brand when responding to subjective measures. The implicit relaxing of evaluative standards for the objectively dominated brand leads to an unconscious upward bias in its subjective ratings. The effect is moderated by consumer expertise and is asymmetric—it is not accompanied by an escalation of evaluative standards for objectively dominating brands. © 2009 Society for Consumer Psychology. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.