关键词: 产品属性, 陈列秩序, 流畅性感知, 消费者朴素信念, 效价

Abstract: Orderly display, from our urban planning to the layout of goods in shops, is widely used in our nearby environment. Researches have shown that the need for order is one of the basic human needs and people prefer objects under orderly display. Our study enriched this line of work by exploring the association between display order and product attribution and providing evidence that disorder can be beneficial. Specifically, natural attribution (vs. artificial product) is associated with disorder (vs. order). Furthermore, for natural product (vs. artificial product), consumers prefer them in disorderly display (vs. orderly display). Based on the associative learning mechanism, 4 studies were conducted to examine how display order and product attribute match together and influences consumers' product preference. Also, the mediating role of fluency perception and moderating role of valence cue were examined. Study 1 (N = 34, 18 men) intended to explore the matching relationship between product attribution and display order with the method of Implicit Association Test. Participants were instructed to sort a series of stimuli into two categories(natural or artificial) as quickly as possible. Study 2 (N = 280, 105 men) aimed to test the match effect of product attribution and display order in explicit level using within-subjects design. After showing the interpretation of both constructs’ definition, participants were asked to match natural (vs. artificial) product to orderly or disorderly display. Study 3 (N = 200, 75 men) used between-subjects design to further investigate the effect of product attribution and display order on consumer preference, and the mediation role of processing fluency, with product content remain the same, i.e., mango. Participants were shown one picture and asked to indicate their preference and processing fluency. Study 4 (N = 240, 98 men) investigated the boundary effect of valence cue. The participants were asked to evaluate the valence of all categories of product attribution and display order as priming method. Then participants were shown two pictures of natural or artificial product in disorderly and orderly display. In the end, they indicate their liking and processing fluency of pictures. The main results of this study are as follows: (1) natural attribution (vs. artificial product) is associated with disorder (vs. order) in both implicit and explicit level; (2) for natural (vs. artificial) product, consumers have higher preference for product in disorderly (vs. orderly) display; (3) product attribution and display order influences consumers' product preferences through the mediation role of processing fluency; (4) valence cue moderate consumers' preference for natural products in different display order. This research identify and explore a previously unidentified lay theory, the natural (vs. artificial) = disorder (order) intuition. Moreover, based on dual-process of associative learning, we further explore the contradictory naïve theory of our proposal. And this research contributes to the literature of natural product and product display. It provides managers with guidelines on arrangement of display order for product with different attribution when organizing shelf display or designing advertisement.

Key words: product attributes, display order, fluency perception, consumer naive theory, valence