Sociology

Product category

Feature (linguistics)

Mathematics

Social science

Categorization

Politics

Statistics

Philosophy

Political science

Cognitive psychology

Interdependence

Artificial intelligence

Psychology

Construal level theory

Geometry

Representation (politics)

Computer science

Linguistics

Centrality

Product (mathematics)

Social psychology

Marketing Letters

The current research investigates the interactive influence of self-construal and product feature centrality on product judgment tasks. Feature centrality refers to the extent to which a feature is integral to the product concept and its network of correlated features, and contributes to the coherence of the product’s conceptual representation. While the categorization literature suggests that central features (versus less central features) are weighted more when consumers make judgments about a product, across two studies we find such effect is bounded by individuals’ self-construal. In particular, whereas independent consumers, adopting an analytical thinking style, rely more on central features than less central features in product categorization and evaluations, interdependent consumers, employing a holistic thinking style, use both features to form their judgments.

Self-construal and feature centrality