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ISSN : 1229-8778
The two main aims of this study were to determine if country-of-origin information would influence implicit beliefs and attitudes of consumers about a product and to explore if the Extrinsic Affective Simon Task(EAST), one of the modified versions of the Implicit Associate Test(IAT), could be applied to the study of consumer attitudes as a useful measurement method. Thirty-six students at Bangor University took part in this experiment. As target concepts measured, three imaginary company names, having different country-of-origin were used to test the impact of country-of-origin, and two existing company names were presented to examine the application of the EAST to real consumer attitudes and beliefs. Respective implicit beliefs and attitudes toward target concepts were measured by the EAST. In the EAST, participants saw white words that needed to be classified on the basis of stimulus valence(good or bad) and colored words that were to be classified on the basis of color(blue or green). Results showed that when the colored words referred to a target name having a positive country-of-origin(i.e., an imaginary Japanese company name) and the existing company name(i.e., SONY) which is believed to have positive images, the reaction time was faster when these words shared the same key orientation with positive white words. These findings indicate that country-of-origin could be a crucial factor which could influence the implicit evaluation of a product and the EAST could successfully be used as a useful method for measuring the implicit attitudes and beliefs of consumers.
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