The influence of hedonic and pragmatic qualities on the importance of recommendations and product attributes in purchase decisions.

How pragmatically and hedonically a consumer assesses a product determines the subjectively perceived attractiveness of the product (Hassenzahl, 2000). Whether the hedonic and pragmatic assessment of an individual product has an influence on the product information and product recommendations used for a purchase decision in the product category is the subject of this study using cell phones as an example. 163 brain healthy subjects (78 male, mean age M=26.22, SD=9.03) decided in 20 choice tasks between three cell phones each. Each cell phone was characterized by four recommendations and four product features. In addition, an Apple Iphone and a RIM Blackberry were evaluated in terms of their hedonic and pragmatic quality. The Iphone was rated more hedonic than the Blackberry (T(162)= 4.68 p <.001). The results suggest that the perceived hedonic or pragmatic quality of a product interacts with the reception of product information and recommendations as well as their importance.