Relationship-sign framing: The sign of attribute relationships influences product preference via perceived relationship magnitude

Abstract

Marketers often have the chance to frame the sign of a relationship between product attributes. For example, battery capacity of used electric vehicles (EVs) is equivalently stated in terms of their remaining or degraded battery percentages, which are positively and negatively related to price, respectively. A relationship's sign is logically independent of its magnitude. Yet, we demonstrate that a relationship's magnitude is perceived as larger (i.e., having a steeper slope) when its sign is positive (vs. negative), which increases preference for the higher-price-higher-battery-capacity EV by increasing its perceived value (i.e., each dollar spent is worth more battery). We call this novel framing effect relationship-sign framing and demonstrate its boundaries and actionable implications. Specifically, framing a purchase as hedonic (vs. utilitarian) accentuates the effect of relationship-sign framing by promoting a focus on attribute-per-dollar (vs. dollar-per-attribute) when making the price-quality trade-off.