Influence of aesthetics on consumer decision

ERPs (Event-related Potentials) were used to study the influence of aesthetics on consumer purchase decision when product appearance is pitted against attributes that are more determinative of product performance. In this study, consumers should decide whether to buy the products with appearance and performance information in an online-shopping experiment. The stimuli were divided into four configurations based on the consistency of appearance (aesthetic vs. standardized) and performance (superior performance vs. inferior performance). Results showed that configurations with aesthetic appearance have higher purchase rate than configurations with standardized appearance. Although all configurations evoked conflict-related N270, conflicting configurations elicited higher amplitude of N270 in the prefrontal regions. Aesthetics-related P2 were also elicited among posterior-parietal regions in all configurations, but the amplitude of P2 was not consistent with the purchase rate. Interesting enough, aesthetic-inferior configuration has higher perchase rate and lower amplitude of N270 than standardized-superior configuration. The results show that product appearance has positive impact on consumer decision and prove that consumers have the expectation that aesthetic products are also functionally superior. The findings explained the neurological and psychological activities when consumers are browsing products. Hence, P2 and N270 may be useful neural endogenous indicator for consumer purchase decision.