When Consumers Prefer Bundles with Noncomplementary Items to Bundles with Complementary Items: The Role of Mindset Abstraction

Abstract

Past research shows that consumers evaluate bundles with complementary items more favorably than they evaluate bundles with noncomplementary items. In a series of four experiments that involve evaluation, willingness to pay, and real choice, we show that this well-established effect is moderated by the level of mindset abstraction. Complementarity (vs. noncomplementarity) among bundle items prompts relatively concrete (vs. abstract) thinking (study 1). Consequently, consumers evaluate complementary (vs. noncomplementary) bundles more favorably when they think in more concrete (vs. abstract) terms (study 2) or when the consumption context involves lower (vs. higher) spatial (study 3) or temporal (study 4) distance. These effects are mediated by consumers’ heightened sense of “feeling right” during decision making under construal fit (study 4). Finally, the level of complementarity among bundle items differentially influences mental abstraction because of consumers’ tendency to perceive bundles as a single inseparable unit. Therefore, the effect attenuates when consumers adopt a separating—rather than a connecting—mindset (study 3). Overall, this work significantly extends past research on product bundles and offers several managerial implications.