The Devil is in the Details: When Holistic Thinkers React Negatively to Incongruent Information

Abstract

This research examines the effects of thinking styles (holistic vs. analytic) and different levels of information congruity on product evaluations. Two experimental studies show that presenting more details in a message matches the analytic thinking style, thus leading to higher evaluations of extremely incongruent information, from analytic thinkers and lower evaluations from holistic thinkers. Keywords: Thinking Styles, Information Processing, Advertising, Congruent Message, Schema Congruity To cite this document: Sydney Chinchanachokchai and Hayden Noel, "The Devil is in the Details: When Holistic Thinkers React Negatively to Incongruent Information", Contemporary Management Research, Vol.11, No.1, pp.25-34, 2015. Permanent link to this document: http://dx.doi.org/10.7903/cmr.13853