We hypothesize that the accessibility of task-relevant knowledge determines whether judgments reflect the substance of the information that is brought to mind or the ease of generating and retrieving such information. Our findings indicate that when relevant knowledge is highly accessible or not...

Two studies examine the impact of adding parity features to an advertising message that compares a dominant target brand to a competitor. We document that in some instances the presence of parity features prompts more favorable target evaluations (enhancement), whereas in others it results in...