Thirty Years of Conflicting Studies on the Influence of Congruence as perceived by the Consumer: Overview,Limitations and Avenues for Research

Abstract

This article proposes a critical review of the concept of congruence and its effects. The literature is rich but contradictory, due sometimes to arguments over the concept of congruence and to a lack of attention to possible moderators. Future research should identify in which conditions moderate incongruence is more effective than congruence.

Keywords

congruence incongruence moderate incongruence information processing motivation to process information ability to process information predisposition toward incongruence

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