When the Others Matter Context-Dependent Effects on Changes in Appreciation of Inovativeness

Although innovativeness is an important variable in product design, we know little about its appreciation. We studied how appreciation of innovativeness and its dynamics depends on the heterogeneity of the context in which it appears. We employed a test-retest design in which appreciation of car interior designs was tested before and after repeated evaluations. We tested heterogeneous stimulus sets (highly and lowly innovative designs together; Experiment I) and homogeneous stimulus sets (highly or lowly innovative designs; Experiment 2). The known effect (Carbon, Hutzler, & Mine, 2006; Carbon & Leder, 2005) of a selective increase in attractiveness ratings for highly innovative stimuli after repeated evaluations was only obtained for heterogeneous sets. In homogeneous sets, both highly and lowly innovative interiors were rated similarly and showed similar dynamics. Experiment 3 was a shorter version of Experiment I, which ruled out differences in experimental design (more ratings and longer duration in Experiment I) as the cause of the differences. High innovativeness was found to show a specific increase in attractiveness ratings only when innovativeness was made apparent by presenting stimuli in heterogeneous sets. Thus, awareness of variation in innovativeness as a relevant stimulus dimension is a key feature regarding its effect on appreciation.