Consumer Response to Innovations: The Differential Effects of Focused and Defocused Attention on Perceived Novelty, Usefulness and Symbolism

Focused and defocused attention has been shown to foster novel product ideas (Ansburg and Hill 2003; Friedman, Fishbach, Förster and Werth, 2003; Nijstad, De Dreu, Rietzschel and Baas 2010) but how these impact other product dimensions than novelty is unclear. Focused attention refers to limiting the mental stimuli so that the ideator’s cognitive effort becomes centered towards a specific problem while defocused attention means widening the mental scope toward abstract considerations (Ansburg and Hill 2003). The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of focused and defocused attention on novelty, usefulness and symbolism as well as investigate market potential of these products.