A preliminary investigation of consumer commitment and enduring involvement life cycles

Abstract

A conceptualization of consumer commitment and enduring involvement life cycles is presented and preliminary steps toward operationalization are taken to explore this phenomenon of consumer evolution. Learning/socialization, variety drive, and cognitive dissonance theories are offered as tentative explanations to account for movement along the two life cycles. Likert-type summated rating scales were developed to measure consumer commitment to and enduring involvement with bowling over a one-year period. Both scales were found to be valid and reliable. Mail questionnaires collected data from 666 respondents who reported bowling activity during the twelve-month period ending July/August, 1985. Two national sampling frames included both subscribers to a well-known, prestigious bowling magazine--Bowlers Journal--and the general public. Various measures of association found several behavioral, classificational and attitudinal independent variables to be strongly associated with level of commitment and enduring involvement, but only weakly related to the amount of change in commitment and enduring involvement. Although there are conceptual shades of difference between commitment and enduring involvement, canonical analysis found the two constructs to be inseparably intertwined. Logistic regression provided some support for the contention that distinctly different attitudinal, behavioral, and classificational independent variables are associated with each stage in the commitment and enduring involvement life cycles. Related-activity diversification, skill, recent skill development, number of outlets partronized, consumption rate, product-related expenditures, and stage in the family life cycle were among the most significant independent variables.