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Are Students Real People?

Author(s): William H. Cunningham, W. Thomas Anderson, Jr. and John H. Murphy


Source: The Journal of Business, Vol. 47, No. 3 (Jul., 1974), pp. 399-409
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
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William H. Cunningham,"
W. Thomas Anderson, Jr.,*
and John H. Murphyt

Are Students Real People?

The general applicability of consumer research findings derived from


student samples remains an open yet essential issue. The convenience and
minimal cost associated with student samples make them a highly at-
tractive data source, particularly for academic researchers. These factors
combine to explain the significant proportion of consumer behavior re-
search reported in business journals based on student data sources. A
survey of business journals reveals that between 20 and 33 percent of
articles reporting consumer research findings employed student subjects;
in excess of 75 percent of these used convenience samples.1
Balancing the obvious advantage of using student samples, how-
ever, is the key caveat: Are students real people? Or, to be more precise,
do student response patterns accurately reflect those of other consumers?
Evidence is mixed,2 but the implications are clear: What we know about
consumer behavior may be too closely tied to the sociopsychological
and behavioral profile of the college sophomore.
In an attempt to throw light on the controversy, several researchers
have made comparative evaluations of student and nonstudent samples
in a variety of behavioral situations. Clevenger, Lazier, and Clark, for
example, found substantial congruity in factor patterns emerging with
respect to student and metropolitan housewives' images of two corpora-
tions.3 Sheth's investigations revealed a remarkable degree of similarity
in patterns of post-purchase-decision dissonance reduction between male
* Associate professors, marketing administration, University of Texas at
Austin.
t Assistant professor, marketing, Arizona State University.
1. Journals surveyed were the Journal of Advertising Research, Journal of
Business, Journal of Marketing, and Journal of Marketing Researchl from 1967
through 1972.
2. See Bernard Alpert, "Non-Businessmen as Surrogates for Businessmen
in Behavioral Experiments,"Journal of Business 40 (April 1967): 203-7; Ben M.
Enis, Keith K. Cox, and James E. Stafford, "Students as Subjects in Consumer
Behavior Experiments,"Journal of MarketingResearchi 9 (February 1972): 72-74;
Carl I. Hovland, "Reconciling Conflicting Results Derived from Experimental
and Survey Studies of Attitude Change," American Psychologist 14 (January
1959): 8-17; Inder P. Khera and James D. Benson, "Are Students Really Poor
Substitutes for Businessmen in Behavioral Research?" Journal of Marketing Re-
search 7 (November 1970): 529-32; and Jagdish N. Sheth, "Are There Differ-
ences in Dissonance Reduction Behavior between Students and Housewives?"
Journal of Marketing Researcha 7 (May 1970): 243-45.
3. Theodore Clevenger, Jr., Gilbert A. Lazier, and Margaret Leitner Clark,
"Measurementof Corporate Images by the Semantic Differential,"Journal of Mar-
ketinig Research 2 (February 1965): 80-82.

399

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400 The Journal of Business

graduate students and housewives.4 Khera and Benson examined busi-


nessmen and student subjects' evaluations of a filmed sales presentation,
of the communicator shown, and of recommendations for adoption or
rejection of the endorsed product. Presentation and communicator eval-
uations revealed no significant differences, while product recommenda-
tions were mixed.5 Enis, Cox, and Stafford found some significant
differences between student and housewife samples in the influence of
racial origin .of models on perceptions of advertisements and in biases
relating to country of manufacture in glassware preferences. Their con-
clusion echoed those of Khera and Benson and of Sheth: "The question
of the validity of the use of student subjects in lieu of real world subjects
has not been settled."6

OBJECTIVES
The objective of the present study was to investigate the validity of using
student subjects to make judgments about the behavior of household
consumers in general, and specifically with respect to the selection of
commonly purchased products. Student and household subjects' re-
sponses were contrasted across a variety of dimensions to reveal degree
of congruence along (1) selected sociopsychological attributes, (2)
product information sources, (3) decision factors influencing product
selection, and (4) ideal store image perceptions for commonly purchased
product types. It was felt that an evaluation of student and household
consumer congruence along these factors and for the products tested
would reveal more conclusively whether, or under what conditions,
student samples might provide a basis for generalizing to other con-
sumers.
Given the above objectives, the following research hypotheses were
thought to be meaningful: (1) Student subjects differ significantly from
household subjects along selected sociopsychological attributes. (2) Stu-
dent subjects differ significantly from household subjects in sources
utilized in acquiring information about selected commonly purchased
products. (3) Student subjects differ significantly from household sub-
jects in decision factors influencing the purchase of selected commonly
purchased products. (4) Student subjects differ significantly from house-
hold subjects in ideal store image perceptions across selected commonly
purchased product classes.

PROCEDURE
Sampling Frame
Data were collected independently from subjects in the household and
the student samples. A self-administered questionnaire was mailed to a
sample of 1,200 Austin, Texas, residents randomly selected from the
4. Sheth, p. 245.
5. Khera and Benson, p. 532.
6. Enis et al., p. 74.

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1i1UZi UL11
1--L1UNI11ill LlUpUllLail L1i r U1ltULUly, 300 WLCI
-LplIIUIlr
returned fully completed. The same questionnaire was administered to a
junior-level introductory-marketing class at the University of Texas at
Austin; 220 students completed the questionnaire.
Both groups of subjects were told they were participating in a study
sponsored by the Department of Marketing at the University of Texas.
Anonymity and confidentiality of responses were assured. The method of
data collection and sample design for both groups are regarded as typical
of many consumer research studies reported in business journals.

VARIABLES
Four sets of variables were examined in the research. The first set con-
sisted of the following seven sociopsychological variables: (1) aliena-
tion,7 (2) dogmatism,8 (3) status consciousness,!) (4) conservatism,'0
(5) personal competence," (6) social responsibility,'2 and (7) cosmo-
politanism.13The sociopsychological variables were selected because they
have traditionally been used in consumer research studies"1 and because
we felt that they were potentially sensitive discriminators of market
segments. All seven scales were of the Likert type.
The second set of variables consisted of sources utilized in acquiring
information concerning four commonly purchased product classes: major
appliances, grocery products, furniture, and television and/or stereo
equipment. Subjects were asked to indicate the most important sources
in acquiring information about each of the four product classes from the
following information categories: reading magazines, reading newspa-
pers, reading store circulars or leaflets, going shopping, talking with
7. Russell Middleton, "Alienation, Race, and Education," Anmerican Socio-
logical Review 28 (December 1963): 973-77.
8. Verling G. Trodahl and Frederic A. Powell, "A Short-Form Dogmatism
Scale for Use in Field Studies," Social Forces 44 (December 1965): 211-14.
9. Walter C. Kaufman, "Status, Authoritarianism, and Anti-Semitism,"
American Joutrnialof Sociology 42 (January 1957): 379-82.
10. Herbert McCloskey, "Conservatismand Personality," AmtnericanPoliti-
cal Scietnce Review 52 (March 1958): 27-45.
11. Angus Campbell et al., The Americani Vote, (New York: John Wiley &
Sons, 1960).
12. Leonard Berkowitz and Louise R. Daniels, "Affecting the Salience of
the Social Responsibility Norm," Journal of Abbnormal anid Social Psyclhology 68
(March 1964): 275-81.
13. Thomas R. Dye, "The Local-Cosmopolitan Dimension and the Study
of Urban Politics," Social Forces 41 (March 1963): 239-46.
14. See W. Thomas Anderson, Jr., and William H. Cunningham, "Gauging
Foreign Product Promotion," Jouirnaal of Advertisinig Researcha 12 (February
1972): 29-34; W. Thomas Anderson, Jr., and William H. Cunningham, "The
Socially Conscious Consumer," Journal of Marketing 36 (July 1972): 23-31,
100-102; Jacob Jacoby, "Personality and Innovation Proneness,"Journal of Mar-
keting Research 8 (May 1971): 244-47; Harold H. Kassarjian, "Personality and
Consumer Behavior: A Review," Journial of Marketing Researchi 8 (November
1971): 409-19; and Douglas S. Longman and Henry 0. Pruden,"Alienation from
the Market Place: A Study in Black, Brown, and White," in Relevanlce inzMarket-
ing/Marketing in Motion, ed. Fred C. Allvine (Chicago: American Marketing
Association, 1971), pp. 616-19.

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402 The Journal of Business

friends, observing what others own, watching television, and listening to


the radio.
The third set of variables consisted of decision factors influencing
the choice of products within each of the four product classes. Subjects
were asked to designate the most important factors influencing the setec-
tion of products within each class from the following categories: store
location and parking, price, brand name, salesman, service and warranty,
availability of credit, selection of products, store reputation, recom-
mended by a respected person, and delivery and installation. Both in-
formation source categories and decision factor alternatives were derived
from a review of relevant literature and extensive open-ended pretesting
among Austin residents.
The fourth set of variables was composed of a 38-item semantic-
differential test developed by Kelly and Stephenson15 to measure store
image perceptions across the following eight factors: physical characteris-
tics of the store, convenience of reaching the store from your location,
products offered, prices charged by the store, store personnel, advertising
by the store, your friends and the store, and general characteristics of the
company which owns the store. The subjects in both samples were asked
to indicate what they felt an ideal major-appliance store, an ideal grocery
store, an ideal furniture store, and an ideal television and/or stereo store
would be like. Each store factor was scored in a Likert manner. This was
done to permit the researchers to examine the differences that might
exist between the household and student groups across the eight factors
instead of trying to interpret the results of tests for each item in the 38-
item store image perception test. Because of length considerations, each
subject was asked to profile only one of the four store types.

Statistical Procedures
Analysis-of-variance F-tests were utilized to determine whether signifi-
cant differences existed between the household and student subjects on
the sociopsychological variables and on the store image factors. Chi
square analysis was used to test for differences that might exist between
the student and household subjects on the sources of information and the
decision factors influencing the purchase of selected products. The X2
values were corrected for continuity, thus yielding conservative measures
of statistical significance.

F INDINGS
Sociopsychological Variables
Five of the seven sociopsychological variables analyzed showed signifi-
cant differences between subjects in the student and household samples,
providing partial support for the first research hypothesis (see table 1).
15. Robert F. Kelly and Ronald Stephenson, "The Semantic Differential:
An Information Source for Designing Retail Patronage Appeals," Journal of
Marketing 31 (October 1967): 43-47.

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403 Are Students Real People?

Table 1
F-Tests for Sociopsychological Variables
Socio- Household Student
psychological Sample Sample
Variablel Mean a Mean a F-Ratio

Alienation ........ .. 21.87 4.25 20.15 3.98 23.99**


Dogmatism .......... 33.27 7.26 34.85 5.54 7.82*
Conservatism ...... .. 30.93 6.73 32.73 4.59 12.28 * *
Status consciousness 33.10 8.36 32.78 6.72 0.24
Personal competence 21.52 4.79 21.65 4.10 0.10
Cosmopolitanism 14.90 4.17 16.60 3.31 26.80**
Social responsibility . 24.53 3.30 15.83 3.35 962.51 k*
a With the exception of cosmopolitanism, lower scale values reflect the presence of a
relatively greater amount of the variable in quLestion.
* P<.O1.
** P<.OO1.

The students were more alienated, less dogmatic, less conservative, more
cosmopolitan, and substantially more socially responsible than were the
household subjects. As table 1 indicates, dogmatism significantly differ-
entiated the student and household subjects below the .01 level, while
the remaining four variables significantly differentiated the samples
below the .001 level. Status consciousness and personal competence
failed to significantly differentiate the two groups.
The above findings seem to violate the frequent assertion that "con-
cerning fundamental psychological variables, students are not atypical of
the rest of the population."'16Thus, it appears that students are not good
surrogates for assessing household consumers' sociopsychological attri-
butes and, hence, inappropriate for gauging relationships between per-
sonality and household consumption behavior.

Information Sources
Table 2 presents a x2 test for each product on each information source
examined individually and an overall X2 test of differences in information
sources used between the two groups for each of the four product types.
While the same information sources were found to operate for both the
student and household subjects across the four product categories con-
sidered, the relative importance attached to alternative information
sources differed significantly, substantiating the second research hypoth-
esis.
In acquiring information concerning major appliances, both student
and household subjects relied principally on comparative shopping and
secondarily on conversations with friends, but students also placed sig-
nificantly more importance on observation and television viewing.
Household subjects tended to be significantly more reliant on compara-
tive shopping and newspaper reading, while student subjects relied more
on observation and television viewing as principal secondary information
sources.
16. Sheth, p. 244.

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404 The Journal of Business

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405 Are Students Real People?

Both student and household subjects acquired information concern-


ing grocery products primarily from comparative shopping and sec-
ondarily from reading newspapers. Household subjects tended to be
significantly more reliant on store-circulated leaflets, while student sub-
jects tended to rely more on television viewing as important third sources
of information concerning grocery products.
Information pertaining to furniture purchases was derived pri-
marily from comparative shopping for both respondent groups, although
household subjects tended to be significantly more reliant on comparative
shopping and newspaper reading. Student subjects placed relatively
more importance on observation, reading magazines, and watching tele-
vision.
Comparative shopping constituted the most important single source
of information concerning television and/or stereo equipment for both the
student and household subjects. Household subjects, however, were sig-
nificantly more reliant on comparative shopping, while student subjects
placed significantly greater importance on observation and watching
television as sources of information concerning television and/or stereo
equipment.
Overall, it appears that comparative shopping and reading news-
papers are of relatively greater significance as sources of product infor-
mation for household subjects across the four categories of commonly
purchased products considered, whereas student subjects place relatively
more reliance on observing what others own and watching television as
principal sources of product information. Based on these findings, it
appears that students provide inadequate surrogates for evaluating house-
hold consumers' patterns of product information exposure.

Decision Factors
As in the case of information sources used, the same decision factors
were important for both student and household samples in the selection
of the four classes of products considered. However, the relative impor-
tance attached to alternative factors differed significantly, partially con-
firming the third research hypothesis. Table 3 presents both a X2 test
for each product on each decision factor considered individually and an
overall test of differences in decision factors utilized between the two
groups for each of the products studied.
Brand name was the most significant factor in the decision to pur-
chase major appliances among household subjects surveyed, whereas
student subjects placed nearly equal emphasis on brand name and service
and warranty. Household subjects placed significantly more importance
on availability of credit than did student subjects. Students, by contrast,
placed significantly greater emphasis on service and warranty than did
household subjects.
Price and store location and parking appeared to be the most im-
portant factors in grocery product decisions for both household and

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406 The Journal of Business

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407 A re Students Real People?

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408 The Journal of Business

student samples, with product selection a distant third. Differences in


the factors relating to grocery product purchases were not statistically
significant.
Price provided the major decision criteria in furniture purchases
for both samples. Household subjects placed significantly greater reliance
on store location and parking, while student subjects rated recommenda-
tions significantly more important than did household subjects.
Television and/or stereo purchase decisions appear to be made
almost exclusively on the basis of brand name, with price and service
and warranty major secondary factors for both student and household
subjects. Household subjects, however, appear to be significantly more
reliant than student subjects on availability of credit and store location
and parking.
Despite substantial agreement between the two groups on the major
decision criteria, the pattern of responses differs significantly for three
of the four product categories studied. These findings seem to underscore
the inappropriateness of student surrogates in assessing the significance
of alternative factors in household consumers' product selection deci-
sions.

Store Image
Table 4 presents the results of an F-test to determine student-household
subject differences in ideal store image perceptions for four major store
types: major appliance store, grocery store, furniture store, and television
and/or stereo store. The findings substantiate the fourth research hypoth-
esis, and are at odds with those reported by Clevenger, Lazier, and Clark.
In each case where significant differences exist, household subjects as-
sumed a more extreme position than did student subjects along a given

Table 4
F-Tests for Ideal Store Characteristics
F-Ratio

Television
Major Grocery and/or
Characteristics Appliances Products Furniture Stereo

Physical characteristics . . . 12.69* 12.65 * * 15.1 1 * * * 7.37**


Convenience of reaching
store. 16.05 !* 32.46*** 19.29*** 9.16**
Products offered .......... 18.6 * 3 7.02 * * * 22.45 * * X 13.16***
Prices charged 3.51 13.11*** 5.62* 6.85*
Store personnel. 16.13* 26.46*** 11.27 * 2.85
Advertising by store . . . 5.666 24.26*** 6.26" 7.01*
Your friends and the store . 5.72-1 24.96 ** 15.32* 14.67***
General characteristics of the
company which owns the
store .9.46 -* 13.75 * 4.55* 31.31
* P<.05.
** P<.O1.
P<.OO1.

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409 Are Students Real People?

dimension of store image. As an example, table 4 shows that seven of


the eight dimensions significantly differentiate the student and household
subjects' perceptions of an ideal major-appliance store. It may be, how-
ever, that these differences are due to a greater willingness on the part
of household respondents to use extreme scale positions rather than to
greater sensitivity to specific dimensions of store image. Since this pattern
of student-household consumer differences emerges in ideal store image
perceptions for each of the store types, it appears that students are of
little value as surrogates for household consumers in store image studies.

CONCLUSIONS
The examination of student-household subject differences across the
four dimensions tested strongly supports the general conclusion that
student response patterns do not accurately reflect those of other con-
sumers. Student subjects seem to be sociopsychologically different from
household subjects; these differences are manifested in decision factors
and information preferences influencing product selection, and in store
image perceptions. Thus, it would appear that the use of student sur-
rogates for real people in behavioraf research should be undertaken
with the explicit recognition that the general validity of research findings
derived from student data sources is highly suspect.

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