Metacognition and Consumer Judgment: Fluency is Pleasant but Disfluency Ignites Interest

The ease of identifying a product or understanding the goals it serves is known to evoke a positive affective response that increases the liking of that product and its advertising. However, recent findings also show processing disfluency can sometimes improve evaluation. In this review, we integrate these opposing findings by suggesting a novel approach based on the affective properties of processing experiences. Observing that affective experiences comprise two fundamental dimensions — pleasantness and arousal — we posit that fluency increases pleasantness by reducing uncertainty about products, but disfluency is arousing, and as a result, increases interest and engagement with products. Product evaluation depends on whether the decision is associated more with uncertainty reduction and pleasantness or with arousal and engagement.