Category Attitude Measures: Exemplars as Inputs Barbara Loken Department of Marketing University of Minnesota Christopher Joiner School of Management George Mason University Joann Peck Department of Marketing University of Wisconsin The role of exemplars in formation of attitudes toward a category has, surprisingly, been ignored in prior consumer research. In the present research we seek to develop a better understanding of the relationship between category exemplars (e.g., the products in a brand category) and overall attitudes toward the category. Attitude measures that incorporate evaluations of individual branded products may be useful, both conceptually and practically, and can complement more traditional multi-attribute measures of attitude. Across 3 studies we present evidence that a com- posite index of attitudes toward category exemplars, weighted by exemplar typicality, is related to overall category attitudes, sometimes more strongly than a traditional multi-attribute index. We also demonstrate that elaboration upon the individual exemplars further strengthens the re- lationship between category attitudes and this composite index. Theoretical implications for at- titude theory, as well as managerial implications, are discussed. More and more companies are managing brands that consist of multiple products, and recent research in brand categoriza- tion (e.g., Boush & Loken, 1991; Dawar & Anderson, 1994; Schmitt & Dube, 1992) highlights the importance of consid- ering brands as categories of products. As a result, consumers have become more likely to perceive brand categories in terms of individual exemplars (i.e., products in the brand portfolio). The importance of understanding the role of these individual products in formation of consumers’ attitude to- ward a brand has increased for brand managers as their port- folios of products under a single brand name continue to in- crease (Laforet & Saunders, 1994). The importance of understanding the role of category members in category attitude formation extends beyond brand management to service, product, and social market- ing contexts. Understanding how consumers’ attitudes to- ward the airline industry are formed by perceptions of the individual airlines, how consumers’ attitudes toward candy bars in general may be related to their perception of individual candy bars, or how consumers’ attitudes toward charity organizations are determined by the particular charity organizations salient to the consumers, are all ques- tions that hinge on understanding the role of exemplars in attitude formation. Although recent research has begun to examine aspects of the relationship between category ex- emplars and category attitudes (Lord & Lepper, 1999; Sia et al., 1997, 1999), this research has been limited to social (rather than product) stimuli, and has not assessed the mea- surement implications of using multiple category exem- plars as attitudinal inputs. The focus of this research is to demonstrate that a compos- ite index of attitudes toward category exemplars (i.e., the in- dividual, specific members of a category) is related to the overall category attitude, in the same way that a composite in- dex of salient beliefs about the category can be used to predict overall category attitudes (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1981). Al- JOURNAL OF CONSUMER PSYCHOLOGY, 12(2), 149–161 Copyright © 2002, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Requests for reprints should be sent to Barbara Loken, Department of Marketing, 3–173 Carlson School Of Management, University of Minne- sota, 321 19th Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN 55455. E-mail: bloken@csom.umn.edu