Journal of Marketing Research Vol. XLI (February 2004), 101–115 101 *Rajdeep Grewal is Assistant Professor of Marketing, Smeal College of Business, Pennsylvania State University (e-mail: rug2@psu.edu). Raj Mehta is Associate Professor of Marketing (e-mail: raj.mehta@uc.edu), and Frank R. Kardes is Professor of Marketing (e-mail: frank. kardes@uc.edu), College of Business Administration, University of Cincin- nati. This research was made possible by grants from the Direct Marketing Policy Center, Department of Marketing, College of Business Administra- tion, University of Cincinnati. The authors appreciate helpful feedback from Barry Bayus, Joseph A. Cote, and Sasha Fedorikhin. The article greatly benefited from the feedback of the three anonymous JMR reviewers. RAJDEEP GREWAL, RAJ MEHTA, and FRANK R. KARDES* In an attempt to bring consumer psychology theories into research on the timing of repurchase of consumer durables, the authors suggest that attitude functions (knowledge, value expressive, social adjustive, and util- itarian) can help explain and predict interpurchase intervals. Adopting an interactionist perspective, the authors propose that the effect of the atti- tude functions is contingent on contextual factors, which they theorize as the nature of the product (along public–private and luxury–necessity dimensions) and the nature of the decision (forced or unforced purchase decision). Hypothesis testing is facilitated by survey data on actual pur- chase decisions and hazard models that incorporate individual hetero- geneity. The results support the suggested role of attitude functions in explaining and predicting interpurchase intervals and suggest means by which managers can position their products to shorten interpurchase intervals. The Timing of Repeat Purchases of Consumer Durable Goods: The Role of Functional Bases of Consumer Attitudes Firms that sell consumer durable products face two unique challenges: (1) Durables typically cost substantially more than nondurable products and thus entail greater finan- cial risk for consumers, and (2) the purchase of durable products is characterized by a buyer purchasing a product and then staying away from the market for a long period, only to return to the market for a short time either to pur- chase an additional item or to replace an existing durable. Therefore, because consumers are in the market for a short period and spend a substantial dollar amount in that period, it becomes critical for marketers to identify the right con- sumer at the right time in order to target and market their products effectively. Accurately predicting the timing of the purchase of con- sumer durables helps marketers better target their communi- cations and promotions. For example, direct marketing cam- paigns typically have low response rates of approximately 2% (McIntyre 1991), which implies that there is much room for improvement. As a result, many researchers have attempted to understand the timing of the purchase of con- sumer durables (Deaton and Muellbauer 1980; Jain and Vil- cassim 1991; Raymond, Beard, and Gropper 1993). How- ever, much of the consumer durable research has focused primarily on demographic and economic variables as the main explanatory variables for the timing of the purchase of consumer durables (Bayus and Mehta 1995; Haldar and Rao 1998) and has been devoid of theories of consumer behav- ior. To move beyond demographic variables and to enrich consumer durable research with psychological variables, we adopt an interactionist perspective, which suggests that con- sumer behavior depends on (1) the context, (2) the individ- ual differences, and (3) the interaction between the two (Dickson 1982; Punj and Stewart 1983). As such, our research endeavor is similar in spirit to recent research that integrates insights from behavioral and marketing science research (e.g., Hutchinson, Kamakura, and Lynch 2000; Simonson and Winer 1992). Even though the primary focus for the choice of contex- tual and individual difference variables in our research is from the demand-side perspective, we acknowledge that many supply-side factors, such as the rate of technological advances and the durability of the products, influence the timing of the repurchase of consumer durables (e.g., Maha- jan, Mueller, and Bass 1990). Throughout this article, we underscore the importance of relevant supply-side variables