The results of studies reported in this article suggest that product-related experience has a greater influence on self-assessed knowledge judgments than does stored product class information and that this greater influence is due to greater accessibility in memory. In addition, stored product class information was found to be a more important determinant of objective than self-assessed knowledge, while product-related experience was a more important determinant of self-assessed than objective knowledge. We discuss implications of these results for the relationship between self-assessed and objective knowledge and for future research involving consumer knowledge constructs. Copyright 1994 by the University of Chicago | Consumer knowledge assessment Park C Whan Mothersbaugh David L Feick Lawrence Journal of Consumer Research Jun 1994 21 1 ABI INFORM Global pg. 71 Consumer Knowledge Assessment C. WHAN PARK DAVID L. MOTHERSBAUGH LAWRENCE FEICK The results of studies reported in this article suggest that product-related experience has a greater influence on self-assessed knowledge judgments than does stored product class information and that this greater influence is due to greater accessibility in memory. In addition stored product class information was found to be a more important determinant of objective than self-assessed knowledge while product-related experience was a more important determinant of self-assessed than objective knowledge. We discuss implications of these results for the relationship between self-assessed and objective knowledge and for future research involving consumer knowledge constructs. Consumer knowledge is an important construct in understanding consumer behaviors such as information search Brucks 1985 Rao and Sieben 1992 and information processing Alba and Hutchinson 1987 Bettman and Park 1980 Johnson and Russo 1984 Rao and Monroe 1988 . Two knowledge constructs have been distinguished Brucks 1985 Park and Lessig 1981 . The first is objective knowledge accurate information about the product class stored in long-term memory. The second is self-assessed knowledge or subjective knowledge people s perceptions of what or how much they know about a product class. Although self-assessed and objective knowledge are related researchers have expressed the need for consistency and clarity in the conceptualization and operationalization of consumer knowledge Brucks 1985 Cole et al. 1991 Spreng and Olshavsky 1990 . While past research has often viewed self-assessed knowledge as a proxy measure for objective knowledge some research has distinguished these constructs Brucks 1985 Park Gardner and Thukral 1988 Park and Lessig 1981 . C. Whan Park is Albert Wesley Frey .
