The sleeper framing effect: The influence of frame valence on immediate and retrospective judgments

Prior research on attribute framing has documented a robust valence-consistent shift whereby positively valenced options (e.g., 75% lean beef) are preferred over equivalent negatively valenced options (e.g., 25% fat beef). However, this research has typically explored how labels influence judgments of prospective or hypothetical consumption. In contrast, we examine how frames interact with actual consumption experiences to influence both immediate and retrospective judgments. We find evidence of a sleeper framing effect wherein a valence-consistent shift emerges for retrospective judgments even when absent immediately after consumption. We attribute this effect to differences in how consumers integrate the more cognitive information of the frame with the more affective information acquired during consumption. Specifically, three experiments show that consumers attend to and rely relatively more on affective information from experience when making immediate judgments, but relatively more on cognitive information from the frame when making retrospective judgments. In addition, we identify the valence of the experience as an important boundary condition, such that the sleeper framing effect is most pronounced when the experience is relatively neutral in valence.