Abstract: As market competitiveness grows, more and more multifunctional products are developed to increase brand competitiveness by providing additional features. Multifunctional products provide not only primary features (e.g. broadcasting function of radio) but also secondary features (e.g. Time function of radio). Based on the Construal Level Theory, we explored how the consumers represented the primary features and secondary features of multifunctional products (Study 1). The findings showed that the primary features of the multifunctional product were represented as highconstrual level by consumers, whereas the secondary features of the multifunctional product were represented as lowconstrual level. Then we investigated the effect of psychological distance (temporal and social distance) on consumers evaluations for multifunctional products (Study 2 and Study 3). The results showed that participants under distant temporal distance (far social distance) reported higher evaluations for the products with dominant primary features than participants under near temporal distance (close social distance). However, participants under near temporal distance (close social distance) reported higher evaluations for the products with dominant secondary features than those under distant temporal distance (far social distance). The results indicate that the psychological distance influence consumers evaluations for multifunctional products, and there are evaluation differences between products with dominant primary feature and products with dominant secondary feature.

Key words:  product evaluation, psychological distance, construal level, primary feature, secondary feature