Final answer:
A consumer making a buying decision based on price-quality heuristic uses cognitive structuring as they often associate higher prices with higher quality, especially when they lack complete information about a product's actual quality.
Step-by-step explanation:
When making a buying decision based on price-quality heuristic, a consumer makes use of cognitive structuring. This is the process where consumers use price as an indicator of quality in the absence of complete information. For instance, when faced with a scenario where they have to choose between two similar products of different prices, many would assume the more expensive one to be of better quality. This assumption doesn't guarantee that the product is indeed of higher quality, but the price acts as a signal that affects the consumer's decision.
Imagine dining at an expensive restaurant; the high prices create an expectation that the food is of superior quality. Similarly, stylish clothes in a boutique, artwork in a gallery, or the hourly rate of a lawyer, when priced higher, might be perceived as guaranteeing better satisfaction or expertise. However, the actual correlation between price and quality may vary, and consumers often rely on this heuristic when they are not experts in the product category.