We hypothesized that both hard laddering techniques (PL and CL) would not give the richness orthe complexity of information that would be provided by respondents in soft laddering, due to restrictions imposed by the a priori lists at each level of abstraction. However, we also hypothesized that the main ‘‘themes’’ or the strongest chains would be similar between the twomethods as these would be considered most important to consumers and would therefore be more frequently chosen and hence exceed the cut off level necessary to appear on HVM. We also expected CL rather than PL would produce results more similar to SL, because in the ministration of both CL and SL participants are focussed on one ladder at a time and did not have access otheir previous responses. The topic, mothers’ beliefs about the influence of breakfast foods on their child’s mental and physical health and well-being, was argued to have a complex cognitive structure which in turn was thought to highlight or exaggerate differences between the methods more so than a less complex topic.