Summary Consumer Behavior textbook.
Table of contents
1. Understanding consumer behavior and consumer research........................................................................2
Consumer responses.............................................................................................................................................2
Basic versus applied research...............................................................................................................................4
The marketing research process...........................................................................................................................4
2. Consumer perception................................................................................................................................. 5
Sensory thresholds:..............................................................................................................................................5
3. Learning and memory................................................................................................................................ 7
The importance of learning and memory.............................................................................................................8
Forgetting:..........................................................................................................................................................10
Distortion:...........................................................................................................................................................11
4. Automatic information processing............................................................................................................ 12
Two styles of thinking:........................................................................................................................................12
The adaptive unconscious..................................................................................................................................13
Thin slice inferences...........................................................................................................................................13
5. Motivation and emotion........................................................................................................................... 16
The process of motivation..................................................................................................................................16
Motivation and Human Needs...........................................................................................................................16
Emotion..............................................................................................................................................................19
6. Attitude and judgment formation and change........................................................................................... 21
Nonevaluative judgment....................................................................................................................................21
Evaluative judgment...........................................................................................................................................22
Attitude Models based on high or low consumer involvement..........................................................................24
The message-learning approach to persuasion.................................................................................................26
Resistance to Persuasion....................................................................................................................................27
7. The consumer decision making process.................................................................................................... 28
Types of consumers............................................................................................................................................29
The 5 sequential stages of consumer problem solving:.....................................................................................30
Consideration and choice:..................................................................................................................................34
Complaining behavior........................................................................................................................................36
8. Product consideration, evaluation, and choice.......................................................................................... 37
The consideration set: determining choice alternatives....................................................................................37
Constructing evaluations to make choices.........................................................................................................37
Heuristic processing...........................................................................................................................................39
1
,9. Behavioral decision theory....................................................................................................................... 41
Preference reversal.............................................................................................................................................43
Construal level theory........................................................................................................................................44
General evaluability theory................................................................................................................................45
10. Self-concept and personality................................................................................................................... 46
The role of self-concept......................................................................................................................................47
The extended self................................................................................................................................................48
Impression management theory........................................................................................................................49
Cognitive factors.................................................................................................................................................51
11. Social influence and behavioral compliance............................................................................................52
Qualitative research tools are not designed to be projectable to large populations, but to allow
us to probe deeply into motivations and desires understand how people interact with
categories and brands in social-cultural context understand people’s rituals, artifacts, and
folklore to help de-codify the role and meaning of brands.
1. Understanding consumer behavior and consumer research
Consumer behavior: all consumer activities associated with the purchase, use, and disposal
of goods and services, including the consumer’s emotional, mental, and behavioral responses
that precede, determine, or follow these activities.
Individual consumers purchase goods and services to satisfy the needs and wants of others.
Organizational consumers purchase goods and services in order to produce other goods or
services, resell them to other organizations or to individual consumers and help manage and
run their organization.
Consumer behavior is broken down into purchase, use, and disposal activities. Consumers’
responses to stimuli may differ depending on whether they are purchasing, using, or disposing
of a single product or service (long line at a bar before entering = good, long line after
purchasing a ticket = bad). Categorizing activities by whether they occur prior to purchase
versus during use shows how consumer responses can change significantly within a situation.
Purchase activities: those through which consumers acquire goods and services and include
everything done leading up to the purchase, the purchase method, and factors unique to the
situation.
Use activities: describe where, when, and how consumption takes place.
Disposal activities: the ways consumers get rid of products and/or packaging after
consumption, including discarding products, recycling, reuse, and resale.
Consumer responses.
Emotional or affective responses reflect a consumer’s emotions, feelings, and moods.
Moods are states of mind at a particular time; feelings are the expressions of our moods.
Emotion is moods + feelings, + some type of psychological and physical arousal.
Mental or cognitive responses include a consumer’s thought processes, opinions, beliefs,
attitudes, and intentions about products and services. This can be evaluative of non-evaluative
(without making a value judgment).
2
,Behavioral responses include a consumer’s overt decisions and actions during the purchase,
use, and disposal activities identified earlier.
Studying consumer behavior has benefits:
To improve business performance: Marketers who understand their customers can create
better products and services, promote their products and services more effectively, and
develop marketing plans and strategies that foster sustainable competitive advantages. Their
goal is to understand the general dynamics of consumer behavior that remain constant
regardless of fads or trends. This understanding enables marketers to predict what motivates
people to buy and then to deliver products that respond to those motivations, thereby
successfully meeting and exceeding customer expectations over time.
To influence public policy: Those interested in shaping public policy study consumer
behavior to understand the public needs and wants, and at the same time, to protect the public
from unfair, unethical, or dangerous business practices.
To educate and help consumers make better decisions: How consumers gather, process,
and use information, as well as what motivates them. Organizations involved in consumer
education and assistance study consumer behaviors that are socially (or individually)
destructive. These behaviors are often referred to as the “dark side of consumer behavior.”
Governments, businesses, and consumer interest groups want to curb these undesirable
behaviors. Accordingly, these groups often study consumer behavior to best formulate
strategies to promote positive behaviors (e.g., getting regular mammograms) or aid in the
cessation of negative behaviors (e.g., quitting smoking).
Selling orientation: the marketing philosophy of focusing on production and the company’s
capabilities and then selling consumers the excess inventory of what was produced.
Marketing concept: the idea that firms should discover and satisfy customer needs and wants
in an efficient and profitable manner, while benefiting the long-term interests of the
company’s stakeholders.
Successful organizations focus on delivering customer perceived value and customer delight
to generate value for long-term success.
Customer perceived value: the consumer’s overall assessment of the utility of a product
based on perceptions of what is received and what is given the estimated net gain received
from sacrificing resources.
Customer delight: customer benefits that not only meet, but also exceed expectations in
unanticipated ways.
Most competitors can satisfy customers’ expectations about the functional benefits of a
product or service, but firms gain competitive advantage by anticipating and providing
benefits that customers are initially unaware of and/or will desire in the future. Identifying and
satisfying consumers’ latent demand is critical to providing customer delight.
Three prominent approaches to consumer behavior are examined here:
Motivation research applied psychoanalytic therapy concepts from clinical psychology to
consumer behavior research, using in-depth interviewing techniques to uncover a person’s
hidden or unconscious motivations. Dichter applied Freudian interpretations to consumer
actions and viewed consumers as largely immature, irrational, and driven by hidden
subconscious desires. Many advertisers have embraced motivation research because of its
seeming ability to tap into deep-rooted needs.
3
, Behavioral science applies the scientific method, relying on systematic, rigorous procedures
to explain, control, and predict consumer behavior. The primary methods of behavioral
science include the experimental approach—conducting controlled experiments—and the
marketing science approach—employing computer-based simulations and mathematical
models to explain and predict consumer behavior. Behavioral scientists tend to view
consumers as largely rational; they seek causes for behavior, conduct research to be used for
strategic marketing decision making, and primarily use quantitative research methods.
Marketers and business practitioners who possess in-depth, scientific understanding of their
customers are more likely to succeed where others fail.
Interpretivism: view consumers as non-rational beings and their reality as highly subjective.
These researchers’ goal is to collect data to describe and interpret this reality. Interpretivist
consumer researchers are often especially interested in the consumption experience, and they
stress understanding consumers from a broader societal perspective. They also tend to reject
the quantitative approach of behavioral science in favor of qualitative research methods.
At the intersection of consumer behavior and marketing research is the synergy of consumer
insight.
Consumer insight: a deep, profound knowledge of the consumer that comes from integrating
traditional marketing research tools with consumer behavior theories. These insights can then
structure a company’s thinking and decision making.
Intuition is simply common sense, a guess, or “gut feeling.” Decisions based on intuition are
often made with limited or incomplete information. Relying too heavily on intuition and “gut
feelings” rather than on sound research can lead to costly business mistakes. This is one
reason why so many new products fail.
Basic versus applied research.
Basic research: looks for general relationships between variables, regardless of the specific
situation. The key benefit is that conclusions drawn from it generally apply across a variety of
situations, and researchers can use these generalizations to guide strategic planning and
develop marketing tactics.
Applied research: examines many of the same variables as basic research, but within a
specific context of interest to a marketer. The research is aimed at evaluating a specific brand
and endorser combination, and the results would not apply to other situations.
The marketing research process.
1. Define the problem or opportunity: includes clearly delineating the specific goals
and objectives of the research project, which guide the execution of the research.
2. Determine the research design: The design of the research depends on how much
and what kind of information is already known and what information needs to be
gathered. There are three main types of research design:
Exploratory research: broad, qualitative research done to generate ideas or help
further formulate problems for further research. Is often done when little is known
about the problem or research issue. The researcher is usually not looking for a
definitive solution to a problem, but guidance for the next step. Key descriptors of
this type of research are unstructured, flexible, and general. Includes both
secondary and primary data collection.
- Focus groups
- In-depth interviews
4
Table of contents
1. Understanding consumer behavior and consumer research........................................................................2
Consumer responses.............................................................................................................................................2
Basic versus applied research...............................................................................................................................4
The marketing research process...........................................................................................................................4
2. Consumer perception................................................................................................................................. 5
Sensory thresholds:..............................................................................................................................................5
3. Learning and memory................................................................................................................................ 7
The importance of learning and memory.............................................................................................................8
Forgetting:..........................................................................................................................................................10
Distortion:...........................................................................................................................................................11
4. Automatic information processing............................................................................................................ 12
Two styles of thinking:........................................................................................................................................12
The adaptive unconscious..................................................................................................................................13
Thin slice inferences...........................................................................................................................................13
5. Motivation and emotion........................................................................................................................... 16
The process of motivation..................................................................................................................................16
Motivation and Human Needs...........................................................................................................................16
Emotion..............................................................................................................................................................19
6. Attitude and judgment formation and change........................................................................................... 21
Nonevaluative judgment....................................................................................................................................21
Evaluative judgment...........................................................................................................................................22
Attitude Models based on high or low consumer involvement..........................................................................24
The message-learning approach to persuasion.................................................................................................26
Resistance to Persuasion....................................................................................................................................27
7. The consumer decision making process.................................................................................................... 28
Types of consumers............................................................................................................................................29
The 5 sequential stages of consumer problem solving:.....................................................................................30
Consideration and choice:..................................................................................................................................34
Complaining behavior........................................................................................................................................36
8. Product consideration, evaluation, and choice.......................................................................................... 37
The consideration set: determining choice alternatives....................................................................................37
Constructing evaluations to make choices.........................................................................................................37
Heuristic processing...........................................................................................................................................39
1
,9. Behavioral decision theory....................................................................................................................... 41
Preference reversal.............................................................................................................................................43
Construal level theory........................................................................................................................................44
General evaluability theory................................................................................................................................45
10. Self-concept and personality................................................................................................................... 46
The role of self-concept......................................................................................................................................47
The extended self................................................................................................................................................48
Impression management theory........................................................................................................................49
Cognitive factors.................................................................................................................................................51
11. Social influence and behavioral compliance............................................................................................52
Qualitative research tools are not designed to be projectable to large populations, but to allow
us to probe deeply into motivations and desires understand how people interact with
categories and brands in social-cultural context understand people’s rituals, artifacts, and
folklore to help de-codify the role and meaning of brands.
1. Understanding consumer behavior and consumer research
Consumer behavior: all consumer activities associated with the purchase, use, and disposal
of goods and services, including the consumer’s emotional, mental, and behavioral responses
that precede, determine, or follow these activities.
Individual consumers purchase goods and services to satisfy the needs and wants of others.
Organizational consumers purchase goods and services in order to produce other goods or
services, resell them to other organizations or to individual consumers and help manage and
run their organization.
Consumer behavior is broken down into purchase, use, and disposal activities. Consumers’
responses to stimuli may differ depending on whether they are purchasing, using, or disposing
of a single product or service (long line at a bar before entering = good, long line after
purchasing a ticket = bad). Categorizing activities by whether they occur prior to purchase
versus during use shows how consumer responses can change significantly within a situation.
Purchase activities: those through which consumers acquire goods and services and include
everything done leading up to the purchase, the purchase method, and factors unique to the
situation.
Use activities: describe where, when, and how consumption takes place.
Disposal activities: the ways consumers get rid of products and/or packaging after
consumption, including discarding products, recycling, reuse, and resale.
Consumer responses.
Emotional or affective responses reflect a consumer’s emotions, feelings, and moods.
Moods are states of mind at a particular time; feelings are the expressions of our moods.
Emotion is moods + feelings, + some type of psychological and physical arousal.
Mental or cognitive responses include a consumer’s thought processes, opinions, beliefs,
attitudes, and intentions about products and services. This can be evaluative of non-evaluative
(without making a value judgment).
2
,Behavioral responses include a consumer’s overt decisions and actions during the purchase,
use, and disposal activities identified earlier.
Studying consumer behavior has benefits:
To improve business performance: Marketers who understand their customers can create
better products and services, promote their products and services more effectively, and
develop marketing plans and strategies that foster sustainable competitive advantages. Their
goal is to understand the general dynamics of consumer behavior that remain constant
regardless of fads or trends. This understanding enables marketers to predict what motivates
people to buy and then to deliver products that respond to those motivations, thereby
successfully meeting and exceeding customer expectations over time.
To influence public policy: Those interested in shaping public policy study consumer
behavior to understand the public needs and wants, and at the same time, to protect the public
from unfair, unethical, or dangerous business practices.
To educate and help consumers make better decisions: How consumers gather, process,
and use information, as well as what motivates them. Organizations involved in consumer
education and assistance study consumer behaviors that are socially (or individually)
destructive. These behaviors are often referred to as the “dark side of consumer behavior.”
Governments, businesses, and consumer interest groups want to curb these undesirable
behaviors. Accordingly, these groups often study consumer behavior to best formulate
strategies to promote positive behaviors (e.g., getting regular mammograms) or aid in the
cessation of negative behaviors (e.g., quitting smoking).
Selling orientation: the marketing philosophy of focusing on production and the company’s
capabilities and then selling consumers the excess inventory of what was produced.
Marketing concept: the idea that firms should discover and satisfy customer needs and wants
in an efficient and profitable manner, while benefiting the long-term interests of the
company’s stakeholders.
Successful organizations focus on delivering customer perceived value and customer delight
to generate value for long-term success.
Customer perceived value: the consumer’s overall assessment of the utility of a product
based on perceptions of what is received and what is given the estimated net gain received
from sacrificing resources.
Customer delight: customer benefits that not only meet, but also exceed expectations in
unanticipated ways.
Most competitors can satisfy customers’ expectations about the functional benefits of a
product or service, but firms gain competitive advantage by anticipating and providing
benefits that customers are initially unaware of and/or will desire in the future. Identifying and
satisfying consumers’ latent demand is critical to providing customer delight.
Three prominent approaches to consumer behavior are examined here:
Motivation research applied psychoanalytic therapy concepts from clinical psychology to
consumer behavior research, using in-depth interviewing techniques to uncover a person’s
hidden or unconscious motivations. Dichter applied Freudian interpretations to consumer
actions and viewed consumers as largely immature, irrational, and driven by hidden
subconscious desires. Many advertisers have embraced motivation research because of its
seeming ability to tap into deep-rooted needs.
3
, Behavioral science applies the scientific method, relying on systematic, rigorous procedures
to explain, control, and predict consumer behavior. The primary methods of behavioral
science include the experimental approach—conducting controlled experiments—and the
marketing science approach—employing computer-based simulations and mathematical
models to explain and predict consumer behavior. Behavioral scientists tend to view
consumers as largely rational; they seek causes for behavior, conduct research to be used for
strategic marketing decision making, and primarily use quantitative research methods.
Marketers and business practitioners who possess in-depth, scientific understanding of their
customers are more likely to succeed where others fail.
Interpretivism: view consumers as non-rational beings and their reality as highly subjective.
These researchers’ goal is to collect data to describe and interpret this reality. Interpretivist
consumer researchers are often especially interested in the consumption experience, and they
stress understanding consumers from a broader societal perspective. They also tend to reject
the quantitative approach of behavioral science in favor of qualitative research methods.
At the intersection of consumer behavior and marketing research is the synergy of consumer
insight.
Consumer insight: a deep, profound knowledge of the consumer that comes from integrating
traditional marketing research tools with consumer behavior theories. These insights can then
structure a company’s thinking and decision making.
Intuition is simply common sense, a guess, or “gut feeling.” Decisions based on intuition are
often made with limited or incomplete information. Relying too heavily on intuition and “gut
feelings” rather than on sound research can lead to costly business mistakes. This is one
reason why so many new products fail.
Basic versus applied research.
Basic research: looks for general relationships between variables, regardless of the specific
situation. The key benefit is that conclusions drawn from it generally apply across a variety of
situations, and researchers can use these generalizations to guide strategic planning and
develop marketing tactics.
Applied research: examines many of the same variables as basic research, but within a
specific context of interest to a marketer. The research is aimed at evaluating a specific brand
and endorser combination, and the results would not apply to other situations.
The marketing research process.
1. Define the problem or opportunity: includes clearly delineating the specific goals
and objectives of the research project, which guide the execution of the research.
2. Determine the research design: The design of the research depends on how much
and what kind of information is already known and what information needs to be
gathered. There are three main types of research design:
Exploratory research: broad, qualitative research done to generate ideas or help
further formulate problems for further research. Is often done when little is known
about the problem or research issue. The researcher is usually not looking for a
definitive solution to a problem, but guidance for the next step. Key descriptors of
this type of research are unstructured, flexible, and general. Includes both
secondary and primary data collection.
- Focus groups
- In-depth interviews
4
