Journal of Consumer Behaviour

J. Consumer Behav. 7: 368-396 (2008)

Published online in Wiley InterScience
(www.interscience.wilcy.com) DOI: 10.1002/cb.258

Reward, emotion and consumer

choice: from neuroeconomics to
neurophilosophy
Gordon R. Foxall*'^
Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University, Aberconway Building, Colum Drive, Cardiff CF10
3EU, UK

• Neuroeconomics bos found no definitive role in tbe explanation of consumer cboice and
its undevelopedpbilosopbical basis limits its attempt to explain economic behaviour. We
nature of neuroeconomics is explored, especially witb respect to tvbat it reveals about tbe
valuation of alternatives, cboice and emotion. Tbe tendency of buman consumers to
discount future rewards illustrates bow bebavioural and neuroscientiflc accounts of
cboice contribute to psycbological explanations of choice and tbe issues this raisesfor botb
routine everyday cboices and more extreme compulsions. Central to tbis is tbe pbenom-
enon of matching in wbicb consumers tend to select the immediately larger or largest
reward and tbe neuropbysiological and bebavioural bases of tbis cboice. Recognition tbat
reivards are evoked by reinforcement contingencies and that the rewards themselves
engender emotional responses via classical conditioning enhances understanding the
contribution of neurological activity to the explanation of consumer behaviour. It is
argued that neuroeconomics can play a vital explanatory role by providing an evolu-
tionarily consistent warrant for the ascription of intentionality. The Behavioural
Perspective Model is used as a template for investigations of consumer cboice that lead
to iterative theoretical development, forming the basis of a neurophilosopby in which
neuroeconomics can find a decisive role.
Copyright g 2008 Jobn Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Introduction of environmental stimuli, subsequent physio-

logical functioning at the neural level and the
Psychology is a biológica science. It is uncon- f , ^. , . » i „, i »u«.
^ ^^ »• use of evolutionary logic to understand the
troversia therefore to assert that its explana- (• *• t fc . c w ^\ r- ™-
^ function and effects of both. Consumer
tion of conip ex human behaviour must draw . , . ,• i • i i •
^ psychology is n o w actively involved in appre-
upon analyses of the reception and perception . ^. ^. .^ ,. *-.>,• • -
* ' 1 1 1 ciating the ramifications of this, and is
increasingly joining forces not only with
•Correspondence to: Gordon R. Foxall, Cardiff Business biology but also with economics and philos-
School, Cardiff University, Aberconway Building, Colum ophy in order tO embrace the full spectrum of
Drive, Cardiff CF10 3EU, Wales, UK. behavioural causation in marketing. But it is
E-mail: foxall@cf.ac.uK „ , , , , , ,
'Cordon FoxaU is Distinguished Researx:h Professor at equally true that psychology IS a behavioural
Cardiff University. science and a cognitive science. It is the task of
Copyright C 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. foumal of Consumer Behaviour, ftily-October 2008
DOI: 10.1002/cb
Reward, emotion and consumer choice
consumer theory to integrate these various
components of explanation into a synthetic
framework for research and interpretation. A
particular difficulty arises here from the
accumulation of disparate results of fMRI
scanning and other means of observing neural
activity in relation to consumer behaviour. In
the absence of any generally accepted frame-
work of conceptualization and analysis, so-
called neuromarketing' is likely on present
form to lead to the multiplication of potentially
interesting but disconnected research findings
which does nothing to advance a general
theory of marketing or, more modestly, the
interdisciplinary' explanation of consumer
choice. This paper is concerned, therefore,
with the way in which progress in neuro-
science can be incorporated into a conceptual
framework for the analysis of consumer
choice. More specifically, the paper draws
upon advances in neuroeconomics which have
led to greater understanding of the role of
reasoning and emotion in the discounting of
future rewards. Such understanding is cmcial
to the explanation of consumer choice in some
of its more extreme manifestations - addiction
and compulsion, for example - but also plays a
role in the theor>^ of more everyday consump-
tion including routine buying, impulsiveness
and innovativeness.
This paper pursues an elaborate argument
and some explanation of its stnicture is
necessary at this stage. The paper first estab-
lishes the nature of neuroeconomics and its
relevance to the investigation of consumer
choice which derive from the analysis of the
bases of reward. It goes on to consider how far
the kinds of choices that consumers make can
be judged to be rationally motivated: how far is
the emphasis on ncurocognition that tends to
mark economic (and to a large degree market-
ing) analysis justified compared with the need
to take an affective neuroscientific perspect-
ive? The argument is that the phenomenon of
matching reveals that emotional responses
to the short- and long-term rewards available to
consumers arc highly important and in some
cases definitive in determining choice even
when this is not rational. This is most easily
Copyright < 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. foumal of Consumer Behaviour, July-October 2008
369
illustrated with respect to extreme consumer
behaviour, which involves compulsion and
addiction. It is described here in the case of
drug use, because this is the area in which the
behavioural and biological sciences often meet
and to which neuroeconomics is especially
pertinent. But recent work has shown that
matching is also an important phenomenon for
more everyday consumer behaviours such as
food brand choice (Foxall et al., 2007; see also
Foxall, 1999a) and the discussion later expands
into consideration of tlois kind of choice. But it
is important to remark that even extreme
choice is viewed as a facet of consumer
behaviour, one involving the selection among
available choices as much as other aspects of
purchase and consumption. 'Consumer beha-
viour' and consumer choice' are, therefore,
regarded synonymously, partly on the grounds
that choice is always a behaviour (Hermstein,
1997), partly on the grounds that this under-
standing of choice does not prejudice the
argument over the use of intentional terminol-
ogy which is a later theme of the paper.
A critical link between emotionality and the
exercise of choice is found in the identification
of the reward structure (the pattern of
reinforcement) that accompanies particular
kinds of consumer behaviour, and its capacity
to induce not only a particular category of
consumer choice but related affective feelings.
This is first discussed in terms of research in
neuroscience, and then in terms of work on
the Behavioural Perspective Model which
makes the relationships clearer in the context
of consumer behaviour. There follows a
discussion of the way in wliich these results
are to be explained and this involves first a
critique of neuroeconomics as it is currently
practised ~ notably its indiscriminate use of
intentional terms - followed by an exposition
of how neurophilosophy might more success-
fully make use of neuroeconomics theories and
findings. In a nutshell, it is argued that, while
the uncritical use of intentional terminology' in
the explanation of consumer choice is to be
deplored, some means must nevertheless be
found for overcoming the inadequacies (when
it comes to explanation rather than prediction
DOI: 10.1002/cb
370
and control) of a purely extensional account of
behaviour, be it based on neuroscience or
behavioural science. The implications of
two aspects of this, intentional bebaviourism
and super-personal cognitive psycbology,
are finally explored and an agenda is
proposed for the next steps in the research
programme.
Neuroeconomics
Centra] to the explanation of choice are the
role of reward in consumer behaviour and the
environmental contingencies that relate
rewards to the rate at which particular
behaviours are repeated. Reward, which is at
the heart of economic behaviour, fulfils a
number of evolutionarily consistent functions
by virtue of the fact that the capacity to detect
and value rewards is essential to the control of
behaviour (Schultz, 2000; Rolls, 2008). The
foundations of neuroeconomics lie in the
recognition that these capacities depend
ultimately upon activities that occur at the
neuronal leve! (Glimcher, 2004; Camerereí«/.,
2005; Politser, 2008). The neuronal mechan-
isms that have evolved to provide these
functions contribute to the prediction of
behavioural outcomes by making possible
the comparison of future potential rewards
with those that have previously resulted from
similar behaviour. Rewards generated in the
course of past responding are neuronally
represented as a result of which they assume
the status of goals that guide future behaviour
(Rolls, 2008). Schultz (2000) mentions two
specific functions of rewards in this context.
First, as goals, rewards may elicit approach
behaviour, thereby conferring positive motiv-
ation power on the objects in which the
rewards inhere. Second, rewards are linked to
the generation of emotional states that con-
tribute to the continuity of behaviour. In
particular, they maintain learned behaviours
and govern the rate at which new ones are
learned througli the calculation at the neural
level of discrepancies between the predicted
reward and that which has been normal in the
Copyright " 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Journal of Consumer Behaviour, July-October 2008
Gordon R. FoxaU
organism's learning history: 'reward prediction
error' (Rolls, 2008).
Neuroeconomics is both a search for the
neural substrates of economic decision making,
that is choice among competing alternatives, and
an attempt to portray the operations of the brain
in economic terms, that is to present neurody-
namics themselves as economic behaviour
involving die valuation of and selection among
diverse ends in which choice inheres. Hence,
neuroeconomics 'maps economic decisions
straightforwardly into the neural substrates that
produce those decisions' (Zak, 2006, p. 133)-
Tlie underlying assumption is that in the course
of evolution the brain has developed means of
nmking behavioural options ordinally, that is to
value the available alternatives. The reward
system that carries out the valuation procedures
consists of certain neurons that fire at higher or
lower rates depending on whether a stimulus is
better or worse than expected on the basis of
experience. (In the case of a neutral stimulus,
the firing rate stays constant.) The resulting
computation guides the brain in deciding how
much time to allot to each stimulus (Montague
and Berns, 2002).
Neuroeconomics viewed from a biological
perspective tends to have a rather different
emphasis. It again seeks to synthesize neuro-
physiology and economic choice. The more
dominant perspective is, however, that in
the course of natural selection humans devel-
oped a capacity to value potential alternative
courses of action much more rapidly than if
they relied on cognitive evaluations. Such
vakKition would take the form of an ordinal
ranking of the options immediately presenting
themselves in terms of their being better than/
worse than one another. Such a system of
valuation at the level of the nervous system
would permit a more rapid and implementable
decision to be made than would the usual
cognitive procedures requiring a rational assess-
ment of the relative values of the alternatives in
relation to some specifiable goal. Especially
when the need is for a fast, appropriate response
such a neural route to decision making would be
essential for survival and the maximization of
fitness.
DOI: 10.H)02/cb
Reward, emotion and consumer choice
Two parts of the brain are particularly
involved in the neurophysiology of reward
(Ross et al., 2005; Politser, 2008). The
striatum, lying within the basal ganglia and
including the nucleus accumbens (Nace),
works with the hypothalamus, amygdala and
hippocampus, which have been collectively
identified as the so-called 'emotional centre' of
the brain. Close to this are the areas centrally
concerned with reward: the ventral tegmental
area (VTA), the pars compacta of tlie substaiitia
nigra (SNpc) and the anterior cingulated
cortex. The brain region to which alt of these
belong is much older in evolutionary time than
tlie second of the neurophysiological areas
involved in the processing of reward. This
is the prefrontal cortex and, especially, the
orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) which is the
cortical area particularly committed to
the processing of reward. Within this reward
system, the neurotransmitter dopaminc (DA)
plays a central role which is vital to the
understanding of everyday consumer beha-
viour as well as that which veers towards the
extremes of compulsion and addiction. While
DA is not the only important neurotransmitter
involved in the process of reward, its role must
be appreciated in order to make sense of the
causation of economic behaviour. (The trans-
mission of information in the brain is the result
of both electrical and chemical changes. The
dendrites that connect neurons cell bodies,
forming 'neural pathways', transmit electrical
pulses. Neurons increase the probability of
other cells' receiving these messages by
exuding chemicals at the synapses. Neurons
are classified according to the kinds of
chemicals, neurotransmitters, that link brain
ceils in this way. Hence, the dopaminergic
system is that complex of neurons that releases
and takes up DA.) The VTA and SNpc emit
reward signals to the rest of the brain via
different pathways, that is they release DA at a
rate that permits comparison with the baseline
level, and thereby enable a judgment to take
place (as we have seen) whether the reward in
question lives up to expectations, falls short of
expectations or exceeds them. It is the
changes in the levels of DA released on which
Copyright Í! 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Journal of Consumer Behaviour, July-October 2008
371
the brain bases its behavioural outputs. Hence,
reward processing, which is the province of
the dopaminergic system, is a form of learning.
But learning is a process that is intimately
connected with emotionality.
Reward and emotion
Although several authors have linked rewarded
behaviour with the generation of emotion, one
of the most thorough analysis in the present
context is that of Rolls (1995) who proposes
that opérant contingencies are responsible not
only for the generation of rewards (througli
instrumental conditioning) but also the
rewards themselves elicit emotions through
a classical conditioning procedure. He defines
emotions, therefore, as 'states elicited by
instrumental reinforcers, that is by rewards
and punishers' (Rolls, 2000, p. 220). These
emotional states have several fimctions includ-
ing 'eliciting autonomie responses, providing
the goals for instnimental actions and thus
allowing flexibility in which actions per-
formed, motivating actions to achieve these
goals, communication, social bonding, provid-
ing a way for genes to specify some of the goals
for actions, influencing cognitive evaluations
of events and memories, facilitating the storage
of memories, producing persistent and con-
sistent behaviour by lasting for minutes or
hours, and triggering particular memories'
(Rolls, 2000, p. 220).
Rolls argues that this approach to emotions
has four main advantages, all of which are
germane to the analysis of contingency-influ-
enced consumer behaviour. First, the defi-
nition of emotions in terms of rewards and
punishers permits the operational definition of
the environmental stimuli that lead to emotions.
A large part of this argument depends on
researchers' inability to find emotions that are
caused by other factors than environmental
contingencies; this is too big a subject to be
handled here in detail but suffice it to say that
extensive peer-critique has failed to damage
Rolls's approach (see Rolls, 2000). The estab-
lishment of the patterns of contingency that
DÜI: 10.1002/cb
372 Gordon R. FoxaU

lead to specific emotions is an essential Much of the research concerning reward

prerequisite of research that can determine
the neural mechanisms responsible for emo-
tions, that is the brain mechanisms that
implement emotions ¡by decoding] environ-
mental stimuli as primary reinibrcers, and those
that implement stimuius-reinforcer associ-
ation learning'. Second, this view of emotion
casts them as means by which the genes select
the goals of behaviour (rather than specific
behaviours such as the fixed action patterns
posited by many ethologists). Third, the
approach classifies emotions functionally, that
is in terms of their reinforcement contingen-
cies. He argues that this has advantages over
the usual approach to emotions developed
by multivariate analyses of questionnaire
responses that produce emotional categories
that are not functionally related to behaviour.
The approach suggested by Rolls identifies the
brain regions involved in decoding primary
reinforcers and the learning of stimuius-
reinforcer associations that have a cognitive
role in emotion, that is as being responsible for
information processing. Finally, the approach
links emotion to personality since sensitivity to
changing contingencies may rely on individual
differences.
The amygdala is not the only part of the
brain that is concerned with learning stimulus-
primary rcinforcer relationships but it is
important because it provides and integrative
conduit for numerous brain regions that
process relevant information; some of its
neurons also have a unique role in such
processing. Some amygdala neurons specialize
for primary reinforcers such as taste, touch and
pain; others for visual and auditory stimuli.
Primary reinforcers are almost always associ-
ated with secondary rewards: the sight of a
food pellet for instance. Moreover, there is
evidence that damage to the amygdala results
in impaired emotional functioning. The orbi-
tofrontal cortex (OFC) is also, at least in
primates, concerned with emotion insofar as it
decodes and represents some primary reinfor-
cers such as taste and touch. It is also involved
in the learning of secondary associations with
primary reinforcers.
and emotion has concerned extreme consu-
mer behaviours such as gambling and alcohol
or other drug addictions and the following
discussion is primarily concerned with this.
Information from the environment is neuron-
ally transmitted to the brain where it is
processed and stored and from which it can
be retrieved. The brain's motivational system
involves as we have seen the release of DA and
this takes place in the ventral striatum which
includes the nucleus accumbens. Dopamine
release in this area', write Winger et al. (2005,
p. 669), 'has been considered a critical mediator
of the reinforcing effects of stimuli including
drugs of abuse'. Tliese authors not only seek to
separate biological and behavioural explana-
tions of addiction at the conceptual level but,
interestingly, suggest how the various sub-
systems might be thought to interrelate in the
process of treatment. Hence, they identify 'a
cortical-striatal-pallidal-cortical circuit in the
emotional brain areas' (see Figure 1) that
explains motivation but argue that what is
absent from this neurophysiological account is
'how the various circuits are interconnected to
integrate the sensory input with the motor
output' (Winger et al., 2005, p. 669; cf
Anterior
Cingulate Cortex
/•^K Parietal
V-^ \ Cortex
Prefrontai_^{ (^^
Cortex ^ ^ ^ ^ I S ^P%.Occipita.
Í7v \T"Cortex
Nuoteu/^^^
-^Cerebel,™
Ventral Tegmentum \
Amygdala
Body XThalamus
Caudate /'^ J ^
Head V ^ ( 1 ^
>// Tail
Globus •=r:::i
PaUidus
Amygdala
Figure 1. The neuroanatomy of rcwatxl.

Copyright < 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Journal of Consumer Behaviour, July-October 2008
DOI: 10.1002/cb
Reward, emotion and consumer choice
Cardinal et al., 2002). The top of Figure 1
identifies structures that are related to the
reward pathway visible on the midline of the
brain, while the dark lines indicate DA path-
ways. The bottom shows the relation of the
thalamus (with lateral thalamic nuclei) to the
more lateral caudate nucleus and globus
pallidus.
While neuroscientists have generally sought
addiction in this reward circuitry. Winger
et al. (2005) claim that a behaviour-centred
approach provides a more accurate repres-
entation of the nature of addiction and the
basis for its treatment. Their understanding of
dRigs is as 'reinforcing stimuli that may come
to dominate the behavioural repertoire...'
because of the relative efficacy of drug
reinforcers compared with other sources of
reinforcement in the individuals life. There-
fore, drug addiction is a behavioural disorder.
Addictions are excessive behaviours that occur
when alternative behaviours are expected and
appropriate. This is a general definition
of addiction that applies not only to drug
addictions but also to overeating and excessive
gambling. The common thread is that after
exposure to the reinforcer (euphoria, food,
money) there ensues an escalation of the
behaviour on which the reinforcer is con-
tingent. Winger et al. claim that the tendency
of the individual to allow the pursuit of such
reinforcement to dominate his or her beha-
vioural repertoire is more likely to result from
learning historical factors than genetics though
the latter may play some part. They also argue
that their approach accounts for individuals'
maturing out of addictions as they enter a stage
of life that offers alternative sources of
reinforcement.
Drug reward and emotion
Drugs cause DA to flood one or other part of
the reward system; however, it is not pleasure
that this DA flood creates: pleasure, it is now
apparent, is indirectly related to reward and is
a relatively weak motivator of behaviour
compared to the prospects for positive
Copyright t 2008 John Wiley St Sons, Ltd. foumal of Consumer Behaviour, July-October 2008
373
surprise (cf. Bozrath, 1994). As a result of
the DA flood, therefore, the system focuses on
the environmental cues that predict this flood.
These cues are provided in the course of the
self-administration of the drug and consist in
the addict's acquisition of the substance, his or
her preparation of it, and all the physical
equipment and physical movements that lead
to its ingestion. It is the inauguration of this
predictive role that is the major function of DA
in the present context. At the same time, the
usually inhibitory function of the prefrontal
cortex over the older linibic system is modified
by an increase in Glutamate levels. The
otitcome is that behaviour becomes more
impulsive and the overall reward system
ignores other sources of reward. The system
is reacting not to the drug itself but to the cues
that predict it (Berridge and Robinson, 1998;
Robinson and Berridge, 2003; Berridge, 2004).
This does not diminish the importance of
pleasure: it magnifies it. for the drug and the
DA flood for which it is responsible motivates
behaviour because it is a signal of impending
pleasure.
Learning systems respond primarily to
anomaly, deviation from a norm, surprising
events and the brain's reward system is no
exception. This is why addicts come to
consume ever larger amounts of a drug and
why the amounts of it are increasingly
concentrated. It is also why alternative rewards
are excluded from consideration. Entirely
consistent with the neuroeconomics model,
gambling has the same effect. Gambling is
designed to produce surprising rewards: The
gambler is buying a maximally convenient,
direct manipulation of her mesolimbic reward
system'. (Ross et al., 2005, p. 5).
Berridge and Robinson analyse reward in
terms of not only learning (in which the
individual relates stimuli and the con-
sequences of action), but additionally as a
hedonic/affective element (involving 'liking'
or pleasure), and a motivational element
(which stems from 'wanting' and incentive
salience). In terms that will be familiar to the
consumer behaviour analyst, they note that
learning may be beliavioural/associative leading
DOL 10.1002/cb
374
procedurally to habits or cognitive learning,
and declaratively to conscious memories.
Learning may involve the establishment of
stimulus-stimulus (S-S), stimulus-response
(S-R) or response-consequence (R-S"*) associ-
ations, which are all mediated by subcortical
and cortical substrates, and/or cognitively
based act-outcome representations which are
mediated overwhelmingly by cortical sub-
strates. Liking is usually equated with sub-
jective pleasure but Berridge and Robinson use
the term 'liking' (in quotes) to refer to
objectively specified affect that may not be
conscious, 'Liking' is associated with opioid
transmission on to GABAergic neurons in the
nucleus accumbens. (See also Winkielman
et al., 2005.) 'Wanting' or incentive salience,
the motivational element in reward, is not the
equivalent of 'liking'. Contrary to the popular
view, DA docs not generate pleasure or other
affective response: in fact, DA is neither
necessary nor sufficient for 'liking'. Manipula-
tion of the DA system does, however, change
motivated behaviour by increasing instrumen-
tal responses and the consumption of rewards,
though it has no effect on taste (liking
measured as affective facial expression).
Hence, incentive salience is a motivational
rather than an affective component of reward.
Incentive motivation transforms neutral
stimuli into compelling incentives.
A more detailed account allows the inter-
actions among 'wanting', learning and 'liking'
to be explored. First, conditioned stimuli (CSs)
may act as what Berridge and Robinson call
'motivational magnets'. As a result of being
attributed with incentive salience, stimuli
come to elicit appetitive and possibly con-
summatory approach behaviours. In Pavlovian
conditioning, CSs elicit approach conditioned
responses (CRs). In a procedure known as
autoshaping, pigeons deal behaviouniUy with
the CSs for food and drink as they w^ould w^ith
the food and drink stimuli (the unconditioned
stimuli or UCSs) themselves. They discriminate
their behaviour accordingly, making eating
pecks in the former case and drinking pecks in
the latter; Berridge and Robinson liken this to
tlie behaviour of an addict who searches the
Copyright < 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Journal of Consumer Behaviour, July-October 2008
Gordon R. Foxall
floor for white crystals even though he or she
knows that many of them are of sugar. The
Pavlovian CSs in this instance are the subject of
'wanting' as they become motivational mag-
nets that attract appropriate behavioural
responses; the incentive salience attributed
to them is itself a CS element. Incentive
salience of this kind is closely connected with
the activity of mesolimbic DA systems and the
basolateral amygdala and nucleus accumbens
appear to be implicated in the associative
guidance it provides.
Second is the phenomenon of cue-triggered
rewards. CSs may instigate motivation for their
unconditioned rewards, for instance when
cues associated with drugs elicit either craving
for the drug and/or its ingestion. It is possible,
Berridge and Robinson argue, that in this
process the CSs cause mesolimbic systems to
attribute incentive salience to associated
neural representations of their reward UCS
(and the associated responses). The outcome is
'cue-triggered "wanting" of that reward'.
Manipulations of the DA and related mesolim-
bic circuits seems especially to produce this
result. It might also be engendered in humans,
however, by strong cognitive representations
of reward which activate these circuits even
when the CSs are not present.
Third is response reinforcement. Instnimen-
tal (opérant) responses are strengthened as a
result of their contingent relationship with
reward UCSs. Conditioned reinforcers (the
reward CSs provided in Pavlovian condition-
ing) can also act to strengthen novel instru-
mental behaviours. The temporal ordering of
events reverses that found in the Pavlovian
paradigm mentioned earlier in which the
response occurs prior to the rewarding
stimulus that strengthens or reinforces it. But
in the conditioned incentive effects paradigm
that Berridge proposes, the reward precedes
the 'wanting' response and may therefore be
said to trigger it. Tliese two forms of response
conditioning, primary and secondary, are
procedurally similar but are associated with
different neural circuitry. 'Mesolimbic incen-
tive salience' is accorded the property of
causing 'wanting' for CSs and their UCS
DOI: 10.1()02/cb
Reward, einotion and consumer choice
representations, and Berridge and Robinson
(2003, p- 511) remark on the possibility that
the influence of DA on response reinforcement
'might largely reflect this contribution of
incentive salience'. Tliey alstj argue that incen-
tive salience cannot by itself mediate the
response contingency in response reinforce-
ment (presumably because it is an environmen-
tally determined element in the tliree-temi
contingency). Such mediation requires addi-
tional psychological processes in their brain
systems such as instrumental S-R habit learn-
ing and instrumental cognitive representations
of act-outcome ("cognitive incentives').
Finally come cognitive incentives, defined
by Berridge and Robinson as an entity that
is known or imagined ('cognitive incentive
representation'), expected to be pleasant
('hedonic expectation'), subjectively desired
and intended to be obtained ('explicit cogni-
tive representation of wanting), and possibly
also known to be obtainable through specific
actions that cause its occurrence ('under-
standing of act-outcome causality'). In short,
people explicitly expect at a cognitive level to
like what they want and ean attain by their
own behaviour. In order for cognitive incen-
tives to be activated, the individual must use
memory of the hedonic value of a reward and
generate cognitive expectancies of its hedonic
reward in the future. 'One essence of rational
cognition is its inferential exploitation of
lawful consistencies in the world and, typi-
cally, future value is best inferred from past
value' (Berridge and Robinson, 2003, p. 512.)
In addition, the individual must be able to call
upon his or her understanding of what actions
cause what outcomes, and select the appro-
priate action (that which will produce the best
reward) from among several possibilities. The
next stage is to identify the neural substrates
for cognitive incentives that can be discrimi-
nated from those associated with other
components of motivation.
The acquisition of cognitive incentives in
the course of natural selection confers the
capacity to develop goal-directed behavioural
strategies over and above capabilities con-
ferred by acquisition of associative responding
Copyright ' 2008 John Wiley &. Sons, Ltd. Journal of Consumer Behaviour, July-October 2008
375
(Nesse and Berridge, 1997). This does not
mean that cognitive incentive mechanisms
replace the 'liking' and 'wanting' that compose
more basic learning, each of which functions
uniquely. Indeed, cognitive incentive expec-
tations occur simultaneously with Pavlovian
incentive salience ('wanting'), albeit at differ-
ent levels and may be exposed by different
experimental tests. They generally perform
together to motivate behaviour in the same
direction, though their directions may diverge
if, for instance, future values suddenly become
different from past values through a change in
physiological drive state. While cognitive
incentive processes are relatively immune to
manipulations of the mesolimbic DA systems
that modify Pavlovian guided wanting', they
depend heavily on neocortical stnictures
including orbitofrontal and insular cortical
regions.
Rationality and emotion
Openmt behaviour is closely related to the
release of DA in the central nervous system
(CNS) and the matching paradigm (Hermstein,
1997), developed within operant psychology,
permits detailed experimental analysis of the
effects of different rates of reinforcement on
choice (Di Chiara. 2002a; Loewenstein and
Seung, 2006). "Matching' refers to the tendency
of individual organisms to allocate responses
among alternatives in proportion to the
reinforcement obtained from each, and is a
well-documented phenomenon of both non-
human and human responding in experimental
contexts (Davison and McCarthy, 1988). The
mathematical formulation of the matching law
for a situation in which there are two choices
(Herrnstein, 1970) is
(1)
where ßi is the number of responses accorded
choice 1, B2 the number of responses accord-
ed choice 2, y?i the number of rewards
obtained from choice I and R¿ is the number
of rewards obtained from choice 2.
DOI; 10.1002/cb
376
Hence, the matching law describes the
relationship of rtlztivc frequency of respond-
ing to relative/re^M^Kcy of reinforcement: that
is it delineates choice as a molar sequence of
behaviour in the context of its alternatives. In
contrast to the molecular level of analysis
which describes single instances of response -
reinforcement, molar patterns are discerned
from a comparison of the rates at which
responses are emitted and reinforcement
obtained over an extended period (Baum,
1973; Foxall, 1998). Herrnstein (1979, 1982)
proposed an explanation of matching in terms
of the molecular process he termed meliora-
tion, in which the behavioural option offering
the higher local rate of reinforcement is chosen
at any time, and equilibrium is reached when
responses are allocated so as to equalize the
average reinforcement rates among altern-
atives. The relevance of matching to the
current discussion derives from research
which reveals that people commonly tend to
entertain inconsistent preferences for future
rewards. At time t, they prefer a larger reward
that will not be forthcoming for a longer time,
say Í + 3; at t+l. However, they prefer a
smaller reward available immediately. After
consuming this smaller sooner reward (SSR),
however, they may wish that they had waited
for the larger later reward (LLR) (Ainslie, 2001 ;
Rachlin, 2000). As Ross et al. (2005, p. 48)
summarize the import of this research, 'irra-
tionality in the strict sense of the economist, is
in fact normal!" The temporal discounting of
rewards which underlies these preference
reversals is better described by a hyperbolic
function rather than an exponential function
(Ainslie, 1992).
Ainslie's (1992) picoeconomics emphasizes
the distinction between exponential and
hyperbolic discounting. Exponential discount-
ing means 'subtracting a constant proportion
of the utility there would be at any given delay
for every additional unit of delay' (Ainslie,
2000, p. 28). Figure 2 shows exponential
discount curves from two differently sized
rew^ards available at different times: not only is
the LLR always valued more highly than the
SSR, but their values remain constantly
Copyright C 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Journal of Consumer Behaviour, July-October 2008
Gordon R. Foxaü
Time ^
Figure 2. Exponential discount curves from two differ-
ently sized rewards available at different times. Source:
Reproduced by kind permission of the copyright owner,
Dr George Ain.slie.
proportional to their objective sizes. It could
be then that only exponential discounting is
consistent with rationality and that people
who have a tendency to discount hyperboH-
cally should learn to keep their impulses in
check (Ainslie, 2000, p. 35). However, such
adjustments occur infrequently if at all and
where they do only with the greatest exercise
of 'willpower'.
Exponential discounting is invaluable in
banking and certain other contexts. However,
Ainslie proposes that people often discount
hyperbolically - that is in such a way as to have
inconsistent preferences over time. When
individuals discount hyperboHcally, conflict
is likely to arise betw^een tw^o differently sized
rewards available at different times: the
individual shows a marked preference for
the sooner-available reward. This is consistent
with the findings of matching research.
Figure 3 compares exponential and hyper-
bolic discount curves for the same reward. The
hyperbolic is tlie more bowed curve. As Ainslie
Time -•
Figure 3- Comparison of exponential and hyperbolic
discount curves for the same reward. Source: Repro-
duced by kind permission of the copyright owner,
Dr George Ainslie.
DOI: l().1002/cb
Reward, emotion and consumer choice
points out, As time passes (rightward along
the horizontal axis), the motivational impact -
the value - of the goal gets closer to its
undiscounted size, which is depicted by the
vertical line'.
Figure 4 clarifies the conflict that may arise
when individuals discount hyperbolically by
presenting curves for two differently sized
rewards available at different times. Unlike the
exponential discount curves depicted in
Figure 3, these hyperbolic curves can cross.
The portion of the curve for the smaller reward
that projects above the curve for the LLR,
indicates a preference for the sooner-available
reward for the duration of the cross-over.
The hyperbolic hypothesis is not accepted,
however, by some economists and biologists
who adduce recent experimental evidence in
an attempt to bolster the idea of discounting as
an exponential fimction. Although I shall
criticize this view, it is useftil to introduce its
expression here as a means of illustrating
clearly the coexistence of rational and emotive
elements of dealing with delayed rewards as
neuroeconomists have generally dealt with
them, and of drawing the attention of con-
sumer psychologists to broader theoretical
issues in neuroeconomics. Rolls (2008,
pp. 516-517), for instance, points out what
we have already encountered: that two brain
systems appear to be involved in humans'
dealing with delayed rewards (typically when
faced with the SSR vs. LLR choice). It is useful
to restate this here as a prelude to the
discussion of recent experimental results.
First, Rolls describes a rational system of
decision making that is capable of manipulat-
ing abstract symbols such as those found in
Time -^
Figure 4. Hyperbolic curves for two differently sized
rewards available at different times. Source: Reproduced
by kind permission of tbe copyright owner, Dr George
Ainslie.
Copyright c 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
377
language and mathematics. This system can
cope rationally with delay, treating each
interval equally and thereby determining the
optimal choice by positing exponentially
decreasing reward v:üue as a function of
increasing delay. More impulsive choice is
accounted for by a second system, which is
inclined to value immediate rewards dispro-
portionately highly despite their being much
smaller in magnitude than rewards whose realiza-
tion demands extended waiting (patience). The
OFC is a candidate for such impulsive choice.
McCIure et al. (2004) represent these
rational and emotional elements in decision
making, thus
r{t) = ß/riO) (2)
where r(0 is the value of the time-discounted
reward at time /, KO) the value of the reward if
received now\ that is ¿ = 0 (McCIure et al.,
2004). J^ reflects the emotional element in
decision making and y is the standard
exponential discount rate (Rolls, 2008, p. 517).
In an experimental study, McCIure et al.
(2004) took fMRI scans of human subjects as
they chose SSR and LLR. Consideration of
immediate rewards produced brain activity
implicating the J^ parameter representing
emotion in the medial OFC, the medial
prefrontal cortex/pregenual cingulate cortex
and the ventral striatum. The y' parameter in
Equation (2) was represented by activation in
the lateral prefrontal cortex (which is related
to higlier cognitive functioning), and part of
the parietal cortex associated with numerical
processing (Rolls. 2008, p. 518). McCIure et al.
(2004) summarize their results; 'short-term
impatience is driven by the limbic system
[ventral striattim. medial OFC], which responds
preferentially to immediate rewards and is less
sensitive to the value of later rewards, whereas
long-run patience is mediated by the lateral
prefrontal cortex and associated structures,
which are able to evaluate trade-offs between
abstract rewards including rewards in the
more distant future' (McCIure et al., 2004).
They conclude also that the brain does not
discount hyperbolically as Ainslie (1992)
argues, but that different parts of it discount
Journal of Consumer Behaviour, July-October 2008
DOI: 10.1002/cb
378
exponentially: more steeply, however, in the
case of the limbic system. Because of this, it
appears, they say, that on balance the brain is
discounting hyperbolically, but it is not. Ainslie
and Monterosso (2004) counter by arguing that
the conclusions drawn by McCIure et al.
(2004) go beyond their data. There is not
enough evidence, for instance, to argue that
different brain regions are competing for
choice decisions. It is even possible to
interpret recent data from fMRI investigations
to show that both limbic and prefrontal areas
are characterized by separate hyperbolic
functions. Ross et al. (2005, p. 155; cf
Loew^enstein and Seung, 2006) deduce that
therefore 'Even the smallest part of the brain,
and not just the whole person or other animal,
seems to discount hyperbolically'.
Discounting and consutner choice
The tendency towards melioration and the
hyperbolic discounting that may accompany
the selection of the immediately available
though smaller of two reinforcers is clearly
linked to impulsivity, compulsive purchasing
and addiction. Matching is also prevalent in
everyday consumer behaviour at the brand
level, and deviations from strict matching are
implicated in the identification of product
categories and subcategories as well as brands
(Romero eirt/., 2006; Fox^W et al., in press). All
of these modes of consumer choice are also
accompanied by the release of DA within the
reward system. The continuum of consumer
behaviours from the routine to the extreme is
matched by increases in the firing rate of
dopaminergic neurons; while, at the ever>'day
level of, say, brand choice for household or
persona] goods, DA release may be accom-
panied by hedonic feelings of pleasure (though
other chemicals such as opioids are also
involved in this), in the case of more extreme
consumer choice, DA signals the accoutre-
ments of consumption that accompany appe-
titive rather than consummatory acts (the pub,
the bartender, the syringe rather than the
drinking or the injecting). With increasing
Copyriglit r, 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Journal of Consumer Behaviour, July-October 2008
Gordon R. Foxall
levels of addiction, therefore, DA is associated
with wanting (ranging from mild desire to
craving) rather than liking (pleasure). The
consumer behaviour continuum reflects all
combinations of wanting and liking; first there
is everyday consumer behaviour which
ranges from the largely hedonic (in the sense
of increasing pleasure or decreasing displea-
sure) that is part of routine shopping and
consuming, to the greater anxiety felt in the
cases of impulsive (unplanned) purchasing and
novelty seeking; then there is more extreme
consumer behaviour which ranges from
compulsive purchasing through addictions
tbat manifest in problem gambling and drug
use. DA plays a role in all of these activities
(Depue and Collins, 1999; Di Chiara, 2002b;
Black, 2007).
Each mode of consumer behaviour ident-
ified by the continuum is also associated with a
unique behavioural strategy for managing
current versus future consequences of con-
sumption. The non-addicted buyer of everyday
goods scarcely thinks about overindulgence
today rather than planned, consistent con-
sumption over the coming weeks and possibly
years. Occasional impulsiveness occurs, as
when one gives in to the extra ice cream or
one more beer, an expensive coat or an
extravagant present. Both routine purchases
and these infrequent indulgences are no doubt
accompanied by somewhat heightened levels
of DA release, as they are by feelings of
pleasure, even if they later occasion mild but
manageable regret. There are, after all, several
theories of emotion that link affective
responses with operant choice. According to
Rolls's (2005) neurophysiological theory of
emotion, for instance, affective responses are
elicited by the contingencies of reinforcement
that account causally for the emission of
operant responses. Tliat is, the pattern of
rewards and punishments that behaviour
generates, and which come to influence future
examples of similar behaviour, give rise also to
affective feelings that encourage the continu-
ation of the behaviour in question. But in the
case of the everj'day consumer whom we are
describing, they are also accompanied by high
DOI: 10.1002/cb
Reward, emotion and consumer choice
levels of pereonal restraint insofar as the
purchaser seems not even to contemplate
taking such indulgences to extremes. It is
as though he or she had already planned the
acquisition of a constant and appropriate
supply of the goods in question over time in
the knowledge that this would lead to the most
satisfactory pattern of consumption and the
avoidance of unwanted side effects. It is
as though the consumer had already dis-
counted the future exponentially. (Further-
more, it may be that he or she has done this
mentally at some conscious or unconscious
level.) But the addict does not behave in this
manner, bringing forward his or her consump-
tion in a way disproportionate to current
biological and possibly also social require-
ments. Ainslie (2000) argues that the most
effective means by which the addict can break
this pattern is through making and adhering to
personal mies that invoke 'bundling' together
all the future rewards of abstinence so that
they form one large, presently influential
appraisal of the consequences of non-addiction
that can be set against the immediate rewards
of self-indulgence. Stmng out over time, the
intermittent and remote rewards of absti-
nence, each puny in the face of the benefits
of immediate over-consumption, can be easily
picked off, discounted. Brought together in the
process Ainslie calls bundling, however, they
make possible a motivational strategy that can
change behaviour (Ainslie, 2000). But not
always. Some highly extreme addicts appear to
be incapable of bundling, relentlessly driven by
their neurophysiology to pursue the SSR rather
than the LLR (Ross et al., 2005).
Neurophilosophy
There is no such thing in science as facts that
'speak for themselves'; there is no 'data
language' independent of theory. The preced-
ing account of matching, discounting and
consumer behaviour raises numerous ques-
tions that cannot be easily resolved by
empirical work alone. Making sense of one s
data requires a philosophical framework: in the
Copyriglu ¡e 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Journal of Consumer Behaviour, July-October 2008
379
case of neuroscience, a neurophilosophy
(Churchland, 1986, 2002). The problem is
partly one of terminological usage, partly one
of premature psychological theorizing.
The neuroeconomics literature is riddled
with simplistic assumptions and statements
about the causation of behaviour by means of
thoughts, attitudes and beliefs. These notions
do not stand scrutiny from either the findings
of psychology or the reasoning of philosophy.
Hence, we find references to brain studies
'beginning to allow direct measurement of
thoughts and feelings', where at best we are
able to track some broad neural correlates of
reports of these activities; to the capacity of
these measurements to challenge 'our under-
standing of the relation between mind and
action', when they in fact add little if anything
to what psychology and philosophy can
already tell us and where a much more
informative account of the relationship between
mind and brain than is currently available would
be required to make any further progress. We
are assured that 'our behaviour is strongly
influenced by finely tuned affective (emotion)
systems', when this again relies on correla-
tional effects rather than precise theoretically
defensible reasoning. It would, of course, be
unfair to adopt an unduly Gradgrindian
response to some of these usages: perhaps
in a nascent subject area, it is necessary for
metaphors to abound. But, as the discipline of
neuroeconomics develops, the explanations it
offers of behaviour must become increasingly
sophisticated.
This may not seem over important to
consumer researchers involved in applied
studies. The foregoing discussion of discount-
ing is highly relevant, for instance, to the
analysis of addictive and compulsive consumer
behaviour as well as everj'day choices (Foxall,
2007c), and the most obvious way of address-
ing these problems may seem to ally a com-
monsense view of causation to the findings of
research on intertemporal preference reversals
without the adornment provided by unneces-
sary philosophizing. But this strategy mns the
risk of our trying to explain behaviour in a
rather ad hoc way by ascribing intentionality in
DOI: 10.1002/cb
380
the form of wants and needs, attitudes and
intentions, that are simply derived form the
behaviour itself. We cannot do entirely with-
out these terms, but their application to the
explanation of choice requires greater disci-
pline than a commonsense approach might
afford. I should like here simply to outline one
approach to this problem, intentional beha-
viourism, which has been developed specifi-
cally to overcome the difficulties involved in
using intentional terminology and explanation
in biosocial science (Foxall, 2004, 2007b) and
applied to the explication of consumer choice
in particular (Foxall, 2005, 2007a, 2007c).
There comes a point in explaining behaviour
where both the findings of neuroeconomics
and those of behavioural science with respect
to opérant responding require explanations
that reach beyond the extensional terminology
of these disciplines. For example, the expla-
nation of the continuity of behaviour requires
resort to such intentional terms as remember-
ing and intending. How are these to be
ascribed to behaviour in a responsible manner?
Intentional behaviourism proposes that such
ascriptions occur only when the behaviour in
question is part of a molar pattern of respond-
ing that can be credibly related to rewarding
environmental stimuli and only when there is
an evolutionary logic for expecting this
environment-environment relationship to be
adaptive in the life of the individual organism.
This operation complements one suggested by
Dennett (1969) in which intentionality is
ascribed on the basis of evolutionarily consist-
ent afferent-efferent linkages that permit
interpretive inferences of what the organism
knows, desires, heiieves and so on. These
intentional ascriptions belong neither at the
sub-personal level which is that on which
neuroscience proceeds, nor the super-
personal level on which behavioural science
operates: they belong only at the personal
level of analysis and explanation, that which
deals with human beliefs, feelings and beha-
viour rather than either the biological pro-
cesses that underlie them or the environmental
contingencies that sustain them in social
situations.
Copyright «_ 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Journal of Consumer Behaviour, fuly-October 2008
Gordon /?. Foxall
Although intentional behaviourism has been
described extremely briefly here, it is capable
of elucidating a wide range of themes in
consumer psychology. It is particularly relevant
to the preceding discussion of matching and
discounting in four respects. First, it draws a
clearcut distinction between brain and mind
at the analytical level. By distinguishing the
sub-personal and personal levels, it separates
the spheres in which neuroscience operates as
an extensional mode of scientific investigation
and that at which ascriptions of intentionality
are made in order to accomplish a broader
explanation of behaviour. Philosophical con-
troversy will no doubt continue to rage over
the precise epistemológica! statuses that
should be attributed to these levels as sources
of valid behavioural explanation. That is not
our immediate concern, however. Tlae point
here is that intentional behaviourism makes
this distinction and provides an argument for
the conceptually separate mental sphere at
which intentional and cognitive inferences are
possible. Mind is an explanatory influence,
invoked when neuroscience cannot provide
causal explanation, for example for the con-
tinuity of behaviour, and for subjective
personal experience (McGinn, 1991). This
separation, it must be emphasized, relies on
a methodological rather than an ontological
distinction: there is no dualistic suggestion
here of non-materiality as the basis of sub-
jective experience.
Secondly, // avoids the mereoiogical fal-
lacy. Mereology is the study of whole systems
in relation to their parts, and the mereoiogical
fallacy (Bennett and Hacker, 2003) refers to the
erroneous attribution of roles, functions and
other features which belong only at the level of
the system itself to its components. Dennett's
(1987) use of the intentional stance is an
example. The intentional stance is a philoso-
phical device by which the behaviour of a
system can be predicted by ascribing to it the
beliefs and desires it ought to have by virtue of
its history and current circumstances. Applied
at the level of the whole organism, this makes
sense and is certainly compatible with the
explanatory system for which I am arguing
DOI: 10.1002/cb
Reward, emotion and consumer choice
(Foxall, 2007b). However, Dennett applies it
also at the level of the subsystem so that a brain
or even a neuron can be predicted on the basis
that it is an intentional system in its own right.
While intentions can be legitimately ascribed
at the level of a conscious being in order to
predict and explain its behaviour, stances
other than the intentional - such as the
physical and design stances (Dennett, 1987)
and the contextual stance (Foxall, 1999b) -
suffice in the case of physical entities and at
least some nonhuman animals. By specifying
three analytical levels, intentional behaviour-
ism extends the framework of causation and
explanation to include the direct effects of
environmental stimuli on behaviour and the
role of contingent behavioural consequences
in the ascription of intentionality but it never
confuses the explanatory levels at which each
element in its explanation is located.
Thirdly, it distinguishes causation from
explanation. Brains and environmental con-
tingencies are included among the causes of
behaviour; intentions are part of the expla-
nation of behaviour. The distinction is particu-
larly evident when the extensional neuro- and
behavioural sciences can go no further in
accounting for behaviour. For example, it is
necessary in order to account for the con-
tinuity of behaviour, for the personal level and
for the delineation of behavioural interpret-
ations to resort to intentional idioms which
deal for instance in memories, attitudes and
intentions (Foxall, 2004). Some may take this
further, arguing that between any finding or
theory of extensional science and the expla-
nation of behaviour it is necessary to interp-
olate the intentional idioms. Be that as it may,
there are certainly occasions when this
distinction cannot be avoided.
Fourthly, it clarifies the range of instances
where, and the levels of analysis at which
terms such as 'hyperbolic' and 'exponential'
as well as 'wanting' and liking' are appli-
cable. It makes no sense to attribute discount-
ing, let alone to assert the correctness of
specific modes of discounting, other than at
the level of the whole organism, the personal
level. These are behaviours that can be
Copyright ' 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Journal of Consumer Behaviour, July-October 2008
381
discharged only by complete organisms.
Wanting and liking are similarly ascriptions
made at the personal level on the basis of
correlated events at the sub-personal and
super-personal levels that are evolutionarily
consistent but they are not coterminous with
either correlated event.
The framework outlined above is, as it
stands, an abstract approach to consumer
psychology. I should now propose one means
of integrating the arguments I have presented
with recent research on the emotional res-
ponses of consumers facing environmental
stimuli, and suggesting what further research is
necessary next in order to ground this
approach.
Emotional outcomes of consumer
situations
Work within the context of the Behavioural
Perspective Model (BPM) indicates that con-
sumers' emotional responses can be system-
atically related to reinforcement contingencies
by means of a matrix which provides an
exhaustive functional classification of consu-
mer situations in terms of utilitarian reinforce-
ment and informational reinforcement and the
scope of the consumer behaviour setting (Foxall,
1990/2004; Foxall and Greenley, 2000; FoxaU
and Yani-de-Soriano, 2005; see Figure 5).
Consumer choice takes place at the inter-
section of the consumer's learning history and
the current consumer behaviour setting, tliat is
where the experience of consumption meets
an opportunity to consume anew. This inter-
section of time and space forms the consumer
situation, the immediate shaper of approach-
avoidance responses involved in purchase and
consumption. The consumer behaviour setting
is composed of the stimulus antecedents of
that behaviour, some of which will have been
present on earlier consumption occasions. In
the presence of the individual s learning
history, these initially neutral stimuli are
transformed into the discriminative stimuli
that set the occasion for current choice; in
particular, his or her consumption history
DOI: 10.1002/cb
382
Consimer
Behav±>rSettíig
Leamiig H Étoiy
Figure 5. Summative behavioural perspective model.
invests them with kind of meaning, that is the
capacity to generate specific kinds of approach
and/or avoidance behaviours which produce
consequences that regulate the rate of recur-
rence of the behaviours that produced them.
The consumer situation consists also of
motivating operations (MOs) that invest the
consequences inherent in the discriminative
stimuli with additional motivating or inhibitory
power by making the consequences of radical
behaviourism appear more or less reinforcing,
more or less punishing. The consequences of
behaviour fall into three types: utilitarian
reinforcement which consists in the ñinctional
outcomes of behaviour, informational reiii-
forcement, which stems from the symbolic
outcomes, principally performance feedback
and aversive/punishing consequences, the
costs of purchase and consumption. Such
aversive outcomes can themselves be subdi-
vided into those that are utilitarian in nature
and those that are symbolic.
Four broad classes of consumer behaviour
can be inferred from the pattern of high/low
High utilitarian
Reinforcement
High informational ACCÜMFLISHMBNT
reinforcement
Low informational HRDONISM
rcinlbrccmcnt
Figure 6. Opérant classes of consumer behaviour.
Copyright c 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Gordon R. Foxall
UtíÜamn
PunÉhm ent
îifoim atbnal
Rehfoicement
atiinal
Punishm ent
utilitarian and informational reinforcement
that maintains them (Figure 6). Maintenance
consists of activities necessary' for the con-
sumer's physiciU survival and welfare (e.g.
food) and the fulfilment of the minimal
obligations entailed in membership of a social
system (e.g. paying taxes). Accumulation
includes the consumer behaviours involved
in certain kinds of saving, collecting and
instalment buying. Pleasure includes such
activities as the consumption of popular
entertainment. Finally, Accomplishment is
consumer behaviour reflecting social and
economic achievement: acquisition and con-
spicuous consumption of status goods, dis-
playing products and services that signal
personal attainment. Both types of reinforcer
figure in the maintenance of each of the four
classes, though to differing extents.
Adding in the scope of the current behaviour
setting, leads to the eightfold way depicted in
Figure 7 which shows the variety of con-
tingency categories that exclusively constitute
a functional analysis of consumer behaviour.
Low uiilitarian
reinlbrcement
ACCUMULA I'lON
MAINTKNANCF.
Journal of Consumer Behaviour, July-October 2008
DOI: 10.10()2/cb
Reward, emotion and consumer choice 383
BEHAVIOR SRTTING SCOPE
informational reinforcement and verbal respo-
nses that refer to the experience of dominance
CCI CCI are significantly related to situations defined in
Fulfillment Slatits terms of openness. Moreover, approach beha-
consumption viour increases with higher levels of utilitarian
CC4 CCÍ
reinforcement and informational reinforce-
111 escit pubic Popular
ment and is highest where high levels of
enterliiinnicni cnleriai riment both are combined (Accomplishment) and
lowest for combinations of low levels of both
CC6 CCS
(Maintenance). The cross-cultunil validity of
ACCHMtU AT1ON Token-biLsed Saving and these results - projects were executed in
consumption collecting
England and Venezuela, the latter in Spanish -
CCS CC7 suggest a robust methodology. Figure 8
Mandatory Routine
MAINTKNANCI-.
consumption purchasing
summarizes the expected and actual results.
Where an emotional response is in upper case,
it is relatively higher than when it is in lower
Figure 7. 'Ihe lîl'M contingency matrix. (CC, eontin- case.
ycncy category.) Figure 9 integrates these results into the
intentional behaviourism framework, relating
them to the consumer behaviour continuum
Recent work on consumers' verbal and from everyday to extreme choice.' It also sets
emotional responses situations of purchase out the three levels of analysis assumed by
and consumption is closely related to these intentional behaviourism and the criteria that
concerns. In this research, consumers evinced apply to each in terms of the afferent-efferent
a unique pattern of affective responses in terms links established by extensional neuroscience,
of pleasure, arousal and dominance for each of the environmental-behavioural links estab-
the eight possible 'contingency categories' lished at the molar level by behavioural
composed of varying levels of utilitarian and science, and the intentionality accordingly
symbolic reinforcement, and the relative open- ascribed at the personal level. The research
ness or closedness of the consumer behaviour on comparatively everyday consumer beha-
setting (Foxall and Yani-de-Soriano, 2005). The viours that has been described suggests that
results were discussed at some length in these behaviours result in some degree of
Undefstanding Consumer Choice (Foxall, 'liking' (ranging from the very high levels
2005) but can be briefly summarized here. It typically found for CCI consumer situations
was hypothesized that each of the basic
to the typically low levels found in the case
emotional responses to environments posited
of CC7). Figure 9 also proposes intentional
by Mehrabian and Russell (1974; see also Franz,
attributions for the intermediate and more
2005) vi'ould be uniquely associated with a
extreme modes of consumer behaviour. The
particular structural element of the consumer
situation; pleasure with utilitarian reinforce- compulsive and addictive behaviours attract
ment; arousal with informational reinforce- the intentional label 'wanting' rather than
ment and dominance with the openness of the 'liking' (tentatively denoted by P~"A^^D""),
consumer behaviour setting. The findings on the reasoning that compulsion and addic-
corroborate this: verbal responses that refer tion involve not only loss of pleasure but also
to the experience of pleasure are significantly loss of the confidence, control and being-in-
related to situations defined in terms of charge of one's life that are suggested by
utilitarian reinforcement; verbal responses that
refer to the experience of arousal are signifi- 'Note that impulsive behaviour in this figure and in the
cantly related to situations defined in terms of accompanying text refers to unplanned consumer beha-
viour and is therefore classed as 'everyday" or 'routine'.

Copyright < 2008 John WUey & Sons, Ltd. Journal of Consumer Behaviour, July-October 2008
DOI: 10.1002/cb
384 Gordon R. Foxall

Closed setting scope Open setting scope

Accomplishment CC2 P*A*D- CCI P* A * D *

Hedonism CC4 P* A' D" CC3 p* ^ " £)*

Accumulation CC6 1»* A"" D' CC5 P- A" D"

Maintenance CC8 P" A" D' CC7 P" A" D*

Figure 8. Empirically confirmed pattern of situationai and attitudinal correspondence.

Sub-personal Personal Icvd Super-personal

A fierent-elTerent link Intentional i Iv Molar behaviour pattern

Slightly-raised Routine consumer behaviour

firing rate of
DA neurons Impulsive

Innovative
* Continuum of
Compulsive consumer behaviours

Highly-raised Addictive
firing ralcol'
DA neurons P~. . D" Highly addicUve

Figure 9. An integrated approach to consumer choice.

'dominance' and greater anxiety which is
manifested in arousal. The highly addictive
behaviours shown by those unable to bundle
the future rewards of abstinence are more
appropriately described as involving 'craving'
(P A"''^^D ), denoting even greater
losses of both pleasure and dominance and
further augmented arousal. There is clearly no
shortage of hypotheses for future integrative
research.
questionnaire) that accompany specific pat-
terns of behavioural contingency (as desig-
nated by the BPM Contingency Matrix). The
second is one for philosophy and requires a
deeper understanding of the kinds of con-
clusion we can legitimately draw^ from the
findings of extensional neurosciencc and
extensional behavioural science in terms of
the use of theoretical terms that inhere in
intentional language and forms of explanation.

Neural substrates of emotions

Discussion associated with patterns of
It is apparent that reward, emotion and choice behavioural contingency
are inextricably linked via neural activity. Tbe
questions that arise next are: Can we learn General considerations
more about the form that these linkages take? The reason for seeking these neural substrates
Furthermore, how can we speak about them is to appreciate better the kinds of afferent-
meaningfully in theoretical terms? The first is a efferent linkages that might provide an
question for science and in the present context evolutionarily consistent warrant for ascribing
requires that w^e seek to identify neural intentionality at the personal level of expla-
substrates that are reliably associated with nation. Such ascription of content according to
the verbal behaviours (responses to the PAD what we might call Dennett's principle of

Copyright G 2008 John WUey & Sons, Ltd. Journal of Consumer Bebatfiour, July-October 2008
DOI: 10.1002/cb
Reward, emotion and consumer choice
neuro-intentionality (Dennett, 1969), may be
more complicated than Dennett assumed. It is
not only afferent-efferent linkages that are
relevant to this endeavour but all manner of
afferent-intrabrain linkages. This does not
invalidate neuro-intentionality but it extends
it by recognizing that we may look more
widely for our justifications for content
ascription. In this paper. I am enquiring only
what some of the relevant linkages may be,
since the conclusions I draw about the role of
neuroeconomics in the explanation of con-
sumer choice rely on there being such
relationships: employing them directly in the
explanation of consumption is a broader task.
The immediate requirement is to demonstrate
that the emotional responses that reliably
reflect the BPM-defined contingency catego-
ries, as described in the work of Foxall and
Yani-de-Soriano (2005), have a consistent basis
in identifiable patterns of neural activity.
Any expectation of a one-on-one mapping
between neural activity and emotion, even
verbally reported emotion, would betray a
misunderstanding of the nature of neuronal
activity and its relationship with behaviour; it
appears from the literature however that the
three basic emotions w^e have considered are
supported at the neuronal level (see inter alia
Coull, 1998; Ruach era/., 1999; Demareee/«/.,
2008; Lewis et al., 2007). Panskepp (1998,
2007) identifies seven core emotional sys-
tems' in the brain on the basis of empirical
neuroscientific research. Four of them con-
tribute to anxiety, anger, desire and eroticism:
that is FEAR, RAGE, SEEKING and LUST.^
These are indicative of what Mehrabian labels
arousal. Panskepp adumbrates the brain sys-
tems that regulate arousal - norepinephrine,
epinephrine, hi staminé, acetylochine - that
have a modulatory effect on a range of emo-
tional responses. Three more, which arise in
the mammalian limbic system, are CARE,
Panskepp (2007, p. 147) explains why he employs
upper-case letters for these core systems: 'I adopted this
convention to provide a convenient vernacular heuristic
for the prijpositional systems we need to understand if
we are ever going to really explain emotions". Verbum
sapienti.
Copyright t 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Journal of Consumer Behaviour, July-October 2008
385
PANIG and PLAY, and these are respectively
neural substrates of the emotions of nurtur-
ance, separation distress or sadness and social
joy (Panskepp, 2007. p. 146). These three are
primarily social in nature and, Panskepp
argues, can be traced to underlying brain
functions. CARE and PANIC reflect aspects of
dominance, while PLAY suggests pleasure.
'[Biased on shared opioid, oxytocinergic/
vasotocinergic and prolactinergic neurochemi-
cal controls, it seems likely that the nurturant
dynamics of the CARE system evolved from the
pre-existing substrates of LUST systems' (pp.
146-147). PANIC manifests the distress of
social separation which leads to sadness and
grief: not only did it evolve, he argues fiirther,
from pre-existing physiological pain systems,
but it is activated by the opiates, oxytocin and
prolactin. Mehrabian (1980) is not the only
psychologist to argue for dominance as a
fundamental dimension of emotionality (see,
for instance, Ellis and Toronchuk, 2005; Yani-
de-Soriano and Foxall, 2006), but Panskepp
maintains that according to it so basic a status
is premature. Nevertheless, his reason for this
contention - that dominance is an emergent
emotional system based in particular on PLAY,
SEEKING, RAGE and FEAR, actually reaffirms
the centrality of dominance as a human
emotion. But this superficial account will hardly
suffice to anchor Mehrabian s PAD variables at
the neuroaffective level.
Indeed, an important caveat must be entered
here, one which concerns the validity of any
ensuing explanation of consumer choice.
Language is variously employed among neu-
roscientists and psychologists such that terms
like 'pleasure, arousal' and 'dominance' are
used in more than one sense even within
academic disciplines and subdisciplines let
along between them. A central assumption of
research at the BPM/PAD interface is that
utilitarian reinforcement is reflected in verbal
accounts of pleasure'; informational reinforce-
ment in 'arousar and consumer behaviour setting
scope in 'dominance'. Tliese expectations have
been broadly borne out but the neuroaffective
dimension introduces a further level of
linguistic complexity. If we seek to establisb
DOI: 10.1002/cb
386
links between work on neuroaffective sub-
strates and the explanation of consumer
choice as it is related to patterns of environ-
mental contingency, we must have confidence
that there is reasonable linguistic continuity
from one sector to another. Fortunately, there
is reason to believe that we can proceed with
assurance.
Pleasure
Panskepp (1998, p. 112) points out, for instance,
that pleasure is not just a matter of what makes
an animal experience positive feelings: it
'indicates that something is biologically use-
ful'. Moreover, '"useful" stimuli... inform tbe
brain of their potential to restore the body
toward homeostatic equilibrium when it has
deviated from its biologically dictated "set
point" level' iibid.) Pleasure, he notes further,
is felt when equilibrium is restored, as a result
for instance of hunger or thirst being assuaged.
Affective processes are central to the homeo-
static process, hisofar, then, as pleasure is an
index of material, biological equilibrium,
mediated by tangible physical events and
based on the biogenic influences on behaviour
that give rise to primary reinforcement, its
occurrence is consistent with what consumer
behaviour analysis understands as utilitarian
reinforcement. Furthermore, what can be
assumed to follow in the case of primary
reinforcers can also be expected to hold for
their associated secondary reinforcers. It is
encouraging also to note that research on tbe
'evolutionary substrates of socio-emotional
processes' provides a bridge between tbe
neurochemical level and the human social
and cultural context. The connection between
the opioids, in particular, pleasure and appe-
titive-seeking behaviour strongly supports the
current interpretation of the nature of con-
sumer choice and its explanation.
Arousal
Neuroscientists' frequent definition of arousal
in terms of anxiety, fear and anger also
Copyright <: 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Journal of Cotuumer Behaviour, July-October 2008
Gordon R. Foxalt
resonates with the sense in which that term
is understood and operationalized by Mehra-
bian (1980). Environments that signal or
encourage competitiveness and uncertainty
as to the outcomes of behaviour are most likely
to engender arousal. Sex differences in arousal-
seeking tendency have evolutionary support
and, expressed in terms of aggression versus
inhibition, flight versus fight, manifest well-
established sex differences in behaviour (Tay-
lor et al., 2000; Campbell, 2007). Hormones
such as oxjtocin and testosterone play a role in
the regulation of fear and aggression, nurtur-
ance and affiliation. Among the neurotrans-
mitters, serotonin is associated not (as in
popular imagination) with pleasure but with
the reduction of anxiety. Reduced functioning
of CNS serotonin underlies impairment of
impulse control and is further implicated in
violence, impatience and the assumption of
risks of punishment or injury (Higley et at.,
1996). The administration of serotonin, by
contrast, as in SSRI medication, modulates
antisocial tendencies (Knutson et al., 1998).
These are behaviours closely connected with
feelings of arousal and, although they are too
extreme to find a place in most consumption
activities and research, they are indicative of a
role for arousal at all points along the consumer
continuum. Arousal and impulsivity are clearly
seen in everyday consumer behaviours such as
innovativeness, novelty seeking and unplanned
purchasing; compulsiveness is at the root of
unregulated consumption and addiction.
Finally, while DA plays a general role in the
anticipation of rewarded behaviour, it has a
particular affinity with behaviour that even-
tuates in (reported) arousal. DA is associated
with feelings of excitement, engagement and
the involved pursuit of primary reinforcers; it
is responsible for the energization of higher
areas of the motor cortex that is essential
to SEEKING (Panskepp, 1998, p. 144).
The biochemical bases of these responses
link also to the arousal-seeking tendencies
evoked by environments that provide varying
information rates (Mehrabian and Russell,
1974), that is the rate at which stimuli
impinge upon the individual to create
DOI: 10.1002/cb
Reward, emotion and consumer choice
excitatory or inhibitory reactions. This is the
basis of feelings of arousal, some of which
reflect environmental dynamism and this in
turn may provide the individual with perform-
ance feedback on tbe behaviour that be or
she is enacting. It is considerations such as this
that encapsulate informational reinforcement
(Foxall, 2005).
Dominance
The term 'dominance' is frequently employed
in social psychology to refer to interpersonal
control, a behaviour known to be context
specific (SuUoway, 2007). The dominance to
which Mehrabian and Russell (1974) drew
attention is an emotional response to both
physical and social environments and differs
with the extent to which the consumer setting
permits autonomy or induces conformity. This
latter definition includes but is broader than
the former. At tbe social psychological level,
dominance undoubtedly is connected with
some of the traits we have considered to
constitute arousal. DA and opioids are associ-
ated with sociability, prosocial behaviour
and affiliation; the neuropeptide oxytocin
increases feelings of trust. Moreover, the
reward-centred DA promotes social prefer-
ences; but the attractiveness of psychostimu-
lants like cocaine increases with DA deficit
(Panskepp, 2007, p. 156). Hence, submissive-
ness rather than dominance is associated with
cocaine consumption. Both the neurotrans-
mitter serotonin and the hormone testosterone
are associated with high social status and
feelings of dominance; challenges to status
and increased stress are associated with
higher cortisol levels (Buss, 2004, 2005;
Cummins, 2005; Foxall, 2007a). The relation-
ship between dominance and the BPM resides
in a tendency of consumers to report high
levels of this emotional response in more open
settings, those that provide a wider range of
behavioural outcomes and which are usually
under the control of the consumer herself
rather than another agent such as a marketer or
government department.
Copyright e 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Journal of Consumer Behaviour, July-October 2008
387
The role of neuroeconomics in the
explanation of consumer choice
It is time to take stock of where this argument
is leading us with respect to the role of
neuroeconomics in the explanation of con-
sumer choice. The extensional behavioural
science-based model of consumer behaviour
which was our starting point has been
augmented to include the intentional expla-
nation of choice. This second theoretical
standpoint in tbe development of consumer
research is also one from which further progress
is possible. Intentional behaviourism is, in
Dennett's terms, a competence theory which
is based on the identification of environmentally
determined patterns of molar behavior,
accounting for their continuity/dismption,
the personal level that is consistent with this
and delimiting its interpretations on the basis
of appropriate ascription of intentional con-
tent. It employs extensional behavioural
science as a means of establishing these molar
patterns of environmental-contingent beha-
viour as a means of ascribing intentionality,
balancing the extensional neurophysiology on
which Dennett relies. In doing so, it introduces
a super-personal level of explanation (Figure 3).
Its aim is, principally, explanation in accordance
with the imperatives of intentionality rather
than prediction. We can posit beyond this a
super-personal cognitive psychology as a
performance theory (again Dennett's term)
that attempts to specify the cognitive functions
that are consistent with such patterns of molar
behaviour, and incorporating the neurophy-
siological and evolutionary psychological
dimensions consistent with those observed
choices. As such, it is less concerned with the
stRicture of cognitive activity, the dimension
of information processing on which models of
consumer behaviour have generally concen-
trated, than with the imperatives of cognitive
functioning that would have arisen in the
course of an evolutionary history. While
Dennett's (1969) initial approach rested on
the logic of natural selection, intentional
behaviourism rests on the logic of Skinner's
(1981) selection by consequences in which
DOI: 10.1002/cb
388
opérant behaviour is understood in compar-
able evolutionary terms, and super-personal
cognitive psychology relies upon some
broader understanding of the evolution of
cognitive functioning. This latter has else-
where been explored in terms of evolutionary
psychology (Foxall, 2007).
The aim of the BPM is to demonstrate that an
extensional model of consumer behaviour can
be built on the basis of the three-term
contingency so that consumer choice can be
interpreted and empirically investigated in
terms of functional relationships between a
response and its consequences, and the
epistemological implications of such a model
can be appraised. Its staicture is such that
consumer behaviour is portrayed as the out-
come of functional relationships between a
consumer situation and a response, where the
consumer situation is the intersection of a
consumer behaviour setting and a learning
history of reinforcement and punishment by
utilitarian and informational consequences.
The consumer behaviour setting comprises
discriminative stimuli and MOs that link the
learning history with the probable outcome of
current responding. Its shortcomings as an
explanatory device suggest, however, that it
must be elaborated through the addition of an
intentional dimension to the explanation of
consumption. This can be achieved by incor-
porating what I propose calling Dennett's
neural-intentionality criterion to determine
when and how intentionality is to be ascribed.
Dennett argues that intentionality may be
legitimately ascribed based on evolutionarily
consistent afferent-efferent neuronal links. To
this, however, needs to be added a second
criterion: molar patterns of opérant behaviour.
The result is a competence model of con-
sumption, the BPM2. (The extensional model
(Figure 5) becomes BPMl' in view of the
incorporation intentionality ( BPM2') and cog-
nition ('BPM3').)
As an intentional behaviourist model of
consumer choice, BPM2 has the aim of
facilitating the legitimate ascription of inten-
tionality to explain the personal level, beha-
vioural continuity and interpretive aspects of
Copyright < 2008 John WUey & Sons, Ltd. Journal of Consumer Bebaviour, July-October 2008
Gordon R. Foxall
molar patterns of consumer behaviour. This is
an appropriate configuration for a competence
model. Its structure is such that Intentionality
is ascribed at the personal level on the basis of
(a) NIM (i.e. the sub-personal level) and (b)
BPMl - situationai location of molar patterns
of opérant behaviour (i.e. the super-personal
level). The competence model BPM2 is
sufficient to show what explanatory elements
would be needed to complete a theory of
consumption if the starting point were exten-
sional behavioural science. However, it is not
itself capable of leading to testable hypotheses;
for one thing, the intentional elements are not
causal and hence not predictive. If we wish
now to develop causal and testable models of
consumption, we have to devise performance
theories at the cognitive level: BPM3. It is here
that neuroeconomics enters the picture.
As a super-personal cognitive psychology
model of consumer choice, BPM3 has the aim
of permitting the legitimate ascription of
cognition to explain the personal level, beha-
vioural continuity and interpretive aspects of
molar patterns of consumer behaviour. Its
structure is such that cognitive functioning is
ascribed at the personal level on the basis of
(a) neuroeconomic aspects of physiological
functioning and (b) BPMl, that is situationai
location of molar patterns of opérant beha-
viour. Why 'neuroeconomic' rather than just
'physiological' (afferent-efferent links)? There
are two major reasons.
First, since Dennett's (1969) proposal that
evolutionarily consistent afferent-efferent
links would provide a basis for the ascription
of intentionality, neuroscience has moved on
so much that it is now possible to offer an
interpretation of neural activity as a correlate
of decision making at the personal level.
According to Zak, neuroeconomics is specifi-
cally charged w^ith identifying the neural
substrates that are correlates of economic
decision making. Having chararterized economics
as concerned with the decision processes that
underlay the evaluation of alternative courses of
action through the comparison of the likely
rewards that will ensue form each, he states
that the task of neuroeconomics is to map
DOI: 10.1002/cb
Reward, emotion and consumer choice
those decisions on to correlative neural
substrates (Zak, 2004, p. 133)-^
Secondly, neuroeconomic interpretation of
neuronal activity is related to reward, emotion,
choice. That is, to economic behaviour
specifically. Why emotion? We can link
emotion to consumer behaviour via the
BPM/PAD research described above and by
research on patterns of neurotransmitter
release during reported effect. Also, neuro-
economics identifies systems engaged in the
valuation of alternatives: it is, therefore,
central to economic behaviour and consumer
choice in particular. Emotion must be part of
the subjective personal level outcomes of this
valuation process that eventuates in one
course of action rather than others. Reward
is the most important. Because it is essentially
linked to instrumental (economic) behaviour."*
The interpretation must be evolutionarily
consistent: evolutionary psychology is most
important here. Moreover, there are consider-
ations here of subjective consciousness,
changes in neural activity (detected by fMRI)
when subjective mental activity is taking place
(see, inter alia, Koch, 2004). The guidance of a
behavioural criterion is necessary because we
need to know what it is we are trying to
explain (results of the BPM program on PAD,
matching, economic demand).
The next stage: a strategy for
super-personal cognitive psychology
Much discussion in neuroeconomics proceeds
at a level of abstraction that severely reduces
the relevance of the new discipline to the
analysis of experienced consumer behaviour.
It is necessary, therefore, to have in mind a
clear research strategy for the explanation of
known patterns of consumer choice in
^Actually, Zak refers to the neural substrates that produce
the decisions but, in view of my subsequent argument,
this is a step UM) far.
^This kind of interpretation of the neural system is an
appn)priate configuration for a performance model But
it must not become a matter of 'localizing cognition' in
the brain. See, inter atia, Uttal (2001) and Greenfield
(2000).
Copyright ' 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
389
neuroeconomic terms. The following plan
for the next stage of the BPM research
programme builds on the findings of empirical
consumer research incorj^orating the model
and applies to them a logical sequence by
which the explanation might plausibly
advance.
Hence, we need first to identify (a) a molar
pattern of behaviour that is to be explained;
and then, for the explanation itself, first to
establish the causal links that maintain the
behaviour. This means, initially, (b) to establish
that this is opérant behaviour, that is the
sequence of responses that comprise it can be
systematically related to their environmental
consequences and then (c) the afferent-
efferent links that are also causative of such
responses. In addition, each of these sources of
causation must be evolutionarily consistent,
the first with an evolutionary psychological
interpretation (d), the second with a natural
selection interpretation (e). Next (0 is the act
of interpretation of the molar behaviour
pattern in terms of cognitive processes
imputed from tbe evidence on operancy and
neuronacy. Finally, (g) is the evaluation of the
explanation we have offered. Let us examine
each of these stages in turn.
(a) What are tbe molar patterns of behaviour
we have identified by means of the BPMl
research programme? Here are some of the
recent findings on which the explanation of
observed molar patterns of consumer beha-
viour might focus: (i) consumers show differ-
ent verbal/emotional responses to settings
defined by various contingency categories
(Foxall and Yani-de-Soriano, 2005). Why is
this so? Most consumers form consideration
sets that are subsets of all brands available in a
product category while other consumers
practise exclusive brand purchasing (Foxall
et al., 2004). On what criteria are these subsets
formed, maintained, modified? Furthermore,
how are decisions to practise complete brand
loyalty based? Consumers match at the level of
the brand but deviate from matching at the
product level (Foxall et al., in press). Can this
be extended to provide a means of defining the
brand, the product, the category? Consumers
Journal of Consumer Behaviour, July-October 2008
DOI: 10.1002/cb
390 Gordon R. Foxall

maximize when purchasing everyday products some further understanding of what is going
such as groceries (Foxall and James, 2002, on at the neuronal level is necessary: enter
2003). How and what are they maximizing? neuroeconomics. We have noted that the
Economic demand influenced by utilitarian process of evaluation which is at the heart of
reinforcement, informational reinforcement neuroeconomics is assumed to be carried out
and aversive consequences as well as amount via differences in the firing rates of particular
purchased (Oliveira-Castro et al., 2005a, neurons that form the 'reward system'. The
2005b, 2006, in press). What is needed in valuation of a stimulus is in terms of its
order to answer these questions and to appearing better or worse than, or as
understand the decision-making processes that expected, a judgment that permits the brain
underlay the consumer behaviours we have how much attention to accord it (Montague
identified is a thoroughgoing analysis of the and Berns, 2002). Such an account permits the
choice process in terms of super-personal construction of a model of cognitive function-
cognitive psychology. ing in w^hich alternative courses of action are
(b) The opérant nature of this behaviour is identified and compared, evaluated and acted
apparent from its close and continued associ- upon. The model is not a strong-realist
ation with particular patterns of reinforcement description of mental functioning for, contrary
(hi/lo utilitarian reinforcement/hi/lo informa- to the ideal of performance theorizing, it is not
tional reinforcement). Most consumers of fast capable of leading to testable hypotheses. But
moving consumer goods tend to stay within a neither are the cognitive terms it proposes
given pattern of reinforcement and if they shift unreal: they are theoretically necessary and
do so only to an adjacent pattern (Foxall et al., have parallelogram-of-forces of not tables-and-
2004). chairs reality (Dennett, 1991).
(c) What afferent-efferent links would be (e) How far is this interpretation intentional
necessary to account for the molar behaviour? with respect to what is happening at the
We are not asking here what are the neuronal level? If it is, Dennett is right. Is there
physiological precursors of bodily movement any need, however, to ascribe intentionality at
involved in say choosing this brand rather than this level in order to achieve an explanation of
that, but with what neuronal underpinning is behaviour based on neuroeconomics? There is
available for the cognitive processes that might no reason to ascribe intentionality or cognition
be involved in such choosing. What allows us at the sub-personal level in order to make use
to (i) ascribe intentionality and (ii) ascribe of neuroeconomics findings to explain beha-
cognitive processing here? viour. In all cases, the description of neuro-
(d) The first step is to examine relationships physiological findings is in terms of exten-
between opérant behaviour and neural pro- sional science and refers to real relationships
cesses such as the release of DA, serotonin and among physical entities that are presented in
other neurotransmitters in connexion with terms of falsifiable hypotheses. On the basis of
reward. This is sufficient to establish grounds such description, ascriptions are made at the
for ascribing intentionality to the explanation personal level of cognitive processing. The
of the behaviour (as in intentional behaviour- position is confused by the mereoiogical
ism and BPM2); it is not enough for the fallacies revealed by some neuroeconomists'
ascription of cognition. In moving from a use of intentional language. But this is not the
competence theory to a performance theory, case for super-personal cognitive psychology
we are seeking a model of how psychological or BPM3. The intentionality so ascribed need
functioning actually can be said to occur (or not be conscious subjective awareness in any
must be said to occur in order to explain the way; we are making a heterophenomenologi-
behaviour in question) rather than pointing cal interpretation here in order to explain, not
out that an extensional account must give way predict or control. But our reason for confining
to an intentional. For a performance account. our ascription to the personal level is that only

Copyright <: 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Journal of Consumer Behaviour, July-October 2008
DOI: 10.1002/cb
Reward, emotion and coiuumer choice 391

at this level (and for that matter probably onlybehaviour that can be related to reinforcement
in humans) do we have any evidence that contingencies, a philosophy of psychology
intentionality has a real albeit subjective known as intentional behaviourism. Whereas
existence. Not that even there it causes intentional behaviourism is a competence
beliaviour but that beliefs and desires exist theory which indicates where intentional
at that level at least to interpret behaviour terms are required in order to supplement
through nitionalization. extensional findings, a testable performance
(f) We have to ask here what are the sorts oftheory can also be derived from this reasoning
cognitive processes we are justified in positingwhich permits cognitive models of consumer
based on the evidence from operant psychol- decision making to be formulated and eval-
ogy and neuroeconomics. Wliat is essential in uated (super-persona! cognitt't'e psychology).
order to explain the behaviour and what is This philosophical approach relies, first,
justified in respect of the neuronal activity that
upon the demonstration that there are affer-
has been identified and the reward structure of ent-efferent linkages that are relevant to the
the molar patterns of behaviour? In addition, behaviour under consideration, namely human
what is consistent with evolutionary psychol- economic choice: hence, the emphasis
ogy and natural selection? throughout on the role of neuroeconomics,
specifically its capacity to show how sub-
personal processes can be related to overt
economic behaviour at the personal level, that
Summary and conclusion
is how neuronal activity is relevant to the
Understanding how the interdisciplinary con- rewarded (i.e. operant) behaviour of consu-
tributions to consumer research integrate to mers. The discussion of the relationship of
provide explanations of choice in the market reward to the release of DA is valuable in that it
place requires more than the accumulation of serves to distinguish the pleasurable results of
empirically based knowledge. It depends reinforcement ('liking') from those that inhere
equally upon an overarching philosophical in desiring and even craving ('wanting').
framework within which specific theories of Together with the evidence from matching
consumer behaviour can be formulated, tested and discounting studies to the effect that
and evaluated. In proposing one approach to consumer choice is often governed not only by
the required neurophilosophy, this paper has the rationally based considerations based on
drawn specific attention to the role of both utilitarian reward but also by the emotional
behavioural science and neuroscience as influences that relate to informational or
extensional contributors to psychology and symbolic outcomes of consumption, this raises
argued that, insofar as their findings and the role of emotion in learning and the
theories can be shown to be evolutionarily
possibility that not only behaviour but the
consistent, they provide an intellectual war-
affective consequences it engenders may be
rant for the ascription of intentionality to
related to the pattern of environmental con-
consumer behaviour such that some of its
tingences associated with it. The Behavioural
aspects which lie beyond the competence of
the basic sciences can be explained. The Perspective Model and the research on situated
fundamental building block in this procedure consumer emotionality that has derived from it
is the neurointentionality thesis (attributable provide a means to understand how these
to Dennett) which states that intentionality patterns of reinforcement are constructed and
may be ascribed on the basis of evolutionarily how they operate in the context of consumer
consistent afferent-efferent linkages at the choice.
neuronal level. This is supplemented by the Understanding behaviour as operant can be
findings of behavioural science in the form of useful as we seek to predict and possibly
evolutionarily consistent patterns of molar influence it, but as an explanatory account it
proves deficient when it comes to dealing with

Copyright ' 2008 Jolin Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Journal of Consumer Behaviour, July-October 2008
DOI: 10.1002/cb
392
the continuity of behaviour, the personal level
of choice, and the delimitation of behavioural
interpretations of choice. It is here that we
must turn to the use of intentional idioms such
as 'desiring' and 'believing'; hence, the need of
a reliable means of making intentional attribu-
tions which does not amount merely to the
invention of unobservable entities whenever
they are needed to fill gaps in our under-
standing. Intentional behaviourism provides a
framework of conceptualization and analysis
that integrates the varied disciplines that take
choice as their focus. Two immediate concerns
remain to be dealt with if this reasoning is to
form part of an active research programme.
First, the particular emotions that have been
associated with patterns of environmental
contingency must be shown to be relevant
to afferent-efferent linkages at the neuronal
level; and, secondly, the approach must be
shown capable of contributing to a progressive
sequence of research based on the derivation
and testing of sequential models of choice. The
paper has argued that these requirements are
met in the case of the research programme it
has advocated. In the process, it has found a
role for neuroeconomics in consumer research
and linked it with the concerns of neurophi-
losophy.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Dr S. Slater and Dr M. Yani-de-
Soriano as well as to two anonymous
reviewers, for comments on earlier drafts.
Biographical notes
Gordon R. Foxall is Distinguished Research
Professor at Cardiff University. His chief
research interests lie in psychological theories
of consumer choice and consumer innovative-
ness and their relationships to marketing man-
agement and strategy. He has published some
20 books and over 250 articles and papers on
these and related themes and has previously
held professorial appointments at the Univer-
sities of Strathclyde, Birmingham and Keele.
Copyright V 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Journal of Consumer Behaviour, July-October 2008
Gordon R. Foxall
His books include the popular text. Consumer
Psychology for Marketing (co-authored with
Ron Goldsmith and Stephen Brown) which has
been translated into Korean, Russian, Polish
and Chinese, and monographs such as Consu-
mer Choice and Marketing Psychology. In
addition, he has published in numerous scho-
larly journals including yoMr«£?/ of Consumer
Research, Journal ofBusiness Research, Inter-
national Journal of Research in Marketing,
Psychology and Marketing, Journal of the
Experimental Analysis of Behavior, Beha-
vioural Processes nn6 Journal of the Academy
ofMarketing Science. His undergraduate work
and early research career were undertaken at
the University of Salford and he is also a gradu-
ate of the Universities of Birmingham (Ph.D.
industrial economics and business studies) and
Strathclyde (Ph.D. psychology). In addition, he
holds a higher doctorate of the University of
Birmingham (DSocSc). He is a Fellow of both
the British Psychological Society (FBPsS) and
the British Academy of Management (FBAM)
and was recently elected an Academician by
the Academy of Social Sciences (AcSS). He is
particularly concerned with the development
and evaluation of consumer behaviour
analysis, which systematically relates consu-
mer choice to the situational contexts in which
it arises. This work began with an analysis of
the empirical evidence for attitude-behaviour
relationships, a mainstay of consumer and
marketing research, which showed that the
expected consistency between cognitive and
behaviotiral measures was rarely demonstrated
in empirical research. Both psychologists and
marketing scientists agreed that situational
influences must be taken into consideration
in order to predict behaviour accurately from
attitude measures. Nevertheless, neither group
had produced a model of situational influences
on consumer behaviour that served this pur-
pose. (See the books Consumer Choice and
Marketing Psychology.) The Behavioural
Perspective Model makes possible an eightfold
classification of consumer situations and
recent empirical research involving both Eng-
lish- and Spanish-speaking consumers demon-
strates that attitude-behavioural consistency is
DOI: 10.1002/cb
Reward, emotion and consumer choice
high when the situational contexts derived
from the model are taken into consideration.
In addition, the empirical research that has
stemmed from the model suggests practical
solutions to problems of retail design and
the management of consumer situations.
Further empirical research funded by grants
from the Nuffield Foundation is concerned
with the nature of consumers' brand choices
and the decision processes that underlie them.
The theoretical and empirical scope of consu-
mer behaviour analysis is apparent from a
three-volume set that Gordon has just edited
for Routledge: Consumer Behaviour Analysis:
Critical Perspectives in Business and Maftage-
ment (2002) which deals comprehensively
with the philosophical background to the
behavioural perspective, its empirical basis
and its managerial implications.
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DOI: 10.1002/cb