CHAPTER 1-2

CONSUMPTION AND CONSUMER BEHAVIOR

Consumer Behavior - is the study of individuals, groups, or organizations and all the activities
associated with the purchase, use and disposal of goods and services.

CONSUMER BEHAVIOR AS HUMAN BEHAVIOR

- It encompasses mental and physical activities that consumers engage in when searching
for, evaluating, purchasing, and using products and services.

CONSUMPTION & CONSUMER BEHAVIOR AS A FIELD OF STUDY

- The study of consumption and consumer behavior focuses on the procedures through
which individuals or groups acquire, use and dispose of products, services or
experiences.

THE BASIC CB PROCESS

Want - It is a specific desire representing a way a consumer may go about addressing a
recognized need.
Exchange - Is acting out of the decision to give something up in return for
something perceived to be of greater value.
Costs - A negative result of consumption experiences.
Benefits - A positive result of consumption experiences.

ECONOMICS AND CONSUMER BEHAVIOR

Economics - often is defined as the study of production and consumption. A free enterprise
system allows individuals to participate freely in the market
Psychology - is the study of human reactions to their environment. Psychologists seek to
explain the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that represent human reaction
Social psychology - focuses on the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that people have as they
interact with other people (group behavior).
Cognitive psychology - study of the intricacies of mental reactions involved in information
processing.
Neuroscience - the study of the central nervous system including brain mechanisms associated
with emotion, offers potential for understanding CB by charting a consumer’s physiological
brain functions during the consumption process.
Marketing - involves the multitude of value-producing seller activities that facilitate exchanges
between buyers and sellers
Sociology - focuses on the study of groups of people within a society.
Anthropology - has contributed to consumer behavior research by allowing researchers to
interpret the relationships between consumers and the things they purchase, the products they
own, and the activities in which they participate.
THE WAYS IN WHICH CONSUMERS ARE TREATED

Consumer (customer) orientation - is a way of doing business in which the actions and
decision making of the institution prioritize consumer value and satisfaction above all other
concerns
Market orientation - is an organizational culture that embodies the importance of creating value
for customers among all employees.
Stakeholder marketing - an orientation in which firms recognize that more than just the buyer
and seller are involved in the marketing process, and a host of primary and secondary entities
affect and are affected by the value creation process
Relationship marketing - is a facet of customer relationship management (CRM) that focuses
on customer loyalty and long-term customer engagement rather than shorter-term goals like
customer acquisition and individual sales.
Touchpoints - are direct contacts between the firm and a customer. Increasingly, multiple
channels or ways of making this contact exist, including phone, email, text messaging, online
social networking, and especially face-to-face contact.

CHAPTER 3

DEFINING LEARNING AND PERCEPTION

Learning - Refers to a change in behavior resulting from the interaction between a person and
a stimulus.
Perception - Refers to a consumer’s awareness and interpretation of reality
Consumer Perception - It shapes learning and thus behavior.
Exposure - Refers to the process of bringing some stimulus within the proximity of a consumer
so that it can be sensed by one of the five human senses
Attention - Is the purposeful allocation of information-processing capacity towards developing
and understanding some stimulus.
Comprehension - Occurs when consumer attempts to derive meaning from information they
receive.
Consumer Perception Process - It describes how consumers become aware of and interpret
the environment.
Sensing - Sensing is an immediate response to stimuli that have come into contact with one of
the consumer’s five senses (sight, smell, touch, taste, or sound).
Organizing - Refers to the process by which the human brain assembles the sensory evidence
into something recognizable.

Assimilation - Occurs when a stimulus has characteristics such that individuals readily
recognize it as an example of a specific category.
Accommodation - Occurs when a stimulus shares some, but not all, of the characteristics that
allow it to fit neatly in an existing category
Contrast - Occurs when a stimulus does not share enough in common with existing categories
to allow categorization
Reacting - If an object is successfully recognized, chances are some nearly automatic reaction
takes place.
Subliminal Processing - Refers to the processing of information that occurs below the
conscious awareness of an individual. It involves the reception and interpretation of stimuli by
the brain without the person being consciously aware of it.

APPLYING THE JND CONCEPT

User Interface Design

Marketing and Advertising
Product Development
Sensory Evaluation
JND: It represents the smallest amount of change in a stimulus that would influence consumer
consumption and choice

IMPLICIT MEMORY - Refers to the unconscious or automatic memory processes that influence
our thoughts, behaviors, and action without conscious awareness.
EXPLICIT MEMORY - Also known as declarative memory, involves the conscious recollection of
facts, events, and personal experiences.
- a. Episodic Memory - b. Semantic Memory

Mere Exposure Effect - The idea that consumers will prefer things familiar to them or
previously exposed to versus new products.
Familiarity - Once exposed to an object, a consumer will prefer a familiar thing over unfamiliar.
Mere Association - also known as the "mere association effect". It is the association of two or
more unrelated things that a consumer gets exposed to simultaneously.
Product Placements - Another way that promotions can impart implicit memory among
consumers.

ATTENTION
- Purposeful allocation of understanding on attentive or involuntary attentive customers

Involuntary attention - Unconscious exposure to a surprising or novel stimuli

Orientation reflex - Natural response to a threat or situation from the environment.

ENHANCING CONSUMER’S ATTENTION

Intensity of Stimuli - A consumer is more likely to pay attention to stronger stimuli than a weak
one.
Surprising Stimuli - Unexpected stimuli gain consumer's attention.
Contrast - Contrasting stimuli are extremely effective in getting attention.
Movement - Items in movement simply gain attention.
Size of Stimuli - Large items garner more attention than smaller ones.
Involvement - Personal relevance a consumer feels towards a particular product

2 TYPES OF CONSUMER LEARNING

Intentional Learning - A process by which consumers set out to specifically learn information
devoted to a certain subject
Unintentional Learning - Occurs when behavior is modified through a consumer stimulus
interaction without any effortful allocation of cognitive processing capacity toward that stimulus.

2 MAIN THEORIES IN THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LEARNING

Behaviorism - a theory of learning that focuses on changes in behavior due to association

without great concern for the cognitive mechanics of the learning process
Cognitive Learning - Occurs when behavior is modified through a consumer stimulus
interaction without any effortful allocation of cognitive processing capacity toward that stimulus
Classical conditioning - change in behavior that occurs simply through associating some
stimulus with another stimulus that naturally causes some reaction.
Instrumental conditioning - conditioning type of learning in which a behavioral response can
be conditioned through reinforcement either punishment or rewards associated with undesirable
or desirable behavior.

CHAPTER 4
Comprehension, Memory, and Cognitive Learning

Comprehension - Refers to the interpretation or understanding a consumer develops about

some attended stimulus based on the way meaning is assigned

CHAPTER 5

MOTIVATION AND EMOTION:CONSUMER BEHAVIOR

Sentiment Analysis - Sometimes called conversation analysis; automatic procedures that

search social networking sites like Twitter for phrases/ sentences that are coded for emotional
meaning
Motivations - Inner reasons or driving forces behind human actions that drive consumers to
address real needs
Homeostasis - State of equilibrium wherein the body naturally reacts in a way so as to maintain
a constant, normal bloodstream
Self-Improvement - Motivations aimed at changing the current state to a level that is more
ideal, not at simply maintaining the current state
Regulatory focus theory - Puts forward the notion that consumers orient their behavior either
through a prevention or promotion focus
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs - A theory of human motivation that describes consumers as
addressing a finite set of prioritized needs

GENERAL HIERARCHY OF MOTIVATION

Physiological - Basic survival (food, drink, shelter, etc.)

Safety and security - The need to be secure and protected
Belongingness and love - The need to feel like a member of a family or community
Esteem - The need to be recognized as a person of worth
Self-actualization - The need for personal fulfillment

SIMPLER CLASSIFICATION OF CONSUMER MOTIVATIONS

Utilitarian motivation - Drive to acquire products that can be used to accomplish something
Hedonic motivation - Drive to experience something emotionally gratifying

Consumer involvement - Degree of personal relevance a consumer finds in pursuing value

from a particular category of consumption
Consumer involvement as a moderator - Consumer researchers often consider involvement a
key moderating variable
Moderating variable - Variable that changes the nature of the relationship between two other
variables

DIFFERENT TYPES OF INVOLVEMENT

Product Involvement - The personal relevance of a particular product category

Product Enthusiasts - Consumers with very high involvement in some product category
Shopping Involvement - Personal relevance of shopping activities
Situational Involvement - Temporary interest in some imminent purchase situation
Enduring Involvement - Ongoing interest in some product or opportunity
Emotional Involvement - Type of deep personal interest that evokes strongly felt feelings
simply from the thoughts or behavior associated with some object or activity

CONSUMER EMOTIONS AND VALUE

Emotion - A specific psychological reaction to a human appraisal

Psychobiological - A response involving both psychobiological and physical human responses
Visceral Responses - Certain feeling states that are tied to physical reactions/ behavior in a
very direct way

VISCERAL RESPONSES TO EMOTIONS BY CONSUMERS

Anticipation appraisal - Consumer waits while doctor examines X- rays
Outcome appraisal - Consumers wins a contest
Equity appraisal - Consumer sees a customer receive faster and better service than he or she
receives
Agency appraisal - An advertisement shows an animal choking on a plastic shopping bag
Outcome appraisal - Consumer shows up at an important party inappropriately dressed
Anticipation appraisal - Focuses on the future and can elicit anticipatory emotions like
hopefulness or anxiety.
Agency appraisal - Reviews responsibility for events and can evoke consequential emotions
like gratefulness, frustration, guilt, or sadness.
Equity appraisal - Considers how fair some event is and can evoke emotions like warmth or
anger.
Outcomes appraisal - Considers how something turned out relative to one’s goals and can
evoke emotions like joyfulness, satisfaction, sadness, or pride.

EMOTION TERMINOLOGY

Mood - Transient and general affective state

Mood-Congruent Judgments - Evaluations in which the value of a target is influenced in a
consistent way by one’s mood.
Consumer Affect - Feelings a consumer has about a particular product or activity

THE INTERPLAY BETWEEN EMOTION, MOOD, AND AFFECT

Consumer affect - feelings about a product

Mood - A transient, temporary, and ever changing feeling state.

Measuring Emotion - Marketing and consumer researchers place a great deal of emphasis on
properly measuring consumer emotion, because emotions play such a key role in shaping
value.
Autonomic Measures - Means recording responses based on either automatic visceral
reactions or neurological brain activity.
Self-Report Measures - Self-report measures are less obtrusive than biological.

DIFFERENCES IN EMOTIONAL BEHAVIOR

Emotional Involvement - This brings us to emotional involvement, meaning the type of deep
personal interest that evokes strongly felt feelings associated with some object or activity.
Emotional involvement drives one to consume generally through repeated experiences of
relatively strong hedonic motivations.
Flow - Extremely high emotional involvement in which a consumer is engrossed in an activity.
Emotional Expressiveness - Extent to which a consumer shows outward behavioral signs and
otherwise reacts obviously to emotional experiences.
Emotional Intelligence - Awareness of the emotions experienced in a given situation and the
ability to control reactions to these emotions.
EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE CONSISTS OF MULTIPLE ELEMENTS

Self Control - Ability to control one’s emotions

Emotional empathy - Ability to read and understand other’s emotions
Upbeat - Ability to maintain a generally upbeat and optimistic outlook
Productive - Ability to turn emotions into value through better problem solving

EMOTION, MEANING, AND SCHEMA-BASED AFFECT

Semantic Wiring- A consumer’s ability to remember things about brands and products can be
explained using theory developed around the principles of semantic or associative networks
Emotional Effect on Memory - relatively superior recall for information presented with mild
affective content compared to similar information presented in an affectively neutral way.
Mood-Congruent Recall - consumers will remember information better when the mood they
are currently in matches the mood they were in when originally exposed to the information
Autobiographical Memories - autobiographical memories.
Schema-Based Affect - emotions that become stored as part of the meaning for a category (a
schema).

Aesthetic Labor - Effort put forth by employees in carefully managing their appearance as a
requisite for performing their job well.
Emotional Labor - Effort put forth by service workers who have to overtly manage their own
emotional displays as part of the requirements of the job.
Self-Conscious Emotions - Specific emotions that result from some evaluation or reflection of
one’s own behavior, including pride, shame, guilt, and embarrassment
Emotional Contagion - Extent to which an emotional display by one person influences the
emotional state of a bystander
Product Contamination - Refers to the diminished positive feelings someone has about a
product because another consumer has handled the product