Chapter 3

Introduction to
Affect and
Cognition

McGraw-Hill/Irwin Copyright © 2010 by the McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Exhibit 3.1 - The Wheel of Consumer
Analysis

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Affect and Cognition

Affect and cognition are different types of

psychological responses consumers can have in a
consumer environment.
Affect - feeling responses
Cognition - mental (thinking) responses
Consumers can have both affective and cognitive
responses to any element in the Wheel of
Consumer Analysis.

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Exhibit 3.2 - Types of Affective Responses

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The Affective System

Basic characteristics of the affective system are:

The affective system is largely reactive.
People have little direct control over their affective
responses.
Affective responses are felt physically in the body.
The system can respond to virtually any type of
stimulus.
Most affective responses are learned.

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What is Cognition?

Cognition broadly refers to the thoughts and

meanings produced by the cognitive system, as
well as to mental processes of:
Understanding
Evaluating
Planning
Deciding
Thinking

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What is Cognition? (cont.)

Major functions of people’s cognitive systems

are:
To interpret, make sense of, and understand
significant aspects of their personal experiences.
To process these interpretations or meanings in
carrying out cognitive tasks.

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Exhibit 3.3 - Types of Meanings Created by
the Cognitive System

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Relationship Between the Affective and
Cognitive Systems
Differing views among researchers
Affective and cognitive systems are independent.
Affect is largely influenced by the cognitive system.
Affect is the dominant system.
Affective and cognitive systems are highly
interdependent.

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Exhibit 3.4 - Relationship Between the
Affective and Cognitive Systems

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Affect and Cognition - Marketing
Implications

Marketers must understand affective and cognitive

responses to strategies such as product design,
advertisement, and store layout.
Affective responses are important for feeling
products like food, beverages, and fragrances
among others.
The affective system continuously reacts to
cognitive knowledge, which in turn can influence
decisions.
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Using Metaphors to Communicate Affective
and Cognitive Meaning
Metaphors
Represent one thing in terms of something else.
Can communicate both cognitive and affective
meanings (thoughts and feelings) about a brand or a
company.
Are critical components of effective marketing
strategies.

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Cognitive Processes in Consumer Decision
Making
Information-processing models identify a
sequence of cognitive processes where each
process transforms or modifies information and
passes it on to the next process, where additional
operations take place.
Consumer decision making involves:
Interpretation of relevant information.
Integration of this knowledge.
Retrieval of product knowledge from memory.
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Exhibit 3.5 - Cognitive Processes in
Consumer Decision Making

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Cognitive Processes in Consumer Decision
Making (cont.)
Interpretation processes require exposure to
information.
Integration processes concern how consumers
combine different types of knowledge to:
Form overall evaluations of products, other objects,
and behaviors.
Make choices among alternative behaviors, such as a
purchase.

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Cognitive Processes in Consumer Decision
Making (cont.)
Product knowledge and involvement concern
the various types of knowledge, meanings, and
beliefs about products that are stored in
consumers’ memories.
Product involvement refers to the personal
relevance of a product in consumers’ lives.

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Cognitive Processes in Consumer Decision
Making (cont.)
Additional characteristics of the cognitive
system:
Activation
Refers to how product knowledge is retrieved from
memory for use in interpreting and integrating information.
Is usually automatic and largely unconscious.
Operates when consumers intentionally try to recall certain
bits of knowledge.
Occurs most commonly by exposure to objects or events in
the environment.

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Cognitive Processes in Consumer Decision
Making (cont.)
Additional characteristics of the cognitive
system:
Operations are unconscious.
Consumers’ have little control over spreading
activation.
It has limited capacity.
It becomes more automatic and unconscious with
experience.

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Consumer Decision Making - Marketing
Implications
Understand how consumers interpret marketing
strategies.
The integration processes are critical to
understand consumer behavior.
Activation of product knowledge has many
implications for marketing.
Attention to differences among consumers is
important because the same stimulus may activate
different knowledge in different consumers.

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Knowledge Stored in Memory

Types of knowledge
General knowledge
Concerns people’s interpretations of relevant information in
their environments.
Is stored in memory as links or connections between two
concepts.
Is either episodic or semantic.

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Knowledge Stored in Memory (cont.)

Types of knowledge
Procedural knowledge
Is about how to do things.
Is stored in memory as a special type of “if . . . then. . .”
proposition that links a concept or an event with an
appropriate behavior.

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Structures of Knowledge

General and procedural knowledge is organized

to form structures of knowledge in memory.
Cognitive systems create associative networks
that organize and link many types of knowledge
together.
Part of the knowledge structure may be activated
on certain occasions.

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Types of Knowledge Structures

Schemas contain mostly episodic and semantic

general knowledge.
Scripts are organized networks of procedural
knowledge.
Both schemas and scripts are an associated
network of linked meanings.
Both can be activated in decision-making
situations, and they can influence cognitive
processes.
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Types of Knowledge Structures - Marketing
Implications

To understand consumers’ behavior, marketers

need to know the product knowledge consumers
have acquired and stored in memory.
Marketers may need information on:
Contents of consumers’ product schemas or shopping
scripts.
Types of knowledge likely to be activated by
particular marketing strategies.

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Cognitive Learning

Cognitive learning occurs when people interpret

information in the environment and create new
knowledge or meaning.
This can occur in three ways:
Direct personal use experience
Vicarious product experiences
Interpretation of product-related information

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Exhibit 3.8 - Three Types of Cognitive
Learning

Accretion: As consumers interpret information about products and services, they

add new knowledge, meanings, and beliefs to their existing knowledge structures;
more complex types of cognitive learning that involve changes to the structure of
the associative knowledge network can also occur.

Tuning: Occurs when parts of a knowledge structure are combined and given a
new overall meaning; consumers may adjust their knowledge structures to make
them more accurate and more generalizable.

Restructuring involves the revision of the entire associative network of

knowledge, which might include creation of entirely new meaning structures
and/or reorganization of an old knowledge structure; usually involves extensive
cognitive effort and substantial thinking and reasoning processes.

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Cognitive Learning - Marketing Implications

Marketers often:
Present simple informational claims about their
products, and hope that consumers will accurately
interpret the information and add this knowledge to
their knowledge structures.
Marketers may:
Try to stimulate consumers to tune their knowledge
structures, and encourage consumers to restructure
their knowledge.

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Summary

The elements of consumer are organized into a

model called the Wheel of Consumer Analysis.
 The four broad types of affective responses are
emotions, specific feelings, moods, and
evaluations.
Cognitive systems perform the higher mental
processes of understanding, evaluating, planning,
deciding, and thinking.

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Summary (cont.)

The affective system continuously reacts to

cognitive knowledge and those affective reactions
can have powerful influences on decisions.
Consumer decision making involves
interpretation, integration, and retrieval of
product knowledge from memory.

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Summary (cont.)

Associative networks organize and link many

types of knowledge together.
The two types of knowledge structures are
schemas and scripts.
The three types of cognitive learning are
accretion, tuning, and restructuring.

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