Bachelor of Business Management: Consumer Behaviour

Thursday, April 29, 2021
Compulsory page
Bachelor of Business
Management
Consumer Behaviour
LEARNING
(Week 10)
1
Learning Objectives
1. To Understand why marketers are interested in
teaching consumers to learn.
2. To Understand main theories of Learning – Classical
Conditioning, Instrumental Conditioning, and Cognitive
Learning Theory.
3. To Understand how learning theory involving animals
can be applied to human action and purchasing
behavior.
4. To Understand how the brain hemisphere has different
processing function and influences buying behavior.
2
LEARNING THEORY

• Learning can be defined as the process of acquiring
through experience, knowledge which leads to changed
behavior.
• Marketers are concerned with how individuals learn is
that they are vitally interested in teaching them, in their
roles as consumers about products, product attributes
and potential consumer benefits about where to buy
their products, how to use them, how to maintain them,
even how to dispose of them.
3
LEARNING THEORY

• Common factors in learning are:
• Motivation * Association * Reinforcement
Reinforcement - the extent that a response is rewarded

Thorndike (1911) - "those responses that satisfy the organ
ism's needs tend to be retained while those which fail to
satisfy these needs tend to be eliminated".
• Negative reinforcement - escape or avoid an event or
situation
• Positive reinforcement - individual experience a "reward"
such as a reduction in hunger
4
LEARNING THEORY

• A) Classical conditioning/ Connectionist Learning
Theories
• B) Instrumental conditioning
• C) Cognitive Learning
5
LEARNING THEORY
(A) Classical Conditioning - Pavlov's experiment with

dogs
2 stimuli are paired;
A conditioned stimulus elicits no response (Bell);
An Unconditioned stimulus produces a response (Meat);
Paired together, a conditioned stimulus gives rise to a
response. This is called a conditioned response
(salivation)
6
LEARNING THEORY
7
LEARNING THEORY
Stimulus Generalization
• The greater the similarity between stimuli, the greater
the degree of generalization that occurs
• E.g. If one experience bad customer service from one

flying experience, he may display generalization by
expecting the same of all flights from a particular airline
or rather to curse he whole airline company
• E.g.: Consumer's experience (good or bad) with one of
the product will be carried over or generalized to other
product line. "If
Sony VCR is good; Sony TV must be good too".
8
LEARNING THEORY
Stimulus Generalization
• i) Product form extensions (Ivory bar soap to liquid soap)

• ii) Product category extensions (disposable BIC pens
to disposable BIC razors)
Stimulus Discrimination
The longer a particular product is associated to a product,
the more it will be discriminated in consumer's mind - brand
loyalty. Imitators-fake want consumers to generalize their
experience, but market leaders (ORI)want to retain the top
spot by convincing consumers to discriminate.
9
LEARNING THEORY
• Repetition = ADVERTISING
Strengthens the association between the unconditioned

and conditioned stimuli - the meat and the bell. It slows
down the process of forgetting but be caution of
habituation
• Extinction
Weakening of the conditioned response due to withholding

of reinforcement
10
LEARNING THEORY (B) Operant Conditioning - B.F. Skinner's experiment with rats
• The learner is active and emits response rather than having

response elicited from him by an unconditioned stimulus
• Subjects act voluntarily, goal directed behavior
• Subject is concerned with satisfying some need or avoiding
some unpleasant consequence
• Subject dealt with the environment, manipulate, alter, or
modify it rather than passively and involuntarily responding
to it. B. F. Skinner identifies the relationship between
reinforcement and learning
Rat inside a BOX
11
• Rat - pressed lever - food - strengthened response (positive

reinforcement)
• Rat - pressed lever - electric shock - weakened response
(negative reinforcement)
• Either positive or negative reinforcement can be used to elicit a
desired response.
• Wrong responses can be learned; once a wrong response

has been made, it becomes part of the behavior response of
the individual. We learn from our mistakes. The consumer’s
probability of repeating a brand's purchase would increase if
he were satisfied with the purchase and decrease if he were
dissatisfied (trial and error process). 12
• Compare Classical conditioning with Operant Conditioning

Classical
• Unconscious learning
• Strong association from repetitions
• Prior reinforcer causes a response
• Consumers are passive
• Reacts after few trials
Operant Conditioning
• Conscious learning
• Selected response due to + & -ve reinforcement
• Reinforcement (reward) is given after a voluntary response
• Consumers are active purchasers
13
• They say nothing about the learner and how he can influence
the learning process. But each individual and each learning
situation is different as perceptions depend on one's
personality, motivation, experiences and emotional response
to a particular stimulus.
• People do learn for the sake of learning and not for the sake of
rewards. Learning does take place even in the absence of
reinforcement. Learning is a function of thinking (mental
process) known as cognitive learning.
14
Tutorial Question
• Why is Classical Conditioning and Operant Conditioning
are considered as S – R Theory/relationship or a ‘Black
Box’ theory?
© I-Station Solutions Sdn Bhd 15

LEARNING THEORY – (C) Cognitive Learning
• Both theories involve establishing of an association or

connection between stimulus and response. Also known as
Connectionist theories or S - R theories.
• They say nothing about the learner and how he can influence
the learning process. But each individual and each learning
situation is different as perceptions depend on one's
personality, motivation, experiences and emotional response to
a particular stimulus.
• People do learn for the sake of learning and not for the sake of
rewards. Learning does take place even in the absence of
reinforcement. Learning is a function of thinking (mental
process) known as cognitive learning.
16
• Consumers do not respond simply to stimuli but instead act on

beliefs, attitudes, and strive toward goals. It stress the
purposive nature of human behavior and their capacity to
rationalize and choose from a number of possible means to
his ends, which may be present in his mind as a cognitive
map.
A) Insight Learning - kohler's experiment with apes

• In any learning, there is a point of insight, where we suddenly
see the solution to a problem. Tree Branches
• Depends on arrangement of a problem situation in such a way
that the relationships can be perceived.
17
• B) Latent Learning - Tolman's experiment with mice

• Rats’ running through a complex maze was not learning a
sequence of left and right turns, but rather was developing a
cognitive map - a mental picture of the layout of the maze. When
a familiar path is blocked, the rat adopted another route base on
spatial relations represented in its cognitive map.
Cheese
• For learning, reward and punishment serve to convey information.
• Performance (i.e. responses) is determined by knowledge about
rewards and the response with the greatest expectation of reward
is likely to be the one that is chosen.
• ******* Remember Rubik’s Cube *******
18
The Structure of Memory
• Sensory store;
• Short - term memory, which transfers data through rehearsal

and encoding to the;
• Long - term memory, where it is stored and from which it is

retrieved
19
The Structure of Memory
• Forgetting may occur because of:
• Limited storage capacity (in short - term memory)

• Failure of retrieval (in long - term memory) due to lack of cues
• Interference
• Emotion
• Stress
• Repression
• * `decay' of the storage facility overtime (in long-term memory)
20
Tutorial Questions
• Discuss on the ‘Split Brain’ theory and ‘consumer
involvement’
• Left and Right hemisphere

• Analyses/science/numbers color, design, subjective
• High Involvement Low Involvement

• SAMSUNG Folder 5G GSM..
• How important is the relationship between ‘consumer
involvement’ with the mass media as well as social
media (Websites, watsapp, youtube, digital marketing)?
© I-Station Solutions Sdn Bhd 21

References
1. Solomon M.R. (2017).Consumer Behavior: Buying,
Having, and Being, Global Edition, 12/E, Pearson
2. 2. Schiffman, L. G. & Wisenblit, J. L. Consumer
Behavior (2015) 11th Edition Pearson International
Edition. New Jersey
22

Bachelor of Business Management: Consumer Behaviour

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Bachelor of Business Management: Consumer Behaviour

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Thursday, April 29, 2021

Reinforcement - the extent that a response is rewarded

(A) Classical Conditioning - Pavlov's experiment with

• E.g. If one experience bad customer service from one

• i) Product form extensions (Ivory bar soap to liquid soap)

Strengthens the association between the unconditioned

Weakening of the conditioned response due to withholding

• The learner is active and emits response rather than having

• Rat - pressed lever - food - strengthened response (positive

• Wrong responses can be learned; once a wrong response

• Compare Classical conditioning with Operant Conditioning

© I-Station Solutions Sdn Bhd 15

• Both theories involve establishing of an association or

• Consumers do not respond simply to stimuli but instead act on

A) Insight Learning - kohler's experiment with apes

• B) Latent Learning - Tolman's experiment with mice

• Short - term memory, which transfers data through rehearsal

• Long - term memory, where it is stored and from which it is

• Forgetting may occur because of:

• Limited storage capacity (in short - term memory)

• Left and Right hemisphere

• High Involvement Low Involvement

© I-Station Solutions Sdn Bhd 21

You might also like