Theories

Variable: Impulse Buying

Hawkin Stern’s Impulsive Buying Theory

The theory got its name from the proposer, Hawkins Stern who had put this forward in 1962. The theory offered a fresh
perspective on consumers’ buying behaviour as most of the contemporary consumer behaviour theories like Maslow’s Need
Hierarchy Theory of Motivation (1943) and Engel, Kollat and Blackwell (1968) which believed that consumers always make
rational and well-planned buying decisions (Dutta and Mandal, 2018). Stern argued such perspective and proclaimed that
consumers indulge in impulsive buying behaviours under the influence of external forces. The theory argued that marketers can
convince consumers to buy more than what they had actually planned (Dutta and Mandal, 2018). The same has been confirmed
under a recent survey conducted in the context of American consumers claiming that 80% of respondents buy on spur-of-the-
moment while shopping online (Johnson, 2018). The digital marketers are skillfully blending technology with their marketing
goals to encourage impulse buying by the target audience (Carter, 2018).

Source: https://www.projectguru.in/hawkins-sterns-impulse-buying-theory-online-shopping/?
fbclid=IwAR0cKdTgRA6EatpQ0xuLFYh_MK-BsJQAV0tAaHwse6UYtm9zmTRI9sVHvgk

Theory of Reasoned Action

Created by Martin Fishbein and Icek Ajzen in the late 1960s, the Theory of Reasoned Action centers its analysis on the
importance of pre-existing attitudes in the decision-making process. The core of the theory posits that consumers act on
behavior based on their intention to create or receive a particular outcome. In this analysis, consumers are rational actors who
choose to act in their best interests.
According to the theory, specificity is critical in the decision-making process. A consumer only takes a specific action when
there is an equally specific result expected. From the time the consumer decides to act to the time the action is completed, the
consumer retains the ability to change his or her mind and decide on a different course of action.

Source:
https://onlinemasters.ohio.edu/blog/four-consumer-behavior-theories-every-marketer-should-know/?
fbclid=IwAR2HL1xz2BELf4VglxdlewX-4TLSdm5V6Yqyjngw3WlWJjGeNE8NKkhUhhA

Pavlovian Theory
Pavlovian theory is a learning procedure that involves pairing a stimulus with a conditioned response.

In the famous experiments that Ivan Pavlov conducted with his dogs, Pavlov found that objects or events could trigger a
conditioned response. The experiments began with Pavlov demonstrating how the presence of a bowl of dog food (stimulus)
would trigger an unconditioned response (salivation). But Pavlov noticed that the dogs started to associate his lab assistant with
food, creating a learned and conditioned response. This was an important scientific discovery.
Pavlov’s theory later developed into classical conditioning, which refers to learning that associates an unconditioned
stimulus that already results in a response (such as a reflex) with a new, conditioned stimulus. As a result, the new stimulus
brings about the same response.

A simple application of Pavlovian theory is the response that some consumers have when they hear the word “sale.” It can
generate an urge to shop, even if people have no specific need at the time.

The theory can also work with specific brands. A consumer may start associating a brand name or product with a certain
perception after repeated marketing efforts and/or experience with the brand or product. For instance, many people associate
the brand name Neutrogena with purity and clear skin.

Source:
https://online.husson.edu/consumer-behavior-pavlovian-theory/?
fbclid=IwAR2RA4PIm6gFkCu2KtJwa3WNRegS1xauR8IXhfScVunPhelnFrvdAMGZay4#:~:text=Overview,could%20trigger%20a
%20conditioned%20response.&text=As%20he%20gave%20food%20to%20the%20dogs%2C%20he%20rang%20the%20bell

Motivation-Need Theory
Abraham Maslow put forward his hierarchy of needs in 1943, sending ripple effects through the entire psychological
community. Under his theory, people act to fulfill their needs based on a five-part priority system. The needs include, in order of
importance: physiological (survival), safety, love, esteem, and self-actualization.

Business schools and marketing classes adapted Maslow’s theories to explain the need to tailor marketing messages to
consumers in a particular way. Successful marketing campaigns must not only bring awareness to a product but also establish its
place somewhere on the hierarchy of needs. Consumers are motivated to prioritize purchases toward the base of the hierarchy,
so it is vital that companies draft a message that instills a sense of need or urgency in consumers.

Source:
https://onlinemasters.ohio.edu/blog/four-consumer-behavior-theories-every-marketer-should-know/?
fbclid=IwAR2HL1xz2BELf4VglxdlewX-4TLSdm5V6Yqyjngw3WlWJjGeNE8NKkhUhhA

Engel, Kollet, Blackwell(EKB) Model

The EKB Model expands on the Theory of Reasoned Action, and lays out a five-step process that consumers use when
making a purchase. The first step, input, is where consumers absorb most of the marketing materials they see on television,
newspapers or online. Once the consumer collects the data, he or she moves into information processing, where the consumer
compares the input to past experiences and expectations.

Consumers move to the decision-making stage after a period of thought, choosing to make a purchase based on rational
insight. Consumers are affected in the decision-making phase by process variables and external influences, including how the
consumer envisions his or herself after making the purchase.

Regulatory Focus Theory

Humans instinctively seek happiness, according to which psychology has explained the intrinsic motivation of human behavior.
At the end of the 20th century, however, Higgins, an American psychologist, put forward a new theory to explore the intrinsic
motivation of human behavior. The theory thought that in the process of socialization the individual gradually formed its own
unique control system which makes the different individuals in the same situation produce different ways of self-directed.

And all individuals are divided into two categories: some people are more focus on the positive results of things, and they tend
to achieve positive results. These people performed to be the marching type of regulatory focus and they hope the result is
expressed by the maximization goal. The other people focus more on the negative consequences of things, and they tend to
avoid negative consequences; the performance of them is prevention focus and they hope results are to minimize target.
Differences of customer’s regulatory focus can lead to the differences of thinking mode. Individuals of the marching type of
regulatory focus are more likely to focus on positive comment, and people of the preventive adjusting focus tend to pay more
attention to negative information (QiQingBo, 2008; Cao Xingmin, 2012)[7].

For the double mixed information, the individual of the marching type of regulatory more easily focus on positive information
than people of the preventive adjusting focus. Consumers’ judges on the matching degree of adjusting focus can affect whether
the online reviews information will hinder or promote consumers’ purchase decisions. Therefore, this paper argues that as for
the promoted orientation of the individual, positive online reviews information affects the impulsive purchase intention while
for individual prevention orientation, negative comments online information negative impact impulse purchase intention. But to
promoted individual orientation, negative information online reviews and impulsive purchase intention, no significant
relationship between for prevention of directional individual positive online reviews information with no significant relationship
between compulsive purchase behavior, but also for double mixed information, promote the orientation of the individual's
impulsive purchase intention is stronger than individual prevention orientation.

Variable: Generation Z and Millenials