An 

attitude is a hypothetical construct that represents an individual's degree of like or dislike

for something. Attitudes are generally positive or negative views of a person, place, thing, or
event— this is often referred to as the attitude object. People can also be conflicted or
ambivalent toward an object, meaning that they simultaneously possess both positive and
negative attitudes toward the item in question.
Attitudes are judgments. They develop on the ABC model (affect, behavior, and cognition)[1].
The affective response is an emotional response that expresses an individual's degree of
preference for an entity. The behavioral intention is a verbal indication or typical behavioral
tendency of an individual. The cognitive response is a cognitive evaluation of the entity that
constitutes an individual's beliefs about the object.[citation needed] Most attitudes are the result of
either direct experience or observational learning from the environment.
Contents
 [hide]
1 Attitude formation
2 Attitude change
2.1 Emotion and Attitude Change
2.2 Components of Emotion Appeals
3 Implicit and explicit attitudes
4 Jung's definition
5 MBTI definition
6 See also
7 References
8 Further reading
Attitude formation
Unlike personality, attitudes are expected to change as a function of experience. Tesser (1993)
has argued that hereditary variables may affect attitudes - but believes that they may do so
indirectly. For example, consistency theories, which imply that we must be consistent in our
beliefs and values. The most famous example of such a theory is Dissonance-reduction theory,
associated with Leon Festinger, although there are others, such as the balance theory.
Attitude change
Main article: Attitude change
Attitudes can be changed through persuasion and we should understand attitude change as a
response to communication. Experimental research into the factors that can affect the
persuasiveness of a message include:
Target Characteristics: These are characteristics that refer to the person who receives and
processes a message. One such trait is intelligence - it seems that more intelligent people are
less easily persuaded by one-sided messages. Another variable that has been studied in this
category is self-esteem. Although it is sometimes thought that those higher in self-esteem are
less easily persuaded, there is some evidence that the relationship between self-esteem and
persuasibility is actually curvilinear, with people of moderate self-esteem being more easily
persuaded than both those of high and low self-esteem levels (Rhodes & Woods, 1992). The
mind frame and mood of the target also plays a role in this process.
Source Characteristics: The major source characteristics are expertise, trustworthiness
and interpersonal attraction or attractiveness. The credibility of a perceived message has been
found to be a key variable here; if one reads a report about health and believes it came from a
professional medical journal, one may be more easily persuaded than if one believes it is from a
popular newspaper. Some psychologists have debated whether this is a long-lasting effect and
Hovland and Weiss (1951) found the effect of telling people that a message came from a
credible source disappeared after several weeks (the so-called "sleeper effect"). Whether there
is a sleeper effect is controversial. Perceived wisdom is that if people are informed of the
source of a message before hearing it, there is less likelihood of a sleeper effect than if they are
told a message and then told its source.
Message Characteristics: The nature of the message plays a role in persuasion. Sometimes
presenting both sides of a story is useful to help change attitudes.
Cognitive Routes: A message can appeal to an individual's cognitive evaluation to help change
an attitude. In the central route to persuasion the individual is presented with the data and
motivated to evaluate the data and arrive at an attitude changing conclusion. In the peripheral
route to attitude change, the individual is encouraged to not look at the content but at the
source. This is commonly seen in modern advertisements that feature celebrities. In some
cases, physician, doctors or experts are used. In other cases film stars are used for their
attractiveness.
Emotion and Attitude Change
Emotion is a common component in persuasion, social influence, and attitude change. Much of
attitude research emphasized the importance of affective or emotion components. Emotion
works hand-in-hand with the cognitive process, or the way we think, about an issue or
situation. Emotional appeals are commonly found in advertising, health campaigns and political
messages. Recent examples include no-smoking health campaigns and political campaign
advertising emphasizing the fear of terrorism. Attitudes and attitude objects are functions of
cognitive, affective and conative components. Attitudes are part of the brain’s associative
networks, the spider-like structures residing in long term memory that consist of affective and
cognitive nodes.
By activating an affective or emotion node, attitude change may be possible, though affective
and cognitive components tend to be intertwined. In primarily affective networks, it is more
difficult to produce cognitive counterarguments in the resistance to persuasion and attitude
change.
Affective forecasting, otherwise known as intuition or the prediction of emotion, also impacts
attitude change. Research suggests that predicting emotions is an important component of
decision making, in addition to the cognitive processes. How we feel about an outcome may
override purely cognitive rationales.
In terms of research methodology, the challenge for researchers is measuring emotion and
subsequent impacts on attitude. Since we cannot see into the brain, various models and
measurement tools have been constructed to obtain emotion and attitude information.
Measures may include the use of physiological cues like facial expressions, vocal changes, and
other body rate measures. For instance, fear is associated with raised eyebrows, increased
heart rate and increase body tension (Dillard, 1994). Other methods include concept or
network mapping, and using primes or word cues.
Components of Emotion Appeals
Any discrete emotion can be used in a persuasive appeal; this may include jealousy, disgust,
indignation, fear, blue, disturbed, haunted,and anger. Fear is one of the most studied emotional
appeals in communication and social influence research.
Important consequences of fear appeals and other emotion appeals include the possibility of
reactance which may lead to either message rejections or source rejection and the absence of
attitude change. As the EPPM suggests, there is an optimal emotion level in motivating attitude
change. If there is not enough motivation, an attitude will not change; if the emotional appeal is
overdone, the motivation can be paralyzed thereby preventing attitude change.
Emotions perceived as negative or containing threat are often studied more than perceived
positive emotions like humor. Though the inner-workings of humor are not agreed upon,
humor appeals may work by creating incongruities in the mind. Recent research has looked at
the impact of humor on the processing of political messages. While evidence is inconclusive,
there appears to be potential for targeted attitude change is receivers with low political
message involvement.
Important factors that influence the impact of emotion appeals include self efficacy, attitude
accessibility, issue involvement, and message/source features. Self efficacy is a perception of
one’s own human agency; in other words, it is the perception of our own ability to deal with a
situation. It is an important variable in emotion appeal messages because it dictates a person’s
ability to deal with both the emotion and the situation. For example, if a person is not self-
efficacious about their ability to impact the global environment, they are not likely to change
their attitude or behavior about global warming.
Dillard (1994) suggests that message features such as source non-verbal communication,
message content, and receiver differences can impact the emotion impact of fear appeals. The
characteristics of a message are important because one message can elicit different levels of
emotion for different people. Thus, in terms of emotion appeals messages, one size does not fit
all.
Attitude accessibility refers to the activation of an attitude from memory in other words, how
readily available is an attitude about an object, issue, or situation. Issue involvement is the
relevance and salience of an issue or situation to an individual. Issue involvement has been
correlated with both attitude access and attitude strength. Past studies conclude accessible
attitudes are more resistant to change
Implicit and explicit attitudes
There is also considerable research on implicit attitudes, which are generally unacknowledged
or outside of awareness, but have effects that are measurable through sophisticated methods
using people's response times to stimuli. Implicit and explicit attitudes seem to affect people's
behavior, though in different ways. They tend not to be strongly associated with each other,
although in some cases they are. The relationship between them is poorly understood.

CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR – 3 : PERCEPTION

INDUVIDUAL DETERMINATS OF BEHAVIUOR
INTRODUCTION
To understand the buyer and to make a customer out of him is the main purpose of thestudy of
consumer behaviour. Though this problem has been analysed from different viewpoints under
different premises, it still remains a complex one. On the other hand the buyeris a riddle. He is a
highly complex entity. His needs & desires are innumerable. Some arelatent, some manifest and
some others are highly dominant. These have different priorities inthe his scheme of things. The
buyer has his own ideas & plans about realising these needs &desires. The first & foremost task
of the marketer is to get close to the buyer and understandhis need-structure & priorities.
There are four major factors which influence the behaviour of the consumers. They are :
1.Psychological factors influencing Customer Behaviour
2.Social Psychological factors influencing Customer Behaviour
3.Sociological factors influencing Customer Behaviour
4.Economic factors influencing Customer Behaviour
PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS
These are the factors which are the personal attributes of an individual. We shall study Five
of them : Attitude, Motivation, Perception, Personality and Learning.
Perception
Different people see things, events, and ideas from different view point, and hold different
opinions, views for them. In other words they have different “Perception” of the world.
Definition of perception :
Perception is defined as the process by which the individual selects, organises, and
interpretsvarious stimuli into a meaningful & coherent picture of the world. Marketers are
deeplyinterested in such perceptions the consumers hold about their products & services,
brands,company etc.
Elements of perception :
The following are the elements of perception :
1.Sensation – is the immediate & direct response of the sensory organs to stimuli. A
stimulus is a single input of any of the senses. Human beings have sensory receptors
called sensory organs. They are :
a.Eyes for sights & seeing,
b.Ears for sounds & hearing,
c.Nose for smells & smelling,
d.Tongue for tastes & tasting,
e.Skin for textures, touch & feeling,
2.Marketers try to stimulate the sensory organs of a consumer to create a favourable
perception towards their products.

3.Absolute threshold – is the minimum level that the individual can experience a sensation.In
other words, he can distinguish the difference between something & nothing. This levelvaries
from person to person & vary with time, place & environment. Marketers often tryto provide
stimuli more than this level.
4.Differential Threshold or Just Noticeable Difference (JND) – is the minimal difference thatcan
be detected between two similar stimuli. German scientist Ernst Weber discoveredthat the JND
between two stimuli is not absolute, but an amount relative to the intensityof the first stimulus.
Thus marketers try to change certain attributes which are just shortof JND.
5.Subliminal Perception – there are certain types of stimuli which are not strong enough
toexceed the absolute threshold, but somehow stimulates the subconscious mind & getrecorded
there, sometimes without the knowledge of the perceptor. At a later stage thismight surface as
some form of expression or perception. Here the marketers try tostimulate the subconscious mind
of an individual. Some think it’s unethical, but thereare several positive outcome of this method
if applied in a constructive way.
Information processing :
is a series of activities where the stimuli are perceived & processed to convert/transformthem to
information, and then stored (very similar to computer data processing). Later thisinfo is used in
selecting a product.
1.Exposure : Exposure occurs when our senses detect some external cue from the variousthings
we come in contact with. We are all exposed to a plethora of marketing adscontinuously. This
becomes the starting point of all information processing. But peopletend to perceive things they
need or want. The stronger the need, the greater thetendency to ignore unrelated stimuli. Hence
“Selective Perception” occurs when theconsumer selects the stimuli from the environment on the
basis of interaction ofexpectations & motives with the stimulus itself. These factors give rise to
four importantconcepts concerning perception :
a.Selective exposure – where the consumers want to avoid unpleasant or painful
messages & seek those which are sympathetic, interesting and pleasant.
b.Selective attention or perceptual vigilance – where the consumers exercise selectivityin terms
of their attention to commercial stimuli. They have a heightened attentionregarding the stimuli
that meet their needs, & minimal attention to the onesirrelevant to their needs. People also vary
in terms of kind of info like price, quality,features etc., forms of messages & type of medium
they prefer.
c.Perceptual defence – where consumers subconsciously screen out stimuli that arethreatening or
damaging even if the exposure has already taken place. Likewisesometimes they unconsciously
distort the information that is not matching theirneeds, values, & beliefs. This may be due to
psychological factors or anyunfavourable past experience.
d.Perceptual blocking – where consumers protect themselves from being exposed byblocking
such stimuli from conscious awareness. They do it for self protectionbecause of the visually
overwhelming nature of the world we live in.
2.Attention : Normally all the stimuli of a message come thro’ the various sensory
organssimultaneously. But an individual can remember only one of them, usually the
strongestand tries to take action on that basis. Marketers try to exploit that situation to
theiradvantage, to leave an impact in the consumer. This is known as attention.

a.Stimulus – is the one which prompts an individual to initiate an action by creating anattention.
It has the following characteristics : Size & Intensity; Colour & Movement;Position; Format &
Design; Isolation; Contrast or Distinction; Information extent.
b.Individual factors – The attention of a consumer depends on the following factors :
Interest & Needs; Ability; Involvement, etc.
c.Situational factors – Often the situation, condition, environment or the surroundingof the
consumer have an affect on its attention of certain stimuli. Hence themarketers should devise
certain methods to help overcome that.
3.Interpretation – Just like people’s exercise of selective perception on the basis of
certainpsychological principles, the interpretation of these stimuli is also highly
individualbecause it is based on what the individuals expect to see in the light of their
previousexperience, motives, interests, reasoning at the time of perception. In the case of
anyambiguous stimuli, the individuals usually interpret these in such a way to serve theirown
needs, interests, wishes, etc.
Consumer Imagery :
Consumers have a number of enduring perceptions or images of themselves. Products &brands
have also a symbolic value for consumers, who evaluate them on the basis of theirconsistency
(congruence) with the perception of themselves. This is the consumers’ self-image& they
attempt to preserve or enhance it by buying products & brands or patronising serviceswhich they
believe are congruent with their self-images and avoiding which are not. Thisphenomenon is
known as consumer imagery.
1.Product Image - where the consumer compares his self-image with his perception of the
product or brand.
2.Service Image - where the consumer compares his self-image with his perception of the
service or its provider.
Perception in Marketing :
Marketers have realised that understanding the perception process of consumers help themto
design better ways to help them perceive favourably. The main methods of stimuli are
thro’advertising, communication, messaging, company news etc. Thus the marketers have
todevelop specific stimuli thro’ these methods so that the consumers perception about
theirproducts clearly & enduringly. These are some techniques :
1.Brand development & Perceptual Mapping – This technique helps the marketers todetermine
how the products or services appear to the consumer in relation the othercompetitive brands on
one or more relevant attributes of the products or services.
2.Retail Stores – In retail stores normally all the brands in a particular category of productsare
arranged at the same place, so they have a direct competitive setting. The brandswhich claim to
be special in any respect should be specially displayed to gain attention.
Information processing involves a series of activities by which stimuli are
recognised, perceived, transformed into meaningful information and stored in
memory

Sensation (Exposure to Stimuli)

Sensation is the immediate and direct response of sense organs to simple stimuli
such as an advertisement, a brand name, or a package etc. Exposure only requires
presence of a stimulus within an individual’s relevant environment. Sensitivity to
stimuli varies among individuals and depends on the quality of sensory receptors.
Sensation for a stimulus depends on differentiation of input. A relatively static and
unchanging environment provides little or no sensation even though the sensory
input is strong.

Absolute Threshold
Absolute threshold refers to the lowest level at which an individual can experience
a sensation. At this point, an individual can detect a difference between
“something” and “nothing” and this point would be that individual’s absolute
threshold for that stimulus.. Absolute threshold for sound in case of these two
individuals would be different. Many individuals’ ability to discriminate sensory
characteristics such as taste, smell, hearing, or feel is small.
The senses are likely to become increasingly dull under conditions of constant
stimulation and the absolute threshold increases.

Differential Threshold
Differential threshold is the smallest detectable difference between two values of
the same stimulus. This is also referred to as j.n.d (just noticeable difference). To
measure the differential threshold for a stimulus, one commonly changes its
intensity in very small amounts. An individual’s threshold exists when she/he first
notices that the stimulus has changed. The difference between this value and the
starting value is the just noticeable difference. Weber’s Law states that stronger the
initial stimulus, greater the additional intensity needed for the second stimulus to
be perceived as different. The difference in price may become noticeable if the
increase were to be one thousand rupees or more.
Marketers use Weber’s law to predict how consumers will respond to differences
between marketing variables or changes in these variables.

Attention
Attention occurs when one or more stimuli activate one or more sensory receptor
nerves and the resulting sensations reach the brain for further processing. Human
beings are constantly exposed to numerous stimuli every minute of the day. This
heavy intensity of stimulation to which we are exposed should serve to confuse us
totally but it does not. The reason is that perception is not a function of sensory
input alone. An important principle of perception is that raw sensory input alone
does not elicit or explain the coherent picture of the world that most adults possess.
Perception is the outcome of interaction of physical stimuli from external
environment and an individual’s expectations, motives and learning based on
earlier experiences. The interaction of these two types of very different stimuli
creates, for an individual, a very private and personal picture of the world. Since
every individual is unique because of needs, wants, desires, expectations and
experiences, no two people perceive the world precisely the same way.

Perceptual Selection
Human beings, subconsciously, are quite selective in their perception. Everyday
we look at so many things, ignore others and do not even notice many others. We
really perceive only a very small fraction of stimuli to which we are exposed. One
or more factors related to experience and motives affect consumer’s ‘selective
exposure’ and ‘selective attention’ at a given time and can increase or decrease the
probability that a certain stimulus will be perceived.

Stimulus Factors
There are numerous marketing-related stimuli that affect consumer’s perception,
such as type of product, physical characteristics, packaging, colour, brand name,
advertisement, claims, endorser, size of ad, position of ad or time of commercial
etc. The product and its components such as package, contents and physical
properties etc. are primary or intrinsic stimuli, while marketing communications
developed to influence consumer behaviour are secondary or extrinsic stimuli.
In general, stimuli that stand out against their background capture immediate
attention. Novel stimuli achieve this through unique images, shapes, sounds and
colours. For example, in many print ads, there is lots of white space and just a few
words, or the opening scene of a commercial is without a sound. These are
attempts at differentiation and often merit the attention of consumers.

Expectations
People generally see what they expect to see and this expectation is based on
familiarity and previous experience. Consumers often perceive products and
product attributes according to their expectations. It is also true that in many
instances stimuli that are in sharp contrast to expectations attract more attention
than those that meet our expectation.
 Motives
 Selective Exposure
 Selective Attention
 Adaptation
 Perceptual Vigilance and Defence
 Perceptual Blocking

Perceptual Organisation
All the selected stimuli from the environment are not experienced as separate and
discrete sensations. Individuals tend to organise these sensations into a coherent
pattern and perceive them as unified wholes. The specific principles underlying
perceptual organisation are sometimes referred as Gestalt psychology. Gestalt is a
German word and means “pattern” or “configuration.” Three most basic principles
of perceptual organisation focus on ‘figure and ground’ relationships, ‘grouping’
and ‘closure’.

Figure and Ground

This is one of the most basic and automatic organisational processes that
perceivers use. People have a tendency to organise their perceptions into figure and
ground relationship. In order to be noticed, stimuli must contrast with their
environment. The common line separating the figure and the ground is perceived
as belonging to the figure and not to the ground. This gives greater definition to the
figure.

Grouping
Individuals have an inherent tendency to grouping or chunking a variety of
information or items close to each other in time or space and form a unified
picture. The tendency to group stimuli may result as a consequence of proximity,
similarity, or continuity. When an object is associated with another because of its
closeness to that object.

Closure
Individuals have a need for closure and fulfil it by organising their perceptions in a
manner that leads to forming a complete picture. In the event that they are exposed
to a pattern of stimuli, which in their view is incomplete, they tend to perceive it as
complete by filling in the missing pieces. This phenomenon may be the result of
conscious or subconscious efforts. Because of this need for closure, individuals
experience tension when some task is incomplete and a feeling of satisfaction and
relief develops with its completion.

Interpretation of Stimuli
As the old saying goes, “a person sees what he/she expects to see,” Interpretation
of stimuli by individuals is based on their earlier experiences, plausible
explanations they can assign, their motives, beliefs and interests at the time of
perception. For a number of reasons, stimuli can often be weak or strong and may
prove to be quite ambiguous to individuals.
A number of factors influence individuals that may distort their perceptions, such
as physical appearances, stereotyping stimuli, irrelevant stimuli, first impressions,
jumping to conclusions and halo effect etc.
 Physical Appearance
 Stereotyping Stimuli
 Irrelevant Stimuli
  First Impression
 Jumping to Conclusions
 Halo Effect

Images are Important to Consumers

An image is a total perception of something that individuals form by processing all
the information they are exposed to over time. Research indicates that consumers
develop enduring perceptions or images about brands, prices, stores and
companies. They believe correspond to or agree with their self-images and avoid
buying products that do not fit their self-images.
Consumers also tend to buy from those outlets that seem to be consistent with their
self-image. Many large retail stores and chains in India have started focusing on
the need to build their identity to attract certain classes of consumers and create
store loyalty among them

.
Price Perceptions
The company in 1989 reverted back to its strength of high-priced pens and became
profitable again.
1. Consumers have certain expectations of what the price is or should be of a
product or service.
2. Their expectations may or may not reflect the actual price of the product or
service.
3. Consumers often associate the price of a product or service with quality.
Consumers consider differential pricing used by some marketers to benefit certain
classes of consumers such as club members, senior citizens, women etc., A
reference price (also called standard price) is any price that a consumer uses as a
basis for comparing another price.
Consumers are willing to accept a range of prices, called the ‘acceptable price
range’, for a product or service.
Researchers have investigated the effects of three types of consumer price
perceptions communicated through advertising.
1. Plausible low prices
2. Plausible high prices
3. Implausible high prices
Perceived Product and Service Quality
Consumers often tend to assess the quality of a product or service on the basis of
different types of information they relate with the product or service.
In general, experienced and knowledgeable consumers are inclined to use country-
of-origin as an indicator of product quality only when the information about
product attributes is ambiguous and consumers lacking experience tend to use
country-of-origin as an indicator of product quality.
Kent B. Monroe and Susan B. Petroshius have summarised research findings to
show how consumers react to price variable:
1. Consumers seemingly use price as an indicator of product quality as well as
an indicator of purchase cost.
2. Consumers appear to develop reference prices as standards for evaluating
prices they see in the marketplace.
3. Consumers’ reference prices are not constant and get modified by shopping
experiences.
4. Factors, such as brand image or store image, can soften the strength of the
perceived price-quality relationship.

Some researchers believe that there are five dimensions of service quality:
1. The appearance of physical facilities, equipment, personnel and
communication materials.
2. Ability to perform the promised service dependably and accurately.
3. Willingness to help customers and provide prompt service.
4. Knowledge and courtesy of employees and their ability to convey trust and
confidence.
5. Caring, individualised attention that the firm provides to the customers.

Joseph Plummer is of the opinion that there are three components to a brand
image:
1. Attributes
2. Consequences and
3. Brand personality

Consumers’ Risk Perception

1. Financial or monetary risk is the risk that the product will not be worth its
cost. Expensive products and services are most subject to this risk.
2. Performance risk, which is associated with the possibility that the product
will not perform as anticipated or may even fail. The consumer wastes time
in getting it repaired, or replaced. The risk is greatest when the
product is technically complex. For example, an expensive computer.
3. Physical risk refers to bodily harm to self and others due to product usage.
For example, food and beverages, electrical or mechanical appliances, or
medical services etc. can sometimes prove risky.
4. Social risk, which means that a poor product purchase may not meet the
standards of an important reference group and may result in social
embarrassment. For example, clothes, jewelry, carpet, or car etc.
5. Psychological risk relates to loss of self-esteem or self-image as a result
of poor choice and making her/him feel stupid. For example, high-
involvement category products or services.

How Consumers Deal with Risk

1. Consumers acquire additional information. This allows them to better assess
the risk.
2. Consumers remain brand loyal. They stay loyal to a brand which has
delivered satisfaction instead of buying an untried brand.
3. Consumers buy the most popular brand because they usually believe that
well-known and popular brands can be trusted.
4. Consumers buy the most expensive model or brand as they often associate
price with quality.
5. Consumers rely on store image. They trust reputable retail outlets and
depend on them regarding their choice of merchandise for resale.
6. Consumers seek money-back guarantees, warranties and pre-purchase trial.
For example, a marketer offers free trial and “no questions asked” refund of
money, or there are guarantees/ warranties.
7. Reduce level of expectations to reduce psychological consequences before
making the purchase.