Psychological Influences on

Consumer Decision Making –

II
 Contents
• Consumer Learning & memory

• Consumer Attitude: Belief, Affect-Mood and Emotions, Attitude and

Intention, Attitude Formation and Attitude Change

• Consumer Involvement
Consumer Learning & memory
 Introduction
• Marketing communication (advertisements, publicity, personal selling,
sales force etc.) as well as interpersonal communication have a big
role to play in consumer learning.

• The marketer educates the consumer about the product/service

category, attributes, benefits, features, price etc.

• But, how does a consumer learn, the process of learning?

 Introduction
• Consumer learning is defined as a process by which people gather and interpret information
about products and services and use this information/knowledge in buying patterns and
consumption behavior

• A consumer learns about a product/service category and the varying brands either on his own or
from others.

• Learning must be reinforced to have an impact; if learning as a process is not reinforced, the
behavior would disappear.

• A person is exposed to information/ knowledge and/experiences all the time; he interprets these,
learns from them and stores these in his memory for retrieval. This addition of knowledge to the
memory bank may alter/modify existing information.
 APPROACHES TO LEARNING

Classical
Conditioning
1. Behavioral theories
of learning
Operant
Conditioning
2. Cognitive theories of
learning
 Behavioral theories of learning
• The approach defines learning in terms of an association between
stimulus and response, where the stimulus is an external
object/person/situation that a person senses and perceives, and
response is the behavior of the person that occurs in reaction to the
object/person/situation.

• Behavioral theorists do not concentrate on the dynamics of the

learning process. Their major concern is on viewing learning as a
response to events/happenings in a person’s external environment
 Behavioral theories of learning

Classical
Conditioning
Behavioral theories
of learning
Operant
Conditioning
 Classical Conditioning:
• Learning occurs as a repeated
connection/association between
stimulus and response (Stimulus
→ Response) or (S → R).

• A person who is loyal to HUL and

buys many of their brands as he
finds them to be of quality,
would also buy this new product
(stimulus generalization).
Surf to Surf Excel
 Uses of Classical Conditioning:
• A person who is loyal to HUL and buys many of their brands as he finds them
to be of quality, would also buy this new product (stimulus generalization).

• Brand extension: This implies the use of an existing brand for a new product-
Licensing: The permission to use a well-known brand name to
products/services of another manufacturer/service provider is called
licensing; the advantage of licensing is that it leads to instant recognition as
a quality brand and successful brand, eg McDonalds.

• Me too brands/ Fake brands

 Operant/ Instrumental conditioning
• Burrhus Frederic Skinner is credited for the theory of operant
conditioning. He was an American psychologist of the 1950s and
emphasized on the role that ‘consequences’ have to play on the
process of learning. He spoke of a response-stimulus connection,
(Response → Stimulus) or (R → S), rather than the S-R connection as
proposed by Pavlov.

• Learning arises due to trial and error process which gives rise to
positive or negative reinforcement.
Point-of-purchase (POP)/ Point-of-sale (POS)
 Examples of Operant conditioning
• HUL decides to give free samples in small 25 gm pouches, with
products like Lux, Peposodent etc. The person who buy a Lux or a
Pepsodent, would get a sachet of this new product free; he would try
it and if he finds it satisfying, he would desire buying a larger quantity
pack to be used regularly (positive reinforcement).

• In terms of marketing, if a person enjoys the food he eats in a

restaurant, the likelihood of his visiting the restaurant and eating from
there would increase. This would be an example of positive
reinforcement.
 APPROACHES TO LEARNING

Cognitive theories of learning

 Cognitive theories of learning
• Theorists of this approach believe that learning takes place as a result of a
person’s conscious and deliberate information processing and storage activity,
often in response to problem.

• A person first gathers information and then processes it. Once the information
has been processed, a person organizes it by associating it with various other
cues, and creates mental images, and finally stores it in his memory.

• Memory involves the process of gathering, processing and storing information

over time so that it will be available when required. As and when required to
solve problems, he retrieves this information from his memory.
Models of Cognitive Learning
The Memory System
 The Memory System
• Memory involves a process of acquiring information and storing it over time so that
it will be available when needed.
• In the encoding stage, information is entered in a way the system will recognize.
• In the storage stage, this knowledge is integrated with what is already in memory
and ‘warehoused’ until needed.
• During retrieval, the person accesses the desired information
 The Memory System
• A person watches an advertisement for a brand (sensory memory).
When he pays attention to the advertisement, it moves to his short-
term memory. The inputs are processed here in the short-term
memory, and if it is found to be of relevance and interest, it moves to
the long-term memory.
Information Processing and
Memory Stores
Resultant of Memory Process

Mental Map - Apple

Resultant of Memory Process

Mental Map
 Difference –

Behavioural theories of learning

Cognitive theories of learning
 Difference
Behavioral theories of learning Cognitive theories of learning

According to the behavioral theorists, learning takes The cognitive theorists believe that learning takes
place in response to events/happenings in a person’s place as a result of a person’s conscious and deliberate
external environment. information processing and storage activity.

The behavioral theories of learning is apt for the low Whereas the cognitive theories of learning is confined
involvement products to high involvement product.
Measuring consumer
learning
 Measuring consumer learning
• Recognition and recall tests

• Recognition and recall tests are conducted to determine whether consumers remember seeing an
advertisement and the extent to which they have read it or seen it and can recall its content.

• Recognition tests are based on aided recall, whereas recall tests use unaided recall.

• Brand Loyalty
• Consumer purchasing the product again and again and recommending others.