5

CHAPTER Consumer Behavior

Chapter Objectives
1 Define consumer 3 Explain each of 5 Outline the steps
behavior and the personal in the consumer
describe the role determinants of decision process.
it plays in consumer
6 Differentiate
marketing behavior: needs
2 among routinized
decisions. and motives,
response
Describe the 4 perceptions, behavior, limited
attitudes,
interpersonal problem solving,
learning, and
determinants of and extended
self-concept
consumer problem solving
theory.
behavior: by consumers.
cultural, social, Distinguish
and family between high-
influences. involvement and
low-involvement
purchase
 CHAPTER 5 Consumer Behavior

• Consumer behavior Process through which

buyers make decisions.
• Marketers borrow extensively from
psychology and sociology to better understand
consumer behavior.
• Consumer behavior is usually understood as a
function of interpersonal influences and personal
factors.
 CHAPTER 5 Consumer Behavior

INTERPERSONAL DETERMINANTS OF
CONSUMER BEHAVIOR
CULTURAL INFLUENCES
• Culture Values, beliefs, preferences, and tastes
handed down from one generation to the next.
• Culture is a broad environmental determinant of
behavior.

Core Values in U.S. Culture

• Work ethic and desire the accumulate wealth.
• Importance of family and home life.
• Individualism, education, freedom, youth, health,
and others.
• Consumers are adopting new values as
communication technology changes.
 CHAPTER 5 Consumer Behavior

International Perspective on Cultural

Influences
• Successful strategies in one country may not
extend to others.

Subcultures
• Groups within a culture that have their own modes
of behavior.
• In U.S. subcultures can differ by ethnicity,
nationality, age, rural versus urban location,
religion, and geographic distribution.
• Population mix in U.S. is changing as the
Hispanic, African American, and Asian populations
grow.
 CHAPTER 5 Consumer Behavior

SOCIAL INFLUENCES
• Everyone belongs to multiple social groups:
family, neighborhood, clubs, and sports teams.
• Group membership influences buying decisions.
• Groups establish norms of behavior—values,
attitudes, and behaviors that a group deems
appropriate for its members.
• Differences in status and roles within groups
also influence behavior.
• Some Americans make purchases to enhance their
status within social groups, and others work to
reduce their consumption dramatically.

The Asch Phenomenon

• Theory of psychologist S. E. Asch that
individuals conform to majority rule, even if that
majority rule goes against their beliefs.
 CHAPTER 5 Consumer Behavior

Reference Groups
• Reference groups People or institutions whose
opinions are valued and to whom a person looks for
guidance in his or her own behavior, values, and
conduct, such as family, friends, or celebrities.
• Influence of reference group depends on two
conditions:
• Purchased product must be seen and
identifiable.
• Purchased product must be conspicuous,
something not everybody
owns.

Social Classes
• Six classes: upper-upper, lower-upper, upper-
middle, lower-middle, working class, lower class.
• Income not always a primary factor.
 CHAPTER 5 Consumer Behavior

Opinion Leaders
• Reference groups Trend- setters who
purchase new products before others in a
group and then influence others in their
purchases.
• Individuals tend to act as opinion leaders
for specific goods or services.
• Information sometimes flows from mass
media to opinion leaders to consumers;
sometimes flows directly to consumers.
 CHAPTER 5 Consumer Behavior

FAMILY INFLUENCES
• Like other influences, families have norms of
expected behavior, status relationships, and roles.
• Family structure changing.
1900 Toda
y
Percent of households headed by
80 53
married couple
Percent of households that include
50 10
extended family
Percnet of married women who work
6 60
outside the home
 CHAPTER 5 Consumer Behavior

FAMILY INFLUENCES
• Four roles of spouses:
• Autonomic role—partners independently make an
equal number of
decisions.
• Husband-dominant role—husband usually makes
certain buying
decisions, such as purchasing life insurance.
• Wife-dominant role—wife makes buying
decisions, such as buying
children’s clothing.
• Syncratic role—buying decision made jointly.
• Increasing occurrence of two-income households
increases likelihood of spouses making joint buying
decisions.

Children and Teenagers in Family Purchases

 CHAPTER 5 Consumer Behavior

PERSONAL DETERMINANTS OF
CONSUMER BEHAVIOR
NEEDS AND MOTIVES
• Need Imbalance between a consumer’s actual and
desired states.
• Motive Inner state that directs a person toward
the goal of satisfying a need.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

• Developed by psychologist Abraham H. Maslow
• Identifies five levels of human needs.
• Person must at least partially satisfy lower-
level needs before higher-level needs affect
behavior.
 CHAPTER 5 Consumer Behavior

PERCEPTIONS
• Perception Meaning that a person attributes to
incoming stimuli gathered through the five senses.
• Results from two types of factors:
• Stimulus factors—characteristics of the
physical object such as size,
color, weight, and shape.
• Individual factors—unique characteristics of
the individual, including
not only sensory processes but also experiences
with similar inputs and
basic motivations and expectations.

Perceptual Screens
• Consumers are bombarded by commercial messages.
• Perceptual screens help people filter out some
messages.
 CHAPTER 5 Consumer Behavior

Subliminal Perception
• Subconscious receipt of incoming information.
• Use is aimed at subverting perceptual screens.
• Unlikely to work in customers not already
inclined to buy.

ATTITUDES
• Attitudes Person’s enduring favorable or
unfavorable evaluations, emotions, or action
tendencies toward some object or idea.

Attitude Components
• Cognitive—individual’s knowledge about an object
or concept.
• Affective—deals with feelings or emotional
reactions.
 CHAPTER 5 Consumer Behavior

Changing Customer Attitudes

• Marketers have two choices for appealing to
consumer
attitudes:
• Attempt to produce consumer attitudes that
will motivate purchase of a particular product.
• Evaluate existing consumer attitudes and
then make the product features appeal to them.
• Attitudes may not be unfavorable, just not
motivating
the consumer toward a purchase.

Modifying the Components of Attitude

• Provide information about product benefits and
correcting misconceptions.
• Engaging buyers in new behavior.
 CHAPTER 5 Consumer Behavior

LEARNING
• Learning Knowledge or skill that is acquired as a
result of experience, which changes consumer
behavior.
• Learning process:
• Drive—any strong stimulus that impels action.
• Cue—any object in the environment that
determines the nature of the
consumer’s response to a drive.
• Response—an individual’s reaction to a set of
cues and drives.
• Reinforcement—the reduction in drive that
results from a proper
response; creates bond between the drive and the
purchase of the
product.
 CHAPTER 5 Consumer Behavior

Applying Learning Theory to Marketing

Decisions
• Marketers use shaping, the process of applying a
series of rewards and reinforcements to permit more
complex behavior to evolve.
• Product and promotional strategy work together in
the shaping process.

SELF-CONCEPT THEORY
• Self-concept Person’s multifaceted picture of
himself or herself.
• Four components—real self, self-image, looking-
glass self, and ideal self— influence purchasing
decisions.
 CHAPTER 5 Consumer Behavior

THE CONSUMER DECISION PROCESS

• High-involvement purchasing decisions include
buying a car.
• Low-involvement purchasing decisions include
buying a candy bar.
 CHAPTER 5 Consumer Behavior

PROBLEM OR OPPORTUNITY RECOGNITION

• Consumer becomes aware of a significant
discrepancy between the existing situation and a
desired situation.

SEARCH
• Consumer gathers information about the attainment
of a desired state of affairs.
• Evoked set Number of alternatives that a consumer
actually considers in making a purchase decision.

EVALUATION OF ALTERNATIVES
• Consumer accepts, distorts, or rejects
information as they receive it.
• Evaluative criteria Features that a consumer
considers in choosing among alternatives.
 CHAPTER 5 Consumer Behavior

PURCHASE DECISION AND PURCHASE ACT

• Consumer decides where or from whom to make the
purchase.

POST-PURCHASE EVALUATION
• Buyer feels either satisfaction at the removal of
the discrepancy between the existing and desired
states or dissatisfaction with the purchase.
• Cognitive dissonance Imbalance among knowledge,
beliefs, and attitudes that occurs after an action
or decision, such as a purchase.
• Reasons dissonance may increase:
• The dollar value of a purchase increases.
• The rejected alternatives have desirable
features that the chosen
alternatives do not provide
 CHAPTER 5 Consumer Behavior

CLASSIFYING CONSUMER PROBLEM-SOLVING

PROCESSES
• Results from two types of factors:

Routinized Response Behavior

• Consumer makes many purchases routinely by
choosing a preferred brand or one of a limited
group of acceptable brands.

Limited Problem Solving

• Consumer has previously set evaluative criteria
for a particular kind of purchase but then
encounters a new, unknown brand.

Extended Problem Solving

• Results when brands are difficult to categorize
or evaluate.