UNIT 3 CONSUMER ATTITUDE

MODELS
 INTRODUCTION
• Attitude is considered to be the most important factor that determines buying
behaviour.
• Therefore, marketers pay close attention to consumers’ attitudes. It is very
important for a marketer to know the important aspects of consumer attitude.
• Hence, the marketer has to understand how attitude is organised in the consumer.
DEFINITION & MEANING
• According to Robbins, “Attitudes are evaluative statements – either favourable or
unfavorable – concerning objects people or events. They reflect how one feels
about something”.
• Attitudes are evaluative statements – that means people have favourable or
unfavourable feeling towards persons, objects or events. This evaluation of people
towards persons, objects or events is known as attitude.
• In other words attitude shows how a person feels about something for e.g. if a
Professor says “I like teaching”, he is expressing attitude about his work.
FEATURES / NATURE / CHARACTERISTICS OF
ATTITUDE
• Attitudes refer to feelings & beliefs of individuals or groups
of individuals: It exists within an individual and that is why it
is considered as evaluative statement or predispositions of an
individual. Attitude is a psychological process and therefore it
affects the feeling and belief of an individual or group.
• The feelings & beliefs are directed towards other people,
objects or ideas: The feelings and beliefs are always about
other individual, object or situation based on the earlier
experience of a person.
• Attitudes results in behavioural action: Behavioural outcome
or response is based on the attitude of an individual. An
individual’s attitude will determine the action. If the attitude
is positive, we can predict that the behavioural action will be
positive.
• Attitudes can fall anywhere between very favourable to very
unfavourable: A person’s attitude might be favourable or unfavourable
towards any person, object, event or situation. A person may have an
attitude which will be in between very favourable to very unfavourable.
• Attitudes last longer: Attitude lasts for a long time. Once it is formed it is
difficult to change. Hence when a person likes or dislikes certain person or
event or object, he will continue to like to dislike for a very long period of
time. This long lasting nature of attitude is based on the sources from
which it is formed. For example, if our parents have taught us
• All people hold attitudes: Every person in the world hold attitude and
their attitude will differ from other. Within all levels of an organisation,
people hold attitude. It has nothing to do with the status or intelligence
they possess. Whether, it is chairman or peon, irrespective of their status
holds attitude. It is obvious that their attitudes will differ but all of them
hold attitudes.
 FUNCTIONS OF ATTITUDE
Adjustment function:
• This function is also known as utilitarian or instrumental function of attitude.
• An attitude may be developed because it helps a person to obtain rewards or avoid
punishments. Hence a person may adjust his attitude in order to get rewards or avoid
punishment.
• example, a loan executive may develop favourable attitude towards salaried people, to whom
he can easily sell, and a negative attitude towards self-employed people, who he finds are
always difficult to sell. He associates success and profit with salaried people and failure and
difficulty with self-employed. Hence, he develops attitude according to the reward he gets.
Ego Defence Function: People often form and maintain certain attitude to protect their own
ego / self-image. Example: A superior may feel threatened by the advancement of
subordinates in the organisation. The superior may develop prejudices against the
subordinates in the organisation. They may develop an attitude that such newcomers are less
qualified. Hence the superior may not treat subordinates well. Such an ego defensive attitude
is formed and used to cope with a feeling of guilt or threat. Unless this feeling is removed,
this kind of attitude will remain unchanged.
Value Expressive Function: Our attitude shows our value system. And
our value expressive attitudes are closely related to our self-concept.
Example: One whose central value is freedom, the individual may
express very positive attitude towards decentralization of authority in
the organisation, flexible work schedules, and relaxation of dress
standards. The other example of value expressive function is that if
the central value is pragmatic (forward looking); the individual may
express positive attitudes towards the practical people.
Knowledge Function: Attitude is often substituted for knowledge. In the
absence of knowledge, we use our attitude to organize and make
sense out of the perceived object or person. Example: People who
are not familiar with nuclear energy may develop an attitude that it is
dangerous and should not be used as an energy source.
 FACTORS AFFECTING FORMATION OF
ATTITUDE OR FORMATION OF ATTITUDE
1. Direct experience with the object:- Attitudes are formed on the basis of a
person’s direct experience with object or individual. Negative or positive
response or experience with that object or individual forms attitude.
• For example, how do you know that you like organizational behaviour
subject or dislike computer application subject? The attitude of liking or
disliking these subjects is formed on the basis of our past experience with
these subjects.
2. Classical conditioning & attitudes:- One of the basic processes that results
into attitude formation can be explained on the basis of learning principles.
• Generally people develop associations between various objects & the
emotional reactions that follow. Positive or negative associations can
develop through classical conditioning. For example, we may come to hold a
positive attitude towards a particular perfume because a favourite model
uses it.
3. Operant conditioning & attitude acquisition:
• Operant conditioning is also a learning process. According to this, behaviour
(attitude) is a function of its consequences (results).
• Behaviour is likely to be repeated if the consequences (results) are favourable.
Behaviour is not likely to be repeated if the consequences are unfavorable.
Hence, we can say that people learn positively from positive experience and
negatively from negative experience. This helps in forming their attitude.
4. Vicarious learning:-
• It is a type of learning in which a person learns something through the
observation of others. This type of learning occurs when a person has no
experience about the person, object or event for which attitude is being formed.
This happens normally when a child learns something from his/her parent. For
example, if parents believe that blind children cannot do anything in life, then
children will form a similar attitude. The child has formed this attitude without
meeting blind people. They have learnt this from their parents.
5. Family & Peer groups:-
• A person may learn attitude through parents. Attitudes towards religion,
opposite sex, tolerance or prejudice, education, occupations & many
other areas are the result of our accepting or rejecting the attitudes of
our family members.
• Similarly attitudes are acquired from peer groups (co-workers) in
organizations where people work.
6. Neighbourhood:-
• Our attitude is also formed because of our neighbourhood. We meet
people in society and this result into formation of our attitude.
• People affect the way we think. Neighborhood is a place where people
share culture and form religious grouping and such source like
neighborhood will results in attitude formation
7. Economic status & Occupation:-
• Our economic & occupational positions also contribute to attitude formation. Our
socio-economic background influences our present & future attitudes. They
determine our attitudes towards union and management and our belief that certain
laws are 'good' or 'bad'.
• For example the person from high economic status (business man) forms positive
attitude for privatization because he perceives it as growth opportunity for business
and country, whereas, low economic status (workers) will form negative attitude for
privatization because they believe that privatization will result into unemployment.
8. Mass communications:-
• All varieties of mass communications-television, radio, newspaper & magazines feed
their audiences large quantities of information. The presentation of news or
information is such that it forms the attitude of audience. Mass communication
provide detailed information on various subject which lead to formation of new
attitude or concrete the existing one on different subject.
TRI-COMPONENT ATTITUDE MODEL
COGNITIVE component of an attitude: It is the opinion or belief part of an attitude.
These are the thoughts and beliefs people have about an object. For example, you
might like a singer because he or she has a melodic voice and catchy lyrics.
• Example:
• The belief that there is life on Mars planet.
• The belief that spiders can harm you.
AFFECTIVE component of an attitude: It is emotional or feeling part of an attitude. This
consists of the emotional reactions people have to objects, persons, events, group,
issue etc.
• Examples:
• I hate politics (negative feeling)
• I love gardening (positive feeling)
• I am not interested in cricket (neutral feeling) For example, if you have a favourite
singer and you hear their voice on the radio, you might have feelings of happiness or
excitement. The attitude object has affected your emotions.
BEVHAVIOURAL component of an attitude: It refers to a person’s behaviour towards
someone or something. It consists of actions or behaviour which can be observed. And
these actions are the result of attitude. For example, if you hear a new song of your
favourite singer, you might start searching for the album and buy it. You will spend some
time listening to it. Hence, your attitude towards the singer has made you to behave in
this way.
• Examples:
• Mr. X runs to keep himself fit.
• Mr Y keep listening Bollywood music during his leisure time
• Influence of Tri-component Model on Marketing
• Marketers try to influence the buying of consumers (Behaviour). Marketers often use
jingles, music, celebrities etc. (Affective and Cognitive dimension) in order to influence the
consumers to buy the product.
• Example – Fevicol advertisements often make use of humour appeal to sell the product.
This affects the feelings consumer attach with the brand. This ultimately influences the
consumer to show positive buying behaviour with the brand.
Advantages:
1. It is simple to understand the concept of attitude. It has only 3
components meant to explain the parts of attitude.
2. It is easy to predict the behaviour of the person if the other 2
components are known in advance.
3. Most of the times all the three components work in tandem in
order to form a person’s attitude and behaviour.
Limitations:
1. Attitude does not always lead to behaviour as it is understood
through this model.
2. 2. Behaviour may not be consistent with the affect and cognitive
part as described in the model