Chapter 4 - Understanding Consumer Behavior

Consumer Purchase Decision Process

The five stages a buyer passes through in making choices about which products and services to buy: (1) problem recognition, (2) information search, (3) alternative evaluation, (4) purchase decision, and (5) postpurchase behavior.

Problem Recognition

Perceiving a difference between a person’s ideal and actual situations big enough to trigger a decision.

Information Search

Seeking value by scanning one’s memory for previous experiences or seeking information from outside sources.

Internal Search

Scanning one’s memory for previous experiences with products or brands, which is often sufficient for frequently purchased products.

External Search

Gathering information from personal sources, public sources, or marketer

Alternative Evaluation

Assessing value by suggesting criteria to use for the purchase, providing brand names that meet criteria, and developing consumer value perceptions.

Evaluative Criteria

Factors that represent both the objective attributes of a brand and the subjective ones a consumer uses to compare different products and brands.

Consideration Set

The group of brands that a consumer would consider acceptable from among all the brands in the product class of which he or she is aware.

Purchase Decision

The stage where a buyer decides from whom to buy and when to buy.

Postpurchase Behavior

The stage where a consumer compares a purchased product with his/her expectations and is either satisfied or dissatisfied.

Cognitive Dissonance

The feeling of postpurchase psychological tension or anxiety consumers may experience when faced with two or more highly attractive alternatives.

Level of Involvement

The personal, social, and economic significance of the purchase to the consumer.

High

Involvement Purchases

Extended Problem Solving

A problem

Limited Problem Solving

A problem

Routine Problem Solving

A habitual purchase process where consumers spend little effort seeking external information and evaluating alternatives, typical for low

Situational Influences

Five factors that impact the consumer’s purchase decision process: purchase task, social surroundings, physical surroundings, temporal effects, and antecedent states.

Consumer Touch Points

Points of contact with a consumer from start to finish in the purchase decision process.

Consumer Journey Map

A visual representation of all touch points a consumer comes into contact with a company’s products, services, or brands before, during, and after a purchase.

Motivation

The energizing force that stimulates behavior to satisfy a need.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

A hierarchical structure of needs ranging from basic to learned: Physiological, Safety, Social, Esteem, and Self

Personality

A person’s consistent behaviors or responses to recurring situations, including key traits like assertiveness, extroversion, and compliance.

Self

Concept

Perception

The process by which an individual selects, organizes, and interprets information to create a meaningful picture of the world.

Selective Perception

The filtering process of exposure, comprehension, and retention by the human brain to organize and interpret information.

Selective Exposure

Occurs when people pay attention to messages that are consistent with their own attitudes and beliefs and ignore messages that are inconsistent with them.

Selective Comprehension

Interpreting information so that it is consistent with a person’s attitudes and beliefs.

Selective Retention

Means that consumers do not remember all the information they see, read, or hear, even minutes after exposure to it.

Subliminal Perception

Means that people see or hear messages without being aware of them.

Perceived Risk

The anxiety felt because the consumer cannot anticipate the outcomes of a purchase but believes that there may be negative consequences.

Learning

Behaviors that result from repeated experience and reasoning.

Behavioral Learning

The process of developing automatic responses to a type of situation built up through repeated exposure to it, involving a drive, cue, response, and reinforcement.

Cognitive Learning

Occurs through thinking, reasoning, and mental problem solving without direct experience.

Brand Loyalty

A favorable attitude toward and consistent purchase of a single brand over time.

Attitude

A learned predisposition to respond to an object or class of objects in a consistently favorable or unfavorable way.

Beliefs

A consumer’s subjective perception of how a product or brand performs on different attributes.

Lifestyle

A mode of living that is identified by how people spend their time and resources, what they consider important, and what they think of themselves and the world.

Psychographics

The analysis of consumer psychology, lifestyle, and demographics to uncover motivations for buying and using offerings.

VALS Framework

A psychographic system that identifies eight consumer segments based on their primary motivation (ideals, achievement, self

Opinion Leaders

Individuals who exert direct or indirect social influence over others and are considered to be knowledgeable about or users of particular offerings.

Word of Mouth

People influencing each other during conversations; a powerful and authentic information source for consumers.

Reference Groups

People to whom an individual looks as a basis for self

Associative Group

A reference group to which a person actually belongs, such as fraternities, sororities, or brand communities.

Brand Community

A specialized group of consumers with a structured set of relationships involving a particular brand, fellow customers of that brand, and the product in use.

Aspiration Group

A reference group that a person wishes to be a member of or identified with.

Dissociative Group

A reference group that a person wishes to maintain a distance from due to differences in values or behaviors.

Consumer Socialization

The process by which people acquire the skills, knowledge, and attitudes necessary to function as consumers, often learned in childhood.

Family Life Cycle

Describes the distinct phases that a family progresses through from formation to retirement, with each phase bringing identifiable purchasing behaviors.

Culture

The set of values, ideas, and attitudes that are learned and shared among the members of a group.

Subcultures

Subgroups within the larger, or national, culture with unique values, ideas, and attitudes.