ADV 375 Exam 2: Consumer Behavior and Decision Making

Vocabulary practice flashcards covering consumer attitudes, dual-process cognition, persuasion frameworks, the multi-stage decision process, cognitive heuristics, retail environments, the squander sequence, and consumer behavioral disorders from ADV 375 Exam 2.

Attitude

A lasting general evaluation of people, objects, advertisements, or issues; a stored value representation of an object, action, or experience used to predict value, created when experiencing value, and stored as remembered value.

Multiattribute Attitude Model

A model used to identify consumers' specific beliefs and combine them to derive a measure of their overall attitude by weighing the value of each attribute and computing a total value.

System 1 (Dual Process Theory)

Fast, unconscious, automatic, and error-prone thinking used for everyday decisions.

System 2 (Dual Process Theory)

Slow, conscious, effortful, and reliable thinking used for complex decisions.

Mood

A temporary positive or negative affective state not linked to particular events, where individuals often do not know why they are in that state.

Emotion

An affective state elicited by a reward or punishment, such as feeling happy when receiving praise or scared when seeing a bear.

Neuromarketing

The use of neuroimaging and other physiological methods to predict consumer decisions; it can measure value processing but cannot measure emotion well.

Ambivalence

A psychological state occurring when an object, action, or experience possesses both positive and negative attributes.

Explicit Attitudes

Evaluations and values that individuals are consciously aware of, operating through slow System 2 thinking.

Implicit Attitudes

Evaluations and values that individuals are not conscious of, operating through fast System 1 thinking.

Normative Influences

Social pressures from other people that encourage individuals to change their behaviors or values and conform.

Consistency Principles

The psychological drive to maintain alignment between prior acts and statements (values), leading individuals to resolve discrepancies.

Cognitive Dissonance

A state of mental discomfort experienced when attitudes and behaviors are inconsistent, motivating individuals to change thoughts, feelings, or behaviors to restore consistency.

Balance Theory

A triangular model explaining how people maintain psychological consistency, altering their attitudes in three distinct ways to keep triads balanced.

Persuasion

An active attempt to create or change attitudes, representing the core objective of nearly all marketing and advertising.

Elaboration Likelihood Model

A theory explaining how individuals are persuaded to change attitudes or beliefs via either a central route or a peripheral route.

Central Route to Persuasion

A slow persuasion process involving careful thinking, conscious evaluation of the message, and System 2 cognitive processing.

Peripheral Route to Persuasion

A fast persuasion process requiring minimal cognitive effort, influenced by superficial cues like emotional appeal or speaker attractiveness via System 1.

Persuasion Knowledge Model

A framework stating that consumers develop knowledge regarding persuasion attempts and utilize that knowledge when they believe someone is trying to influence their beliefs.

Disclosures and Warnings

Statements that activate a consumer's persuasion knowledge, stimulate more critical processing, and increase resistance to persuasion.

Media Literacy

A broadened understanding encompassing the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and create media, assisting in better decision-making when facing persuasion attempts.

Modern Communication Model

A framework describing message transmission through four components: the Source (origin), the Message (information), the Medium (channel), and the Receiver (interpreting target).

Source Credibility

A communicator's perceived expertise, objectivity, or trustworthiness, which is damaged when biased or promoting too many products ($66\%$ believe mainstream media publishes fake news; the US ranked last in trust among $92{,}000$ consumers across $46$ countries).

Source Attractiveness

The perceived social value of a communicator, utilized in approximately $1\text{ in }4$ advertisements featuring celebrities.

Spokescharacter

The use of animated characters or fictional mascots as product representatives, giving brands total control and avoiding reputational risks associated with real celebrities.

Comparative Appeals

An advertising approach that directly compares two or more recognizable brands or products on one or more specific attributes.

Two-Sided Appeals

An advertising approach that presents both positive and negative information regarding a product or brand.

Sex Appeals

An advertising approach that incorporates erotic imagery alongside a product or brand.

Humor Appeals

An advertising approach designed to elicit laughter from receivers while presenting a product or brand.

Fear Appeals

An advertising approach that emphasizes the negative consequences that will occur unless the consumer alters an attitude or behavior.

Mere Exposure Effect

The psychological tendency for individuals to like and select things simply because they are familiar with them, where initial exposures boost recall, comprehension, and liking.

Two-Factor Theory of Message Repetition

A theory stating that repeated message exposures increase liking through familiarity up to a point, after which excessive repetition creates habituation and boredom.

Native Advertising

Digital marketing messages deliberately crafted to blend into the surrounding editorial content of the publications where they appear.

Problem Recognition

Step 1 of the consumer decision process, occurring when a consumer perceives a significant discrepancy between their current state and a desired or needed state.

Information Search

Step 2 of the consumer decision process, in which consumers survey their environment for relevant data to reach a decision, with moderately knowledgeable consumers expending the most effort.

Pareto Principle (80/20 Rule in Search)

The concept that $20\%$ of information search effort yields $80\%$ of knowledge, while obtaining the final $20\%$ of information requires an additional $80\%$ of effort.

Evaluate Alternatives

Step 3 of the consumer decision process, where consumers predict and compare the estimated value of each available choice option.

Paradox of Choice

The phenomenon where having too many choices becomes cognitively overwhelming and depresses sales, illustrated by $30\%$ of shoppers buying when offered $6$ jams versus only $3\%$ buying when offered $24$ jams.

Product Choice

Step 4 of the consumer decision process, representing the final action or inaction regarding whether to purchase the product.

Post-Purchase Evaluation

Step 5 of the consumer decision process, in which the consumer experiences the product or service and computes its realized value.

Habitual Decisions

Simple, reflex-like choices where an individual recognizes a familiar situation and selects a stored action without calculating a predicted outcome value.

Heuristics

Mental shortcuts or rules of thumb used to quickly calculate predicted value, representing evolutionary survival mechanisms that can introduce cognitive biases.

Bounded Rationality

The limitation of human decision-making capacity, whereby people strive to maximize value but accept less than optimal outcomes due to cognitive constraints.

Satisficing Solution

A choice outcome offering adequate rather than optimal value, chosen deliberately to conserve time and cognitive energy.

Availability Heuristic

Selecting an option based on the information that is most easily retrieved from memory.

Representativeness Heuristic

Selecting an option that is closest to the most prototypical or representative example in its product category.

Price Heuristic

Selecting an option solely based on price, such as assuming that a higher-priced alternative inherently possesses higher quality than a lower-priced one.

Anchoring Heuristic

Relying disproportionately on the first piece of information received about an option to make subsequent evaluations, using that initial judgment as an anchor.

Variety Seeking Heuristic

Selecting an option that is different from prior choices purely for the sake of experiencing novelty.

Risk Aversion Heuristic

Selecting the safest option available within a set of alternatives to minimize potential loss.

Familiarity Heuristic

Selecting the most recognizable and familiar option available within a choice set.

Framing Effect

A bias where decisions shift depending on whether identical facts are presented positively or negatively, such as viewing a glass as half full versus half empty.

Extremeness Aversion

The consumer tendency to avoid options at the extreme ends of an attribute spectrum, opting instead for intermediate or compromise choices.

Scarcity Heuristic

A decision shortcut where perceived value increases when an item is framed as having limited availability or time (e.g., 'Limited time deal! Only 1 left!').

Sunk Cost Fallacy

The irrational tendency to continue investing in or favoring an option based on unrecoverable past expenditures of money, time, or effort.

Store Atmosphere

The overall physical, sensory, and ambient environment in which a consumer shops.

Retail Theme

A shopping environment designed to convey an overarching collective place or idea to emotionally transport shoppers.

Showrooming

The practice of visiting a physical retail store to examine products in person, followed by purchasing the item online at a lower price.

Public Blockchain

A decentralized network of computers managing data globally as a public good not run by any single entity, enabling users to own digital assets through wallets and run applications.

Sharing Economy

An economic model where consumers rent or barter for goods and services as needed rather than purchasing and owning them permanently.

Peer-to-Peer Commerce

Commercial transactions conducted directly between individual consumers rather than through traditional corporations.

Secondary Market

Economic venues where previously owned goods are bought and sold, such as thrift stores, Facebook Marketplace, and Craigslist.

Underground Economy

Secondary market transactions that occur without official financial reporting or legal recording.

Squander Sequence

A framework identifying waste across four successive product lifecycle stages: pre-acquisition, customer acquisition, consumption, and disposition.

Pre-Acquisition Waste

Waste occurring prior to purchase, resulting from damaged manufactured goods, inaccurate expiration dates, and oversized unnecessary packaging.

Customer Acquisition Waste

Waste generated during the purchasing phase due to impulse buying and limited consumer nutritional or product knowledge.

Consumption Waste

Waste generated during product use driven by overcooking and a consumer's desire for variety.

Disposition Waste

Waste generated at disposal influenced by household norms, food conservation malpractice, freezer burn, and an inability to repurpose uneaten food.

Maladaptive Behavior

An inability or failure to make an adequate or appropriate adjustment to a specific environment or situation.

Maladaptive Consumption

Harmful, compulsive consumption behaviors including substance-related addictions to alcohol, tobacco, and opioids.

Compulsive Shopping

A persistent, recurrent pattern of shopping behavior that causes significant psychological distress or functional impairment ('shopaholics').

Gambling Disorder

An APA-recognized psychological disorder characterized by a persistent, recurrent pattern of gambling behavior leading to significant distress or functional impairment.

Design Thinking

A non-linear, user-centered innovation process consisting of five stages: Empathize (understanding people), Define (figuring out the problem), Ideate (generating your ideas), Prototype (creation and experimentation), and Test (refining the product).

The Gemba

The actual physical place where consumers interact with an environment, observed through mapped footpaths and friction points (e.g., entering, setting bags down, locating trays, finding silverware, and disposing of waste).