CONSUMERS AS INDIVIDUALSIn this part, we focus on the internal dynamics of consumers. While ‘no man is an island’, each of us is to some degree a self-contained receptor for information from the outside world. We are constantly confronted with advertising messages, products, other people persuading us to buy, and reflections of ourselves. Each chapter in this part will consider a different aspect of the consumer – sensations, memories and attitudes – that is invisible to others. Chapter 2 describes the process of perception, in which information from the outside world about products and other people is absorbed by the individual and interpreted. Chapter 3 focuses on the ways this information is stored mentally and how it adds to our existing knowledge about the world as it is learned. Chapter 4 discusses our reasons or motivations for absorbing this information and how particular needs and wants influence the way we think about products. Chapters 5 and 6 discuss how attitudes – our evaluations of all these products, ad messages, and so on – are formed and (sometimes) changed by marketers. When all of these ‘internal’ parts are put together, the unique role of each individual consumer as a self-contained agent in the marketplace will become clear. The last chapter in this part, Chapter 7, further explores how our views about ourselves affect what we do, want and buy.
INTRODUCTION Learning refers to a relatively permanent change in behaviour which comes with experience. This experience does not have to affect the learner directly: we can learn vicariously by observing events that affect others.1 We also learn even when we are not trying to do so. Consumers, for example, recognize many brand names and can hum many product jingles, even for those product categories they themselves do not use. This casual, unintentional acquisition of knowledge is known as incidental learning. Like the concept of perception discussed in the last chapter, learning is an ongoing process. Our knowledge about the world is constantly being revised as we are exposed to new stimuli and receive feedback that allows us to modify behaviour in other, similar situations. The concept of learning covers a lot of ground, ranging from a consumers simple association between a stimulus such as a product logo (such as Coca-Cola) and a response (e.g. refreshing soft drink) to a complex se
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Psychologists who study learning have advanced several theories to explain the learning process. These range from those focusing on simple stimulusresponse associations to perspectives that regard consumers as complex problem-solvers who learn abstract rules and concepts by observing others. Understanding these theories is important to marketers as well, because basic learning principles are at the heart of many consumer purchase decisions. In this chapter well explore how learned associations among feelings, events and products and the memories they evoke are an important aspect of consumer behaviour. BEHAVIOURAL LEARNING THEORIES Behavioural learning theories assume that learning takes place as the result of responses to external events. Psychologists who subscribe to this viewpoint do not focus on internal thought processes. Instead, they approach the mind as a black box and emphasize
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1. The observable aspects consist of things that go into the box (the stimuli, or events perceived from the outside world) and things that come out of the box (the responses, or reactions to these stimuli). This view is represented by two major approaches to learning: classical conditioning and instrumental conditioning. Peoples experiences are shaped by the feedback they receive as they go through life. Similarly, consumers respond to brand names, scents, jingles and other marketing stimuli based on the learned connections they have formed over time. People also learn that actions they take result in rewards and punishments, and this feedback influences the way they respond in similar situations in the future Consumers who are complimented on a product choice will be more likely to buy that brand again, while those who get food poisoning at a new restaurant will not be likely to patronize it in the future. Classical conditio
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Over time, this second stimulus causes a similar response because it is associated with the first stimulus. This phenomenon was first demonstrated in dogs by Ivan Pavlov, a Russian physiologist doing research on digestion in animals. Pavlov induced classically conditioned learning by pairing a neutral stimulus (a bell) with a stimulus known to cause a salivation response in dogs (he squirted dried meat powder into their mouths). The powder was an unconditioned stimulus (UCS) because it was naturally capable of causing the response. Over time, the bell became a conditioned stimulus (CS): it did not initially cause salivation, but the dogs learned to associate the bell with the meat powder and began to salivate at the sound of the bell only. The drooling of these canine consumers over a sound, now linked to feeding time, was a conditioned response (CR), just as Marios dog Raphael begins to get excited hearing his masters Fiat 126 coming close to home. This basic fo
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