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Chapter 3 Consumer Learning Starts Here: Perception What Do You Think Polling Question My perceptions of advertisements are usually accurate. _____ Strongly Disagree _____ Disagree _____ Somewhat Disagree _____ Neither Agree nor Disagree _____ Somewhat Agree _____ Agree _____ Strongly Agree Have students access Course Mate at www.cengagebrain.com to answer the polling questions for each chapter of CB. Ask them to take the online poll to see how their answers compare with other students taking a consumer behavior course across the country. Then turn to the last page of the chapter to find the “What Others Have Thought” box feature. This graph is a snapshot of how other consumer behavior students have answered this polling question so far. Learning Objectives After studying this chapter, the student should be able to: 3-1 Define learning and perception and how the two are connected. 3-2 List and define phases of the consumer perception process. 3-3 Apply the concept of the just noticeable difference. 3-4 Contrast the concepts of implicit and explicit memory. 3-5 Know ways to help get a consumer’s attention in a crowded information environment. 3-6 Understand key differences between intentional and unintentional learning. Lecture Example Food safety remains a primary area of concern for consumers who have become increasingly conscious of the food they eat at home or in restaurants. Topping the list of consumer concern is the level of mercury found in fish and other seafood. Import alerts generated by the FDA for mercury in fish are enough to make consumers anxious about the safety of what they consume. Consumers are believed to have a better understanding of the food safety issue facing them, and their perception often becomes the reality. Retailers and restaurateurs must therefore act proactively, to help regain consumer confidence that is already on a steep decline. Source: “Today’s Consumers—Perception is Reality,” Huff Post, September 09, 2010, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/malcolm-wittenberg/todays-consumers-percepti_b_706712.html Lecture Outline with PowerPoint® Slides LO 3-1: Define learning and perception and how the two are connected. I. Defining Learning and Perception Marketers cannot help create value for consumers unless they can effectively communicate the value proposition to consumers in a way that they perceive and learn about the potential benefits. Learning refers to a change in behavior resulting from the interaction between a person and a stimulus. Perception refers to a consumer’s awareness and interpretation of reality. Sometimes, consumers set out to intentionally learn marketing-related information. Other times, consumers learn unintentionally (or incidentally) by simply being exposed to stimuli and by forming some kind of response to it. [Instructor PPT Slide 4] A. Consumer Perception Are perception and reality two different things? Consumer researchers expend a great deal of effort trying to understand consumer perception, because one way or another, consumer perception shapes learning and thus behavior. Perception and reality are distinct concepts because the perceptions that consumers develop do not always match the real world. Perception simply doesn’t always match reality. Perception can also be ambiguous. Exhibit 3.1 illustrates this point. Perception represents a subjective reality, whereas what actually exists in the environment determines objective reality. Exhibit 3.2 illustrates this effect by showing what the same amount of beverage in three different glasses looks like. Research shows that consumers will perceive the taller, thinner glass as containing more, but will drink more from the rounder glass. B. Exposure, Attention, and Comprehension During the perceptual process, consumers are exposed to stimuli, devote attention to stimuli, and attempt to comprehend stimuli. Exposure refers to the process of bringing some stimulus within the proximity of a consumer so that it can be sensed by one of the five human senses. The term sensation describes a consumer’s immediately response to this information. Increasingly, marketers practice sensory marketing by actively seeking to engage customers’ senses as the primary aspect of value proposition. Marketers expose consumers to many messages, but that does not guarantee that consumers will pay attention. Attention is the purposeful allocation of information-processing capacity toward developing an understanding of some stimulus. Comprehension occurs when consumers attempt to derive meaning from the information they receive. Of course, marketers hope that consumers comprehend and interpret information in the intended way, but this is not always the case. Q: Ask students to explain the phases of exposure, attention and comprehension that occur when an individual is shown a particular ad. A: Students’ answers will vary depending on the ad. Exposure occurs when the individual sees the ad or hears it. If the ad is accompanied with catchy music or vibrant imagery, it captures the attention of the audience. Comprehension occurs when the individual tries to interpret information from the ad. LO 3-2: List and define phases of the consumer perception process. II. Consumer Perception Process In its most basic form, perception describes how consumers become aware of and interpret the environment. Accordingly, one can view consumer perception as including three phases. These phases, sensing, organizing, and reacting are shown in Exhibit 3.3. A. Sensing Sensing is an immediate response to stimuli that have come into contact with one of the consumer’s five senses. However, sensing alone does not allow a consumer to make sense out of something. This leads to the second stage of the perceptual process. B. Organizing Cognitive organization refers to the process by which the human brain assembles the sensory evidence into something recognizable. This is an important part of perception. Exhibit 3.3 may help visualize the process. Consumers develop an interpretation during this stage of the perceptual process and begin to comprehend what the stimulus is. This interpretation provides an initial cognitive and affective meaning. The term cognitive refers to a mental or thinking process. Consumers cannot organize everything they sense so easily. When a consumer encounters a stimulus that is difficult to categorize, the brain instinctively continues processing as a way of reconciling inconsistencies. When event this extra effort leaves the consumer uncertain, he or she will generally avoid the stimulus. In general, depending on the extent to which a stimulus can be categorized, the following reactions may occur (Exhibit 3.4). Assimilation occurs when a stimulus has characteristics such that individuals readily recognize it as an example of a specific category. Accommodation occurs when a stimulus shares some, but not all, of the characteristics that allow it to fit neatly in an existing category. Contrast occurs when a stimulus does not share enough in common with existing categories to allow categorization. C. Reacting The perceptual process ends with a reaction. If an object is successfully recognized, chances are some nearly automatic reaction takes place. [Instructor PPT Slides 5, 6] Applications to Consumer Behavior The perceptual process has many implications for consumer behavior. Subtle cues work to facilitate the perception process. Even subtle cues influence perception. The term anthropomorphism refers to a design that gives humanlike characteristics to inanimate objects. D. Selective Perception Consumers encounter thousands of stimuli each day. If all stimuli were consciously processed, their minds would truly be overloaded. Rather than processing all stimuli, consumers practice selective perception. Selective perception includes selective exposure, selective attention, and selective distortion. That is, consumers are selective in what they expose themselves to, what they attend to, and what (and how) they comprehend. Selective exposure involves screening out most stimuli and exposing oneself to only a small portion of stimuli. Selective attention involves paying attention to only certain stimuli. Selective distortion is a process by which consumers interpret information in ways that are biased by their previously held beliefs. Exposure Exposure occurs when some stimulus is brought within the proximity of a consumer so that it can be sensed. As such, exposure represents a first and necessary step to learning. E. Subliminal Processing Subliminal processing refers to the way in which the human brain senses low-strength stimuli, that is, stimuli that occur below the level of conscious awareness. Such stimuli have a strength that is lower than the absolute threshold of perception, the minimum strength needed for a consumer to perceive a stimulus. This type of “learning” is unintentional, because the stimuli fall below the absolute threshold. Subliminal persuasion is behavior change induced or brought about based on subliminally processing a message. Popular conceptions about subliminal persuasion have fueled interest in it for many years. The belief is that communication can influence consumers through mere exposure to subliminal stimuli. Exhibit 3.5 illustrates the way this process reportedly took place. Q: Ask students to give examples of advertisements they have seen that have used anthropomorphism to sell products. How did they react to such ads? Ask students to give their opinion of how effective these ads have been in capturing their attention. A: Students’ answers will vary. Students can give a general opinion about the effectiveness of such ads based on the popularity, recall the elements of the ads that caught their attention, and analyze the personality attributed to the product being sold. LO 3-3: Apply the concept of the just noticeable difference. III. Applying the JND Concept The concept of the absolute threshold as representing a level of strength a stimulus must have or surpass to activate the perceptual process. A closely related concept deals with changes in the strength of stimuli. The JND (just noticeable difference) represents how much stronger one stimulus has to be relative to another so that someone can notice that the two are not the same. In general, the ability to detect differences between two levels of a stimulus is affected by the original intensity of the stimulus. This is known as Weber’s Law. The law states that as the intensity of the initial stimulus increases, a consumer’s ability to detect differences between two levels of the stimulus decreases. The JND has numerous implications for marketers who attempt to provide value for consumers, including: Pricing—consumers do not perceive very small differences in price as truly different. Conversely, a price reduction needs to be large enough so that consumers truly perceive the new price as representing significant savings. Quantity—small differences in quantity are often not perceived as being different. Quality—small improvements in quality may not have any impact on consumers. Add-on purchases—a small additional purchase tacked onto a large purchase may not create the perception of increased spending. Change in Product Design—small changes in product design also are not likely to be noticed. A. Just Meaningful Difference A topic closely related to JND is JMD (just meaningful difference). The JMD represents the smallest amount of change in a stimulus that would influence consumer consumption and choice. For instance, how much of a change in price is really needed to influence consumer behavior and learning. Retailers generally follow a rule that states than an effective price drop need to be at least 20%. [Instructor PPT Slides 8–10] Q: T@E Inc., a software company, released a new version of its statistical software tool for students called Celtics 9.0. The difference between version 9.0 and 8.0 was that 9.0 included a scientific calculator function in the tools menu. A few months after the release, the company found that there were not many takers for 9.0. Research showed that most customers were satisfied with version 8.0. Explain this outcome using the concept of the JND. A: The concept that relates to this problem is JND (just noticeable difference). The minor change in the software sis not attract consumer attention, and hence sales of the new version were low. LO 3-4: Contrast the concepts of implicit and explicit memory. IV. Implicit and Explicit Memory When one thinks about learning, he or she thinks of people studying and paying close attention, like when one reads a book! The knowledge one obtains from this type of experience is stored in explicit memory, that is, memory for information one is exposed to, attends to, and applies effort to remember. However, this is not the only kind of memory we develop. Implicit memory represents stored information concerning stimuli one is exposed to but does not pay attention to. Implicit memory creates preattentive effects, learning that is developed in the absence of attention. [Instructor PPT Slide 11] A. Mere Exposure Effect The mere exposure effect represents another way that consumers can learn unintentionally. The mere exposure effect is the idea that consumers will prefer stimuli they have been previously exposed to over stimuli they have not seen before. This effect occurs even when there is no recall of the previous stimulus! Exhibit 3.6 illustrates a classical approach to studying the mere exposure effect. Familiarity All things equal, consumers prefer the familiar to the unfamiliar. Once exposed to an object, a consumer exhibits a preference for the familiar object over something unfamiliar. An interesting application involves political campaigns. The rationale is that the addition of characteristics, even below the JND, increases the perceived familiarity between the voter and the candidate. Several relevant points can be made about the mere exposure effect. The mere exposure effect is created in the absence of attention. Preferences associated with the mere exposure effect are easy to elicit. The mere exposure effect has the greatest effect on novel (previously unfamiliar) objects. The size of the effect (increased liking) is not very strong relative to an effect created by a strong cohesive argument. The mere exposure effect works best when the consumer has a low involvement in processing the object, and indeed when a consumer is distracted from processing the focal stimulus. Note on Subliminal and Mere Exposure Effects A subliminal message is one presented below the threshold of perception. With the mere exposure effect, the stimulus is evident and people could pay attention to it if they wanted to. Mere Association Sometimes, consumers’ judgments are influenced by mechanisms that have little to do with reasoning. One effect closely related to the mere exposure effect is the mere association effect. This effect occurs when meaning transfers between two unrelated stimuli that a consumer gets exposed to simultaneously. Product Placements Product placements represent another way that promotions can impart implicit memory among consumers. Product placements involve branded products placed conspicuously in movies or television shows. These placements can result in implicit memory formation. B. Attention Attention plays a key role in distinguishing implicit and explicit memory. Attention is the purposeful allocation of cognitive capacity toward understanding some stimulus. Intentional learning depends on attentive consumers. However, consumers don’t pay attention only to things they wish to. Involuntary attention is automatic, meaning that it is beyond the conscious control of the consumer and occurs as the result of exposure to surprising or novel stimuli. When attention is devoted to a stimulus in this way, an orientation reflex occurs. An orientation reflex is a natural reflex that occurs as a response to a threat from the environment. In this way, the orientation reflex represents a protective behavior. Q: Students can be asked to give examples of advertisements that have involuntarily caught their attention. Which aspect of the advertisement attracted their attention? A: Students’ answers will vary. Attention may be attracted by eye-catching visuals, striking sound effects or music, an innovative or subversive concept, etc. LO 3-5: Know ways to help get consumers’ attention in a crowded information environment. V. Enhancing Consumers’ Attention Consumers face a difficult challenge in penetrating the clutter to pay attention to an intended message. Getting a consumer’s attention directed toward specific information, voluntarily or involuntarily, is increasingly difficult, but that’s a goal of effective marketing communication. These factors can help create attention: Intensity of Stimuli—all things equal, a consumer is more likely to pay attention to stronger stimuli than to weaker stimuli. Contrast—contrasting stimuli are extremely effective in getting attention. Movement—items in movement simply gain attention. Surprising stimuli—unexpected stimuli gain consumer’s attention. Size of stimuli—all these equal, larger items garner more attention than smaller ones. Involvement—involvement refers to the personal relevance a consumer feels toward a particular product. [Instructor PPT Slides 12, 13] Q: Give students a product and ask them to come up with an advertisement (print, television, or online) that uses some surprising stimulus to gain consumer attention. A: Students’ answers will vary. Determine why surprising stimuli gain consumer attention. How surprising do stimuli have to be in order to sustain the customers’ attention span? LO 3-6: Understand key differences between intentional and unintentional learning. VI. The Difference between Intentional and Unintentional Learning There are two types of learning—intentional and unintentional learning. Both types of learning concern what cognitive psychologists refer to as perceptual processes; however, with unintentional learning, consumers simply sense and react (or respond) to the environment. They do not attempt to comprehend the information presented. They are exposed to stimuli and respond to them in some way. With intentional learning, consumers set out to specifically learn information devoted to a certain subject. [Instructor PPT Slides 14, 15] A. Behaviorism and Cognitive Learning Theories Psychologists generally follow one of two basic theories of learning. One theory focuses on changes in behavior occurring as conditioned responses to stimuli, without concern for the cognitive mechanics of the process. The other theory focuses on how changes in thought and knowledge precipitate behavior modification. Those in the first camp follow a behaviorist approach to learning (also referred to as the behavioral learning perspective). This approach suggests that because the brain is a “black box,” the focus of inquiry should be on the behavior itself. The second theory of learning involves an information processing (or cognitive) perspective. With this approach, the focus is on the cognitive processes associated with comprehension, including those leading to consumer learning. The information processing perspective considers the mind acting much like a computer. Bits of knowledge are processed electronically to form meaning. B. Unintentional Learning Unintentional learning occurs when behavior is modified through a consumer-stimulus interaction without cognitive effort to understand a stimulus. With this type of learning, consumers respond to stimuli to which they are exposed without thinking about the information. The focus is on reacting, not on cognitive processing. Unintentional learning can be approached from two behavioral learning theory perspectives: classical conditioning and instrumental conditioning. Classical Conditioning Classical conditioning refers to a change in behavior that occurs simply through associating some stimulus with another stimulus that naturally causes a reaction. The most famous classical conditioning experiment was performed by the behavioral psychologist Ivan Pavlov. Pavlov conducted experiments using dogs, meat powder (an unconditioned stimulus that naturally led to a salivation response), and a bell (a conditioned stimulus that did not lead to the response before it was paired with the powder). The experiment reveals that the bell eventually evoked the same behavior that the meat powder naturally caused. In the experiment, Pavlov began ringing the bell every time the meat powder was provided to the dogs. Thus, the bell became associated with the meat powder. The salivation was called an unconditioned response, which occurred naturally as a result of exposure to the unconditioned stimulus (the meat powder). The dogs eventually would respond in the same way to the exposure to the bell. This response became known as the conditioned response. The response became conditioned by the consistent pairing of the unconditioned and conditioned stimuli. To be effective, the conditioned stimulus is presented to people before the unconditioned stimuli, and the pairing of the two should be done consistently (and with repetition). Instrumental Conditioning Much of what people know about instrumental (or operant) conditioning comes from the work of Skinner. With instrumental conditioning, behavior is conditioned through reinforcement. Reinforcers are stimuli that strengthen a desired response. The reinforcers are presented after the initial behavior occurs. Positive reinforcers come in many forms in the consumer environment and often take the form of some type of reward. The effects can be seen in marketing efforts that encourage repeat purchase behavior. Discriminative stimuli differentiate one stimulus from other stimuli because they signal the presence of a reinforcer. These stimuli essentially signal that a type of reward will occur if the consumer performs a specific behavior. Shaping Behavior Shaping is a process through which the desired behavior is altered over time, in small increments. Here, the focus is on rewarding small behaviors that lead to the big behavior ultimately desired. Punishers represent stimuli that decrease the likelihood that a behavior will occur again. When consumers make poor decisions and purchase products that deliver less value than expected, they are punished. Chances are they won’t buy those same products again! Behaviors often cease when reinforcers are no longer present. This represents the concept of extinction. Final Thought on Behavioral Conditioning Conditioning effects do modify behavior and thus represent learning. These effects can be subtly transferred. Researchers demonstrate that even casual association between morally repugnant behavior and a product can reduce consumption. The reduction in consumption occurred without any thought about the product, that is, it occurred unintentionally. Conditioning represents a type of learning because it focuses on behavioral change that occurs through a consumer’s interaction with the environment. Through the behavioral approach, consumers are exposed to stimuli and react in some way. Consumer learning through behavioral conditioning occurs without a conscious attempt to learn anything new. Q: Ask students to identify a behavior problem common in their school or university. How can they use instrumental conditioning to correct this behavior? A: Students’ answers will vary. For instance, if students being late to class is a common occurrence, a punisher to correct this may be imposing an extra assignment for all students who are late more than three times. A negative reinforcer may be one less assignment for students who are in class on time. [Instructor PPT Slide 40] Video material for this chapter is starting on page 20 of the IM Instructor Manual for CB Consumer Behaviour Barry J. Babin, Eric G. Harris 9781305403222, 9781305577244
