This Document Contains Chapters 4 to 6 CHAPTER 4 COMPREHENSION, MEMORY, AND COGNITIVE LEARNING WHAT DO YOU THINK? POLLING QUESTION I can usually remember more from a 30-second television commercial than I can from a 30-minute lecture. Strongly disagree 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly agree Have students access www.icancb.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 those of other students taking consumer behaviour courses 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 behaviour students have answered this polling question thus far. LEARNING OUTCOMES After studying this chapter, the student should be able to: LO1 Identify factors that influence consumer comprehension. LO2 Explain how knowledge, meaning, and value are inseparable, using the multiple store memory theory. LO3 Understand how the mental associations that consumers develop are a key to learning. LO4 Use the concept of associative networks to map relevant consumer knowledge. LO5 Apply the cognitive schema concept in understanding how consumers react to products, brands, and marketing agents. SUGGESTED LECTURE OPENER Social media is quickly becoming a popular method for marketers looking to deliver influential, lasting, and targeted messages. General Motors launched a social media advertising campaign to market the 2011 Buick Regal. Using cellphone messaging via Twitter and Internet sites like Facebook, Flickr, and YouTube provides a highly interactive forum for consumers to receive and deliver messages. These types of media allow marketers to develop dynamic and memorable message characteristics. This format can also lend an air of credibility to message receivers because they are able to communicate with the brand as well as with other consumers. [Source: Suzanne Ashe, “Buick Drives Regal Message Through Social Media,” CNet Reviews, July 29, 2010, http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13746_7-20011997-48.html.] KEY CONCEPTS WITH POWERPOINT® SLIDES Slide 1 Slide 2 LO1. Identify factors that influence consumer comprehension. What Influences Comprehension? Slide 3 Comprehension Comprehension refers to the interpretation or understanding a consumer develops about some attended stimulus based on the way meaning is assigned. It’s important to note that consumers do not always comprehend the message that the marketer is trying to convey. The book uses the warning labels on cigarette packages as an example. Consumers can also overestimate the dangers associated with smoking when they observe a typical package warning. It appears that warning labels have little effect on consumer behaviour. Three important issues with regard to comprehension include: 1. The process of comprehension is largely influenced by other internal factors within the consumer. 2. Comprehension includes both cognitive and affective elements, thereby involving both thoughts and feelings. 3. Consumers don’t always comprehend messages in the intended way and, to this extent, consumer comprehension is not always “correct.” Exhibit 4.1 shows the basic components of information processing. Slide 4 Slide 5 Factors Affecting Consumer Comprehension Exhibit 4.2 displays a listing of the items that we know about comprehension. Essentially, these factors can be divided into three categories: 1. Characteristics of the message—Physical characteristics, message source, and complexity of the message 2. Characteristics of the message receiver—Intelligence, physical limitations, and involvement 3. Characteristics of the environment (information-processing situation)—Information intensity, framing, and timing Slide 6 Characteristics of the Message 1. Physical Characteristics—Refer to the message’s attributes that are sensed directly, such as the following: a. Intensity—Larger print and fonts can be used, and the sound of the message can be intensified. b. Colour—Use of colour depends on the culture and can impact how an ad is comprehended. c. Font—Research suggests that some fonts portray a masculine image while others portray a feminine image. d. Numbers—Names with letters and numbers used in combination signify a “technologically based” meaning. Numbers are often used in the auto industry as model names of cars. e. Spacing—Three 30-second ads spread over three hours achieve better consumer recall than one 90-second ad. Slide 7 2. Simplicity–Complexity—The simpler the message, the more likely a consumer is to develop meaningful comprehension. Slide 8 3. Message Congruity—This characteristic represents the extent to which a message is internally consistent and fits the surrounding information. Slide 9 4. Figure and Ground—The figure is the object that is intended to capture a person’s attention in the message. Everything else is of lesser importance and simply represents the ground (or background) relative to the central message. Exhibit 4.4 illustrates how this occurs psychologically. Slide 10 5. Message Source—The source of a message also can influence comprehension, such as messages from a celebrity or a family member. Factors influencing a source’s effectiveness in gaining comprehension are: a. Likeability—Refers to the extent to which a consumer likes the message source. b. Attractiveness—The more attractive the message source, the better chance of being quite effective in delivering the message. c. Expertise—Refers to the amount of knowledge that a source is perceived to have about a subject. d. Trustworthiness—Refers to how honest and unbiased the source is perceived to be. Slide 11 Message Receiver Characteristics 1. Intelligence/Ability—Intelligent and well-educated consumers are more likely to accurately comprehend a message than are less intelligent or educated consumers. 2. Prior Knowledge—Consumers display a preference for things that are consistent with their prior knowledge. 3. Involvement—Consumers are not equally involved with every message. Therefore, marketers face the challenge of designing messages that will be comprehended by both highly involved and uninvolved consumers. 4. Familiarity/Habituation—In terms of comprehension, familiarity can lower a consumer’s motivation to process a message and reduce comprehension. Habituation is the process by which continuous exposure to a stimulus affects the comprehension of and response to the stimulus. 5. Expectations—Beliefs of what will happen in some situation. Expectations have a major effect on comprehension. Studies indicate that many consumers cannot identify their “favourite” brand of beer if the packaging is removed. 6. Physical Limits—A person’s physical limitations in their ability to hear, see, smell, taste, and think can influence comprehension. 7. Brain Dominance—Some people tend to be either “right-brain” or “left-brain” dominant. Right-brain-dominant consumers tend to be visual processors, while left-brain-dominant consumers tend to deal better with verbal processing. Slide 12 Environmental Characteristics 1. Information Intensity—This characteristic refers to the amount of information available for a consumer to process within a given environment. 2. Framing—Captures the idea that the same information can take on different meanings based on the way the information is presented. Exhibit 4.5 illustrates framing. 3. Timing—Timing refers to both the amount of time a consumer has to process a message and the point in time at which the consumer receives the message. For example, consumers tend to see coffee advertising in the morning as more enticing. Slide 13 Slide 14 What can I do in class? Q: Have you noticed any creative billboards lately? A: Answers will vary. Students should discuss what made the billboards grab their attention and whether the message was clear. Discuss selective perception. LO2. Explain how knowledge, meaning, and value are inseparable, using the multiple store memory theory. Multiple Store Theory of Acquiring, Storing, and Using Knowledge Slide 15 Multiple Store Theory of Memory This section discusses the perspective of memory from the cognitive learning approach by introducing the multiple store theory of memory. The multiple store theory of memory views the memory process as utilizing three different storage areas within the human brain, as illustrated in Exhibit 4.6. The three storage areas are sensory memory, workbench memory, and long-term memory. Long-term memory is discussed later in the chapter. Sensory Memory The area in memory where all of the things we encounter with any of the five human senses are stored. This portion of memory is considered to be preattentive. The different storage mechanisms are: 1. Iconic storage—Refers to storage of visual information 2. Echoic storage—Refers specifically to the storage of auditory information Workbench Memory This is the area in the memory system where information is stored and encoded for placement in long-term memory and, eventually, retrieved for future use. 1. Encoding—Process by which information is transferred from workbench memory to long-term memory for permanent storage 2. Retrieval—Process by which information is transferred back into workbench memory for additional processing when needed Slide 16 Slide 17 Slide 18 What can I do in class? Have students participate in an exercise using their sensory memory. Take a quick look at an object, and then close your eyes. What happens in the fraction of a second immediately after shutting your eyes? In most instances, the brain will “hold” the image—that is, the image can still be seen mentally. LO3. Understand how the mental associations that consumers develop are a key to learning. Making Associations with Meaning as a Key Way to Learn Slide 19 Four mental processes help consumers “remember” things. They are: 1. Repetition—A process in which a thought is held in short-term memory by mentally “saying” the thought repeatedly. 2. Dual Coding—A process in which two different sensory “traces” are available to remember something. A trace is a mental path by which some thought becomes active. Exhibit 4.7 illustrates the way a scent can improve recall. 3. Meaningful Encoding—A process that occurs when preexisting knowledge is used to assist in storing new information. 4. Chunking—A process of grouping stimuli by meaning so that multiple stimuli can become a single memory unit. Marketers who are designing advertisements or websites, for example, should therefore be careful to group information together by meaning in order to assist consumers in encoding meaningful chunks of information. Slide 20 Slide 21 What can I do in class? Q: Try to have students memorize the following license plate: TT867-53-09. A: One way in which this number could be remembered is by thinking it repeatedly. This process is also known as rehearsal. However, one major problem with rehearsal is cognitive interference. Cognitive interference simply means that other information is vying for processing capacity when a consumer rehearses information. Long-Term Memory This type of memory includes unlimited capacity and duration, semantic meaning, and semantic/associative networks. 1. Mental Tagging—The process of applying tags to stimuli to help retrieve them later. 2. Rumination—The unintentional but recurrent memory of events that occurred a long time ago but are not triggered by environmental factors. Slide 22 LO4. Use the concept of associative networks to map relevant consumer knowledge. Associative Networks and Consumer Knowledge Slide 23 Associative Networks Knowledge in long-term memory is stored in an associative network (can be referred to as a semantic network). Slide 24 Declarative Knowledge Declarative knowledge is a psychology term used to represent when two nodes are linked by a path in an associative network. Nodes represent concepts in the network, while paths demonstrate the association between nodes in the network. Exhibit 4.9 illustrates an example involving declarative knowledge and snack foods. Slide 25 LO5. Apply the cognitive schema concept in understanding how consumers react to products, brands, and marketing agents. Product and Brand Schemas Slide 26 A consumer’s knowledge for a brand or a product is contained in a schema. A schema is a type of associative network that works as a cognitive representation of a phenomenon that provides meaning to that entity. Slide 27 Exemplar An exemplar is a concept within a schema that is the single best representative of some category. Exemplars vary from person to person. For example, an exemplar for pop music could be Katy Perry, and an exemplar of a vacation destination could be Disney World. Exhibit 4.10 illustrates other possible category exemplars. Slide 28 Prototype A prototype is a conglomeration of the most associated characteristics of a category. For example, a car salesperson might not conjure up a picture of a particular exemplar, but several characteristics of a salesperson may come to mind. Reaction to New Products/Brands When consumers encounter new products or brands, they react to them by comparing the new products with the existing schema. The example in the book discusses the introduction of the Smart car. Because Europeans (and Canadians) were used to driving smaller cars, it was easier for European and Canadian consumers to accept the new product. What can I do in class? Q: Ask for student opinions on the new Starbucks VIA Ready Brew. Have they tried it? What do they think? A: Answers will vary depending on coffee drinking habits and loyalty to Tim Hortons, Starbucks, or the local coffee shop. Episodic Memory Episodic memory refers to memories of past events which represent episodes in one’s life. These events may also evoke nostalgia—a yearning to relive past events—which can also be positively associated with purchase behaviour. Social Schemata A social schema, or social stereotype, is the cognitive representation that gives a specific type of person meaning. One example of a social schema is a surgeon. Consumers feel comforted when a surgeon looks and acts like a surgeon. Elaboration Elaboration refers to the extent to which a person continues processing a message even after an initial understanding is achieved in the comprehension stage. In a marketing context, therefore, appeals that ask a consumer to fill in aspects from their own lives are likely to lead to deeper comprehension and better recall. What can I do in class? Q: Ask students to list the different places they have seen the pink ribbon as a symbol of Run for the Cure. A: Answers will vary. Discuss the brand, the associations students have with it, and memory trace. VIDEO CLIP PowerPoint Clip from RJ Julia Booksellers Run time 1:19 minutes Slide 29 RJ Julia Booksellers is an independent bookstore with a focus on direct customer interaction. Owner Roxanne Coady has found that in order to really connect people with the right book, she must get involved in their lives to a certain degree. She also feels strongly that a book recommendation should be annotated based on a consumer’s needs or even mood and works to draw high-interest authors to the store for readings and discussions. This level of customer relationship management is difficult for big box stores or online only stores to provide. Ask your students: 1. What can an RJ Julia bookseller recommendation provide that an online bookseller might not? Answer: RJ Julia can provide a personalized, in-depth recommendation that is tailored to the consumer’s interests, needs, and even immediate mood. 2. How else does RJ Julia create meaning and value in the minds of consumers? Answer: RJ Julia provides person-to-person interaction, knowledgeable staff, and high-interest or difficult to find author visits. CHAPTER 5 MOTIVATION AND EMOTION: DRIVING CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR WHAT DO YOU THINK? POLLING QUESTION I do not allow emotions to control my behaviour. Strongly disagree 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly agree Have students access www.icancb.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 those of other students taking a consumer behaviour 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 behaviour students have answered this polling question thus far. LEARNING OUTCOMES After studying this chapter, the student should be able to: LO1 Understand what initiates human behaviour. LO2 Classify basic consumer motivations. LO3 Describe consumer emotions and demonstrate how they help shape value. LO4 Apply different approaches to measuring consumer emotions. LO5 Understand how different consumers express emotions in different ways. LO6 Define and apply the concepts of schema-based affect and emotional contagion. SUGGESTED LECTURE OPENER During an economic downturn consumers tighten their belts and more carefully watch their spending habits. Marketers must keep up with the economic situation by understanding consumers’ priorities. During a recession many marketers avoid promoting “convenience” products and packaging, for which most consumers are no longer willing to a pay a premium. Name brand marketers turn to discount strategies such as coupons, incentives, and volume discounts to keep up with consumers who are trading down to non-premium brands. [Source: “Consumer Thriftiness Signals Need to New Marketing Approach,” July 23, 2010, http://www.rbr.com/media-news/research/26135.html.] KEY CONCEPTS WITH POWERPOINT® SLIDES Slide 1 Slide 2 LO1. Understand what initiates human behaviour. What Drives Human Behaviour? Slide 3 Simply put, motivations are the inner reasons or driving forces behind human actions as consumers are driven to address real needs. Motivations are the impetus toward providing the “answer” or “intended reason” for a consumer’s actions. Human motivations are oriented toward two key groups of behaviour: homeostasis and self-improvement. Homeostasis—Refers to the fact that the body naturally reacts in a way to maintain a constant, normal bloodstream. The aim of homeostasis behaviour is to maintain a person’s sense of equilibrium. Self-Improvement—Self-improvement motivation aims at changing a person’s current state to a level that is more ideal and not simply maintaining the current state of existence. Slide 4 What can I do in class? Q: Ask students to name their motivation for taking this course, other courses at college, and for working an outside job. A: Student answers will vary, but point them in the direction of the different types of motivations. LO2. Classify basic consumer motivations. A General Hierarchy of Motivation Slide 5 Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory describes consumers as people addressing a finite set of prioritized needs. Consumers first seek value by satisfying the most basic needs. Then, they gradually move toward upper levels of value. The following list displays the set of prioritized needs starting with the most basic need (see Exhibit 5.1). • Physiological—The need for basic survival • Safety and security—The need to be secure and protected • Belongingness and love—The need to feel like a member of a family or community • Esteem—The need to be recognized as a person of worth • Self-actualization—The need for personal fulfillment Maslow’s hierarchy may operate differently in various parts of the world. Because motivations can determine what type and amounts of value are sought by consumers, value judgments can be culturally different. Generally, the most basic needs are addressed with utilitarian value; as needs become more elaborate, hedonic value is sought to satisfy the need state. Slide 6 What can I do in class? Q: Have students provide their own examples of Maslow’s hierarchy. A: Answers will vary based on students’ own motivations, which is an important point to highlight. Simpler Classification of Consumer Motivations A simple but very useful way to understand consumer behaviour is to classify motives based on whether a particular need can best be addressed by utilitarian or hedonic value as shown in Exhibit 5.2. 1. Utilitarian Motivation—Involves a desire to acquire products that can be used to accomplish something. Utilitarian motivation shares much in common with the idea of maintaining behaviour, and these motivations work much like homeostasis. 2. Hedonic Motivation—Involves a desire to experience something gratifying. These behaviours are usually emotionally satisfying. Slide 7 Consumer Involvement Consumer involvement represents the degree of personal relevance that a consumer finds in pursuing value from a given consumption act. Involvement is intimately linked to motivation. Thus, when a consumer is highly involved, there is a greater chance that relatively high value will be achieved from a pleasant consumption outcome. Consumer Involvement as a Moderator A moderating variable is a variable that changes the nature of the relationship between two other variables. A consumer with high involvement is likely to spend more time evaluating alternatives because the consumer is motivated to do so. Slide 8 Different Types of Involvement 1. Product involvement—Represents the personal relevance of some product category. Product enthusiasts are consumers with very high involvement in some category, as shown in Exhibit 5.3. a. High consumer product involvement—Products on which a person might conduct research or ask friends for input, such as a new dress or television. b. Low consumer product involvement—Products that might represent everyday needs or that do not take much forethought to purchase. 2. Shopping involvement—Represents the personal relevance of shopping activities. From a utilitarian value perspective, highly involved shoppers are more likely to process information about deals and to react to price reductions and limited offers that create better deals. 3. Situational involvement—Represents temporary involvement associated with some imminent purchase situation. Situational involvement often occurs when consumers are shopping for something with relatively low involvement but a relatively high price. 4. Enduring involvement—In contrast to situational involvement, enduring involvement represents an ongoing interest in some product or opportunity. Enduring involvement is often associated with hedonic value because learning about, shopping for, or consuming a product associated with high enduring involvement is personally gratifying. Consumers with high enduring involvement sometimes earn labels, such as soccer hooligan or clothes horse! 5. Emotional involvement—Represents the emotional level of a consumer when involved with some specific consumption activity. Emotional involvement is closely related to enduring involvement because only those things that consumers care most about will evoke high levels of emotional involvement. Slide 9 Slide 10 LO3. Describe consumer emotions and demonstrate how they help shape value. Consumer Emotions and Value Slide 11 Emotion An emotion is a psychobiological reaction to a human appraisal. Emotions are considered to be psychobiological because they involve psychological processing and physical responses. Emotions create visceral responses, which are certain feeling states that are tied to physical reactions and behaviour in a very direct way. Emotions are extremely important to consumer behaviour and marketing because consumers react most immediately to their feelings. Motivation and emotion both contain “motion” as a root word. Emotions are hard-wired to behaviour, thereby creating a close link among emotions, consumer behaviour, and value. To this extent, marketing success is determined by creating emotions because the consumer derives value to the extent that desirable emotional states can be created. Slide 12 What can I do in class? Q: Facebook has become an outlet for people to express their emotions. Ask students to think of other examples when they have encountered someone who was emotional. How would they describe that person? A: Answers will vary. Emotions are deeply tied to personal motivations and traits. Different people have different motivations and traits. Thus, personality characteristics can affect the way that they demonstrate their emotions. Cognitive Appraisal Theory The cognitive appraisal theory represents an increasingly popular school of thought that describes how specific types of thoughts can serve as a basis for specific emotions. Four types of cognitive appraisals are especially relevant for consumer behaviour. 1. Anticipation appraisals—Focus on the future and can elicit emotions such as hopefulness or anxiety. 2. Agency appraisals—Review responsibility for events and can evoke gratefulness, frustration, or sadness. 3. Equity appraisals—Consider the fairness of some event and can evoke emotions such as warmth or anger. 4. Outcomes appraisals—Consider how something turned out relative to one’s goals and can evoke emotions such as joyfulness, satisfaction, sadness, or pride. Slide 13 Slide 14 Emotion Terminology Mood Mood can be distinguished from the broader concept of emotion based on specificity and time. Consumer mood(s) can be thought of as transient (temporary and changing). Moods are generally considered less intense than many other emotional experiences, but they can influence consumer behaviour. Employees’ moods can also affect consumption outcomes as they interact with consumer mood. Consumers seem to be most receptive to an employee with a matching mood rather than an employee with a constantly positive mood, as illustrated in Exhibit 5.5. A consumer’s mood can serve as a type of frame that can transfer into product value judgments. Consumers make mood congruent judgments, such as those in which the value of a target is influenced in a consistent way by one’s mood. These effects are observed both when consumers are judging the value of products that they currently own and when they are judging the value of products that they are considering purchasing. Affect Consumer affect represents the feelings a consumer experiences when going through the consumption process, and they encompass both emotion and mood. This is more often used to represent the feelings a consumer has about a particular product or activity. Slide 15 Slide 16 What can I do in class? Q: Have students share examples of a recent shopping or dining experience where the salesperson/waiter was in a bad mood. What was the result of the experience? Did the salesperson’s/waiter’s mood affect the way that students shopped or dined? A: Answers will vary. This is a good time to use Exhibit 5.5 as a discussion topic. LO4. Apply different approaches to measuring consumer emotions. Measuring Emotion Slide 17 Marketing and consumer researchers place a great deal of emphasis on properly measuring consumer emotion because emotions play a key role in shaping value. Autonomic Measures These measures are automatically recorded based on either automatic visceral reactions or neurological brain activity. These measures include facial reactions, physiological responses (such as sweating in a galvanic skin response [GSR] or lie detector test), heart rate, and brain imaging (a measure that can document activity in areas of the brain responsible for certain specific emotions). Self-Report Measures These measures usually require consumers to recall their affect state from a recent experience or to state the affect they are feeling at a given point in time. These tests usually involve a questionnaire and are not perfect, but they are generally valid enough to be useful to consumer and marketing researchers. However, many different options exist for applying self-report measures, and each option is usually based on a somewhat different perspective of emotion theory. Slide 18 PANAS PANAS stands for the positive-affect-negative-affect scale and allows respondents to self-report the extent to which they feel one of 20 emotional adjectives. The PANAS scale is generally applied to capture the relative amount of positive and negative emotion experienced by a consumer at a given point in time. When consumer researchers are studying highly involving and complex situations, the PANAS scale allows them to capture both positive and negative dimensions of emotional experience. The possibility exists that each dimension might explain somewhat unique experiences. What can I do in class? Q: Have you had a bad hair day? How does it make you feel? Can you describe your feelings based on the PANAS scale? A: Answers will vary. A discussion of the PANAS scale and the ways negative feelings cause you to realize you need to do something to change those feelings should follow. PAD PAD stands for pleasure–arousal–dominance. This scale asks consumers to rate their feelings by using a number of semantic differential (bipolar opposite) items that capture emotions in these three dimensions. The theory behind PAD is that the evaluative dimension of emotion— pleasure—is bipolar, meaning that if someone feels joyful, he or she cannot also experience sadness. The PAD approach has been applied widely in retail atmospherics and has been used to study behaviour in all manner of environments, including museums and parks. It has also been applied to advertising contexts. Because the scale captures arousal separately, the approach is advantageous when the degree of activation or excitement is of particular interest. Slide 19 LO5. Understand how different consumers express emotions in different ways. Differences in Emotional Behaviour Slide 20 Not all consumers react emotionally or show their emotions to the same extent or in the same way as other consumers. Slide 21 Emotional Involvement Emotional involvement is the type of deep personal interest that evokes strong feelings simply from the thoughts or behaviour associated with some object or activity. Generally speaking, emotional involvement drives a person to consume through relatively strong hedonic motivations and can often make a consumer appear irrational. Emotional involvement can be increased by providing something extra along with products that are purchased. When a consumer experiences enjoyment in an activity, he or she has achieved a state of flow, designating an extremely high emotional involvement in which a consumer is engrossed in an activity. Consumers can become so involved, however, with video games or social networking that they become addicted to the activity. Online consumers can also pursue a flow state while shopping; however, interruptions in Internet service, poor navigational clues, or slow page load times can all inhibit the flow experience and lower both utilitarian and hedonic shopping value. Emotional Expressiveness Emotional expressiveness pertains to the extent to which a consumer shows outward behavioural signs and otherwise reacts in an obvious manner to emotional experiences. Consumers with relatively high emotional expressiveness are more likely to have a reaction to outcomes that are not expected. Emotional Intelligence Emotional intelligence is a term used to capture one’s awareness of the emotions experienced in a situation as well as the ability to control reactions to these emotions. This includes awareness of the emotions experienced by the individual as well as an awareness and sympathy for the emotions experienced by others. Exhibit 5.7 shows that emotional intelligence (EI) is a multifaceted concept. In a marketing context, salespeople with high emotional intelligence are more effective in closing sales with consumers than are salespeople who are low in emotional intelligence. Sales companies are increasingly realizing the benefits of employees with high EI. EI training is becoming more commonplace as marketers attempt to convince consumers to buy more and to be more satisfied with the things they do buy. Slide 22 Slide 23 LO6. Define and apply the concepts of schema-based affect and emotional contagion. Emotion, Meaning, and Schema-Based Affect Slide 24 Although emotion and cognition seem different, they are actually quite closely related. This relationship is seen clearly in the roles that affect, mood, and emotion can play in signalling and developing meaning. Semantic Wiring A consumer’s ability to remember things about brands and products can be explained by using theories developed around the principles of semantic networks. The active processing and storage of knowledge is significantly influenced by emotions in several ways. An emotional effect on memory can be described as relatively superior recall for information presented with mild affective content compared with similar information presented in an affectively neutral way. Marketing communications that present product information in a way that evokes mild levels of emotion tend to be more effective in producing recall than communications that are affectively neutral. Mood-Congruent Recall Mood-congruent recall means that to the extent that a consumer’s mood can be controlled, their memories and evaluations can be influenced. Music is useful in inducing moods. Consumers in good moods tend to evaluate products positively compared with consumers in bad moods and vice versa. Autobiographical memories are memories of previous meaningful events in one’s life. Consumers are more likely to recall autobiographical memories characterized by specific moods when the same mood occurs again in the future. Simply put, moods tend to match memories. Nostalgia Nostalgia is characterized by a yearning for the past motivated by the belief that previous times were somehow more pleasant. Nostalgia can motivate product purchases as consumers attempt to relive the pleasant feelings of the past. The large number of advertisements including popular “oldies” songs illustrates attempts at evoking nostalgic feelings. Slide 25 Schema-Based Affect Schemas are developed and reinforced through actual experience. A schema-based affect involves emotions that become stored as part of the meaning for a category or schema and thus another example of how affect and cognition are wired together. Exhibit 5.10 shows examples of schema-based affect that can influence consumers’ reactions to consumption experiences. Negative schema-based emotions of this type can interfere with the consumer’s ability to process information about the product. Slide 26 Slide 27 What can I do in class? Q: Ask students to find products designed in rectangular shapes. Do they prefer the product because of its shape? A: Answers will vary. Aesthetic Labour Aesthetic labour is the effort put forth by employees in carefully managing their appearance as a requisite for performing their job well. Cosmetics representatives, flight attendants, and fashion models, for example, perform aesthetic labour. Slide 28 Self-Conscious Emotions Self-conscious emotions (pride, embarrassment, guilt, regret, shame, and hope) result from some evaluation or reflection of one’s own behaviour—which can include both actions and failures to act. Many ads evoke negative self-conscious emotions. The anti-smoking ad below reads, “If this is how a child feels when they lose you for a minute, just imagine how he’d feel if he lost you for life.” Powerful words. Slide 29 Emotional Contagion Emotional contagion refers to the extent to which an emotional display by one person influences the emotional state of a bystander. Consumers who perceive other consumers or employees surrounding them as happy or sad may experience a change in actual happiness or sadness themselves. When service providers maintain an expression signalling a positive affect (service with a smile), consumers report higher incidences of positive affect themselves. Emotional labour is performed by service workers who must overtly manage their own emotional displays as part of the requirements of the job. Product contamination refers to the diminished positive feelings someone has about a product because another consumer has handled the product. Slide 30 VIDEO CLIP PowerPoint Clip from The Putting Lot Run time 2:02 minutes Slide 31 The Putting Lot is a community mini-golf course on a former vacant lot founded with the intention of sustaining an existing community while helping it to transition toward new developments. The nine-hole course is designed around themes of urban sustainability. The onesummer project quickly drew attention from local volunteers, interested artists and architects, as well as press from around the world. The project was developed with the hope of inspiring discussions of and actions toward urban sustainability. Ask your students: 1. Why was it so easy, if surprising, for The Putting Lot to find neighbourhood volunteers during the development and building stages? Answer: People were naturally motivated to contribute to something that would enhance their community but that was also fun and potentially a learning experience. 2. Why do you think this project received so much “free” word-of-mouth press on such a large scale? Answer: Because this project has an emotional connection for many people on many levels, the general public felt honestly compelled to both share and learn about it. CHAPTER 6 PERSONALITY, LIFESTYLES, AND THE SELF-CONCEPT WHAT DO YOU THINK? POLLING QUESTION My personality can easily be seen in the products that I buy. Strongly disagree 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly agree Have students access www.icancb.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 those of other students taking consumer behaviour courses 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 behaviour students have answered this polling question thus far. LEARNING OUTCOMES After studying this chapter, the student should be able to: LO1 Define personality and know how various approaches to studying personality can be applied to consumer behaviour. LO2 Discuss major traits that have been examined in consumer research. LO3 Understand why lifestyles and psychographics are important to the study of consumer behaviour. LO4 Comprehend the role of the self-concept in consumer behaviour. LO5 Understand the concept of self-congruency and how it applies to consumer behaviour issues. SUGGESTED LECTURE OPENER Self-concept and consumerism seems to be an ever important, ever hot topic in the world of business and marketing. While many advertising campaigns rely on an appeal to one’s sense of beauty and glamour, both consumers and marketers alike are concerned about the ethics of promoting body modification services, such as cosmetic surgery. But where a service is offered, and a consumer desire exists, marketing will be there to fill the communication gap. Now, credit card companies are even offering charge cards specifically for cosmetic surgery. Is this type of long-term, interest-rated spending any different from buying a car or other big-ticket item? Or is there an ethical question about providing money for an elective procedure? [Source: Nora Zelevansky, “Plastic Makes Perfect: Cosmetic Surgery Charge Cards,” The Huffington Post, July 20, 2010, http://www.huffingtonpost.com.] KEY CONCEPTS WITH POWERPOINT® SLIDES Slide 1 Slide 2 LO1. Define personality and know how various approaches to studying personality can be applied to consumer behaviour. Personality and Consumer Behaviour Slide 3 Personality is defined as the totality of thoughts, emotions, intentions, and behaviours that a person exhibits consistently as they adapt to their environment. Distinct qualities of personality include the following: 1. Personality is unique to an individual—Personality helps distinguish consumers from one another based on the relative amount of characteristics that each exhibits. Consumers differ in their personalities, although some characteristics may be shared across individuals. 2. Personality can be conceptualized as a combination of specific traits or characteristics—Your overall personality is a combination of many stable characteristics, or traits. 3. Personality traits are relatively stable and interact with situations to influence behaviour—Personality traits are expected to remain consistent across situations. The combined influence of situations and traits has been shown to play a large role in influencing specific behaviours (referred to as an interaction between the person and the situation). 4. Specific behaviours can vary across time—A major issue in personality research is that simply knowing that a consumer possesses a specific trait does not allow others to predict a specific behaviour. For example, knowing that a consumer is “materialistic” does not allow the researcher to predict the exact type of product the person may buy. For this reason, personality researchers often advocate an aggregation approach in which the measurement of specific behaviours occurs over time rather than relying on a single measure of behaviour at one point in time. Slide 4 Slide 5 What can I do in class? Q: Ask students if they like the band The Black Eyed Peas. If not, what band do they like? What is the difference? A: Answers will vary. Discuss how personality qualities help explain why one person likes the band while another person does not. Marketing managers are particularly interested in how consumers differ according to their personalities. The book focuses on two popular approaches: the psychoanalytic approach and the trait approach. Psychoanalytic Approach to Personality The psychoanalytic approach is applicable to both motivation and personality inquiry. Also known as Freud’s approach, this approach states that human behaviour is influenced by an inner struggle between various systems within the personality. The psychoanalytic approach consists of three main components: 1. Id—Focuses on pleasure seeking and immediate gratification. The id operates on a pleasure principle that motivates a person to focus on obtaining maximum pleasure and minimizing pain. 2. Superego—Works against the id by motivating behaviour that matches societal norms and expectations. It can be conceptualized as being similar to a consumer’s conscience. 3. Ego—Attempts to balance the desires of the id with the constraints of and expectations found in the superego. Slide 6 Psychoanalytic Approach and Motivation Research In the early days of consumer research, researchers applied psychoanalytic tools to try to identify explanations for behaviour—the motivational research era. In general, however, the motivational research era proved disappointing in developing compelling, practical consumer behaviour theories or guidelines for marketing actions. Depth interviews help researchers to explore deep-seated motivations through probing questions. Focus groups asked questions of groups of people instead of individually. Slide 7 Slide 8 Trait Approach to Personality The trait approach has received significant research attention over the past few decades. A trait is defined as a distinguishable characteristic that describes a person’s tendency to act in a relatively consistent manner. There are many ways in which consumer researchers study traits. Not surprisingly, there are multiple approaches available for researchers. The following text lists the differences between nomothetic and idiographic approaches as well as single-trait and multiple-trait approaches. Nomothetic versus Idiographic Approaches • Nomothetic approach—A “variable-centred” approach that focuses on particular variables, or traits, that exist across a number of consumers. • Idiographic approach—Focuses on the total person and the uniqueness of that person’s psychological makeup. Attention is not placed on individual traits or how they can be studied across multiple consumers. Rather, the focus is placed on understanding the complexity of each individual consumer. Single-Trait and Multiple-Trait Approaches • Single-trait approach—Focus of the researcher is placed on one particular trait. Thus, researchers can learn more about the trait and how it affects behaviour. • Multiple-trait approach—Combinations of traits are examined, and the total effect of the collection of traits is considered. Slide 9 LO2. Discuss major traits that have been examined in consumer research. Specific Traits Examined in Consumer Research Slide 10 A handful of important traits found when conducting consumer research are discussed below. They include the following: 1. Value Consciousness—An important concept in consumer behaviour because it underlies tendencies to perform certain behaviours, such as redeeming coupons. 2. Materialism—Refers to the extent to which material goods are important in a consumer’s life. Most Western cultures, including the United States and Canada, are generally thought to be relatively materialistic. A current trend is emerging in which people are beginning to downshift or reduce their material possessions. Older people tend to be less materialistic than younger people. 3. Innovativeness—Refers to the degree to which a consumer tends to be open to new ideas and buys new products, services, or experiences early in their introduction. 4. Need for Cognition—Refers to the degree to which consumers enjoy engaging in effortful cognitive information processing. 5. Competitiveness—An enduring tendency to strive to be better than others. The trait often emerges in the following ways: • When a consumer is directly competing with others • When a consumer enjoys winning vicariously through the efforts of others • When a consumer attempts to display some superiority over others by openly flaunting exclusive products 6. Trait Superstition—Being superstitious can be thought of as a trait because it represents a consumer’s tendency to act in relatively consistent ways. Other Traits Found in Consumer Research Other personality traits include frugality, impulsiveness, trait anxiety, bargaining proneness, and trait vanity. Slide 11 What can I do in class? Q: Ask students to talk about times when they felt competitive (fantasy sports leagues, sports fans, online video games, flaunting new material purchases). Why do marketers care about competitive people? A: Answers will vary. Give students an opportunity to share situations to foster a discussion on the competitiveness trait. The Five-Factor Model Approach A multiple-trait perspective that proposes that the human personality consists of five traits (extroversion, agreeableness, openness to experience, stability, and conscientiousness) is called the five-factor model (FFM) approach. The FFM is illustrated in Exhibit 6.2. Slide 12 Hierarchical Approaches to Personality Traits Organizing all of these traits is one of the goals of researchers. Hierarchical approaches begin with the assumption that personality traits exist at varying levels of abstraction. 1. Specific traits—Tendencies to behave in very well-defined situations, such as complaint propensity. 2. Broad traits—Behaviours that are performed across different situations, such as extroversion. 3. Personology—An approach that combines information on traits, goals, and consumer life stories to gain a better understanding of personality. Slide 13 Slide 14 Brand Personality Brand personality refers to human characteristics that can be associated with a brand. Brand personalities can be described across five dimensions, including: 1. Competence 2. Excitement 3. Ruggedness 4. Sincerity 5. Sophistication These dimensions are described in Exhibit 6.4. Slide 15 Personality and Brand Relationships To some extent, it is important to consider that consumers have relationships with brands and that personality traits are important in the formation and maintenance of interpersonal relationships. An example is “Always Coca-Cola,” which is one of Coke’s best-known advertising campaigns! Susan Fournier, a consumer researcher, proposes that the overall quality of the relationship between consumer and brand can be described in terms of the following: 1. Love and Passion—A consumer may have such strong feelings about a brand that they actually describe it by using the term “love.” 2. Self-Connection—Research indicates that the correct match between a customer’s personality and a perceived brand personality leads to higher overall satisfaction. 3. Commitment—Harley-Davidson owners are well known for their commitment to their bikes. 4. Interdependence—For example, consumers are often reminded in television advertisements that “Like a good neighbour, State Farm is there.” 5. Intimacy—For example, a need for intimacy and passion can be directly tied to a specific brand of perfume, while a need for excitement or status can be directly related to a sporty automobile. 6. Brand Partner Quality—Brands that are perceived to be of high quality contribute to the formation of consumer–brand relationships. Slide 16 LO3. Understand why lifestyles and psychographics are important to the study of consumer behaviour. Consumer Lifestyles and Psychographics Slide 17 Lifestyles are the ways in which consumers live and spend their time and money. Lifestyles have proven to be extremely valuable to marketers and others interested in predicting behaviour. Lifestyles will vary with culture, and many marketers are focusing on lifestyles in their advertising campaigns. Slide 18 Psychographics Psychographics refers to the way in which consumer lifestyles are measured. Psychographic techniques use quantitative methods that can be used in developing lifestyle profiles. Psychographic analysis involves surveys of customers using AIO statements, which are used to gain an understanding of consumers’ activities, interests, and opinions. Psychographic profiles of various consumer groups have resulted in lifestyle segments being identified for Porsche owners, including “elitists” and “fantasists.” Slide 19 What can I do in class? Q: Ask students how lifestyle segments can explain vacation preferences. A: Answers will vary. Specificity of Lifestyle Segments These lifestyle approaches can be categorized in terms of their specificity—either narrowly defined or more broadly defined. Generally, lifestyles are indeed quite specific. Exhibit 6.5 presents sample measures used for psychographic analysis for the leisure curling segment. Slide 20 VALS Developed and marketed by Strategic Business Insights, VALS is a very successful segmentation approach that has been adopted by several companies. The acronym stands for Values and Lifestyles. The current VALS2 approach classifies consumers into the following eight segments based on the available resources and primary motivations. 1. Innovators—Successful, sophisticated people who have high self-esteem. They are motivated by achievement, ideals, and self-expression. Image is important to these consumers. 2. Thinkers—Ideal-motivated people. They are mature, reflective people who value order and knowledge. They have relatively high incomes and are conservative, practical consumers. 3. Achievers—Have an achievement motivation and are politically conservative. Their lives largely centre on church, family, and career. Image is important to this group and they prefer to purchase prestige products. 4. Experiencers—Self-expressive consumers who tend to be young, impulsive, and enthusiastic. These consumers value novelty and excitement. 5. Believers—In some ways, believers are like thinkers because they are ideal-motivated and conservative. They follow routines, and their lives largely centre on home, family, and church. However, they do not have the same amount of resources that thinkers have. 6. Strivers—Achievement motivated, but they do not have the same amount of resources that are available to achievers. For strivers, shopping is a way to demonstrate their ability to buy to others. 7. Makers—Makers are like experiencers in that they are motivated by self-expression. They have fewer resources than the experiencers. They tend to express themselves by their activities such as raising children, fixing cars, or building houses. 8. Survivors—Very low on resources and are constricted by this lack of resources. They tend to be elderly consumers who are concerned with health issues and who feel that the world is changing too quickly. They are not active in the marketplace because their primary concerns centre around safety, family, and security. Slide 21 PRIZM Geodemographic techniques combine data on consumer expenditures and socioeconomic variables with geographic information to identify commonalities in consumption patterns of households in various regions. PRIZM is a popular lifestyle analysis technique that was developed by Environics Analytics. It is based on the premise that people with similar backgrounds and means tend to live close to one another and emulate each other’s behaviours and lifestyles. PRIZM combines demographic and behavioural information in a manner that enables marketers to better understand, and target, their customers. Their technique uses 66 different segments as descriptors of individual households, which are ranked according to socioeconomic variables. Slide 22 What can I do in class? Have students explore the VALS segments at www.strategicbusinessinsights.com, and bring back results for discussion. LO4. Comprehend the role of the self-concept in consumer behaviour. The Role of Self-Concept in Consumer Behaviour Slide 23 Self-concept refers to the totality of thoughts and feelings that an individual has about him- or herself. Self-concept can also be thought of as the way a person defines or gives meaning to his or her own identity, as in a type of self-schema. According to the symbolic interactionism perspective, consumers agree on the shared meaning of products and symbols. Semiotics refers to the study of symbols and their meaning. An example of semiotics is the use of Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter. Consumers have a number of self-concepts that occur over time. Various dimensions of the self include the following: 1. Actual self—Refers to how a consumer currently perceives him/herself (that is, who I am). 2. Ideal self—Refers to how a consumer would like to perceive himself (that is, who I would like to be in the future). 3. Social self—Refers to the beliefs that a consumer has about how others see her. 4. Ideal social self—Represents the image that a consumer would like others to have about him. 5. Possible self—Much like the ideal self and presents an image of what the consumer could become. 6. Extended self—Represents the various possessions that a consumer owns that help him or her to form self-perceptions. Slide 24 Slide 25 The cyber self could be the next defined dimension of the self. Due to the popularity of the Internet, almost three-quarters of all teens and young adults online use social networking sites. They keep connected to their friends through status updates, but should be careful about how much information they post. It is important to keep in mind that information posted online can be accessed by people other than friends. Slide 26 Self-Concept and Body Presentation The issue of self-concept in consumer behaviour has several practical implications. The term self-esteem refers to the positivity of an individual’s self-concept. Unilever Corp. addressed the issue of unrealistic body types with their “Real Beauty” campaign for the Dove brand. What can I do in class? Open a discussion with students about self-esteem. Do students agree that society shapes their self-esteem? Do female students believe that fashion determines their own personal view of their bodies? Cosmetic Surgery and Body Modification Techniques such as plastic surgery, liposuction, and breast augmentation have become very popular. According to a 2007 study of Canadian female consumers, one in five has had some form of cosmetic surgery, and one in three has had a non-surgical cosmetic enhancement. The majority of procedures were found among consumers aged 35 to 50. Body Piercings and Tattooing The growth of body piercing among college-aged students is particularly noteworthy. It has been estimated recently that nearly 51% of teens and young adults have some form of body piercing. For consumers, body piercings and tattoos have become more popular than ever. What can I do in class? Q: Ask students whether they have tattoos or body piercings. Have they experienced negative reactions from employers or others in the workplace? A: The book quotes research which found that consumers form impressions of employees who have tattoos and piercings that may also impact the consumers’ impressions of the organization which employs these individuals. LO5. Understand the concept of self-congruency and how it applies to consumer behaviour issues. Self-Congruency Theory and Consumer Behaviour Slide 28 Segmentation and Self-Congruency The self-congruency theory proposes that much of consumer behaviour can be explained by the congruence (match) between a consumer’s self-concept and the images presented of typical users of a focal product. Marketers can use congruency theory by segmenting markets into groups of consumers who perceive high self-concept congruence with their product-user image. One example is the recent ad campaign for Ford trucks. It illustrates the role of self-congruency theory in marketing by sending the message through the “Built Ford Tough” theme, that if you are a hardworking man you need a hardworking truck and should choose Ford. Slide 29 VIDEO CLIP PowerPoint Clip from Smart, USA Run time 0:56 minutes Slide 30 The Smart Car was originally developed for the European car market, where small, fuel-efficient cars are more common. Before the company could introduce the Smart Car to American consumers, marketers needed to understand how they could help a U.S. audience see beyond the car’s unusual appearance and size in order to appreciate its benefits as many Europeans already do. The marketers also needed to know who their target consumers would be and what would inspire them to buy a car like this. Smart USA quickly learned that this car would be sold not based on age or socioeconomic status, but on consumers’ attitudes and lifestyles. Ask your students: 1. How would you describe the Smart Car’s brand personality? Answer: The Smart Car brand might be described as quirky and individualistic, while also high functioning and efficient. 2. Why does it make the most sense to define the Smart Car’s target market by attitude and lifestyle? Answer: Because of the car’s unusual look, features, and relatively low price tag, consumers are drawn to it by their lifestyle or attitude parameters, rather than their age or socioeconomic parameters. First-time buyers, urban dwellers, baby boomers, and empty nesters are all drawn to the car for different reasons related to lifestyle and attitude rather than to age or income. Instructor Manual for CB Consumer Behaviour Barry J. Babin, Eric Harris, Kyle B. Murray 9780176555283
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