Consumer Behavior III

Unit III: Perception, Learning, and

Memory

Course Learning Objectives for Unit III

3. Explain how consumers interpret information about products and people. 3.1 Explain how consumers interpret information about products and people through their perceptions, learning, and memory.

5. Describe how self-perception influences consumers’ actions. 5.1 Describe the importance of self-perception and its influence on consumer buying.

6. Explore how one’s personality influences lifestyle choices. 6.1 Explain how differences in consumer personalities impact their buying choices and overall lifestyle choices.

Sensation

• Sensation: This is the immediate response of sensory receptors (e.g., eyes, ears, mouth, fingers, skin).

• Perception: This is the process by which people select, organize, and interpret these sensations.

• Hedonic consumption: This encompasses the multisensory emotional aspects of consumers’ interactions with products.

• Sensory marketing: Companies have to think carefully about the impact of sensations on product experiences.

Stages of Perception

• Sensory threshold: Point at which it is strong enough to make a conscious impact in his or her awareness

• Absolute threshold: Minimum amount of stimulation a person can detect

• Differential threshold: Ability of a sensory system to detect changes in or differences between two stimuli

• Subliminal perception: Stimulus below the level of the consumer’s awareness

Attention • Attention: This refers to the extent to

which the processing activity is devoted to a particular stimulus.

• How do marketers get our attention? – Commercial breaks – Rich media – Something outrageous

• Perceptual vigilance: We are more likely to be aware of stimuli that relate to our current needs.

• Perceptual defense: We tend to see what we want to see.

Interpretation

• Interpretation: This refers to the meanings we assign to sensory stimuli.

• Closure principle: People tend to perceive an incomplete picture as complete.

• Principle of similarity: Consumers tend to group together objects that share similar physical characteristics.

• Figure ground principle: One part of the stimulus will dominate.

Learning

• Classical conditioning: This is when a stimulus that creates a response is paired with another stimulus that initially does not cause a response.

– Unconditioned stimulus, conditioned stimulus, conditioned response

• Learning is a relatively permanent change in behavior caused by experience.

• Behavioral learning theories: These suggest that learning takes place as the result of responses to external events. Person reading book

(Alexas_Fotos(, 2017)

Marketing Applications

• Brand equity: The brand has a strong and positive association in a consumer’s memory and creates loyalty.

• Instrumental conditioning: This occurs when we learn to perform behaviors that produce positive outcomes. – Positive reinforcement, negative

reinforcement, punishment

(3dman_eu, 2013)

Marketing Applications (cont)

• Frequency marketing: Rewards regular purchasers

• Gamification: Turns routine actions into experiences by adding gaming elements

• Cognitive learning theory: Stresses the importance of internal mental processes

• Observational learning: Occurs when we watch the actions of others and note the reinforcements they receive

Learning to be Consumers • Consumer socialization:

When young people acquire skills, knowledge, and attitudes that help them function in the marketplace

• Cognitive development: Ability of children to comprehend concepts of increasing complexity – Limited, cued, strategic

– Multiple intelligence theory

Adult and child using laptop (Alphalight1, 2013)

Memory

• Memory is the process of acquiring information and storing it over time. – Encoding and retrieving stages

– Sensory memory, short-term memory, long-term memory

– Activation models of memory • Associative network: Contains bits of related

information

• Spreading activation: Shift back and forth among levels of meaning

Retrieving Memories • Helps consumers determine

what to buy based off of previous experiences

• Forgetting: Decay vs. interference

• State-dependent retrieval: Can access information easier if in the same environment asa where it was encoded

Brain (geralt, 2015)

References

Alexas_Fotos. (2017). School study learn [image]. Retrieved from https://pixabay.com/en/school-study-learn-books-read-2051711/

Alphalight1. (2013). Child at computer [Photograph]. Retrieved from https://pixabay.com/en/child-girl-young-caucasian-1073638/

Geralt. (2015). Brain turn on [Image]. Retrieved from https://pixabay.com/en/brain-turn-on-education-read-book- 770044/

3dman_eu. (2013). Brand business company [Image]. Retrieved from https://pixabay.com/en/brand-business-company-mark-focus- 1027862/

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