Introduction to Consumer Behavior
This open textbook was designed for students studying business or marketing at an undergraduate level. It draws on the fields of marketing, business, communications, media studies, psychology, sociology, and anthropology. The book invites readers to examine the internal forces that shape consumer decision making, such as perceptions, motivations, personality, and attitudes as well as the external ones, such as social and situational influences, culture, and subcultures. This text centres the lived experiences of today’s consumers, specifically, undergraduate students. The author has also made efforts to decentre whiteness and dominant culture perspectives wherever possible to ensure a broader and more accurate representation of diverse consumers.
Introduction
I have been teaching Consumer Behaviour at Kwantlen Polytechnic University since 2013 and really ...
About this Edition
The majority of the content in this book has come from other open resources. I have adapted mater...
Consumer Behaviour and the SDGs
In September 2015, all of the United Nations Member States adopted a “shared blueprint for peace ...
I. Perception
Learning Objectives In this section, we will learn about perception and how marketers use sens...
1. Key Terms and Concepts
Absolute thresholdA term that refers to the smallest (minimal) level of a stimuli (e.g. sound; si...
2. Sensory Systems
The topics of sensation and perception are among the oldest and most important in all of psycholo...
3. The Perceptual Process
Perception is how you interpret the world around you and make sense of it in your brain. You do s...
4. Positioning
Positioning refers to the development of strategy that helps to influence how a particular market...
5. Chapter Reflections
Continue Learning Read this “Hub Spot” article, “The Little Known Stories Behind 8 Iconic Pack...
II. Learning Theories
Learning Objectives In this section, we will discuss learning theories and how marketers use t...
6. Key Terms and Concepts
Associative learningAn aspect of behavioural learning theory involving the repetitive pairing of ...
7. Behavioural Learning Theories
Learning refers to the relatively permanent change in knowledge or behaviour that is the result o...
8. Cognitive Learning Theories
In contrast to behavioural theories of learning, cognitive learning theory approaches stress the ...
9. Memory and Retrieval
The most exciting advertisement is worthless if it doesn’t make a reasonably lasting impact on th...
10. Memory Failure and Cognitive Biases
As we have seen, our memories are not perfect. They fail in part due to our inadequate encoding a...
11. Chapter Reflections
Continue Learning As an example of Classical Conditioning, explore the repeated pairing of Roy...
III. Consumer Motivation and Involvement
Learning Objectives In this section, we will learn about motivation and how marketers apply tech...
12. Key Terms and Concepts
13. Needs, Wants, and Goals
Every New Year, many of us make resolutions — or goals — that eventually go unsatisfied: eat heal...
14. Motivational Theories and Models
Motivations are often considered in psychology in terms of drives, which are internal states that...
15. Involvement Levels
Depending on a consumer’s experience and knowledge, some consumers may be able to make quick purc...
16. Chapter Reflections
Continue Learning Watch Dan Pink’s Ted Talk on Motivation. How do his examples and discussions...
IV. Personality, Lifestyle, and The Self
Learning Objectives In this section, we will learn about personality, lifestyle, and the self ...
17. Key Terms and Concepts
18. Personality and Personality Traits
Personality is derived from our interactions with and observations of others, from our interpreta...
19. Theories on Personality
One of the most important psychological approaches to understanding personality is based on the t...
20. Self and Identity
The link between people’s personalities and their buying behaviour is somewhat unclear, but marke...
21. Lifestyle and Psychographics
One of the newer and increasingly important set of factors that is being used to understand consu...
22. Branding
A brand consists of any name, term, design, style, words, symbols or any other feature that disti...
23. Chapter Reflections
Continue Learning Find an example of a brand actively targeting the “PANKs” market segment. Wh...
V. Attitudes and Attitude Change
Learning Objectives In this section, we will learn about attitudes and how marketers design st...
24. Key Terms and Concepts
25. Understanding Attitudes
Although we might use the term in a different way in our everyday life (e.g., “Hey, he’s really g...
26. Changing Attitudes
Every day we are bombarded by advertisements of every sort. The goal of these ads is to sell us c...
27. Chapter Reflections
Continue Learning The Elaboration Likelihood Model (“ELM”) also presented as the “Central and ...
VI. Individual Consumer Decision Making
Learning Objectives In this section, we will learn about individual consumer decision making a...
28. Key Terms and Concepts
29. Consumer Decision Making Process
An organization that wants to be successful must consider buyer behavior when developing the mark...
30. Product Disposal and Disposal Options
The last stage in the Consumer Decision Making Process is disposal. What options do consumers hav...
31. Trends Impacting Individual Consumer Decision Making
The “evaluation of alternatives stage” in the Individual Decision Making Process is worthy of a b...
32. Chapter Reflections
Continue Learning Consumer decision making isn’t nearly as straight forward as, “need/want > b...
VII. Key Influences on Consumer Decision Making
Learning Objectives In this section, we will learn about the key demographic, social, and situ...
33. Key Terms and Concepts
34. Demographic Influences
While the decision-making process appears quite standardized, no two people make a decision in ex...
35. Social Influences
The typical outcome of social influence is that our beliefs and behaviours become more similar to...
36. Situational Factors and Influences
In additional to demographic and social influences, we also examine some of the situational facto...
37. Chapter Reflections
Continue Learning A powerful tool for marketers is forming and leveraging brand community. A d...
VIII. Culture and Subcultures
Learning Objectives In this section, we will learn about the relationship between culture, sub...
38. Key Terms and Concepts
39. Culture Explained
In the previous sections we explored some of the different external factors that influence consum...
40. Culture and Marketing
For as long as marketing has been a practiced profession, marketers have been creating stereotype...
41. Gender and Culture
Racial stereotypes are not the only issue facing consumers today: the use of gender stereotypes i...
42. Subcultures
A subculture is a group of people who share a set of secondary values, such as environmentalists....
43. Chapter Reflections
Continue Learning Disney’s Pocahontas “Colors of the Wind Song” presents many of the stereotyp...
Glossary
ABCs of Attitudes The three components to an attitude are, A=Affect (how we feel about something...
Ancillary Resources
Here is where you can access and explore the Introduction to Consumer Behaviour Ancillary Resourc...
Book Information
Book Source This book is a cloned version of Introduction to Consumer Behaviour by Andrea Niosi,...