Consumer Psychology in Behavioural Perspective - Literature review Example

Name: Course: Tutor: Date: For every firm to remain in business as well as achieve their objectives in making profits, they have to retain and attract customersto buy their products as well as theirs services. This is by fetching in interactions of resources, which are beneficial to their clients/ customers.Consumer behaviour, centers on how individuals make decisions to spend their effort, money and time. They make decisions on what to buy, when to, where to, how frequently, and how they assesswhat they have bought as well as its impact. In otherwords, consumer behaviour is the approach that individuals have in disposing, using and acquiring of concepts, services or products((Solomon,Bamossy et al. 2006). Consumer decision making is the behaviour form, which consumers follow and determine decision process for the purchase of need sustaining services, concepts and products. This means, consumers makes choices based on the projected results of their decision. According to (Miniard et al. 2001), consumer behaviour is seen to have embraced growth and conception of advanced marketing to incorporate more universal range of activities that sway on consumer decision.Internal and external factors will affect buyers’ behaviour. When the individuals makewrong choices, it is because of lack of information to assist them make the rightful decision. Consumers will react towards different product advertisement, price and product features. Culture, politics, technology and economy are forces and events in the consumer environment together with promotion, location, price and product.BRE and NCC (2007)observe that, a lot of information becomes helpful where information is apprehended as a strategy tool because of its peripheral cost as compared to other options.It is perceived that, amount, difficulty and type of information provided have a significant impact on the individuals using it.Ignorance will have impact on consumer behaviour since they will assume the efforts of the marketers to advertise key information to their consumers. It is the right of consumers to make their own choices as it upsurges life satisfaction, basic motivations and apparent control (Iyengar and Lepper 2000).However, Schwartz (2004) argues that, too much choices affects individual’s management of decisions where the consumer will end up making fewer choices that may differ from the information provided.Different approaches have been implemented in the study of decision-making. These approaches speculate substitute models of man and highlight the importance to examine rather diverse variables (Foxall 1990). To start with, economic man, where a consumer need be conscious of all the accessible consumption options, select ideal sequence of action and capable of suitably rating each other (Schiffman and Kanuk 2007).However, these steps are seen as unrealistic in decision making as consumers have insufficient information, in adequate motivation or enough time to make concrete decisions, which are performed upon by less coherent influences such as morals and collectiveconnections.Additionally, consumers are termed as seeking suitable choicesinstead of finestselections (Simon 1997). Psychodynamic is the other approach that highlights, behaviour are subject to biological impact vianatural forces or energies that performs outside of mindful thought. This means the behaviour is resolute by biological drives rather than individual reasoning or ecological incentives (Stewart 1994).In addition, behaviorist is another approach, which explains actions, thoughts and feelings as well as external events. The interconnection of behaviour is accredited to factors that are external to individuals. The last approach is cognitive approach of which an individual is observed as an information processor. Cognitive is concerned with the mental process that defines the holding of information.These processes of the memory include retrieval, storage, encoding and rehearsal.The efficiency and effectiveness of consumer retrieval of knowledge is influenced by how often is the information repeated when being stored, form of information, applicability and fluency (Lynch, 1982). For example, an advertisement will have impact on consumers buying behaviour. This is because, consumers can be influenced to make a purchase out of an advert they have seen being advertised even if they had not planned for it.According Foxall (1990), cognitive allows the consumers define their experiences in relations to motives, needs and attitudes.However, Foxall (1993) argues that cognitive trustsbroadly upon use of intellectual and unobservableillustrativevariables, whichrarelyshowagreeable to realisticinquiry and assessment.Schiffman and Kanuk (2007), also agrees by stating that, cognitivism undertakesthe consumer being active, logical, astute and coherent in decision-making. Despite the disapprovals, Nicholls and Lee (2006) states that, cognitive approach is more suitable in the analysis of ethical buying behaviour that requires extensive intrapersonal evaluation. In addition, consumer behaviour is said to be evolving over time, constantly changing as well as dynamic. However, consumers’ behaviour is limited to specific products, period of time and individuals or groups. Therefore, consumer behaviour means more than just how individuals buy products. Marketers are interested on how consumers buy and purchases their products or services. This encompasses understanding set of decisions that are made with time by the consumers (Hoyer 2004).In order to ensure strong competitive advantage over other competitors, it is vital to know the reactions of consumers towards different product features, advertisement and price.Psychological, personal, social and cultural factors are factors that marketers cannot control of which affects the consumers purchase process. To start with, cultural factors which is the main cause behind an individual needs and behaviour. Blackwell et al, (2001) defines culture as composite of attitudes, ideas and values and other meaningful symbols that enables human to evaluate, interpret and communicate as associates of society. Different social groups have their own culture that affects consumer buying behaviourfor instance, geographical areas, religion and nationality (Kotler et al. 2005)or social class which involves wealth, education income and occupation (Blackwell et al. 2001). This means that every class has its own values, interests and behaviour. Secondly, social factor also affect consumer behaviour that is comprised of status, social roles and small groups.Groups will affect some people that do not belong to suchaspirational groups (groups that an individual wishes to belong to), reference group that will have indirect or direct influence on a person’s behaviour and attitude and memberships groups that have a direct effect on individual’s behaviour. Marketers should therefore, identify and target different reference groups as they affect consumers in different ways. Thirdly is the personal factor, that is influenced by personal features for instance lifestyle, situation, economic, occupation, buyers’ age and personality as well as self-concept. Individuals have unique character that isportrayed with adaptability, defensiveness, autonomy, self-confidence and dominance (Blackwell et al. 2001). Finally, psychological factors which constitute a group of factors attitudes and beliefs, learning, perception and motivation. A motivated individual acts accordingly,actions being taken affecting individuals perception of the situation. Motivation is improved when consumers look something as discreetlyunreliable with their past attitude, risky, consistent with their values and personally relevant. Vastly motivated individuals concentrate more and think about their goals as they assess the information critically of importance and try to recall the information for later use. This means,motivation of consumer is very significant to their capability to process information.Experience of new things enables changes to take place in the behaviour thus affecting the buying behaviour (Armstrong et al. 2005). According to Schiffman (1987), perception is a process based on individual’s likes, expectations, values and needs. It takes place when information is processed by touch, smell, taste, hearing and vision. For example, if someone may not like the color of a certain shoe on a display, after trying it on and it fits, then his/her perception may change and even end up buying the shoe.The processing incentive is influenced by color and size (Hoyer 2004). For this reason, marketers should consider consumer’s perception more vital than their knowledge of impartial reality. Forth is learning, a process that leads to change in behaviour, attitudes and knowledge brought about by past experiences. Through learning, consumers keep track of all of their experiences as well as assimilating their earlier knowledge with all new information received from product and market (Blackwell et al. 2001). This process aids to affect the range to which the consumer ponders future purchases, and seeks new information.Therefore, consumers use their perceptual process to collect information from the incentives in their location and use their learning process to create a useful outline to monitor their behaviour. Lastly is the belief and attitude. Peter et al, (1999) defines attitude as individuals overall assessment of a concept. Consumer’s attitude often has some kind of concept, attitude towards social and physical objects, including people, stores, models, brands and products. Formation of attitudes assists consumers make decisions by providing a way to gauge substitutes based on the features and benefits of each product. In conclusion, attitude behavioural relationship is important to marketers because it reviews a consumer’s assessment of an article and embodiesaffirmative or undesirable feelings and behavioural inclinations. In conclusion, attitude behavioural relationship is important to marketers because it reviews a consumer’s assessment of an article and embodies affirmative or undesirable feelings and behavioural inclinations. The review of decision-making highlights the complexity of consumer choices and identifies key processes that lead to behaviour. According to the above-discussed models, the conceptual model proposed and adopted has reflected upon the work of attempting to provide view of decision-making process. The value concept is a basic constituent of relationship marketing. It is the marketer's responsibility to do their due diligence and learn as much as possible about their target customer.  Failing to have some, understanding of the psychological factors of consumer buyer behavior will result in loose of customers hence closure of their businesses. References Armstrong, G. & Kotler, P. 2005. Marketing: An Introduction.New Jersey: Pearson Education,Inc. Blackwell, R., Miniard, P. and Engel (2001) Consumer behavior. Ohio: South-Western, TheDryden press BRE, Better Regulation Executive and National Consumer Council NCC. 2007. "Warning: too much information can harm." FOXALL, G., 1990. Consumer Psychology in Behavioural Perspective. London: FOXALL, G., 1993. Situated Consumer Behaviour: a behavioral interpretation of HallHarlow Pearson Education Limited.Harlow: Prentice Hall. Hoyer Wayne D, Maclnnis Debroah J (2004); Consumer behavior, (3rd ed) Houghton Mifflincompanyin Administrative Organizations. 4th ed. ed. New York: The Free Press. Iyengar, Sheena S. and Mark R. Lepper. 2000. "When choice is demotivating: Can one desire too much of a good thing?" Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 79(6):995-1006 Kotler P., Armstrong G., Saunders J. & Wong V. (2001), Principal of Marketing, (3rd ed.) NICHOLLS, A., et al., 2006. Purchase decision-making in fair trade and the ethcial Peter, J. Paul, Olson Jerry C, Grunert Klaus G; 1999Consumer behavior and Marketing strategy; Mc-Graw Hill. purchase and consumption. Research in Consumer Behaviour, 6, 113-152. purchase 'gap': 'Is there a fair trade twix?' Journal of Strategic Marketing, 14, (4) 369-386. Routledge. SCHIFFMAN, L. G., et al., 2007. Consumer Behavior. 9th ed. New Jersey: Prentice SIMON, H., 1997. Administrative Behavior: A Study of Decision-Making Processes SOLOMON, M., et al., 2006.Consumer Behaviour: A European Perspective. 3rd ed. Read More