Consumer Decision Making:

four views of consumer

decision making
(Economic man, Cognitive
man, Emotional man, Passive
man)
 What is a Model
• A model is very often referred to as an abstract
representation of a process or relationship .
• Models help us in the following ways:
 They help in the development of theories
 They help to understand complex relationship
 They provide the framework for discussion
and research work
In this chapter we will examine the various
models having relevance to consumer decision
making process. The primary concern is to use the
models to understand consumer behavior.
 Different Models in CB
The economic model
The Learning model
Psychoanalytic model
The sociological model
The Howard Sheth model of Buyer Behavior
The Nicosia model
Webstar and Wind model of organisational buying
behavior
The Engel-Kollat-Blackwell model
The Seth model of Industrial Buying
 Economic Man
• Under economics, it is assumed that man is a
rational being, who will evaluate all the
alternatives in terms of cost and value received
and select that product/service which gives
him/her maximum satisfaction (utility).
• Consumers are assumed to follow the principle of
maximum utility based on the law of diminishing
marginal utility.
• It is assumed that with limited purchasing power,
and a set of tastes and needs, a consumer will
allocate his/her expenditure over different
products at given price so as to maximise utility.
• The law of equimarginal utility enables him to secure
maximum utility from limited purchasing power.
• Economic model of consumer behavior is one
dimensional. This means that buying decisions of a
person are governed by the concept of utility. Being a
rational man one will make his purchase decision with
the intention of maximising the utility/benefits.
• Economic model is based on certain predictions of
buying behavior.
 Price effect
 Substitution effect
 Income effect
• The assumptions about the rational behavior of
human being have been challenged by the
behavioural scientists.
• They are of the opinion that while the predictions
are useful, the model only explains how a
consumer ought to behave. It does not throw light
on how does the consumer actually behave.
• Behavioural scientists argue that the economic
model is incomplete. Economics is assuming the
market to be homogeneous, and that buyers will
think and act alike. Buyers will only concentrate
on one aspect of the product i.e., income.
• This model ignores all other aspects such as perception, motivation,
learning, attitude, personality and socio cultural factors.
• It has always been agreed upon that man is a complex entity, a
puzzle, a riddle. Hence it is very important to have a multi
disciplinary approach to understand consumer behavior.
• Further, in today’s environment, apart from the various
psychological, socio cultural determinants of the consumer, it has
been observed that the consumer also gets influenced by other
marketing variables, namely- product, effective distribution network
and marketing communications
• Thus consumer can’t be to be rational person and price is not the
only factor which influence his purchase decision.
• Behavioural scientists have opinioned that a boarder perspective has
to be taken while trying to analyse buying behavior, not only
economics but the role played by needs, motives, personality and
self concepts and socio cultural factors should be considered to
understand buyer behavior.
 Learning Model
• Unlike the economists, classical psychologists have been
interested in the formation and satisfaction of need and
tastes.
• They argue that living beings were influenced by both
innate needs such as the primary needs of hunger, thirst,
sex, shelter and learned needs like fear and guilt.
• A drive(internal stimulus) which when directed towards
a drive reducing object become a motive. The various
products and services will act as stimulus to satisfy
drives. For example, a hungry person will be driven
towards food, which after consumption will reduce the
drive and provide satisfaction.
• According to learning theorists, this response of
satisfaction (feeling) reinforces the relationship
between the drive and drive reducing stimulus
object as well as the the related cues. Further, the
consumer learns to associate connections between
stimulus and response, it becomes habit.
• There are certain cognitive theorists, who have
advocated that human beings not only learn to link
stimulus with response (S-R) but also results in the
formation of other cognitive process such as
attitude, values, beliefs, motivations, etc.
• In marketing contexts, learning helps marketers to
understand how consumers learn to respond in new
marketing situations, or how they have learned and
responded in the past in similar situations.
• Very often it is observed that consumer’s
experience with one product from a firm is likely to
be generalised to the other products of the firm.
• Conversely, consumers also learn to discriminate
and this information will be useful in working out
different marketing strategies.
• Simply stated this learning model will help
marketers to promote association of products with
strong drives and cues and positive re-
enforcements.
 Psychoanalytical model
• This model is based on the work of psychologists who
were concerned with personality. They were of the view
that human needs and motives operated at the conscious
as well as sub-conscious levels.
• This theory is developed by Sigmund Frued.
• Human behaviour (personality) is the outcome of
 Id- the source of all psychic energy which drives us as
action.
 Super ego- the internal ego representation of what is
approved by the society
 Ego- the conscious directing id impulses to find
gratification in a socially accepted manner.
Thus, we can say that human behavior is directed by a
complex set of deep seated motives.
• From marketing point of view this means that
buyers will be influenced by symbolic factors in
buying a product.
• Motivational research has been involved in
investigating motives of consumer behavior so as
to develop suitable marketing implications
accordingly.
• Marketers have been using this approach to
generate ideas for developing products- design,
advertising and other promotional techniques.
 Sociological Model
• According this model the individual buyer is a part of the
institution called society. Since he is living in a society, he
gets influenced by it and in turn also influences it in its
path of development.
• The buyer plays many roles as a part of various formal and
informal associations or organisations.
• Such interactions leave some impressions on him and may
play a role in influencing his buying behavior.
• Intimate groups comprising of family, friends, and close
colleagues exercise a strong influence on the life style and
buying behavior of an individual member. The peer group
plays a very important role in acting as an influencing
factor especially adopting particular life style and buying
behaviour pattern.
• Similarly, depending on the income, occupation,
place of residence etc. each individual member is
recognised as belonging to a certain social class.
As a member of a particular class, he may enjoy
certain status and prestige.
• Further, each class has its own standards of life
style and buying behaviour pattern.
• So an individual member will adopt the role
suitable to confirm to the style and behavioural
pattern of the social class to which he/she belongs.
• The marketer through the process of market
segmentation can work out on the common
behaviour pattern of a specific class and group of
buyers and try to influence their buying pattern.
 Passive Man
• Quite opposite to the rational economic view of
consumers is the passive view that depicts the
consumer as basically submissive to the self
serving interests and promotional efforts of
marketers.
• In the passive view, consumers are perceived as
impulsive and irrational purchasers, ready to yield
to the aims and into the arms of marketers.
• At least to some degree, the passive model of the
consumers was subscribed to by the hard-driving
super sales people of old, who were trained to
regard the consumer as an object of manipulated.
• The principal limitations of the passive model is
that it fails to recognise that the consumer plays an
equal, if not dominant, role in many buying
situations – sometimes by seeking information
about product alternatives and selecting the product
that appears to offer the greatest satisfaction and at
other times by impulsively selecting products that
satisfy the mood or emotion of the moment.
• The influence motivation, selective perception,
learning, attitude, communication and opinion
leadership serves to support the proposition that
consumers are rarely objects of manipulation.
Therefore, this simple and single minded view
should also be rejected as unrealistic.
 The Cognitive Model
• Cognitive model portrays the consumer as a thinking
problem solver.
• Within this framework, consumers frequently are pictured
as either receptive to or actively searching for products and
services that fulfill their needs and enrich their lives.
• The cognitive model focuses on the processes by which
consumers seek and evaluate information about selected
brands and retails outlets.
• Within the context of the cognitive model, consumers are
viewed as information processor.
• Information processing leads to the formation of
preferences and , ultimately, to purchase intentions.
• The cognitive view also recognises that the
consumer is unlikely to even attempt to obtain all
available information about every choices. Instead,
consumers are likely to cease their information-
seeking efforts when they perceive that they have
sufficient information about some of the
alternatives to make a satisfactory decision. As this
information-processing viewpoint suggests,
consumers often develop shortcut decision rules
(called heuristics) to facilitate the decision making
process. They also use decision rules to cope with
exposures to too much information ( information
overload).
 An Emotional Man
• Each of us is likely to associate deep feelings or emotions,
such as joy, fear, love, hope, sexuality, fantasy, and even
a little magic, with certain purchases or possessions.
These feelings or emotions are likely to be highly
involving. For instances, a lady who misplaces a favorite
ear ring might go to great length to look for it, despite the
fact he or she has has six other at hand.
• If we were to reflect on the nature of our recent purchases,
we might be surprised to realise just how impulsive some
of them were. Rather than carefully searching,
deliberating , and evaluating alternatives before buying,
we are just as likely to have made many of these
purchases on impulse, on a whim, or because we were
emotionally driven.
• When a consumer makes what is basically an
emotional decision, less emphasis is placed on the
search for prepurchase information. Instead, more
emphasis is placed on current mood and feelings.
This is not say that emotional decisions are not
rational decisions.
• The cognitive, or problem-solving, view describes a
consumer who falls some where between the extremes of
the economic and passive views, who does not ( can not)
have total knowledge about available product alternatives
and, therefore, can not make perfect decisions, but who
nonetheless actively seeks information and attempts to
make satisfactory decisions.
• Consistent with the problem solving view is the notion
that a great deal of consumer behavior is goal oriented.
• Goal setting is especially important when it comes to the
adoption of new products because the greater the degree
of newness the more difficult it would be for the
consumer to evaluate the product and related it to his or
her need.