Consumer Behaviour (lectures)
H. Rousseau
Week 1 KC - Perception, Attention and Memory
What are the psychological factors that influence our choices?
Consumer behavior reflects the totality of consumer’s decisions with the respect to the
acquisition, consumption, and disposition of goods, services, activities, experiences,
people and ideas by (human) decision-making units [over time].
Restaurant example:
- Think about going to your favourite restaurant with a cold, where you can’t taste and
smell the same.
- What happens is that your experience changes drastically.
- On top of that people in restaurant speak loudly, a lot of noise.
- Small factors can have a huge impact in the way we experience consumption in
general.
Try to understand what are the different processes that lead from a stimulus exposure to a
specific response.
X → Y (main effect)
Moderator (factor that amplifies, minimizes, or suppresses the effect observed)
Mediator (process)
Ad example: Nike: Find your Greatness
Difference Perception and Sensation:
Sensation: a sensation occurs when we are exposed to a stimulus
Perception: a perception occurs when we are aware of that stimulus
- Sensation we are not aware, and for perception we are aware.
Example YT: The Mere Exposure Effect: The Science Behind Ads
1. …
2. Perceptual Fluency
You like things the most, which you have seen the most, even if it is unconsciously shown to
you. Repeated exposure increases liking, except for when you really dislike the stimulus.
What are the psychological factors that influence our choices?
,
,Perception
Bornstein, Robert F., and Paul R. D'agostino. (1992) "Stimulus recognition and the
mere exposure effect." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63 (4), 545.
- Perceptions are specific to context.
Perception is the awareness or understanding of
sensory information.
Eyes are full by the size of the plate. If I tell you the
quantity is the same, our eyes perceive the image of
the right to have more quantity. This is an example
of how marketers can fool consumers.
Elements of consumers’ perception
Bringing the stimulus to the consumer
Three main blocks:
- Exposure: the idea that the stimulus enters the
consumer senses in a certain way. E.g., if a light is
turned on I am exposed to that light.
- Attention: devoted to the specific stimuli.
- Comprehension of stimulus.
How do we process what we’re exposed to?
Senses example: sensing the music at the moment
the sound is entering my ear. After sensing I need
to organize the information to be able to process it.
E.g. the moment my brain can recognize the music
I organize the info in a way that I can recognize it.
Organizing to be able to process information >
reaction to stimuli
How do we organize? Assimilation, accommodation and contrast
, Assimilation: The moment I sip a coffee my senses are activated and my brain needs to
encode info about colour, taste etc. I know coffee and experienced it before so that
information is assimilated to my brain because the coffee is black, it has a smell that I can
recognize and therefore I know that its coffee.
Accommodation:Let’s say instead of coffee I sip iced coffee which I have never done
before – no knowledge. Brain encodes that it is something I tasted before (like coffee) but
not as warm. That information is stored into my brain with accommodation.
Contrast: Glass of wine. Never before drank. My brain encodes that it does not taste like
coffee so it is not a coffee. The new knowledge can be integrated and form a new category.
Theories about Perception
Is awareness of the stimulus necessary to influence consumers?
The traditional dissociation paradigm suggests that consumers are influenced by stimuli
even when they are not aware of them (Erdelyi 1985).
> Can be influenced, even if we are not aware of the stimuli.
> Attention is not necessarily conscious
When do we detect the stimuli? Supraliminal & Subliminal
^^^ Different levels of which we perceive things.
Subjective threshold:
- Subliminal: we are not aware of it
H. Rousseau
Week 1 KC - Perception, Attention and Memory
What are the psychological factors that influence our choices?
Consumer behavior reflects the totality of consumer’s decisions with the respect to the
acquisition, consumption, and disposition of goods, services, activities, experiences,
people and ideas by (human) decision-making units [over time].
Restaurant example:
- Think about going to your favourite restaurant with a cold, where you can’t taste and
smell the same.
- What happens is that your experience changes drastically.
- On top of that people in restaurant speak loudly, a lot of noise.
- Small factors can have a huge impact in the way we experience consumption in
general.
Try to understand what are the different processes that lead from a stimulus exposure to a
specific response.
X → Y (main effect)
Moderator (factor that amplifies, minimizes, or suppresses the effect observed)
Mediator (process)
Ad example: Nike: Find your Greatness
Difference Perception and Sensation:
Sensation: a sensation occurs when we are exposed to a stimulus
Perception: a perception occurs when we are aware of that stimulus
- Sensation we are not aware, and for perception we are aware.
Example YT: The Mere Exposure Effect: The Science Behind Ads
1. …
2. Perceptual Fluency
You like things the most, which you have seen the most, even if it is unconsciously shown to
you. Repeated exposure increases liking, except for when you really dislike the stimulus.
What are the psychological factors that influence our choices?
,
,Perception
Bornstein, Robert F., and Paul R. D'agostino. (1992) "Stimulus recognition and the
mere exposure effect." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63 (4), 545.
- Perceptions are specific to context.
Perception is the awareness or understanding of
sensory information.
Eyes are full by the size of the plate. If I tell you the
quantity is the same, our eyes perceive the image of
the right to have more quantity. This is an example
of how marketers can fool consumers.
Elements of consumers’ perception
Bringing the stimulus to the consumer
Three main blocks:
- Exposure: the idea that the stimulus enters the
consumer senses in a certain way. E.g., if a light is
turned on I am exposed to that light.
- Attention: devoted to the specific stimuli.
- Comprehension of stimulus.
How do we process what we’re exposed to?
Senses example: sensing the music at the moment
the sound is entering my ear. After sensing I need
to organize the information to be able to process it.
E.g. the moment my brain can recognize the music
I organize the info in a way that I can recognize it.
Organizing to be able to process information >
reaction to stimuli
How do we organize? Assimilation, accommodation and contrast
, Assimilation: The moment I sip a coffee my senses are activated and my brain needs to
encode info about colour, taste etc. I know coffee and experienced it before so that
information is assimilated to my brain because the coffee is black, it has a smell that I can
recognize and therefore I know that its coffee.
Accommodation:Let’s say instead of coffee I sip iced coffee which I have never done
before – no knowledge. Brain encodes that it is something I tasted before (like coffee) but
not as warm. That information is stored into my brain with accommodation.
Contrast: Glass of wine. Never before drank. My brain encodes that it does not taste like
coffee so it is not a coffee. The new knowledge can be integrated and form a new category.
Theories about Perception
Is awareness of the stimulus necessary to influence consumers?
The traditional dissociation paradigm suggests that consumers are influenced by stimuli
even when they are not aware of them (Erdelyi 1985).
> Can be influenced, even if we are not aware of the stimuli.
> Attention is not necessarily conscious
When do we detect the stimuli? Supraliminal & Subliminal
^^^ Different levels of which we perceive things.
Subjective threshold:
- Subliminal: we are not aware of it
