Brent Wasser

Test One Study Guide

Chapter 1
• Consumer behavior as human behavior
• Consumer behavior as a field of study
• The basic CB process
• The dynamics of consumer behavior

Consumer behavior as human behavior:

Consumer Behavior: The set of value seeking activities that take place as people go
about seeking activities that place as people go about addressing realized.

Basic CB Process
Need: (Better communication w/ people and access to media)
Want: A specific desire that spells out a way a consumer can go about addressing a
recognized need. (blackberry)
Exchange: The acting out of a decision to give up something in return for something of
greater value. (Decision that the blackberry will be at least worth the price of the product)
Benefits and Costs:
-Costs: negative results of consumption. Cost is more than price. Includes time
spent, physical effort etc.
-Benefits: Positive results from consumption.
Reactions: Evaluation of costs and benefits lead to reactions which involve thoughts and
feelings.
Value: Ultimately the process results in perceived value.

Consumption: Process by which goods, services or ideas are used and transformed and
transformed into value.

Consumer behavior as a field of study:

• Represents the study of consumers as they go about the consumption process.
• Science of studying how consumers seek value in an effort to address real needs
• Sometime called buyer behavior, but goes beyond point of purch so CB=better

CB is related to lots of other fields like:

Economics: is often defined as the study of production and consumption.
• Marketing originated from econ
• Econ focus on CB is generally broad. (I.E. consumption of a nation over time)
• In contrast to econ, CB study consumer behavior at the micro level, and focuses
on the individual.

Psychology: is the study of human reactions to their environment. Seeks to explain

thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that represent human reaction.
 • Social psychology: focus on thoughts, feelings and behaviors of groups. (Group
behavior
• Cognitive Psychology: deals with the intricacies of mental processes related to
info processing.

Marketing: The multitude of value producing activities that facilitate exchanges between
buyers and sellers. These activities include production, promotion, distribution, retailing
of goods/services/ideas and experiences that provide value for consumers.
• In some ways involves inverse marketing as consumer operate at the other end of
the exchange.

Sociology: focus on the study of groups of people within certain a society and thus is
relevant because consumption takes place in this setting.
Anthropology: interprets relationships between consumers and the things they purchase,
products they own, activities the participate in.

Consumer Behavior is Dynamic: Current Trends

Internationalization:
Technological Changes:
Changing Demographics

Other Vocab words

Consumer (Customer Orientation): Way of doing business in which the actions and
decision making of the institution prioritize consumer value and satisfaction above all
other concerns.
Market Orientation: Organizational culture that embodies the importance of creating
value for customers among all employees
Relationship Management: Activities based on the belief that the firms performance is
enhances through repeat business
Touchpoints: Direct contact between people and the firm
Resource advantage theory: Explains why companies succeed or fail; the firm goes about
obtaining recourses from consumers in return for the value the resources create.
Attribute: A product feature that delivers a desired consumer benefit
Product: Potentially valuable bundle of benefits
Undifferentiated Marketing: Plan wherein the same basic product is offered to all
customers
Production orientation: Approach where innovation is geared primarily toward making
the production process efficient and economical
Differentiated marketers: serve several market segments with a unique product offering
One to One marketing: a different product is offered for each individual so that they are
treated as a segment of one
Niche Marketing: Specializes in serving one market segment with particularly unique
demand
Interpretive research: Approach that seeks to explain the inner meanings and motivation
associated with specific consumption experiences
Qualitative research tools: Means for gathering data in a relatively unstructured way
including case analysis, interviews, and focus groups
Researcher dependent: Subjective data which requires a researcher to interpret the
meaning
Phenomenology: Qualitative approach to studying consumers that relies on interpretation
of the lived experience associated with consumption
Ethnography: Qualitative approach to studying consumers that relies on interpretation of
artifacts to draw conclusions about consumption
Quantitative research: Approach that addresses question about that addresses question
about consumer behavior using numerical measurement and analysis tools

Chapter 2
• Value
• Two basic types of value
• Market segmentation
• Perceptual maps

Value
Consumer Value Framework: consumer behavior theory showing factors that shape
consumption related behaviors and ultimately determine the value associated with
consumption
• Value is at the heart of experiencing and understanding CB
• Value is subjective and a matter of perception
• CRM: Customers form relationships with companies as opposed to companies
conducting individual transactions with customers.
o CRM tracks info about customer so more customer oriented decisions can
be made leading to better relationships
o CRM looks at each customer as a potential stream of resources
• Relationship Quality: Reflects the connection between a consumer and a Org.
o High RQ is a consumer who buys the same brand each time
o Consumer realization of high value leads to high RQ

Factors influencing the consumption process are either internal or external

Internal Influences (Psychology and personality of Consumer): Things that go on inside
of the mind and heart of the consumer.
• Involves both cognitive and affective process
o Cognition: Refers to thinking or mental processes that go on as we
process and store things that can become knowledge. (If a kid hears about
smoking being nasty the kid will develop a dislike of smoking)
o Affect: Refers to the feelings that are experienced during consumption
activities or associated with specific objects. (If kid continues to hear
smoking is nasty, the belief at it being nasty may result in feelings of
disgust)
• Individual Differences: Characteristic traits or differences of individuals,
including personality and lifestyle
 o Individual difference shape the value experienced by consumers and the
reaction consumers have to consumption
• External Influences: Social and cultural aspects of life as a consumer
o Social environment: Elements that specifically deal with the way other
people influence consumer decision making and value
o Situational Influences: Things unique to a time or place that can affect
consumer decision making and the value received from consumption

The Two basic types of value

Value: a personal assessment of net worth obtained from an activity
-What consumers ultimately pursue because valuable actions address motivations
that manifest themselves in desires or needs.
-The Value Equation Value=What you get-What you give
Two Types of Value, Hedonic and Utilitarian (Not mutually exclusive)
• Utilitarian Value: Derived from a product that helps the consumer solve
problems and accomplish tasks that are a part of being a consumer.
o A rational explanation can usually be given to justify purchases based on
utilitarian value
o UV is often though of as a means to an end
• Hedonic Value: Immediate gratification that comes from experiencing some
activity.
o Value is provided entirely by the actual experience and emotions
associated with consumption, not because some other end will be
accomplished.
Hedonic differs from Util BC:
-It is an end itself rather than a means to an end
-very emotional and subjective
-Can be difficult to explain related purchasing decisions rationally

Market Segments and Product Differentiation

• Target Market: Identified segment or segments of a market that a company
serves
• Market Segmentation: The separation of a market into groups based on the
different demand curves associated with each group.
o MS is a market place condition
o Is a function that shows that as price and other characteristics varied, the
quantity demanded changes
o Elasticity: Degree to which a consumer is sensitive to changes in some
product characteristic.
o A market for any product is the sum of the demand existing in individual
groups or segments
• Product Differentiation: Marketplace condition in which consumers do not view
all competing products as identical to one another.

Analyzing Markets with Perceptual Maps

 • Product positioning: Way a product is perceived by the consumer
• Perceptual Map: Used to depict graphically the positioning of competing
products
o PM help identify competitors, opportunities to increase biz and diag
problems.
o A way to link differences in CB to changes in Market strategy or tactics.
o Ideal Points: Combination of product characteristics that provide the most
value to an individual consumer or market segment

Chapter 3
• The perceptual process of consumer behavior
• Just noticeable difference
• Just meaningful difference
• Implicit and explicit memory
• Intentional and unintentional learning

Learning: Change in behavior resulting from some interaction between a person and a
stimulus.
Perception: Consumers awareness and interpretation of reality

During the perceptual process consumers are exposed to stimuli, devote attentions to
stimuli, comprehend stimuli.
Exposure: The process of bringing some stimulus within the proximity of a consumer so
that is can be sensed
Sensation: Used to describe a consumers immediate reaction to this stimulus
Attention: The purposeful allocation of information processing capacity toward
developing an understanding of some stimulus.
Comprehension: Occurs when the consumer attempts to derive meaning from the
information the receive.

Consumer Perception Process: Sensing, Organizing and Reacting

-We sense the many stimuli we are exposed to, organize them as we comprehend
them, and react to various stimuli by developing responses.

• Sensing: Occurs when one of the consumers senses is exposed to something.

o Represents an immediate response to stimuli that has come into contact
with one of the senses
o Does not allow a consumer to assign meaning
• Organizing:
o Cognitive organization: refers to the process by which the human brain
assembles the sensory evidence into something recognizable.
 Analogous to someone performing a sorting task
 During the organizing stage, comprehension is begun.
o 3 possible reactions to stim
  Assimilation: occurs when a stimulus has characteristics such that
they are readily recognized as an example of a particular category.
 Accommodation: Occurs when a stimulus shares only some
characteristics that would let it fit in a specific category. A
consumer then begins processing which allows them to make
exceptions to fit that stim in a category.
 Contrast: A stim does not share enough in common to allow it to
fit into an existing category.
• Reacting: The final step of the perceptual process that occurs as a response of
behavior
o Selective Exposure: Process of screening out certain stimuli and
purposely exposing oneself to other stimuli
o Selective attention: Paying attention to only certain stimuli
o Selective distortion: Interpreting info with a bias on previous beliefs
o Subliminal Processing: Way the human brain deals with very low
strength stimuli, so low that one cant notice anything
o Absolute threshold: Level over which the strength of a stimulus must be
great so that it can be perceived

• Just Noticeable Difference: Condition in which one stimulus is sufficiently

stronger than another so that someone can actually notice that that the two are not
the same
o Represents how much stronger one stimulus has to be relative to another
so that someone can notice they are not the same.
o Weber’s Law: A consumers ability to detect differences between two
levels of the stimulus decreases as the intensity of the initial stim
increases.
o JNP can effect pricing, quality, quantity, and Add-on Purchases

• Just Meaningful Difference: Represents the smallest amount of change in a

stimulus that would influence behavior and learning
o (Price drops need to be at least 20% to be effective)

Implicit And Explicit Memory

• Implicit Memory: Memory for things that a person did not try to remember, as
with things learned passively and unintentionally.
• Explicit Memory: Occurs when the person is indeed trying to remember the
stimulus, such as when learning is intentional.

Intentional and Unintentional Learning

• Unintentional Learning: consumers simply sense and react to the environment.
Learn without trying to learn.
• Intentional Learning: Consumers set out to specifically learn information
devoted to a certain subject.
Chapter 4
• Framing
• The multiple store approach to memory
• Four mental processes to aid learning: (repetition, dual coding, meaningful encoding, chunking)
• Scripts
• Associative networks

• Framing: a term that captures the idea that the same information can take on
different meanings based on the way in which the info is presented
o Prospect theory: Hypothesizes that the way in which info is framed
differently affects risk assessments and any associated consumer decisions
-Negatively framed info generally has a greater effect on consumers
o Priming: Refers to the finding that the context or environment frames
thoughts and therefore both value and meaning
o Time can also affect comprehension. Timing refers to both the point and
ammoing of time

Memory: Psychological process by which knowledge is recorded.

• Multiple Store Theory of Memory: Views the memory process as utilizing three
different storage areas within the human brain. (Sensory, workbench, longterm)
o Sensory memory: Where the things that we encounter with the five
senses are stored. Considered pre-attentive and stores everything a person
is exposed to
• Iconic storage: Is the storage of visual info
• Echoic: Storage of auditory info
o Workbench memory: is the storage area in the memory system where
info is stored and encoded for placement in long term memory and,
eventually, retrieved for future use.
• Encoding: The process of by which info is transferred from
workbench memory to long-term memory for permanent storage
• Retrieval: The process by which info is transferred back into
workbench memory for additional processing when needed.
• WB MEM relies on:
• duration: sometimes called short term because of the
limited duration.
• Capacity: Unlike sensory, there is limited capacity.
Generally capacity is between 3 & 7 units of info.
• Involvement: Capacity expands and contacts based on
involvement.

Mental processes to aid learning:

1. Repetition: Process in which a thought is held in short-term memory by mentally
saying the thought repeatedly
 a. One Problem is Cognitive interference: notion that everything else that
the consumer is exposed to while trying to remember something is also
vying for processing capacity and thus interfering with memory
2. Dual Coding: a process in which two different sensory (traces) are available to
remember something. Trace: Mental path by which to remember something
3. Meaningful Experience: A process that occurs when two different sensory traces
are available to remember something.
4. Chunking: Process of grouping stimuli by meaning so that multiple stimuli can
become a single memory unit.
a. Chunk: a single memory unit.
b. A tag line like (Other coffee tastes like mud) is a form of chunking

Response Generation: process by which consumers reconstruct memory traces into a

formed recollection of the info they’re trying to remember. Integrating marketing
communications ensures a unified message is sent across all consumers.

Long Term Memory: Repository for all information that a person has encountered.
Unlimited capacity and duration.
-LTM is coded with Semantic coding: which means stimuli are converted to
meaning that can be expressed verbally’
-Memory trace: is the mental path by which some thought becomes active.
-Spreading activation: Way cognitive activation spreads from one concept to
another.

Script: Schema representing an event. Consumers derive expectations for service

encounters from these scripts.
Schema: Cognitive representation of a phenomenon that provides meaning to that entity.

• Associative Networks: Network of mental pathways linking all knowledge

within memory; sometimes referred to as a semantic network.
o Knowledge in LT memory is stored in a associative network
o Declarative knowledge: is a term used in psych to refer to cognitive
components that represent facts. Declarative knowledge is represented in
an associative network when two nodes are linked by a path
o Node: Concepts in a network
o Path: show the association between nodes.

Chapter 5
• Motivations
• Two key groups of human motivations
• Hedonic motivation v. utilitarian motivation
• Different types of involvement
• Emotions
• Cognitive appraisal theory
• Emotional Terminology
• Differences in emotional behavior
Motivations: Inner reasons or driving forces behind human actions as consumers are
driven to address real needs.
-Does not completely determine behavior because other sources also exert influence.
-Provide the intended reason for a consumers actions

Two key groups of human motivations

• Homeostasis: refers to the fact that people that the body naturally reacts in a way
so as to maintain a constant, normal bloodstream.
• Self Improvement: Aimed at changing the current state to a level that is more
ideal, not at simply maintaining the current status.
• Utilitarian: Desire to get products that can be used to accomplish things. Similar
to the idea of maintaining behavior. Works like homeostasis (replace Kleenex)
• Hedonic: involves a desire to experience something personally gratifying.
Emotionally gratifying.

Different Types of Consumer involvement: In all cases, high involvement means high
personal relevance and the fact that receiving value is highly important.
Key types of consumer involvement include:
• Product involvement: Means that some product category has personal relevance
o Product enthusiast: are consumers with very high involvement in a
category
• Shopping Involvement: Represents the personal relevance of the shopping
experience.
• Situational Involvement: the temporary involvement associated with some
imminent purchase situation. Comes about when consumers are shopping for
something with low involvement but high price. (Kitchen appliances)
(Temporarily learn a lot about something )
• Enduring involvement: Ongoing interest in some product or opportunity.
Associated with hedonic value
• Emotional Involvement: Represents how emotional a consumer gets when
involved with a specific consumption activity. Closely related to enduring
involvement

Emotion: psychological reaction to appraisal

• Emotions are considered psychobiological because they involve psychological
processing and physical response
• Emotions create Visceral responses: certain feeling states that are tied to
physical reactions/ behavior in a very direct way.
• Cognitive appraisal theory: Proposes that specific types of appraisal thoughts
can be linked to specific types of emotion. 4 Types of appraisals:
o Anticipation: Focus on future, can elicit emotion like hope or anxiety
o Agency: Reviews responsibility. Can elicit gratefulness, frustration, sad
o Equity: Considers fairness, can elicit warmth or anger
 o Outcome: outcome relative to goals. Elicits joy, satisfaction, pride, sad

Emotion Terminology
• Mood: a transient (temporary and changing) and general feeling state often
described with simple descriptors.
o Generally considered less intense than many other emotional experiences
o Consumers in good moods tend to make faster more expensive purchases
o Bad mood is detrimental to customer satisfaction
• Mood-Congruent Judgments: evaluations in which the value of a target is
influenced in a consistent way by ones mood.
• Consumer Affect: Feelings a consumer has about a particular product or activity
(Liking coke over pepsi is showing affect towards the brand)

Differences in Emotional Behavior:

Emotional Involvement: the type of deep personal interest that evokes strongly felt
feelings simply from the thoughts or behavior associated with some object or activity
• Can be increased by providing something extra with the products purchased.
• Flow: extremely high emotional involvement in which a consumer is engrossed in
an activity. (Highly involved shoppers sometimes achieve flow)
• Emotional Expressiveness: The extent to which a consumer shows outward
behavioral signs and otherwise reacts obviously to emotional experiences. High
emotional expressiveness often yields reactions that are not usually expected.
• Emotional Intelligence: a term used to capture ones awareness of the emotions
experienced in a situation and the ability to control reactions to these emotions.
Includes awareness of emotion by the individual and sympathy for others.
o Sales people with high EQ are more effective in closing sales

Chapter 6
• Individual difference variables
• Personality
• Id, ego, superego
• Trait
• Specific traits in consumer research
• AIO statements
• Self-concept
• Different types of self-concepts

Individual Difference Variables: descriptions of how individual consumers differ

according to specific traits or patterns of behavior.

Personality: the totality of thoughts, emotions, intentions, and behaviors that a person
exhibits consistently as he adapts to the environment.
• Definition highlights cognitive (thoughts) affective (emotions) motivational
(intentions) and behavioral aspects of personality.
• There are 4 distinct qualities of personality
 o It is unique to an individual
o Can be conceptualized as a combination of specific traits
o Traits are relatively stable and interact with situations to influence
behavior
o Specific behaviors can very across time
Psychoanalytic approach: personality results from a struggle between inner motives and
societal pressure to follow rules and expectations. 3 components of personality:
• Id: Focuses on pleasure seeking motives and immediate gratification
o Operate on pleasure principle that motivates one to maximize pleasure
and minimize pain
• Superego: works against the id by motivating behavior that matches societal
norms and expectations.
o A consumers conscience
• Ego: focuses on resolving conflict between the id and the superego. Attempts to
balance the two
o Works in accordance with reality principle: ego seeks to satisfy id within
the constraints of society.
o Balance the desires of id with the constraints and expectations of superego

Trait: A distinguishable characteristic that describes ones tendency to act in a relatively

consistent manner

Specific traits examines in CB research:

• Value Consciousness: represents the tendency for consumers to focus on
maximizing what is received from a transaction compared to what’s given
o Underlies tendencies like redeeming coupons
• Materialism: refers to the extent to which material goods are important in a
consumers life. Has 3 dimensions (possessiveness, nongenerosity, envy)
• Innovativeness: degree to which a consumer tends to be open to new ideas and
buying new products. These consumers are dynamic, curious, young, & affluent
• Complaint Proneness: Extent to which consumers tend to voice complaints
about unsatisfactory product purchases. These consumers are usually middle
aged, well educated, upwardly mobile, assertive.
• Competitiveness: enduring tendency to strive to be better than others.

AIO Statements: that are used in lifestyle studies to gain and understanding of consumer
activity, interest, and opinions.

Self concept: refers to the totality of thoughts and feelings hat an individual has about
himself. The way a person defines or gives meaning to his own identity, like a self
schema.
• Symbolic interactionism: proposes that consumers live in a symbolic
environment and interpret the myriad of symbols around them and that members
of society agree on the meanings of symbols.
o Semiotics: Study of symbols and their meanings.
 • Different self concepts include:
o Actual self: How a consumer currently perceives himself (who I am)
o Ideal self: How a consumer would like to perceive himself (who I want to
be in the future)
o Social self: beliefs that a consumer has about he is seen by others. (Called
looking glass self bc it denotes the image that a consumer has when he
looks in a mirror & sees how others see him.
o Ideal Social self: The image that a consumer would like others to have
o Possible self: Similar to ideal self, presents an image of what consumer
could become
o Extended self: Various possessions a consumer owns that help for
perceptions about himself

Chapter 7
• Attitudes
• ABC Approach to attitudes
• Functions of consumer attitudes
• Hierarchy of effects
• The elaboration likelihood model
• Balance theory
• Social judgment theory

Attitudes: Relatively enduring overall evaluations of objects, products, services, issues

or people.
-Play a critical role bc they motivate people to behave in consistent ways.

ABC Approach to Attitude: suggests that attitudes encompass 3 components including

ones affect, behavior and cognitions towards an object.
- I really like my Honda (statement of affect)
- I Always by Honda (behavior)
- My Honda gets great gas mileage (cognition)

Functional theory of attitudes: Attitudes perform four basic functions:

• Utilitarian Function: based on the concept of reward and punishment.
Consumers use attitudes to maximize rewards & min punishments. Actions and
attitudes are intended to lead to desired outcomes
• Knowledge function: Allows for simplification of decision process.(I.E. seeing
unknown on caller ID and not answering to avoid telemarketer)
o Attitudes are stored in associative network of LT memory and become
linked together to form rules that guide behavior.
• Value expressive function: Attitudes allow consumers to express core values,
self concepts and beliefs to others. I.E. Bumper stickers, wearing team colors
• Ego defensive function: works as a defense mechanism for consumers. Allows
consumer to protect himself from threatening info. I.E. Smokers ignore evidence
that smoking is bad. Doing things like wearing jewlry to project a certain image is
also included in this.
 Hierarchy of effects: attitude approach that suggests that affect, behavior, and cognition
form in sequential order. They follow one of four hierarchies

1. High Involvement (standard learning): When a consumer faces a high

involvement decision. Important decisions often associated with high risk.
a. Beliefs about products are formed first. Consumer considers features and
develops cognitions.
b. Next feelings or evaluations are formed
c. Finally Beliefs and feelings are formed and the consumer acts in some
way.
2. Low Involvement: For routine and boring purchases. Consumers often have some
basic beliefs without having strong feelings.
a. Consumer has basic beliefs
b. Behavior occurs
c. Feelings about product are formed
3. Experiential: For purchases made based on feelings bc it feels right or good. I.E.
amusement park.
a. Often motivated by feelings. Such impulse purchases are made
spontaneously without concern for consequences. (Dessert)
b. Behavior results from feelings
c. Beliefs are formed
4. Behavioral Influence:
a. Behavior occurs first with having formed strong beliefs or affects. Often
behavior is prompted by strong environmental pressure
b. Beliefs
c. Affect
i. I.E. consumers are conditioned to slow down and relax and
therefore by more drinks when restaurants play soft smooth music.
Such behavior is a result of the environment and is not related to
beliefs or affects

Purchase Context Hierarchy of Effects Example

High Involvement Belief-affect-behavior Game system- determine beliefs, develop eval, pick brand
Low Involvement Belief-behavior-affect Detergent- downy is popular, purchase it, likes it
Experiential Affect-behavior-belief Desert- Strong feeling/impulse, buy desert, beliefs develop
Behavioral Influence Behavior-belief-affect Soft music influence to buy drink without strong belief/affect

Elaboration Likelihood model: Attitude change model showing attitude change based
on differing levels of consumers involvement though central or peripheral processing.
-States that a consumer begins to process a message as soon as its received.
-Depending on involvement, ability and motivation to process a message persuasion
process follows either central or peripheral route
• Central route to persuasion: consumer has high involvement, motition, and or
ability to process message.
 o If incoming message is particularly relevant to situation, consumer will
likely expend considerable effort in comprehending message. This leads to
high involvement processing and activation of central route
o Consumer develops lots of cognitive responses regarding incoming
message that may support or contradict info.
o Counterarguments: contradict the message
o Support arguments: Support message
o In central route consumer relies on:
 Central cues: refer specifically to info found in the massage that
pertains directly to the product, its attributes, advantages, and
consequences of use.
o Attitude change tends to be relatively enduring in central route
• Peripheral route to persuasion: Route used when consumer is not involved with
message or lack motivation or ability to process info
o Consumer is unlikely to have cognitive responses to message. The
consumer will more likely pay attention to
o Peripheral Cues: Non product related info presented in a message such as
attractiveness of deliverer, number of arguments, expertise of
spokesperson, imagery or music with message
o Change in belief bc of peripheral cues is often temporary
o Corona adds include almost all peripheral cues
• Low involvement processing in consumer environment.: Most adds consumers are
exposed to are processed with low involvement processing
o Therefore, advertisers rely heavily on peripheral cues

Balance Theory: Way to conceptualize the attitude change process that states that
consumers are motivated to maintain perceived consistency in the relations found in a
system.
o Basic premise is that consumers are motivated to maintain perceived
consistency in relation found in mental systems. Thus the theory is based on
the:
• Consistency Principle: humans prefer consistency among their beliefs, attitudes, and
behaviors
o BT focuses on relations perceived between a person, another person, and
an attitudinal object.
o System is refered to as a triad because its composed of 3 elements
(observer, person, and object ) Relations between elements either
sentiment or unit relations
 Sentiment relations: between observer and other elements
(observer person and observer object)
 Unit relations: (object person relations)
o Consumers are motivated to maintain consistent relations found in triad
 Ex. I love prince. If prince loves the xbox. I will too so as to keep
balance.
 o Consistency is maintained when multiplication of the signs in the
sentiment and unit relation result in positive value.
 When result is negative, consumer are motivated to change
feelings associated with one of the relations
 Ex, if I hate prince, prince likes xbox, I will hate xbox there’ll be
a . (-)x(+)x(-)=+. If equation ends up negative, change occurs

Social Judgment theory: Theory explaining attitude change that proposes that
consumers compare incoming info o the existing attitudes about a object or issue and that
attitude change depends upon how consistent info is with initial attitude.
o Initial attitude is a frame of reference for comparison.
o Around the initial reference points are:
 Latitudes of acceptance: For a message to fall within LOA, info must be close
to original attitude position
- Assimilation occurs when info fall within LOA. Means the message is
viewed as congruent with initial position & received favorably
- Message may be viewed as more congruent then it really is. Leading to
attitude change in direction of message
 Latitudes of rejection: Messages appearing far away or opposed to initial
attitude position will fall within LOR
- Contrast effect occurs when info dissents of orig position and so message
is viewed as even more contrasting then it realy is.
o When original attitude position is very strong: LOA is small & LOR is large
o When original attitude position is very weak: LOA is large, LOR is small

Chapter 8
• Consumer culture
• Subculture
• Cultural sanctions
• Ways in which culture is learned

Consumer Culture: commonly held societal beliefs that define what is socially
gratifying. Shapes value by framing everyday life in terms of these beliefs and determines
which consumption behaviors are acceptable.

Subculture: culture existing at a lower level than the overall culture. Cultural groups
within broader culture.

• Cultural sanctions: penalties associated with performing a non-gratifying or

culturally inconsistent behavior.
o Pop culture captures trends and shapes norms and sanction within a
society.
o Sex roles: societal expectations for men and women among members of a
cultural group. Inconsistency with sex roles and result in sanctions.

Culture is learned:
Socialization: Learning through observation and the active processing of information
about lived, everyday experience. Process takes place in the following sequence:
Social interaction → modeling → reinforcement
- Two forms of learning through socialization
• Enculturation: represent the way a person learns his native culture.
o The most basic way consumers learn culture
o Represents the way in which consumers learn and develop shared
understanding of things with his family
o Made possible by habituation
• Acculturation: process by which consumer learn a culture other than their natural
culture. The culture one adopts when exposed to new core social values (csv)
o Results in old beliefs being replaced by new one so children are
acculturated faster than adults
o Factors that inhibit acculturation include:
 Strong ethnic identity: degree of feelings of belongingness to
culture of ethnic origin leads to close minded views
 Consumer ethnocentrism: belief consumer have that their group
& their groups products are superior to others. Believe its only
right to support worker in native country.

Quartet of institutions for learning culture: 4 groups responsible for communicating
csv both formally and informally from generation to next. Include
-Family
-School
-Church
-Media
World teen culture: Teens world wide are more similar to each other than people from
other generations in same culture
Modeling: process of imitating others behaviors, form of observational learning.
Shaping: Socialization process by which consumer’s behaviors slowly adapt to culture
through a series of rewards and sanctions.