2

Decision Making
CONSUMER BEHAVIOR
Buying, Having, and
Being

ELEVENTH EDITION

Michael R. Solomon

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education 2-1

 Chapter Objectives
1. The three categories of consumer decision-
making are cognitive, habitual, and affective
(emotional)

2. A cognitive purchase decision is the outcome of

a series of stages that results in the selection of
one product over competing options.

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 Chapter Objectives (Cont.)
3. We often fall back on well-learned “rules-of-
thumb” or cues in the environment to make
routine decisions (Habitual buying decision).
4. We make some decisions on the basis of an
emotional reaction rather than as the outcome
of a rational thought process (Affective buying
decision).

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 Learning Objective 1: What is a Problem?

• Every consumer decision is a response to a problem.

The type and the scope of the problem varies
enormously.
• Since some purchases decisions are more important
than others, therefore the amount of effort we put in
also differs.
• Consumers make decisions in different ways..

2-4
 What is a Problem?.. Continue
• Sometimes the decision making process is
automatic, where we make quick
judgments based on very little information
• Whereas at other times decision process
resembles a full time job where consumer
make decisions thoughtfully and rationally
and assign pros and cons of different
choices

Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 2-5

• Given the range of problems we all confront in our
lives, it is difficult to apply same solution to all
problems.
• According to researchers, decision makers actually
posses a collection of strategies. In thought process
we call it as a constructive processing: a processing is
a conscious absorption of outside stimuli that results
either in knowledge gained or action taken.
• In some cases, consumers may create a mental
budget that helps to estimate what we will consume
over time so that we can regulate what we do in
present- eg. Dieter may skip the tonight’s candy for
the sake of tomorrow’s BBQ lunch
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Figure 2.1 Three Types of
Decision-Making

The three categories of consumer decision-

making are cognitive, habitual, and
affective.
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 Consumer Involvement:
• Before exploring the three types of decision making
buckets in more detail, first we need to take a step
back and ask why different consumers may
approach the same choice situation from very
different perspectives. Eg. Two shoppers at a car
dealership.
• Involvement: it is a person’s perceived importance
of the object based on their inherent (intrinsic)
needs, values or interests. When we used the word
object it refers to a product ( or a brand), an
advertisement or a purchase situation.
• Consumers can find involvement in all these objects.
Figure 2.2 Conceptualizing Involvement

2-9
• Our motivation to attain a goal increases our desires
to acquire the product or services that we believe will
satisfy it.
• Involvement reflects our level of motivation to
process information about a product or service we
believe will help us to solve a problem or reach a
goal.
• Think of a person’s degree of involvement as a
continuum (scale) that ranges from absolute lack of
interest in marketing stimulus at one end to
obsession at the other end.
• Inertia describes the consumption at the low end of
involvement where we make decisions out of habit
because we lack motivation to consider alternatives
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Table 2.1 A Scale to
Measure Involvement

This table illustrates a scale that consumer

researchers can use to measure
involvement in order to assess the level of
involvement. 2-11
 • Depending on whether the need we want
to satisfy is utilitarian (someone who thinks
the value of the things depends upon its
usefulness) or hedonic (devoted to
pleasure that people want to experience-
eg. Luxury brands gives more happiness
as our involvement increases, we think
more of the product).

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 Involvement and Decision Making

Cognitive decision making (higher

level of involvement in product
categories that demand a big
Habitual Decision investment like house or car
Making (household
products)

Emotional decision making (Higher

level of involvement that demand
self esteem (clothing)

Involvement

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 Types of Involvement

Product

Message

Situational

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 Types of Involvement:
• 1) Product involvement is a consumer’s level of interest in a
particular product. The more closely marketers tie a brand to an
individual, higher the involvement they create.
• As a rule, product decisions are likely to be highly involving if
the consumer believes there is perceived risk.
• This means that person believes that there may be negative
consequences if he or she chooses the wrong option. Risk is
greater when the product is expensive or complicated.
• In some other cases, perceived risk also is a factor when others
can see what we choose, and we may be embarrassed if we
make a wrong choice. (interviewer who sweats a lot may think
of a deodorant to use that morning).
• Perceived risk is less of a problem for consumers who have a
greater “risk capital” 2-15
 Five Types of Perceived Risk

Monetary risk: Monetary risk occurs when making a poor choice will have
a monetary consequence. Any purchase that costs a lot is subject to this
risk
Functional risk: Functional risk is the risk that the product may not function
as the consumer needs

Physical risk: Physical risk is the risk that the choice may physically
threaten the consumer.

Social risk: Social risk is the risk that the choice will reflect poorly on the
consumer and damage his or her self-esteem or confidence.

Psychological risk: Psychological risk is the risk that one may lose self-
respect due to making a bad decision. For instance, expensive luxury
goods could cause the consumer to feel extensive guilt.
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 2) Message involvement
• It refers to the influence media vehicles have
on the consumers. Print is a high-involvement
medium while television tends to be
considered a low-involvement medium.
• Although consumer’s involvement levels with
the product message varies. If marketers are
aware of some basic factors that increase or
decrease the attention, they can take steps to
boost a person’s motivation to process
relevant information via one or more of the
following techniques: 2-17
 Message Involvement Techniques
• Use novel stimuli, such as unusual
cinematography, sudden silences or unexpected
movement.
• Use prominent stimuli such as loud music or fast
action to capture attention
• Include celebrity endorsers.
• Provide value the customers appreciate
• Invent new media platforms to grab attention
• Create displays where the message is itself is a
form of entertainment.
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 Situational Involvement
• Situational involvement takes place with a
store, website, or a location where people
consume a product or service.
• One way to increase this kind of
involvement is to personalize the
messages shoppers receive at the time of
purchase.

Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 2-19

 For Reflection

• What risky products have you considered

recently?
• Which forms of risk were involved?

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 Learning Objective 2
• A cognitive purchase decision is the outcome of a series
of stages that results in the selection of one product
over competing options.
• Traditionally, consumer researchers have approached
decision-making from an information-processing
perspective. According to this view, people calmly and
carefully integrate as much information as possible with
what they already know about a product, weigh the
pluses and minuses of each alternative, and arrive at a
satisfactory decision.

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Objective for Marketers for Cognitive
Buying Behavior
• When marketers believe that their customers
undergo this kind of planning, they should
carefully study steps in decision making to
understand just how consumers weigh
information, forms beliefs about options, and
choose criteria they use to select one option
over others.
• With these insights they can develop
products or promotional strategies that
supply specific information consumers look
for in the most effective manner. 2-22
Steps in the Decision-Making Process
1) Problem recognition: It occurs when we experience a significant
difference between the current state of affairs and some state we desire

2) Information search: Information search is the process by which we

survey the environment for data to make a reasonable decision

3) Evaluation of alternatives: In the third stage, the consumer evaluates

the alternatives.

4) Product choice: Then a choice is made. The choice may be from

among product choices as well as to buy or not.

5) Post Purchase Evaluation: It closes the loop; it occurs when we

experience the product or service we selected and decide whether it
meets ( or may be even exceeds) our expectations. It leads to consumer
satisfaction/dissatisfaction which plays an big role in our future buying
decision.
 Figure 2.5 Stages in
Consumer Decision Making

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 Stage 1: Problem Recognition
• Occurs when consumer sees difference between
current state and ideal state
• Need recognition: quality in actual state declines; It
can occur when a consumer’s state of being
declines (which then triggers a desire to return to
normalcy)
• Opportunity recognition: ideal state moves
upwards or when a consumer recognizes an ideal
state he or she wishes to achieve.

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 Figure 2.6 Problem Recognition

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 Stage 2: Information Search
• Once we know we have a problem, we search out how
we can solve the problem. These searches will typically
take place before purchase (prepurchase).The process
by which we survey the environment for appropriate
data to make a reasonable decision
• Prepurchase or ongoing search: many people just
enjoy searching information and they conduct
ongoing searches even if a purchase is not
immediately forthcoming.
• Internal or external search: Internal searches are
based on our own memory banks while external
sources come from other sources.
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 Stage 2: Information Search….continue
• Online search and cybermediaries: Search
engines have made vast amounts of information
available to us as we search out product
information. We may rely on cybermediaries to
help narrow and filter the options that are
available.
• Intelligent agents are sophisticated software
programs that use collaborative filtering
technologies to learn from past user behavior in
order to recommend new purchases.

Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 2-28

 Stage 3: Alternatives

Evoked Set: The alternatives a

consumer knows about is the evoked
set

Consideration Set: The ones actually

considered make up the consideration
set.
• How do we put products into categories?
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 Figure 2.8 Levels of Abstraction

We cognitively represent information we have about products in

knowledge structures. The term refers to a set of beliefs and the way we
organize these beliefs in our minds. These structures matter to
marketers because we need to ensure consumers are categorizing
product information correctly. We typically represent a product in a
cognitive structure at one of three levels. The subordinate category
often includes individual brands. The superordinate category is more
abstract. The middle level is the basic level. It is the most useful for
classifying products. It groups things together based on commonalities
but still permit a broad range of alternatives.
 Strategic Implications
of Product Categorization
• The way we categorize products has a lot of
strategic implications. That’s because the process
affects which products consumers will compare to
our product and also the criteria they use to decide
which brand they like.
• Position a product: it depends upon the
categorization. The success of a positioning
strategy hinges on the marketer’s ability to convince
the consumer to consider its product within a given
category. (example: Pepsi A.M substitute for coffee).

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 Strategic Implications
of Product Categorization… continue
• Identify competitors: At the abstract, superordinate
level, many different product forms compete for
membership. The brands that are strongly associated
with a category get to define the criteria we use to
evaluate all category members. (Bowling vs Ballet
related to category “Entertainment”.
• Create an exemplar product: The characteristics of
category exemplars tend to exert a disproportionate
influence on how people think of the category in
general (eg, Basil seeds fruit juice, pulpy juice)
• Locate products in a store: Product categorization
can affect consumers’ expectations regarding the
places they can locate a desired product 2-32
 Evaluative Criteria:
• When evaluating alternatives, consumers may focus
on one or two product features while ignoring others.
This helps us narrow down our options.
• Evaluative criteria are the dimensions we use to judge
the merits of competing options.
• Determinant attributes are the features that we
actually use to differentiate among our choices.
Marketers often educate consumers about which
criteria they should use as determinant attributes.
(Pepsi cola freshness dates on cans)
 Decision Rules among alternatives
• When we need to use more consideration
before making a decision (an extensive
problem), we can categorize our decision
rules into
• Compensatory decision rules
• Noncompensatory decision rules.

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Compensatory decision rule

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 Noncompensatory Decision Rules
When we make a habitual or emotional decisions we
use Noncompensatory decision rules.

• Noncompensatory decision rules suggest that a product’s

option does not appeal the consumer in one dimension
(attribute), consumer simply reject the product without
considering the other alternative dimensions which could be
helpful eg. (never heard of a brand or the color is gross)
• Lexicographic rule: In the lexicographic model, the
consumer rank the product attributes on the basis of
perceived importance; choose brand that is best on most
important attribute; if a tie, go to second most important
attribute.
• Elimination-by-aspects rule: set minimum cut-off rule for the
level of each attribute; start with the most important
attribute. If the brand does not meet the cut-off, it is out.
 Conjunctive rule:
• The two former rules involve decision making
process by attribute, the conjunctive rule entails
processing by brand.
• As with elimination by aspects procedure, the
decision maker establishes cutoff for each attribute.
He chooses a brand if it meets all cutoffs.
• If none of the brands meet all cutoffs, he may delay
the choice, change the decision rule or modify the
cutoffs he chooses to apply. 

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 Table 2.2 Hypothetical Alternatives
for a TV Set

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• Step # 4: Product Choice
• Once we assemble and evaluate the options, a
choice is made from among product choices.
• Step # 5: Post- Purchase Evaluation
• It closes the loop; it occurs when we experience the
product or service we selected and decide whether it
meets ( or may be even exceeds) our expectations.
It leads to consumer satisfaction/dissatisfaction
which plays an big role in our future buying decision .

Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 2-39

 Learning Objective 3: Habitual Decision
Making
• Habitual Decision making is the choices we make
with little or no conscious effort and the decision is
make quickly
• Level of involvement in the selection process is
minimum
• Product is evaluated after the purchase
• Low cost goods
• High frequency of buying
• Consumer is likely to stay with one brand.
Examples of routine purchases are the daily
newspaper, weekly groceries, regular coffee order 2-40
 Heuristics: Mental Shortcuts ( consumers fall
back on shortcuts to simplify the choices)

Covariation: Covariation infers hidden dimensions of products from

attributes we observe. The signal communicates an underlying quality.
For instance, someone selling a used car will try to make the car look
clean because cleanliness may be associated with reliability

Country of Origin: Country of origin is often a determinant attribute in

the decision-making process. Consumers think of Switzerland for
precision in watches, Italy for leather goods, and France for wine.-
ethnocentrism
Familiar Brand Names: Familiar brand names can serve as a shortcut

Higher Prices: higher prices, which consumers may assume suggest

higher quality.
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 Learning Objective 4: Affective Decision
Making
• We make some decisions on the basis of an emotional reaction
rather than as the outcome of a rational thought process.
• Positive Affect: consumer feelings can serve as a source of
information when we weigh the pros and cons of a decisions.
• Negative Affect: primitive emotion of disgust evolved to protect
consumer from contaminations. Disgust also exerts a powerful
effect on consumer judgments. Advertisers now realize to use
negative imagery to elicit extreme feelings such as disgust in
order to get their message across.
• Example: New York city health dept. ran a spot that included
images of a soft drink turning into gobs of fat as a man drinks it
(the dept claims that sugar rich beverage consumption dropped
12% after the campaign)
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 For Reflection
• When have you made a high involvement
decision on the basis of affect?
• Were you in a maximizing mode or
satisficing mode?

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 For Review
1. The three categories of consumer
decision-making are cognitive, habitual,
and affective.
2. A cognitive purchase decision is the
outcome of a series of stages that results
in the selection of one product over
competing options.

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education 2-44

 For Review
3. We often fall back on well-learned “rules-
of-thumb” to make decisions.
4. We make some decisions on the basis of
an emotional reaction rather than as the
outcome of a rational thought process

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