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Consumer Behavior: Attitudes
Attitude: A learned predisposition to behave in a consistently favorable or unfavorable
manner with respect to a given object.
Important definitional components:
–The attitude “object”
–Attitudes are a learned predisposition
–Attitudes have consistency
–Attitudes occur within a situation
Other important characteristics:
–Directionality
–Degree
Functions of Attitudes:
- The Utilitarian Function
How well it performs
- The Ego-defensive Function
To protect one’s self-concept
- The Value-expressive Function
To convey one’s values and lifestyles
- The Knowledge Function
A way to gain knowledge
Attitudes are learned and formed based upon personality characteristics
–Classical conditioning (through past associations)
–Operant conditioning (through trial and reinforcement)
–Cognitive learning (through information processing)
Structural Models of Attitudes
•Tri-component Attitude Model
•Multi-attribute Attitude Models
•Theory of Trying to Consume
•Attitude toward the ad Model
TRI- COMPONENT MODEL:
- Cognition
- •The cognitive component is what you know or think about an object. This can
be formed through direct experience or what you learn from others. The
knowledge you form becomes a belief.
-
•Cognitive based appeals tend to rely on using information to form (and change)
attitudes
•Cognitive ads will place emphasis on information processing, require higher
involvement, use central route to persuasion in ELM
Affect
•How you feel about a brand, the emotions you have toward it, constitutes the
affective component of the model. These feelings often tend to be overall good
or bad feelings.
•Affective based appeals tend to rely on using emotion to form (and change)
attitudes
•Affective ads will place emphasis on visual cues, holistic perception usually used
with lower involvement products and use peripheral route to persuasion in ELM
Conation
The conative component describes the likelihood that you will do something in
regard to the object. One of the most important is your intention to buy a
certain object.
Multi-attribute Attitude Models: Attitude models that examine the composition of
consumer attitudes in terms of selected object specific attributes or beliefs.
Attitude toward the object
Attitude is function of evaluation of product-specific beliefs and evaluations
Effective for measuring attitudes toward the brand or attitudes toward the product
According to the attitude-toward-object model, consumers will like a brand or product
that has an adequate level of attributes that the consumer thinks are positive. For
example, if you are buying a home, there is a list of attributes that the home must have
– 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, air conditioning, and a back yard. With this model, an
attitude is positive for the house that has the most of these attributes.
Attitude toward behaviour
A consumer’s attitude toward a specific behaviour is a function of how strongly he or
she believes that the action will lead to a specific outcome (either favorable or
unfavorable).
Instead of asking people what product they like and have positive attitudes toward, the
attitude-toward-behavior model is based on how positive someone's attitude is toward
acting a certain way, for instance purchasing a certain brand. The question is now how
likely are you to purchase brand X rather than how highly do you rate brand X.
Theory of Reasoned Actions
A comprehensive theory of the interrelationship among attitudes, intentions, and
behaviour
Commonly accepted in the field of marketing
Theory of planned behaviour
An extension of TRA that incorporates perceived behavioural control
Theory of trying to consume
Action or outcome (purchase, possession, use or action) is attempted within bounds of
impediments that may be personal or environmental
i.e. – Dexter Season 4
Theory of Trying to Consume: An attitude theory designed to account for the many
cases where the action or outcome is not certain but instead reflects the consumer’s
attempt to consume (or purchase).
- The theory of trying to consume addresses the fact that many people may want to
purchase but in many cases they cannot. This may occur for personal reasons, such as
not having enough money, or environmental reasons, such as not being able to go to a
particular store.
Attitude-Toward-the-Ad Model: A model that proposes that a consumer forms various
feelings (affects) and judgments (cognitions) as the result of exposure to an
advertisement, which, in turn, affect the consumer’s attitude toward the ad and
attitude toward the brand.
- The attitude-toward-the-ad model helps us understand how advertising impacts
attitudes. The model is more thoroughly diagramed on the next slide.
How to Change Attitudes:
1) Changing the basic motivational function: changing the basic need a consumer is
trying to fill (utilitarian, ego defensive, value expressive, knowledge)
2) Associating the product with an admired group or event (celebrities)
3) Resolving two conflict attributes
4) Altering components of the multi attribute model: increasing customer
appreciation of value, changing bran image from cheap to more value/purchase,
inform consumers that quality is better than cheap products
5) Changing beliefs about the competition’s brands/branding
Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM): Customer attitudes are changed by two distinctly
different routes to persuasion: a central route or a peripheral route
- Peripheral views: spokesperson, music, celebrities work on lower involvement
consumers
-
Central route: aimed more towards higher involvement consumers
Both help create an attitude towards the consumers
-
Behavior can precede attitude formation:
-
Cognitive Dissonance Theory
Holds that discomfort or dissonance occurs when a consumer holds conflicting
thoughts about a belief or an attitude object.
-
Up to this point, we have always had an attitude change, which led to a
behavior. It is now time to consumer a behavior that might change attitude.
There are two main theories that address this difference in sequencing. The
cognitive dissonance theory occurs after the consumer has done something,
let’s say purchase a product or accepted admission to a college. They begin to
create an attitude around their behavior which is often based on dissonance or
discomfort.
-
Attribution Theory
A theory concerned with how people assign causality to events and form or alter
their attitudes as an outcome of assessing their own or other people’s behavior.
- Attribution theory is related to the question we have after a behavior of “Why
did I do that?” This process of making inferences about behavior can lead to
attitude formation and change.
Attitudes and Marketing Strategy:
- Change affect first through classical conditioning
- Change behaviour first through operant conditioning
- Appeal to motivational functions of attitudes
- Associate product with a special group, cause or event
- Resolve conflicts among attitudes
- Change beliefs about competitors’ brands
- Alter components of the attitude
- Change relative evaluation of attributes
- Change brand beliefs
- Add an attribute
- Change overall brand evaluation
- Influence consumer attribution
Self-perception theory is the inference or judgment as to the causes of your behavior.
Did something happen, like you won an award, because you were really good, because
the competition was weak, or because the judges were rushed? We are constantly
examining our behavior and often try to stay consistent. This is considered the foot-inthe-door technique, the fact that if you say yes to something, you will probably say yes
to a similar act later on to remain consistent in your behavior.
Internal and external attributions
Consumers are likely to accept credit for successful outcomes (internal attribution) and
to blame other persons or products for failure (external attribution).
We have attribution toward others and always ask ourselves “why” about other’s acts.
We question their motives.
Would you believe we also have attribution toward things? Do you sometimes ask
yourself, “Why do I like this software or that movie so much?”
Over time, we like to test our attributions to see if they are correct. We may decide
that if something happens when we use this product, it has distinctiveness. We also see
if we have the same reaction to behavior over time, in different situations (modality),
and if others agree.