Download Psychological Processes

Psychological Processes
What are these processes?
This refers to the psychological processes
that govern buying behaviour of individuals
and groups
• Information Processing
• Learning
• Influencing attitudes and Behaviour
Information Processing
• Exposure – achievement of proximity to a
stimulus to activate the senses
• Attention- allocation of processing capacity to
stimulus
• Comprehension – interpretation of stimulus
• Acceptance – persuasive impact of stimulus
• Retention – transfer of stimulus interpretation to
memory
Exposure
Given exposure to a stimulus of
sufficient strength, a person’s sensory
receptors are activated and a message is
sent to the brain. This is called a sensation,
which happens after crossing a threshold
level
Threshold levels
• Lower/absolute threshold – stimulus
intensity below which sensation would not
occur
• Terminal threshold – above which
additional doses of stimulus intensity has no
effect on sensation
• Difference threshold – smallest change in
stimulus intensity that would get noticed
Weber’s Law
• The change in stimulus intensity required to
be noticeable is not on the amount but on
the percentage change from the original
stimulus.
K = Δ I/I
where K is a constant
ΔI = change in stimulus intensity
I = original stimulus intensity
Getting Attention
• The first step in getting your ad noticed by
the target segment
• Advertising clutter
• Noise clutter
• Memory is less when viewed/heard with
competitive brand advertising.
Attention
• Preattentive processing – limitation of
processing capacity. 1st stage
• Attention – allocation of processing
capacity to stimulus. 2nd stage
Personal determinants of attention
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Need/Motivation
Attitudes
Adaptation level
Span of attention
Stimulus determinants of attention
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Size
Colour
Intensity
Contrast
Position
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Directionality
Movement
Isolation
Novelty
Learned ‘stimuli’
Attractive
spokesperson
Primacy and Recency effects
Primacy
• Being the first ad, it registers in the mind.
Recency
• The last one is fresh in memory
Therefore such ad positions are priced at a
premium.
What ads attracts attention?
• Product information that would help
purchase decision
• Those that expose themselves to
information that support these opinions and
avoid discrepant information
• Those that desire to get exposed to
information that stimulates
• Stimuli which is interesting
Information of Practical value
The behavioural tendency to process
information depends on
• Need for information
• Expectancy (Probability) that processing a
particular ad will lead to relevant
information exposure
• Measure of the value of that particular as a
source of relevant information
Long copy Vs short copy
• Readership drops sharply after 50 words but
between 50 and 500 words there is hardly any
difference.
• ‘The more you tell the more you sell’
• ‘If you don’t have anything to say, then sing it.’
• Depends on whether it is under active search or
for future reference
• Infomercials
• Advertorials
Information that supports
• Dissonance theory – Cognitive dissonance is
discomforting and people will try to reduce it. One
mechanism is through selective exposure
• People tend to have a psychological preference for
supportive information and avoid discrepant
information. This is called selective exposure
• Ad awareness seems to be higher for those who
already have higher brand attitudes – Rajeev Batra and
Wilried Vanhonacker
• Involuntary exposure to non-supportive
information shall increase selective exposure to
information that supports
Information that interests
• People tend to notice information that is
interesting to them – Russel Haley
• This where customer self-selection works
when such ads are put in mass media.
Information that stimulates
• Variety theory by Salvadore Maddi. This states
that novelty, unexpectedness, change and
complexity are pursued because they are
inherently satisfying.
• Adaptation level theory by H. Helson. People
learn to associate stimuli with a reference point
or adaptation level. Marked deviation from it
shall attract attention.
Attention vs Recall
Recall of an ad is a necessary but not
sufficient condition for persuasion.
• Ad repetition, higher frequency and higher
SOV
• Using distinctive creative material in the ad
• Merchandising using clues to recall ad at
the store
Attention vs Comprehension
• While getting attention is important it should not
detract the viewer from the message
• The execution, models, props, etc. must not take
precedence over the brand.
• Persuasion takes place when good comprehension
takes place. Processing would take central or
peripheral routes of processing depending on the
comprehension.
Comprehension
The interpretation of the stimulus.
To derive meaning from the stimulus.
How does this happen?
• Stimulus categorization – classifying
stimulus using concepts stored in memory
• Stimulus elaboration – integration between
new knowledge and knowledge stored in
memory
• Stimulus organization – how people
organize and rearrange stimuli into a
meaningful whole (Gestalt psychology)
Personal determinants of Comprehension
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Linguistics
Order effects
Context
Miscomprehension
• Motivation
• Hunger
• Expectation or
perceptual set
• Stimulus determinants
What is perception?
It is the process where an individual
receives stimuli through the various senses
and interprets them
The Perception Process
Attention
Stimulus
Interpretation
Active Search
Simplify
Passive search
Distort
Passive
Stimulus
Attention
Conditions
Intensity
Size
Message
Novelty
Organiz
Audience
e
Conditions
Attitudes
Values
Interests
Confidence
Social Context
Cognitive Style
Cognition
Perceptual organization
• People tend to see objects as a whole than
see individually its parts. – S. E. Asch
• First impressions are important.
• Closure
• Assimilation – Contrast
• Miscomprehension
Interpretation vs Comprehension
• Objective comprehension
What is the take-out of the brand? – copy test
scales
• Subjective comprehension
Explicit – the ad story
Implicit – using the ad information along with
knowledge and experience already stored in
memory
The deeper the level of subjective comprehension,
the more effective the ad will be credibility,
likeability, persuasive and recall – David Mick
Acceptance
This is the persuasive impact of the
stimulus
Acceptance depends on
• Cognitive responses – SAs and CAs
• Affective responses - feelings that are
elicited by the stimulus
Retention
Transfer of stimulus interpretation
and persuasion into long term
memory
Methods for enhancing retention
• Interrelation between stimulus elements
• Use concrete words rather than abstract
words
• Encourage self referencing
• Mnemonics – jingles, rhymes, music,etc.
• Repetition
Memory
Memory is space allocated in the brain to store
processed information and retrieve it as when
desired.
Our brain consists of two hemispheres
• Left brain – logical, abstract and conceptual
thinking
• Right brain – creative, intuitive, imaginal
• The connection is through the corpus callosum
Normally people are ‘left’ or ‘right’ brain
dominated
Memory consists of
• Sensory memory – iconic (visual), echoic
(auditory) – 0.25 sec
• Short term memory - < 30 sec
• Long term memory
Learning
This is the process by which
experience leads to changes in
knowledge , attitudes and behaviour.
Learning takes place through
• Cognitive learning – from changes in
knowledge and information processing
• Behavioural learning – observing behaviour
and changes in behaviour
Most consumer behaviour is learned behaviour
Cognitive learning
• Rehearsal – mental repetition of information
• Elaboration – the degree of integration
between the stimulus and existing
knowledge that occurs during information
processing. It is influenced by the
motivation and ability of the individual
Forgetting
When you are unable to retrieve or
access information stored in long
term memory
Types of forgetting
• Decay – memory trace will fade with
passage of time
• Interference – caused by learning new
information over time.
Interference
• Retroactive inhibition – recently learned
information prevents retrieval of previously learnt
information
• Proactive inhibition – prior learning prevents
hinders retrieval and learning of new information
• Momentary forgetting – when information is
present but retrieval is difficult because of
limitations in accessibility
Determinants of information accessibility
• Amount of information stored in memory within
the same ‘content’ domain
• Particular retrieval cues available at that time eg.
Pops, jingles, key words,etc.
Measures of Cognitive learning
• Recognition – from multiple choice
• Recall – qualitative answers
Measures of cognitive learning
• Aided recall
• Unaided recall
• Day after recall (DAR)
Behavioural learning
• Classical conditioning
• Operant conditioning
• Shaping
Classical conditioning
Unconditioned
stimulus
Unconditioned
response
Conditioned
stimulus
Conditioned
Response
Determinants of Classical Conditioning
• Strength of unconditioned stimulus
• No. of pairings or strength of association
Extinction
When the conditioned stimulus is
unable to evoke the conditioned
response. This will happen if the
association with the US is broken
with the CS
Generalization
When for an existing stimulus –
response relationship, a new stimulus
similar to the stimulus is used to
bring about the same response
Discrimination
The process by which an individual
learns to emit a response to one
stimulus but avoids making the same
response to a similar response
Operant Conditioning
Instrumental learning concerned with
how the consequences of a behaviour
will affect the frequency or
probability of the behaviour being
repeated
Operant conditioning can take place through
• Positive reinforcement
• Negative reinforcement
Applications in Marketing
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Sampling
Trials
Demonstrations
Test drives
Research has proved that there is 60% more
penetration when free sampling is done.
Shaping
The process which encourages marketers to
think about what behaviours must precede
the ultimate act of purchase and how these
prerequisite behaviour can be encouraged
through appropriate reinforcements
Vicarious learning
This is the process of learning through
observing the action of others and the
consequences of those behaviours. It
includes elements of both cognitive and
behavioural learning.