Consumer Psychology
Explore the field of consumer psychology
On an average day, a person views hundreds and sometimes thousands of advertisements designed to attract and persuade that person to purchase products and services.
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While many people try to tune out and ignore advertisements, they undoubtedly have an effect on their purchase and consumption habits. This effect has led advertising to become a multibillion-dollar industry, and businesses are increasingly interested in how customers react to and view their products.
To gain a better insight into these views, those in the field of Consumer Psychology examine the cognitive processes and behaviors involved when people buy products and use services.
By conducting and analyzing market research, data from consumer psychology helps provide valuable information about the most effective marketing and advertising techniques.
Consumer decision making
Imagine a person trying to pick from four different kinds of toothpaste. What is the person looking for in the product? How do they make a decision between four products that essentially do the same thing?
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Many factors play into why and when someone buys a product. Previous memories of product purchases, emotions about certain brands, and price all play a part in the consumer decision-making process.
According to “Construing Consumer Decision Making,” published in The Journal of Consumer Psychology, there are four fundamental questions consumer psychologists must answer regarding consumer decision making:
- Which of the available brands are considered and why?
- What information is processed in evaluating each brand?
- How do consumers combine the previous questions to arrive at a final decision?
- How do memories of prior decisions alter the answers to the first three questions?
Often, because they are faced with multiple product choices, consumers fall back on heuristics, also known as “rules of thumb.”
Because decision-making is a mentally draining activity, people often rely on heuristics to make the process easier. Common heuristics include brand loyalty and purchasing habits.
For example, someone might develop a heuristic to only buy Crest toothpaste because that person knows he or she doesn't hate the brand. This person has developed a loyalty to the Crest brand, and doesn't want to risk trying a new toothpaste he or she would dislike.
Consumers use heuristics to make the decision-making process faster and easier, and to sort through multiple stimuli in an environment.
Making the decision process easier
When someone enters a supermarket, information bombards them from all angles.
There are special sales, brand advertisements, and multiple distractions in the immediate area. There are literally dozens of brands to choose from, and consumers are generally a fickle group, not wanting to spend more time than necessary when picking out a product.
To speed up the decision-making process, people develop habits to reduce the amount of time spent deciding between products.
According to “Purchase and Consumption Habits: Not Necessarily What You Intend,” published in The Journal of Consumer Psychology, consumer behavior in daily life is repetitive and predictable, because people often develop habits.
In the article, researchers Mindy F. Ji and Wendy Wood note that in the past, studies have found that about one-fourth of supermarket purchases were simply repetitive purchases of past choices for products like bread, tissue, ketchup, and laundry detergent.
The article states that this behavior doesn't end at the supermarket, but also extends into other consumer realms.
Ji and Wood write that despite their explicit intentions, consumers often repeat habits to purchase fast food and watch TV news. When people form habits, they repeat purchases and consumption of the same goods and services because habits use less brain power.
The study analyzed participants' intentions to eat fast food and watch TV news and found that in the presence of strong habits, participants' intentions did not predict future consumption.
For example, consider a man driving home from work. Typically, the man eats fast food three days a week after work, because it's easy and requires little effort.
The man has been trying to cut back on eating fast food, but is tired after work and does not feel like going to the supermarket. In his exhausted state, the man settles on picking up fast food on the way home as usual.
But forming habits isn't the only way people try to speed up the decision-making process.
People tend to also base their decisions on brand-name recognition in an attempt to base their opinions on something concrete. People often recognize a brand and think, “This product is popular and has a good reputation, so the product must be of a good quality.”
The field of Consumer Psychology focuses largely on how people interact with brands, and how brands relate more to the average consumer.
Brand recognition and loyalty
Consumer psychologists often focus on learning the reasons behind selecting certain brands over others.
One study, “The Interactive Effect of Cultural Symbols and Human Values on Taste Evaluation,” published in The Journal of Consumer Psychology, examined how brand identity often influences a person's evaluation of that brand.
In the article, researcher Michael W. Allen writes that people tend to assimilate their judgments of a product with their existing knowledge of that product.
Allen notes that in a blind taste test, people couldn't tell the difference between Perrier and a store brand seltzer. But when each sample had a label indicating the brand, people said they preferred Perrier, Allen concluded that because Perrier advertises itself as a classier, fancier brand, that people largely based their taste preference on it.
Allen suggests the product preference, in this case taste evaluation, is driven both by an objective process where someone judges by taste receptors, and a subjective process where advertisers create a particular impression of that product.
The study also suggests that people tend to associate certain symbols with certain products. If these symbols or representations reflect their personal values, they are more likely to purchase them.
For example, Allen examined the taste difference between Pepsi and a store brand cola.
Pepsi's advertising strategy tends to focus on subjects like “an exciting life,” and “enjoying life.” By asking participants what their personal values were, Allen found that those who listed “exciting and enjoying life” preferred the taste of Pepsi over the store-brand soda.
But in reality, Allen had switched the two products, so participants thought they were selecting Pepsi but were really selecting the store-brand cola. He concluded that consumers simply chose Pepsi because of brand identity.
While consumer psychology looks into the emotions and personal values that factor into consumer behaviors, it also focuses on the environmental factors that affect consumer intentions.
Environmental effects on consumers
Environmental cues often affect consumer behavior as much as brand type. Businesses often adjust temperature, smell, and music to subtly affect the way a customer shops or interacts with employees in a store.
Consumer psychology takes these factors into account to discover the most aesthetically pleasing – or profitable – environment for consumers. It explains why calm music might be playing in a doctor's office, or why rock music is played at sports games.
It also explains why sometimes in a bar, people have to shout to hear each other speak.
In “Sound Level of Environmental Music and Drinking Behavior: A Field Experiment with Beer Drinkers,” published in Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, researchers examined the effects of bar music on drinking.
In the article, Nicolas Gueguen and others monitored 40 drinkers at two different bars. One of the bars was playing music at a normal noise level, while the other bar was much louder.
Researchers found that at the usual noise level, people spent an average of 14.51 minutes to drink an 8 -ounce beer, while at a loud noise level, people spent an average of 11. 45 minutes drinking a beer.
The study suggests two reasons why people drink faster in louder bars. First, it might simply be a matter of people not being able to hear each other speak, so they drink instead. Alternatively, it could also be a cognitive reaction to louder music, where people feel more active and energetic, therefore drinking at a faster rate.
Analyzing consumer behavior
Consumer psychology examines all facets of consumerism to gain insight into consumer behavior. If you're interested in a career helping companies develop expert marketing platforms and researching consumption, contact schools offering degrees in consumer psychology.