consumer behavior

A family consisting of a couple, one or both of whom were previously married, their children, and the children from the previous marriage of one or both parents.

Those capabilities necessary for purchases to occur such as understanding money, budgeting, product evaluation, and so forth.

The process by which young people acquire skills, knowledge, and attitudes relevant to their functioning as consumers in the marketplace.

Cognitive and affective orientations toward marketplace stimuli such as advertisements, salespeople, warranties, and so forth.

The knowledge, attitudes, and values that cause people to attach differential evaluations to products, brands, and retail outlets.

The process by which decisions that directly or indirectly involve two or more family members are made.

A household consisting of a family and any unrelated people residing in the same housing unit.

Determines the problems the household will likely encounter and provides a range of acceptable solutions.

All the people who occupy a housing unit.

Based on the age and marital status of the adult member of the household and the presence and age of children.

Occurs when a parent or sibling specifically and directly attempts to bring about certain responses through reasoning or reinforcement.

Occurs when a parent alters a child's initial interpretation of, our response to, a marketing or other stimulus.

Occurs when a child learns appropriate, or inappropriate, consumption behaviors by observing others.

A householder living alone or exclusively with others to whom he or she is not related.

A widely accepted set of stages of cognitive development.

A married couple and their own or adopted children living at home.

Five groups of adopters of any given innovation based on the relative time at which they adopt.

A series of distinct steps or stages individual consumers presumably go through.

The na�ve subject almost always agrees with the incorrect judgment of the others.

Nonmembership groups with a positive attraction.

Personalized journals where people and organizations can keep a running dialogue.

A nongeographically bound community, based on a structured set of social relationships among owners of a brand and the psychological relationship they have with the brand itself, the product in use, and the firm.

The exponential expansion of WOM.

Characterized by consciousness of kind, shared rituals and traditions, and a sense of more responsibility.

A distinctive subgroup of society that self-selects on the basis of a shared commitment to a particular product class, brand, or consumption activity.

The manner in which innovation spread throughout a market.

Groups with negative desirability.

Tend to be opinion leaders in local reference groups.

Consumers who tend to be cautious about innovations.

A greater long-term involvement with the product category than the non-opinion leaders in the group.

Two or more individuals who share a set of norms, values, or beliefs and have certain implicitly or explicitly defined relationships to one another such that their behaviors are interdependent.

Also called value-expressive, occurs when individuals have internalized the group's values and norms.

Occurs when an individual uses the behaviors and opinions of reference group members as potentially useful bits of information.

An idea, practice, or product perceived to be new by the relevant individual or group.

Venturesome risk takers.

Locally oriented and engage in limited social interaction.

Members who are skeptical about innovations.

Both initiate discussions with others about products and shopping and respond to requests for market information.

Involves opinion leaders for a particular product area who actively seek relevant information from the mass media as well as other sources.

Occurs when an individual fulfills group expectations to gain a direct reward or to avoid a sanction.

A community that interacts over time around a topic of interest on the Internet.

Web-based service that allows individuals to (1) construct a public or semipublic profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system.

An individual who actively filters, interprets, or provides product and brand relevant information to their family, friends, and colleagues.

Groups characterized by frequent interpersonal contact.

A groups whose presumed perspectives or values are being used by an individual as the basis for his or her current behavior.

Groups characterized by limited interpersonal contact.

The process of one person receiving information form the mass media or other sources and passing it on to others.

An online "pass-it-along" strategy. It "uses electronic communications to trigger brand messages throughout a widespread network of buyers."

Individuals sharing information with other individuals.

Ways for consumers to selectively avoid exposure to advertising messages.

Deals with the phenomenon of people adjusting to the level and type of stimuli to which they are exposed.

The emotional or feeling response triggered by a stimulus such as an ad.

Involves any communication or activity that implies, or from which one could reasonably infer, that an organization is associated with an event, when in fact it is not.

Occurs when the stimulus activates one or more sensory receptor nerves, and the resulting sensations go to the brain for processing.

Where an existing brand extends to a new category with the same name.

An ability factor related to attention.

Presenting an incomplete stimulus with the goal of getting consumers to complete it and thus become more engaged and involved.

Also referred to as co-marketing, brand alliances, and joint marketing, in which two brand names are given to a single product.

A process whereby stimuli are placed into existing categories of meaning.

Play a role in consumer interpretation independent of the actual stimulus in a situation.

Whereby signage in one area of the store promotes complementary products in another.

Occurs when a stimulus comes within range of our sensory receptor nerves.

Presenting the stimulus in such a way that it is perceived as the focal object to be attended to and all other stimuli are perceived as the background.

Applies to activities that take place on each side of the brain.

Goes beyond what is directly stated or presented.

Program-length commercials (often 30 minutes), generally with an 800 number and/or Web address through which to order the product or request additional written information.

Occurs when consumers are confronted with so much information that they cannot or will not attend to all of it.

A series of activities by which stimuli are perceived, transformed into information, and stored.

The assignment of meaning to sensations.

The minimum amount that one brand can differ from another with the difference still being noticed.

Turning the sound off during commercial breaks.

Comprised of exposure, attention, and interpretation.

Individuals are not passive recipients of marketing messages.

An aspect of interpretation that is generally a relative process rather than absolute.

The voluntary and self-selected nature of online offerings where consumers "opt in" to receive e-mail-based promotions.

Shows how and when to use a product and it enhances the product's image.

Refers to the fact that stimuli positioned close together are perceived as belonging to the same category.

Involve the use of an unexpected twist or artful deviation in how a message is communicated either visually in the ad's picture or verbally in the ad's text or headline.

The ability of an individual to distinguish between similar stimuli.

Banner ads that are activated based on items used in search engines.

Refers to the physical arrangement of the stimulus objects.

A message presented so fast or so softly or so masked by other messages that one is not aware of seeing or hearing it.

Involves switching channels when a commercial appears.

Occurs when one fast-forwards through a commercial on a prerecorded program.

The likelihood and ease with which information can be recalled from LTM.

An effect where too much repetition causes consumers to actively shut out the message, evaluate it negatively, or disregard it.

Occurs when a consumer uses an existing knowledge base to understand a new situation or object.

The most complex form of cognitive learning.

The value consumers assign to a brand above and beyond the functional characteristics of the product.

The schematic memory of a brand.

Often termed, family branding, brand extensions, or umbrella branding, refers to marketers capitalizing on brand equity by using an existing brand name for new products.

The process of using an established relationship between a stimulus and response to bring about the learning of the same response to a different stimulus.

Encompasses all the mental activities of humans as they work to solve problems or cope with situations.

Abstractions of reality that capture the meaning of an item in terms of other concepts.

Learning based on the association of a stimulus (information) and response (behavior or feeling).

The use of previously stores experiences, values, attitudes, beliefs, and feelings to interpret and evaluate information in working memory as well as to add relevant previously stored information.

The memory of a sequence of events in which a person participated.

Characterized by the conscious recollection of an exposure event.

Or forgetting occurs when the reinforcement for the learned response is withdrawn, the learned response is no longer used, or the individual is no longer reminded of the response.

Flashbulb memory is acute memory for the circumstances surrounding a surprising and novel event.

A situation in which the consumer is motivated to process or learn the material.

The association between two or more concepts in the absence of conditioning.

Involves concrete sensory representations of ideas, feelings, and objects.

Involves the nonconscious retrieval of previously encountered stimuli.

Any change in the content or organization of long-term memory or behavior.

An unlimited, permanent storage.

A situation in which the consumer has little or no motivation to process or learn the material.

The continual repetition of a piece of information in order to hold it in current memory for use in problem solving or transferal to long-term memory.

An effect where consumers have difficulty retrieving a specific piece of information because other related information in memory gets in the way.

Occurs when consumers observe the outcome of others' behaviors and adjust their own accordingly.

Or instrumental learning differs from classical conditioning primarily in the role and timing of reinforcement.

Takes consumers' perceptions of how similar various brands or products are to each other and relates these perceptions to product attributes.

A decision by a marketer to try to achieve a defined brand image relative to competition within a market segment.

A deliberate decision to significantly alter the way the market views a product.

frequent (close together) repetitions used any time it is important to produce widespread knowledge of the product rapidly.

Any consequence that decreases the likelihood that a given response will be repeated in the future.

Anything that increases the likelihood that a given response will be repeated in the future.

Happens in cognitive learning when information that is available in LTM cannot be accessed, that is, retrieved from LTM into STM. Also called forgetting.

A complex web of associations.

Memory of how an action sequence should occur.

Indicates that consumers are relating brand information to themselves.

The basic knowledge and feelings an individual has about a concept.

The process of encouraging partial responses leading to the final desired response.

A limited capacity to store information and sensations.

The process of learning to respond differently to similar but distinct stimuli.

Often referred to as the rub-off effect, occurs when a response to one stimulus is elicited by a similar but distinct stimulus.

Occurs when consumers observe the outcomes of others' behaviors and adjust their own accordingly.

When a consumer who must choose between two attractive alternatives.

When a consumer facing a purchase choice with both positive and negative consequences.

A choice involving only undesirable outcomes.

An approach to understanding the reasons consumers assign particular meanings to the behaviors of others.

Where a product or brand is repeatedly shown to a consumer who names all the benefits that possession or use of the product might provide until the consumer can no longer identify additional benefits.

A set of human characteristics that become associated with a brand.

Reflects an individual difference in consumers' propensity to be biased against the purchase of foreign products.

Coping involves consumer thoughts and behaviors in reaction to a stress-inducing situation designed to reduce stress and achieve more desired positive emotions.

The willingness to buy a particular product or service.

Strong, relatively uncontrolled feelings that affect behavior.

A multitrait theory used to identify five basic traits that are formed by genetics and early learning.

A motivational state caused by consumer perceptions that a product, brand, or advertisement is relevant or interesting.

A new projective technique used to construct a means-end or benefit chain.

Motives either unknown to the consumer or such that he was reluctant to admit them.

Motives that are known and freely admitted.

Based on four premises: (1) All humans acquire a similar set of motives through genetic endowment and social interaction. (2) Some motives are more basic or critical than others. (3) The more basic motives must be satisfied to a minimum level before other motives are activated. (4) As the basic motives become satisfied, more advanced motives come into play.

Where a product or brand is repeatedly shown to a consumer who names all the benefits that possession or use of the product might provide until the consumer can no longer identify additional benefits.

The reason for behavior.

A construct representing an unobservable inner force that stimulates and compels a behavioral response and provides specific direction for that response.

An individual's characteristic response tendencies across similar situations.

Prevention-focused motives revolve around a desire for safety and security and are related to consumers' sense of duties and obligations.

Designed to provide information on latent motives.

Promotion-focused motives revolve around a desire for growth and development and are related to consumers' hopes and aspirations.

Regulatory focus theory suggests that consumers will react differently depending on which broad set of motives is most salient.