S4 - Attitude change and persuasion, Consumer Decision Making

Question 1

What is the consistency principle? To which theory is it related?

Answer 1

One of the fundamental theories about attitude, which suggests that consumers have a need to be consistent in the way they feel (affect), behave (behavior), and think (cognition) about a concept.

Related cognitive dissonance theory and balance theory.

Question 2

What is cognitive dissonance? How do you reduce it?

Answer 2

Cognitive dissonance refers to the tension people experience when there is a conflict between their behaviour and their cognition/beliefs (ex.: care about the environment but buy plane ticket)

Dissonance reduction
1. Stop behaviour
2. Change belief
3. Introduce a new belief

Question 3

What is the balance theory? How to solve it? How does it apply to brands?

Answer 3

Balance theory considers relations amount elements that a person might perceive as belonging together. It involves relations among three elements, resulting in attitude structures that are called triad.

Ex.:
Sophie likes Mark. Sophie doesn’t like smoking. Mark smokes
= IMBALANCE

To resolve this situation, you can:
1. Change attitude towards Mark
2. Change attitude towards smoking
3. Reducing the free-choice element in Mark’s decision (ex.: he doesn’t have a choice)
4. Ignore that Mark likes to smoke (denial)

Brand can make links with celebrity/influencer that their target consumer like.
If Sophie likes Drake, and drake likes our brand -> Sophie more likely to like our brand.

Question 4

What is the Multi-Attribute Attitude Model?

Answer 4

It suggests that in certain cases, consumer form attitudes towards a product based on the attributes they consider to be important (ex.: accord importance to esthetism in laptop -> good evaluation of laptop)

Attitude Score = Sum of the rating of each attribute adjusted based on importance weight.

Question 5

Do attitudes predict actual behaviour?

Answer 5

Generally, an attitude likely predicts behaviour when it is formed through:
- high involvement
- direct experience
- is specific and direct in consumer’s minds.

In what circumstances attitudes may not predict actual behaviour?

1. Situational factors
   - not being able to afford, availability, lack of control
2. Normative influence
   - peer pressure, social desirability
3. Individual factors
   - high need for consistency (loyal)
   - avoiding inconvenience

Question 6

What are six principle of persuasion?**

Answer 6

1. Reciprocity
   - People have a tendency to reciprocate the services that are done to them.
2. Scarcity
   - Items become more valuable and desirable when they are less accessible.
3. Consensus
   - People often decide what to do or how to behave by looking at what others have done.
4. Consistency
   - People have a strong desire to be consistent with their previous opinions, commitments, and actions.
5. Liking
   - People are more easily influenced by those they like.
6. Authority
   - People are more easily influenced by those they perceive to be legitimate authorities.

Question 7

What is the persuasion knowledge model?

Answer 7

It suggests that consumers develop knowledge about persuasion and use this knowledge to deal with persuasive attempts.

Consumers’ persuasion knowledge may include beliefs about marketers motives and tactics. They usually get the best outcome for themselves and they would attribute negative motives to the persuasive agent if they can suspicious and be less easily persuaded.

Question 8

What are the steps in the process of consumer Decision-Making?

Answer 8

1. Need recognition
2. Information search
3. Evaluation of Alternatives
4. Purchase
5. Post purchase evaluation (satisfaction = loyalty +)

Question 9

What is a strategy that can be used to facilitate a decision when purchasing something?

Answer 9

Heuristics:
- mental shortcuts when making a decision
- associations
- ex.: Italian red wine = good.

Question 10

What are the two types of compensatory decision making rule? What does compensatory mean?

Answer 10

Compensatory: A low rating in one attribute could be compensated by a high rating in another attribute.

1. Simple additive compensatory decision-making rule
   - Calculate the sum of all the ratings = total score for each product in the consideration set.
   - Chooses the highest score.
2. Weighted additive compensatory decision-making rule
   - Calculate the sum of all the ratings ADJUSTED BASED ON IMPORTANCE WEIGHT = total score.
   - Chooses the highest score.

Question 11

What are the three types of Non-compensatory Decision-Making Rules? What does non-compensatory means?

Answer 11

Non-compensatory: non-negotiable criteria.

1. Lexicographic rule
   - Consumer chooses the product that has the highest rating on the attribute that is most important (ex.: highest quality).
2. Elimination-by-aspects rule
   - Consumers identifies a cut-off point on the most important attribute and eliminates alternatives that are below the cut-off point
   - Ex.: Would not buy a wine if it’s quality is inferior to 7.
3. Conjunctive rule
   - Consumer identifies a cut-off point on all the attributes
   - Ex.: Would not buy of wine for which quality is inferior to 7, Looks inferior to 3, Price superior to 5.

Question 12

What aspects influence the steps we consider during the decision-making process?

Answer 12

• Level of involvement
• Risk associated with purchase
• Product type (utilitarian vs hedonic)
• Situational factors (time, mood)