Consumer Behaviour - Chapter 5

Surrogate Indicator

an attribute, such as price, used to estimate the level of different attribute, such as quality

Projective Techniques

techniques designed to measure feelings, attitudes and motivations that consumers may be unable or unwilling to reveal

Sensory Discrimination

the ability of an individual to distinguish between similar stimuli using one of the senses

Blind Test

A test in which the consumer is not aware of the product's brand name. Such tests enable the marketer to evaluate the functional characteristics of the product and to determine whether a just-noticeable difference over a particular competitor has been obtained

Non-compensatory Decision Rule

a decision rule such that very good performance on one evaluative criterion cannot compensate for poor performance on another

Disjunctive Decision Rule

a decision rule that establishes a minimum level of performance for each important attribute (often fairly high level); all brands that surpass the performance level for any key attribute are considered acceptable

Conjunctive Decision Rule

a decision rule that establishes the minimum required performance standards for each evaluative criterion and selects all brands that surpass these minimum standards

Lexicographic Decision Rule

a decision rule that requires the consumer to rank the criteria in order of importance; the consumer then selects the brand that performs best of the most important attribute

Elimination-by-aspects decision rule

a decision rule that requires the consumer to rank the evaluative criteria in terms of their importance and establish a cut-off point for each criterion; all brands are first considered on the most important criterion

Compensatory Decision Rule

a decision rule that states that the brand that rates highest on the sum on the consumer's judgements of the relevant criteria will be chosen

Heuristic

a mental 'rule of thumb' used by consumers to assit in the decision-making process

Perceptual Mapping

a method whereby consumers judge the similarity of alternative brands without specifying evaluative criteria; these judgements are processed using a computer to derive a perceptual map, or spatial configuration, of the brands; the consumer simply ranks the similarity between all pairs of alternatives and a perceptual configuration is derived in which the consumer's evaluative criteria are the dimensions of the configuration

Decision Rule

a rule that describes how consumers select one alternative from those considered; consumers frequently use five rules, either singly or in combination, to make their decisions: conjunctive, disjunctive, lexicographic, elimination-by-aspects and compensatory decisions rules

Semantic-Differential Scale

a scale that requires the consumer to rate an item on a number of scales bounded at each end by one of two bipolar adjectives (e.g. fast-slow, expensive-inexpensive)

Conjoint Analysis

a technique that provides data on the structure of consumers' preferences for product features and their willingness to trade one feature for more of another

Affective Choices

decisions based primarily on feelings

Likert Scales

scales that require consumers to indicate a degree of agreement or disagreement with each of a series of statements related to the attitude object

Rank-Ordering Scales

scales that require the consumer to rank a set of brands, advertisements or features in terms of overall preference, taste or importantance

Best-worst scales

scales that require the consumer to rank a subset of items from most to least favourite

Confidence Value

the consumer's ability to distinguish between brands on the surrogate indicator

Predictive Value (of an attribute)

the consumer's perception that one attribute is an accurate predictor for another

Evaluative Criteria

the features or desired characteristics of a product required to meet the consumer's needs; the features the consumer believes a product should have, such as suitable price, brand or ingredients

Just-noticeable Difference

the minimum amount of change in a stimulus that needs to occur for consumers to notice the difference

Constant-Sum Scale

the most common method of direct measurement; requires the consumer to allocate 100 points in total to his or her evaluative criteria, with individual points allocated depending on the relative importance of each criterion