Consumer Behavior Week 4

How is associative memory like a spider web?

Knowledge structures can be thought of as complex spider webs filled with pieces of data. This information is placed into nodes connected by associative links within these structures. Pieces of information that are seen as similar in some way are chunked together under some more abstract category. New, incoming information is interpreted to be consistent with the structure already in place

two basic measures of memory

recognition and recall

Why is it not necessarily a good idea to advertise a product in a commercial where a really popular song plays in the background?

A popular song might also be heard in many situations in which the product is not present. When the unconditioned stimulus appears in the absence of the conditioned stimulus, it can lead to extinction of the effect of conditioning

If a consumer is familiar with a product, advertising for it can work both ways by either enhancing or diminishing recall. Why?

As a rule, prior familiarity with an item enhances its recall. This is one of the basic goals of marketers who are trying to create and maintain awareness of their products. The more experience a consumer has with a product, the better use he or she is able to make of product information. However, there is a possible fly in the ointment: As noted earlier in the chapter, some evidence indicates that extreme familiarity can result in inferior learning and recall. When consumers are highly familiar with a brand or an advertisement, they may attend to fewer attributes because they do not believe that any additional effort will yield a gain in knowledge.

external memory

During the consumer decision-making process, this internal memory is combined with external memory that includes all of the product details on packages and other marketing stimuli that permit brand alternatives to be identified and evaluated.

behavioral learning theory

Explanations of learning that emphasize observable changes in behavior.

Why do U.S. phone numbers have seven digits?

Initially, researchers believed that STM was capable of processing between five and nine chunks of information at a time, and for this reason they designed phone numbers to have seven digits.

repetition

Many classic advertising campaigns consist of product slogans that have been repeated so many times that they are etched in consumers' minds. Conditioning will not occur or will take longer if the CS is only occasionally paired with the UCS. One result of this lack of association may be extinction that occurs when effects of prior conditioning reduce and finally disappear. This can occur, for example, when a product is overexposed in the marketplace so that its original allure is lost.

halo effect

People react to other, similar stimuli in much the same way they responded to the original stimulus. A drugstore's bottle of private brand mouthwash deliberately packaged to resemble Listerine mouthwash may evoke a similar response among consumers, who assume that this "me-too" product shares other characteristics of the original.

three problems with measures of memory for advertising

Response biases, memory lapses, and memory for facts versus feelings (emotional memory is stronger than fact memory, we recall it better)

Why does a pioneering brand have a memory advantage over follower brands?

Some evidence indicates that information about a pioneering brand (the first brand to enter a market) is more easily retrieved from memory than follower brands because the first product's introduction is likely to be distinctive and, for the time being, no competitors divert the consumer's attention.

How does the likelihood that a person wants to use an ATM machine relate to a schema?

The desire to follow a script or schema helps to explain why such service innovations as automatic bank machines, self-service gas stations, or "scan-your-own" grocery checkouts have met with resistance by some consumers, who have trouble adapting to a new sequence of events.

instrumental conditioning

also known as operant conditioning, occurs as the individual learns to perform behaviors that produce positive outcomes and to avoid those that yield negative outcomes.

Short-term memory (STM)

also stores information for a limited period, and it has limited capacity. Similar to a computer, this system can be regarded as working memory; it holds the information we are currently processing

negative reinforcement

also strengthens the response as we learn to avoid a certain behavior

cognitive learning theory

approaches stress the importance of internal mental processes. This perspective views people as

recall test

ask consumers to independently think of what they have seen without

nostalgia

bittersweet emotion; the past is viewed with both sadness and longing. References to "the good old days" are increasingly common, as advertisers call up memories of youth—and hope these feelings will translate to what they are selling today

decay

causes a structural change in how we learn and remember. Forgetting also occurs because of interference. When we learn new information, it displaces previous information. Because we store information in memory as nodes that link to one another, we are more likely to retrieve a meaning concept that is connected by a larger number of links. As we learn new information, a stimulus loses its effectiveness in retrieving old responses being prompted for this information first—obviously this task requires greater effort on the part of respondents.

three stages of information processing

encoding, storage, retrieval

conditioned stimulus

in classical conditioning, an originally irrelevant stimulus that, after association with an unconditioned stimulus, comes to trigger a conditioned response

different types of reinforcement

instrumental conditioning, shaping, positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, punishment, frequency marketing

shaping

is a reinforcement tool that rewards intermediate actions

punishment

is an unpleasant event that follows an action. When a person no longer receives a desired outcome for an action, they will eventually quit performing the action.

Long-term memory (LTM)

is the system that allows us to retain information for a long period. Elaborative rehearsal is required in order for information to enter into long-term memory from short-term memory. This process involves thinking about the meaning of a stimulus and relating it to other information already in memory

unconditioned stimulus

it is naturally capable of causing the response

classical conditioning

occurs when a stimulus that elicits a response is paired with another stimulus that initially does not elicit a response on its own. Over time, this second stimulus causes a similar response because it is associated with the first stimulus

sensory memory

permits storage of the information we receive from our senses.This storage is temporary; it lasts a couple of seconds at most

episodic memory

relate to events that are personally relevant. As a result, a person's motivation to retain these memories will likely be strong. Couples often have "their song" that reminds them of their first date or wedding or some remember the first time they went on a date or what happened at their high school prom.

frequency marketing

rewards regular purchasers with prizes as they spend more. This positive reinforcement encourages consumers to spend more, and increase reward levels.

three types of memory

sensory, short term, long term

Positive reinforcement

strengthens the response and we learn appropriate behavior

recognition test

subjects are shown ads one at a time and asked if they have seen them before