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Chapter 4
Motivation and Values
By Michael R. Solomon
Consumer Behavior
Buying, Having, and Being
•
What are Paula’s motivations for being a
vegetarian?
•
How is vegetarianism being promoted and
who is promoting it?
•
How is the beef industry responding to this
movement toward a meatless diet?
•
How are values influencing individuals’
choices in consumption?
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The Motivation Process
•
Motivation:
–
The processes that lead people to behave as they
do. It occurs when a need arises that a consumer
wishes to satisfy.
• Utilitarian need: Provides a functional or practical benefit
• Hedonic need: An experiential need involving emotional responses or fantasies
•
Goal:
The Motivation Process
•
Drive:
– The degree of arousal present due to a discrepancy between the consumer’s present state and some ideal state
•
Want:
– A manifestation of a need created by personal and cultural factors.
•
Motivation can be described in terms of:
– Strength: The pull it exerts on the consumer4 - 5
Ads Reinforce Desired States
•
This ad for exercise
Motivational Strength
•
Biological vs. Learned Needs:
– Instinct: Innate patterns of behavior universal in a species
– Tautology: Circular explanation (e.g. instinct is inferred from the behavior it is supposed to explain)
•
Drive Theory:
– Biological needs produce unpleasant states of arousal. We are
motivated to reduce tension caused by this arousal.
– Homeostasis: A balanced state of arousal
•
Expectancy Theory:
– Behavior is pulled by expectations of achieving desirable
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Motivational Direction
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Needs Versus Wants:
– Want: The particular form of consumption used to satisfy a
need.
•
Types of Needs
– Biogenic needs: Needs necessary to maintain life
– Psychogenic needs: Culture-related needs (e.g. need for
status, power, affiliation, etc.)
– Utilitarian needs: Implies that consumers will emphasize
the objective, tangible aspects of products
– Hedonic needs: Subjective and experiential needs (e.g.
Instant Gratification of Needs
•
We expect today’s technical products to satisfy
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Motivational Conflicts
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Approach-Approach Conflict:
– A person must choose between two desirable alternatives.
– Theory of Cognitive Dissonance: A state of tension occurs
when beliefs or behaviors conflict with one another.
• Cognitive Dissonance Reduction: Process by which
people are motivated to reduce tension between beliefs or behaviors.
•
Approach-Avoidance Conflict:
– Exists when consumers desire a goal but wish to avoid it at
the same time.
•
Avoidance-Avoidance Conflict:
Three Types of Motivational Conflicts
• Do sporting events, such as a college football
game, satisfy utilitarian or
hedonic needs? Which specific needs do they address?
• Give some other
examples of utilitarian and hedonic needs.
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Negative Consequences
•
The Partnership for a
Drug-Free America
Classifying Consumer Needs
•
Henry Murray need dimensions:
– Autonomy: Being independent
– Defendance: Defending the self against criticism – Play: Engaging in pleasurable activities
•
Thematic Apperception Technique (TAT):
–
(1) What is happening?
–
(2) What led up to this situation?
–
(3) What is being thought?
–
(4) What will happen?
–
People freely project their subconscious needs
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Classifying Consumer Needs (cont.)
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Specific Needs and Buying Behavior:
– Need for achievement: To attain personal accomplishment – Need for affiliation: To be in the company of others
– Need for power: To control one’s environment
– Need for uniqueness: To assert one’s individual identity
•
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs:
– A hierarchy of biogenic and psychogenic needs that
specifies certain levels of motives.
•
Paradise: Satisfying Needs?
– Distinct differences regarding the conceptualization of
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
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Dutch Conception of Paradise
• A Dutch respondent’s collage emphasizes this person’s conception of paradise as a place where there is
Criticisms of Maslow’s Hierarchy
•
The application is too simplistic:
– It is possible for the same product or activity to satisfy
every need.
•
It is too culture-bound:
– The assumptions of the hierarchy may be restricted to
Western culture
•
It emphasizes individual needs over group
needs
– Individuals in some cultures place more value on the
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Consumer Involvement
•
Involvement:
–
A person’s perceived relevance of the object based
on his/her inherent needs, values, and interests.
• Object: A product or brand
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Levels of Involvement: Inertia to Passion
–
Type of information processing depends on the
consumer’s level of involvement
• Simple processing: Only the basic features of the message are considered
Conceptualizing Involvement
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Increasing Involvement through Ads
•
The Swiss Potato
Board is trying to
Consumer Involvement (cont.)
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Involvement as a Continuum:
– Ranges from disinterest to obsession
•
Inertia
(Low involvement consumption)
:
– Consumer lacks the motivation to consider alternatives
•
Flow State
(High involvement consumption)
:
– Consumer is truly involved with the product, ad or web site
•
Cult Products:
The Many Faces of Involvement
•
Product Involvement:
–
Related to a consumer’s level of interest in a
particular product
•
Message-Response Involvement:
–
(a.k.a. advertising involvement)
Refers to a
consumer’s interest in processing marketing
communications
•
Purchase Situation Involvement:
–
Refers to the differences that may occur when buying
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Emotions versus Cognitions
•
Many marketing
messages, such as
this ad for a cosmetic
company in Taiwan,
focus on emotions
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Measuring Involvement
•
Teasing out the Dimensions of Involvement:
– Involvement Profile:
• Personal interest in a product category
• Risk importance
• Probability of making a bad purchase
• Pleasure value of the product category
• How closely the product is related to the self
– Zaichkowsky’s Personal Involvement Inventory Scale
•
Segmenting by Involvement Levels:
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Strategies to Increase Involvement
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Appeal to hedonic needs
–
e.g. using sensory appeals to generate attention
•
Use novel stimuli
–
e.g. unusual cinematography, sudden silences, etc.
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Use prominent stimuli
–
e.g. larger ads, more color
•
Include celebrity endorsers
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Build a bond with consumers
Values
•
Value:
– A belief that some condition is preferable to its opposite (e.g. freedom is better than slavery)
•
Core Values:
– General set of values that uniquely define a culture
• Value system: A culture’s unique set of rankings of the
relative importance of universal values.
– Enculturation:
• Process of learning the value systems of one’s own culture
– Acculturation:
• Process of learning the value system of another culture
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Core Values
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Cleanliness is a core
Application of Values
to Consumer Behavior
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Useful distinctions in values for
consumer behavior research
–
Cultural Values
(e.g. security or happiness)
–
Consumption-Specific Values
(e.g. convenient
shopping or prompt service)
–
Product-Specific Values
(e.g. ease-of-use or
durability)
•
Virtually all consumer research is
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Emotions versus Cognitions
Measuring Cultural Values
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The Rokeach Value Survey
–
Terminal Values:
Desired end states
–
Instrumental Values:
Actions needed to achieve
terminal values
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The List of Values (LOV) Scale
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Developed to isolate values with more direct
marketing applications
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Identifies nine (9) consumer segments based on the
values they endorse
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The Means-End Chain Model
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Laddering:
– A technique that uncovers consumers’ associations between attributes and consequences
•
Hierarchical value maps:
– Show how product attributes are linked to desired end states
•
Means-End Conceptualization of the
Components of Advertising Strategy
(MECCAS):
• Message Elements
• Consumer Benefits
• Executional Framework
• Leverage Point
Syndicated Surveys
•
Large-scale commercial surveys
•
Voluntary simplifiers:
–
Believe that once basic needs are sated, additional
income does not add to happiness.
•
Examples:
–
VALS 2
–
GlobalScan
–
New Wave
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Materialism
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Materialism:
–
The importance people attach to worldly possessions
–
Tends to emphasize the well-being of the individual
versus the group
–
People with highly material values tend to be less
happy
–
America is a highly materialistic society
Values of Materialists
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• Materialists are more
likely to consume for
status. Can you think of products and brands that convey status?
• There is a movement
away from materialism in our culture. Can you
think of products, ads, or brands that are
anti-materialistic?
Consumer Behavior in
the Aftermath of 9/11
•
Following 9/11, ads
addressed people’s
