Consumer Behavior

Consumer behavior is a field of study that generally falls under the umbrella of marketing and is associated with consumer research. Consumer behavior is defined as being concerned with “individuals or groups acquiring, using and disposing of products, services, ideas or experiences” (Arnould, Price, and Zinkhan 2002, 5) and as “the study of the processes involved when individuals or groups select, purchase, use or dispose of products, services, ideas or experiences to satisfy wants and needs” (Solomon et al. 2006, 6). Consumer behavior can be regarded as having evolved from buyer behavior and a concern with rational buyer decision making, often typified by an interest in cognition, affect, and behavior. The shift in title from “buyer” to “consumer” often represents a broadening of interest beyond constituting the subject as prospective buyer of interest to profit-motivated marketing managers, toward a more general concern with what the consumer might be and how he or she engages with and is engaged by community and context. Hence, the study of consumer behavior is increasingly interdisciplinary and draws from a broad range of social sciences, including economics, anthropology, culture studies, media studies, sociology, as well as literary theory, art history, and philosophy.

A foundational framework within consumer behavior is the so-called C-A-B model, which is the process-flow from cognition to affect to behavior; a model that aids variable analysis toward the object of predicting buyer behavior (Howard and Sheth 1969). An influential iteration of this core model is Gary Armstrong and Philip Kotler's buyer decision process, which charts the flow of rational buyers as they move from need recognition, information search, evaluation of alternatives, purchase decision, and ultimately postpurchase evaluation. Other influential studies within this general body of research include the elaboration likelihood model (Petty and Cacioppo 1986), which adjusts the C-A-B model to note that consumers' antecedent level of involvement (the degree of past involvement in product information) will mediate their likelihood of engaging with product information, and also the servicescape model (Bitner 1992), which updates the C-A-B model to include insights from environmental psychology, such as the mediational influence of tangible cues like store layout and intangible cues like background music.

A criticism of such a theoretical approach is that it tends to portray consumers as passive individuals who simply respond to environmental forces that operate largely beyond their control and implies that the predictive mechanics of purchase decisions are somehow made in isolation from a social world. In addition, that consumer behavior may not always be an entirely rational affair that can be predicted and explained by positivistic models, which was argued by Morris B. Holbrook and Elizabeth C. Hirschman, who called for a more experientialist understanding of hedonic (e.g., pleasurable) consumer behavior (refers to the richness of the consumption experience [Page 238]and the fantasies, feelings, and fun often contained therein). This approach, coupled with a contemporary interest in importing insights from humanities and anthropology, may be regarded as contributing to a shift in the study of consumer behavior beyond positivistic concerns, a shift acerbated by the growing influence of postmodern theory in the mid-1990s, an increased sensitivity of critical perspectives, and a convergence of interest in studying consumption with other subject areas outside of marketing.

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