Individual Decision Making
CHAPTER OBJECTIVES
When students have finished reading this chapter, they should understand why:
• Consumer decision-making is a central part of consumer behavior, but the ways people evaluate and choose products (and the amount of thought they put into these choices) vary widely depending upon such dimensions as the degree of novelty or risk related to the decision.
• A decision is actually composed of a series of stages that results in the selection of one product over competing options.
• Our access to online sources is changing the way we decide what to buy.
• Decision making is not always rational.
• Consumers rely upon different decision rules when evaluating competing options.
• We often fall back on well-learned “rules-of-thumb” to make decisions.
CHAPTER SUMMARY
Consumers are faced with the needs to make decisions about products and services on a constant basis. Some of the decisions are very important to the consumer and entail great effort, while others are made on virtually an automatic or impulse basis. Perspectives on decision making range from a focus on habits that people develop over time to a focus on novel situations involving a great deal of risk where consumers must carefully collect and analyze information prior to making choices.
A typical decision process involves several steps. The first step is how consumers recognize the problem (problem recognition). Realization that a problem exists may be prompted in a variety of ways, ranging from actual malfunction of a current purchase to a desire for new things based on exposure to different circumstances or advertising that provides a glimpse into what is needed to “live the good life.” Shifts in the actual or ideal state are at the heart of problem recognition.
The second step is information search. This may range from simply scanning memory to determining what has been done to resolve the problem in the past to undertaking extensive fieldwork where the
When students have finished reading this chapter, they should understand why:
• Consumer decision-making is a central part of consumer behavior, but the ways people evaluate and choose products (and the amount of thought they put into these choices) vary widely depending upon such dimensions as the degree of novelty or risk related to the decision.
• A decision is actually composed of a series of stages that results in the selection of one product over competing options.
• Our access to online sources is changing the way we decide what to buy.
• Decision making is not always rational.
• Consumers rely upon different decision rules when evaluating competing options.
• We often fall back on well-learned “rules-of-thumb” to make decisions.
CHAPTER SUMMARY
Consumers are faced with the needs to make decisions about products and services on a constant basis. Some of the decisions are very important to the consumer and entail great effort, while others are made on virtually an automatic or impulse basis. Perspectives on decision making range from a focus on habits that people develop over time to a focus on novel situations involving a great deal of risk where consumers must carefully collect and analyze information prior to making choices.
A typical decision process involves several steps. The first step is how consumers recognize the problem (problem recognition). Realization that a problem exists may be prompted in a variety of ways, ranging from actual malfunction of a current purchase to a desire for new things based on exposure to different circumstances or advertising that provides a glimpse into what is needed to “live the good life.” Shifts in the actual or ideal state are at the heart of problem recognition.
The second step is information search. This may range from simply scanning memory to determining what has been done to resolve the problem in the past to undertaking extensive fieldwork where the