The traditional perspectives

3.3.1.1. The rational perspective

The rational, or economic man perspective (Pachauri 2002) represents the first attempt in explaining consumer behaviour with its origins tracing back to classical and neoclassical economic theory. This perspective postulates a rational approach to decision making, stressing the effort of utility maximization with minimum effort. Utility theory is the prevailing model of this perspective dictating that choices are made according to their expected outcome. The economic man perspective requires that consumers: (a) Are aware of all available options, which necessitates availability of adequate information; (b) are rational, capable and have available time to correctly rate all alternative options, and select the optimum choice. Although the economic man perspective fails to explain several facets of buying behaviour (e.g. how product and brand preferences are formed), it provided the basis of rationalism and therefore the basis for the development of the traditional perspectives such as cognitivism.

3.3.1.2. The cognitive perspective

The cognitive, or decision making (Mowen 1988), or information processing perspective (Holbrook and Hirschman 1982) views consumers as problem solvers and attempts to explain consumer behaviour phenomena by investigating consumers’ information processing mechanisms. It therefore places emphasis in the way that consumers search, store, retrieve, evaluate and use information during their decision making process.

Cognitivists recognize the influential role of the environment and the social experiences, not exclusively as supported by the behaviourists’ approach, but as providing stimuli in the form of informational inputs for further processing and input to decision making (Stewart 1994).

Sternthal and Craig (1982 cited Marsden and Littler 1998) support that the major marketing strategy implication of the cognitive perspective’s is that in order to influence consumers’

behaviour they should be exposed to information. The cognitive perspective gave birth to consumer behaviour’s comprehensive models and grand theories of the 1960s. Among the major criticisms of the cognitive perspective are:

a. Its assumption that consumers are complex rational decision makers (Olshavsky and Granbois 1979).

b. Its adoption of a “reductionist assumption of human nature” (Marsden and Littler 1998, p.7). The reductionist assumption supports that a complex system is nothing but the sum of its parts (Polkinghorne 2002).

c. Its heavy reliance on “abstract and unobservable variables” (Foxall 1990, p.96) that cannot be easily evaluated and empirically investigated.

d. It may lead to an unintentional negligence of other aspects of buying behaviour such as affect and impacts from the environment (Mowen 1988).

Foxall (1990) despite his radical behavioural orientation, supports that there are reasons that strengthen the cognitive perspective’s position in explaining consumer behaviour:

a. It offers intuitively attractive means of explaining everyday consumer behaviour due to its “common sense” like explanations it provides.

b. The extensive use of cognitive theory in other social sciences enables consumer researchers to borrow theoretical and methodological inputs, therefore advancing further consumer behaviour theory.

c. It provides means to measure unity and consensus to the field of consumer research d. It provides an explanation of consumer behaviour that proceeds in accordance of how

consumers can describe their experiences in terms of motives, needs, wants and attitudes.

In addition, Foxall (1993 cited Bray 2008) attributes to cognitivism the capacity to explain complex behaviours, whereas behaviourism cannot determine the contingencies that control response.

3.3.1.3. The behavioural perspective

Whilst the cognitive perspective focuses on the internal, mental processes, the behavioural focuses on the effects of environmental stimuli on consumer behaviour such as societal and group norms, advertising, situational factors and environmental contingencies (Mowen 1988).

Steaming from its dominance on psychology back in the 1960s, the behavioural perspective revived in consumer research in the 1980s. In discussing the behavioural influence perspective, Mowen (1988) attempts a very limited approach, presenting only operant and classical conditioning as behavioural influence techniques, whereas Marsden and Littler (1998) describe three forms of behaviourism: (a) behaviour modification, (b) behavioural learning and (c) radical behavioural perspective. In an in-depth analysis of behaviourism, Foxall (1990) adopts Hillner’s (1984 cited Foxall 1990) five dimensions (the nature of mind-body; the relevance of mental events; the location of primary determinant of behaviour; the primary locus of internal mediators; and the reducibility of central mediators to behavioural terms) to distinguish and define six forms of behaviourism placed on a continuum according to their relevance of extrapersonal or intrapersonal events and processes as depicted presented in Figure 3.1.

Figure 3.1: Forms of behaviourism

Source: Foxall (1990)

Metaphysical behaviourism denies the existence of mind and adheres to a strict monism (Foxall 1990, p.35), therefore it is located on the left edge of the continuum. Descriptive behaviourism, a family that incorporates both methodological behaviourism and radical behaviourism, attributes behaviour exclusively to environmental stimuli. It accepts that intrapersonal events exist but are considered collateral products of external causes. Methodological behaviourism,

[stated in Marsden and Littler (1998) as the “behaviour modification perspective”, and in Bray (2008) as “Classical Behaviourism”] is based on Pavlov’s and Watson’s classical conditioning theory to explain behaviour. Methodological behaviourism does not make references to consciousness, internal events or mental processes, considering them outside the scope of scientific analysis due to their private nature that sets them beyond public verification.

Radical behaviourism, founded by Skinner, acknowledges the existence of mental states but it considers them not as causative, but as dependent variables that should be explained, thus having empirical interest. To the right edge of the continuum, cognitive behaviourism accepts intrapersonal cognitive processes are causative, and are the “primary irreducible determinants of overt behaviours” (Foxall 1990, p.36).

Among the major criticisms of the behavioural perspective are:

a. It was originally derived on experiments with animals rather than humans (Marsden and Littler 1998).

b. It is more appropriate for explaining low involvement purchases (Mowen 1988).

c. It is based on deterministic assumptions about the human nature (Marsden and Littler 1998).

d. By attributing consumer behaviour to external stimuli, the behavioural perspective ignores the human abilities of inference and insight (Pachauri 2002).

e. Behaviourism does not seem to explain adequately the diversity of responses that are generated by humans when they are exposed to similar stimuli (Bray 2008).

3.3.1.4. The experiential perspective

The experiential perspective (Holbrook and Hirschman 1982, Mowen 1988) has emerged during the early 1980s. During this period the hegemony of the decision making (cognitive) perspective was challenged: Olshavsky and Granbois (1979, p.98) proposed that “a significant proportion of purchases may not be preceded by a decision process” and therefore argued that theories accepting the existence of a decision making process as a prerequisite to purchases can provide an adequate explanation only for certain types of behaviour. In a different vein, Holbrook and Hirschman (1982) argued the prevailing information processing model should be supplemented and enriched it with an “experiential view” that focuses on the symbolic, hedonic, and aesthetic nature of consumption. The experiential perspective recognizes the role of symbolic benefits, and subjective features in affective/experiential products such as entertainment, arts, leisure activities, or even purchase and consumption phenomena related to sensory pleasures, daydreams, aesthetic enjoyment, emotional responses, variety seeking and

impulse buying. However, despite Mowen’s (1988) position, the experiential view cannot be considered as a distinct perspective. As Holbrook and Hirschman’s (1982) suggest, it is an attempt to supplement, enrich and enlarge the information processing perspective so as to provide explanation for consumer behaviour phenomena that were at that time ignored.

3.3.1.5. The trait perspective

The trait (Marsden and Littler 1998), or personality (Pachauri 2002) perspective attempts to explain consumer behaviour on the basis of consumers’ enduring personality characteristics that are predictive of future behaviour. In this context, personality is understood “as a concept which accounts for the apparent consistencies and regularities of behaviour over time and across a variety of situations” (Pervin 1984 cited Pachauri 2002, p.328), but also as “the unique way in which traits, attitudes, aptitudes, etc. are organized in an individual” (Marx and Hillix 1979 cited Pachauri 2002, p.328), such as for example introverts-extroverts, or adaptors-innovators.

The trait perspective proved useful in (a) the development of personality and AIO (Activities, Interests and Opinions) inventories employed in lifestyle market segmentation, and (b) in

“exploring decision making styles and strategies” (Marsden and Littler 1998, p.8). For example, Foxall and Goldsmith (1988) studying the empirical use of the Kirton Adaption- Innovation inventory, a personality-related measure of cognitive style, suggest that consumers can be differentiated in terms of their adaptive or innovative cognitive style in their decision making.

Based on such findings however, it may be assumed that the trait perspective does not represents a distinct consumer behaviour perspective, but an approach operating within the cognitive, decision-making perspective.

Criticism of the trait perspective includes: (a) Its ignorance of the individual differences due to the use of standardised research frameworks (Steenkamp et al. 1994 cited Marsden and Littler 1998); and (b) its inherent reductionism and claims of objectivity (Marsden and Littler 1998).

3.3.1.6. The motivational perspective

Pachauri (2002, p.328) recognizes as a distinct “motivational perspective” the work of psychologists, such as Dichter, who during the 1950s used psychoanalytical techniques such as clinical interviews to reveal consumer hidden motivations. She also recognizes that the dissatisfaction with the techniques employed in motivational research was partly responsible for the development of the personality / trait perspective. However, despite the contribution of motivational research to the development of consumer behaviour and its recognition as a

distinct phase of development (Arndt 1986, Waguespack and Hyman 1993, Ekström 2003), today it is not characterized as a distinct perspective.