Chapter 7 Consumer Attitude Formation and Change

1. Chapter 7Consumer Attitude Formation and Change Consumer Behaviour Canadian Edition Schiffman/Kanuk/Das

2. Attitudes • List 5 products/brands/companies/ services toward which you have a positive attitude. • Have you ever bought something you did not have a positive attitude towards? What is an attitude? • A learned predisposition to behave in a consistently favorable or unfavorable manner with respect to a given object • A positive attitude is generally a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for purchase

3. Characteristics of Attitudes • Attitudes have an “object” • Attitudes are learned • Can ‘unlearn’ • Attitudes have behavioural, evaluative and affective components • Attitudes have consistency • Attitudes have direction, degree, strength and centrality • Positive or negative • Extent of positive or negative feelings • Strength of feelings • Closeness to core cultural values • Attitudes occur within a situation

4. Basic Functions of Attitudes • The Utilitarian Function • How well it performs • The Ego-defensive Function • To protect one’s self-concept • The Value-expressive Function (eg. LG and Sun Chips ads) • To convey one’s values and lifestyles • The Knowledge Function • A way to gain knowledge

5. How are attitudes formed? • Attitudes are learned • Classical conditioning (through past associations) • Operant conditioning (through trial and reinforcement) • Cognitive learning (through information processing) • Attitudes are strongly influenced by: • Personal experience • Influence of family and friends • Direct marketing • Mass media

6. Attitude Models • Structural Models of Attitudes • Tri-component Attitude Model • Multi-attribute Attitude Model • Both assume a rational model of human behaviour • Other models of attitude formation • Cognitive dissonance model • Attribution theory

7. The Tri-component Model Conation Affect Cognition • Cognitive Component • knowledge and perceptions acquired through direct experience and information from various sources. • Affective component • Emotions and feelings about the object • Conative or Behavioural Component • Action tendencies toward the object

8. Multi-attribute Attitude Models • Attitude models that examine the composition of consumer attitudes in terms of selected product attributes or beliefs. • Examples • Attitude-toward-object Model • Ao=nWiXib i=1 • Attitude-toward-behaviour Model • Theory-of-Reasoned-Action Model

10. Behaviour Can Precede Attitude Formation • Cognitive Dissonance Theory • Attribution Theory Behave (Purchase) Form Attitude Form Attitude

11. Cognitive Dissonance Theory • Holds that discomfort or dissonance occurs when a consumer holds conflicting thoughts about a belief or an attitude object. • Post-purchase Dissonance • Cognitive dissonance that occurs after a consumer has made a purchase commitment

12. Attribution Theory • Examines how people assign casualty to events and form or alter their attitudes as an outcome of assessing their own or other people’s behaviour. • Examples • Self-perception Theory • Attribution toward others

13. Self-Perception Theory • Attitudes developed by reflecting on their own behaviour • Internal and external attributions • Consumers are likely to accept credit for successful outcomes (internal attribution) and to blame other persons or products for failure (external attribution). • Foot-In-The-Door Technique

14. How We Test Our Attributions • Distinctiveness • Consistency over time • Consistency over modality • Consensus

15. Attitudes and Marketing Strategy • Appeal to motivational functions of attitudes • Associate product with a special group, cause or event • Resolve conflicts among attitudes • POM Wonderful • Influence consumer attribution • Alter components of the attitude • Change relative evaluation of attributes • Change brand beliefs • Add an attribute • Change overall brand evaluation • Change beliefs about competitors’ brands (Campbell’s/Progresso War) • Change affect first through classical conditioning • Change behaviour first through operant conditioning