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Summary articles consumer and economic psychology
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All the articles summarized for the course Consumer and Economic Psychology, a bachelor 3rd year course or from the minor Psychology in Society
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The Seven Sins of Consumer Psychology – PhamAbstract
The 7 sins:
- A narrow conception of the scope of consumer behavior research
- Adoption of a narrow set of theoretical lenses
- Adherence to a narrow epistemology of consumer research
- An almost exclusive emphasis on psychological processes as opposed to psychological
content
- A strong tendency to overgeneralize from finite empirical results
- A predisposition to design studies based on methodological convenience rather than on
substantive considerations
- A pervasive confusion between theories of studies and studies of theories
Introduction
The field of consumer psychology has grown and has become more inclusive. But the research
findings lack relevance and impact for both our external constituents (businesses, policy makers,
consumers) and internal constituents (consumer researchers, social scientists). Recognizing and
correcting the 7 problems can improve the overall relevance and impact of the field.
The relevance of consumer psychology (or lack thereof)
There have been many calls for greater relevance, mostly focused on the external constituents. A
number of leaders in the field believe that consumer research should be a stand-alone academic
discipline that is not subservient to the world of business and marketing, so they do not need to be
relevant to be scientifically worthwhile.
Disagree because many consumer psychologists work in business schools rather than social science
departments, so the study of consumer behavior is actually accountable for the knowledge needs of
the business community. And research findings are easily claimed as relevant for public policy or
consumer welfare, even when they are not. Also if the research has theoretical implications only, it is
not clear that it meets the criterion either. It is not that much internally relevant either (figure 1:
average number of citations per year). The majority of articles hardly gets cited.
What is wrong with consumer psychology?
1: Narrow scope
Figure 2: the scope of consumer behavior can be represented in a series of stages
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,The bulk of research focuses on the acquisition stage, specifically purchasing behavior. But this is only
a small subset of all consumption-related activities. Businesses are actually also interested in what
consumers need and want (desire stage) and how products/services are actually used and consumed
(use and consumption stage). And policy makers are typically less interested in the act of purchase
than in the act of consumption itself (like overeating, addiction, etc.), the factors that motivated the
consumption in the first place and the divestment/disengagement of the consumption (recycling,
overcoming addiction).
Some examples:
- Needs and wants: creating needs out of thin air, example: the need for diamonds
- Usage and consumption: customer experiences, the value of the products/services, pre-
consumption activities, shared consumption, product possession behavior
- Other modes of acquisition: borrowing, sharing, renting, gifting and stealing also have a
major impact, example: businesses based on sharing and the costs of theft
- Disposal and divestment: the impact on the environment, overcoming addiction is a major
public-policy priority, the issue of compulsive hoarding
2: Narrow lenses
Most of our research has been dominated by 3 theoretical paradigms: cognitive psychology, social
psychology and behavioral decision theory. Particular theoretical lenses (attention, perception,
categorization, memory, attitudes, heuristics, biases, etc.) have produces a narrow and mechanistic
view of the consumer, which fails to capture the richness of how consumers actually operate, and is
at odds with the way business and marketing professionals think about consumers.
Figure 3: a concentric circles perspective of consumer behavior theory
Each circle represents a different type of lens on consumer behavior.
- The mechanical core: information processing and judgment machinery
- Affective layer: feelings, moods, emotions, affective preferences
- Motivational ground: goals, motives, needs and values
- Socio-relational context: social influences, family membership, social roles
- Cultural background: language, norms, history, economic system, etc.
The lenses shape the lens inside them (example: feelings influence judgment).
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,This view makes it clear that we put too much emphasis on mechanistic explanations of consumer
behavior. We should be more willing to explore additional theoretical lenses, especially those that go
outside of the layers of the figure. Also, theories of consumer behavior are not mutually exclusive.
We are obsessed with unique theoretical explanations, but there is no single best explanation for
many important and interesting consumption phenomena. Phenomena that are truly uniquely
determined might not be that important to begin with. And many theories should be seen as
complementary rather than competing, because they capture different levels of explanation. And
theories are just theories, they are not meant to be statements of categorical truth. We should be
open to the co-existence of multiple theories rather than feeling the urge to identify a single best
theory.
3: Narrow epistemology
The field defines what consumer knowledge is and how it should be advanced, mostly of a relational
type where we connect theoretical constructs to one another and use these theoretical relations to
explain some substantive phenomenon of interest. 2 primary scientific paths have dominated: the
hypothetico-deductive path and the inductive path. We should consider 2 additional paths: a
descriptive path and an external theory validation path.
In the hypothetico-deductive path first constructs are related to one another to generate some
theoretical hypotheses, and then the hypotheses are tested with empirical data. Drawbacks: it’s not
about actual consumer behavior, but the conceptualization and ‘’pure psychology’’.
In the inductive path, interesting phenomena are first identified and then conceptualized through
systematic empirical testing. It also involves the development of theoretical connections (relational),
but it starts with empirical observations instead of theoretical predictions. Benefits: genuine
relevance to consumer behavior.
The descriptive path: research that reports empirical findings without advancing theoretical relations.
They can make important observations, and can come from the industry rather than from academia.
3 criteria: the phenomenon needs to be demonstrably robust and general (qualifying as an empirical
generalization), it should tell us something we don’t already know about consumer behavior, and it
should be useful from a substantive standpoint.
The field-theory validation path: a variant of the hypothetico-deductive path. But instead of testing
hypotheses that researchers generated themselves, they should test hypotheses of industry
consultants. These are relevant theories, that are mostly speculations that businesses or policy
makers find interesting and believable.
4: Disregard for content
McClelland: ‘’Psychologists used to be interested in what went on in people’s heads.’’ It moved away
from the study of mental content to the study of mental processes. This move has also affected
consumer psychology. The actual content of the consumer’s thoughts, beliefs, feelings and motives
does not really seem to matter, only the psychological processes. But we should pay more attention
to content. This increases internal and external relevance. We should suspend our search for
psychological universals (generic), and should ground our theorizing in particular consumption
contexts (specific).
5: Overgeneralization
There is a tendency to overgeneralize from available evidence, both as researchers and readers.
Researchers have to think carefully about the context, product category, stimuli, procedure and
measures in their study to make a study ‘’work’’. But when it works, we get confident of our results
and interpretation, and forgot how much effort it took. We perceive our findings as more general
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, and robust than they actually are (fundamental attribution error). And we don’t make enough effort
to replicate our findings. The same goes for reading and reviewing literature (example: jam-in-
supermarket study).
Solutions: more replications, increased sample sizes and more nuanced, precise, careful and
transparent writing (and reading). We should also be more supportive of direct replications.
6: Research by convenience
Example: over-reliance on (American) student samples for research, which can’t be generalized to a
broader population. A large part of the population is less educated and intelligent.
MTurk participants appear to be a little more like real consumers, but there is the problem of self-
selection, they are often people who are willing to perform mindless, computer-mediated tasks for
half the minimum wage. And there is growing evidence of seeing through the social science studies,
which is a concern of validity. And because it’s cheap data-collecting, studies that can be done using
MTurk are used more.
The research-by-convenience also extends to the convenience of the instruments we use, like asking
participants to imagine certain situations. The problem is that some focal aspects are made more
prominent, and the strength of the observed effects is exaggerated. And the participants adopt
analytical mindsets that are not representative of how they would actually respond to such situations
in real life.
7: Confusing theories of studies with studies of theories
Empirical studies that test theoretical propositions (studies of theories) are often no more than the
conceptualization of very narrow phenomena created by the studies themselves (theories of studies).
These do not teach us anything meaningful about consumer behavior and are unlikely to have
significant impact.
Conclusion – a roadmap for greater relevance
In summary, consumer psychology faces serious issues of relevance. A concerted effort to correct the
sins provides a clear roadmap for how consumer psychology needs to evolve:
- We need to extend the scope of our research beyond purchase behavior and its proxies.
- We need to embrace a broader set of theoretical perspectives on consumer psychology,
beyond information processing, social cognition and BDT.
- We should expand our epistemology beyond the traditional hypothetico-deductive path.
- We should pay more attention to the psychological contents of consumer behavior, and not
the psychological processes.
- Instead of obsessing over unique theoretical explanations of data patterns, we should put
greater emphasis on the robustness and replicability of these data patterns.
- We should conduct and encourage more field studies with real consumers and real behavior.
- We should develop lower tolerance for mere ‘’theories of studies’’, both as reviewers and as
researchers.
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