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Samenvatting - MCB 20806 Principles of Consumer Studies (MCB20806)
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Reading 1Behavioral learning is concerned with learning as a response to changes in our environment
Cognitive learning: theories focus on learning through internal mental processes and
conscious thought.
Behavioral learning
Classical conditioning is a form of behavioral learning and explains the concepts of first-
order conditioning and higher-order conditioning. An unconditioned response is when one
reacts to a certain thing associating it with something, while that thing might not happen.
For example, a bell ringing when food is being served, and getting hungry whenever you
hear the bell, even when food is not served. So, you need a stimulus to create a response.
First-order conditioning
First-order conditioning occurs when a conditioned stimulus acquires motivational
importance by being paired with an unconditioned stimulus, which is intrinsically aversive or
rewarding, such as a painful shock or food. This might explain why sexual images are often
used in advertising products like expensive cars. To create the idea that driving a fast,
expensive car is attractive to the opposite sex. It is the same for using a fit girl while
drinking diet coke or similar food items. This reaction can also be reversed. Celebrities can
also be used to promote certain products that match the celebrity's characteristics.
Evaluative conditioning: the changes in the liking of a stimulus linked to the pairing of that
stimulus with other positive or negative stimuli.
Higher-order conditioning
Higher-order conditioning is the pairing of two conditioned stimuli. Two conditioned stimuli
need to be connected to strengthen one, the other or both. A popular form is to combine
music and the message behind it with a product. E.g. by showing the song blowing in the
wind and using a commercial where a boy blows a dandelion into the wind, with the seeds
traveling across different countries showing how the products are made. In this case the CS
where: anti-establishment conditioning associated with the song and community orientation
associated with The Coop.
Stimulus generalization
Stimulus generalization occurs when a stimulus similar to a conditioned stimulus elicits a
similar conditioned response. Consumers form impressions and judgements about new
product lines and extenstions based on their general feeling towards the brand, largely
derived from previous experiences with that brand. E.g. if heinz bring out new products such
,as hot sauces, the process of stimulus generalization acts as insurance to the consumer and
may encourage them to try something new.
Operant conditioning
Operant conditioning, also known as instrumental learning, is the changing of behaviour
through reinforcement following a desired response.
e.g. pigeons where given food when they pressed a lever, the behaviour of pressing the
lever was reinforced by the appearance of the food. If you try something new and it is
positive, e.g. a coffee shop and the coffee is cheaper and better, we call that positive
reinforcement. If a product or something similar helps remove something bad, like a stain on
a shirt, we call this negative reinforcement. If something doesn’t leave a big enough impact,
we call those neutral operants. A sample is a great way to try to create positive
reinforcement with a product, this can also work against you though.
Cognitive learning
Cognitive learning is concerned with internal mental processes, which contrasts with
behavioral learning and its focus on learning as a response to external cues in our
environment. Cognitive learning has the potential to explain much more complex behaviour
and decision-making processes than is possible with the behaviourist approach. The key
feature of cognitive learning is that it is based on the view that humans are broadly rational
and use the information available in their environment to make decisions. Our responses to
our environment can include a complex set of processes including gathering, processing,
and interpreting information, assigning it meaning, and storing it in our memory. Cognitive
learning can be in hihg or low involvement situations and conscious or unconscious. At the
heart of most cognitive learning theory is the information processing model.
,Information processing
The information processing model explains how communications are received by the
consumer and then interpreted, stored in the memory, and later retrieved in a logical and
sequential fashion. When information processing takes place the consumer uses information
received from the environment, which passes through a cognitive process. The process can
be summarized as follows.
- Exposure involves sensory detection and registration through receptor organs. Jim
wants to buy a birthday present for a friend. As he looks around he is exposed to
many advertisements in magazines and on the internet. At this stage, incidental
exposure to products and brands can occur, thus facilitating implicit learning, a form
of learning that takes place in the absence of an intention to learn.
- Attention requires the focusing of attention, leading to perception and categorization
of stimuli. Jim doesn’t notice most of the information to which he is exposed, but he
regularly receives an email alert from an internet bookshop and as he knows his
friend is interested in history he pays more attention to this site.
- Comprehension is where the consumer searches and identifies meaning.
- Acceptance/rejection: the consumer considers existing choice criteria and elaborates
the message received to reach a point of acceptance or rejection of the information.
- Retention: learning has to be retained in the memory for future use.
Advertisements try to use novel stimuli to trigger consumers brains and make them retain
their information in their long term memory.
Memory
Memory is a system and a process whereby information is received, sorted, organized,
stored, and retrieved over time. Memory is central to understanding how consumers make
, decisions. People are often exposed to advertisements weeks or months before they intend
to buy, therefore the chance of their remembering much of the original message is low.
There are three critical steps to information being remembered: encoding, storage and
retrieval
Encoding refers to how information enters the memory. Advertisers want their brand and
communications to be distinctive and different, but their messages must be comprehended
unambiquously for consumers tot be able to make sense of, and store, this information.
Storage is how the encoded information is retained in the memory. Once in the memory the
new information is connected with other information that may impact on how and when it is
retrieved.
Memory systems
Memories are not stored in discrete areas of the brain. although we talk about sensory,
short-term and long-term memory, these are ways to describe how we remember rather
than the physical storage of memories.
Sensory memory: here information is received in its sensory form – sight, smell, touch, taste
or hearing – and retained for a very brief period, no longer than the amount of time that the
sensation is experienced. Visual memory only stays in the sensory memory for half a second
and auditory information for two seconds.
Short-term memory: this is where current information is processed. An important aspect of
short-term memory is that it is limited to holding small amounts of information in mind for
short periods of time. One way that marketers can help their messages to be retained is
through chunking, which is the grouping together of similar or meaningful pieces of
information. It's easier for the brain to remember several chunks than to remember a whole
row of numbers at once.
Long-term memory: our long-term memory has the potential to remember forever. But first,
memories have to get to the long-term memory and few do, otherwise we would be
overloaded with mostly useless memories. Getting memories to go to the long-term memory
needs engrams, which are neural networks connecting new memories with old. This involves
the rehearsal of information in the short-term memory and linkage of this information with
that stored in the long-term memory.
Retrieval of memory
Retrieval is the process whereby we remember and access our stored memories. There are
different ways that we retrieve information from our memories including recollection,
recognition, and relearning.
- Recollection is when we reconstruct memory through a range of different narratives
and bits of memory.
- Recognition requires the memory to retrieve information by experiencing it again.
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