Notes of all the compulsory lectures and knowledge clips of the course Consumer Behaviour/Consumer Behavior, (6314M0159Y). This is a mandatory course for both tracks, Digital Marketing and Consumer Marketing. Both are specialisation tracks of the MSc Business Administration at University of Amsterd...
2023.10.30 - 11.01 | Week 1: The Psychological Core
[KNOWLEDGE CLIPS]
KC 1 — introduction.
● Example: going to your favourite restaurant
○ During normal condition – pleasant
○ During when you have a cold and people are being extremely loud – unpleasant
○ NOTE: Small factors can influence our consumption process
● What does it mean to study the psychological core?
○ The different processes from stimuli to response
KC 2 — perception.
● Definition
○ → the awareness or understanding of sensory information
○ ‘Interpretation of reality’
● Elements (building blocks) of consumers’ perception
○ Exposure ⇒ bringing the stimulus to the consumer – first interaction
○ Attention ⇒ our attention needs to be devoted
○ Comprehension ⇒ understanding
○ You need all elements!
● How do we process this exposure?
○ Sensing ⇒ immediate response
○ Organising ⇒ assembling sensory evidence into something recognisable
■ Assimilation: shares the same characteristics in the brain, fits into a category
in the knowledge
■ Accommodation: share some but not all characteristics, needs adjustment to
fit into our knowledge
■ Contrast: does not share the same characteristics, does not fit the category
○ Reacting ⇒ physical and/or mental responses to the stimuli
○ E.g. listening to music, understanding the lyrics, feeling happy or sad
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,uva msc business administration: digital marketing track | semester I - period II (2023-2024) [by gycc]
● Theories about perception
○ “Is awareness of stimulus necessary to influence consumers?”
○ Researchers where doubting whether we need to study stimuli and attention
○ However, the traditional dissociation paradigm suggest that consumers can be
influenced by stimuli even when they are not aware by it
● When do we detect the stimuli?
○ Two kinds of threshold
○ Anything below the objective threshold ⇒ not detected by the senses
○ Anything above the subjective threshold ⇒ it has entered conscious awareness
○ In between ⇒ not detected by senses, but also has not entered conscious awareness,
but it did influence us, but we are not aware
● Why do we need to study stimuli? Something we are not aware of? Because it leads to the
problem: how can we measure something that consumers are not aware of?
○ Whenever an indirect measure (affect) of responding is more strongly influenced by
stimulus exposure than is a comparable direct measure (recognition) of responding,
perception without awareness can be inferred/questioned (Reingold & Merikle, 1988)
○ Leads to the first article – “stimulus recognition and the mere exposure effect”
○ Mere exposure effect → unreinforced exposure is sufficient to enhance attitude
(reaction/behaviour) towards the stimulus
■ Can be obtained by stimuli that are neither recalled nor recognised by the
individual
■ Proven in different context, such as ads, social perceptions and prejudice
○ RQ: the mere exposure effect produced by stimuli that are NOT recognised at
better-than-chance accuracy are substantially larger than mere exposed effects
produced by clearly recognised stimuli
○ Theoretical framework: when a stimulus is repeatedly exposed, do we take a liking to
it AND do we recognise it. However, the most important element is comparing
subliminal vs. supraliminal. Does the effect change when aware vs. not aware
2
, uva msc business administration: digital marketing track | semester I - period II (2023-2024) [by gycc]
○ Key takeaways:
■ Subliminal stimuli produce significantly stronger mere exposure effects than
do stimuli that are clearly recognised
■ These findings held true for both polygone and photograph stimuli, attesting
generalisability of the effect
● Marketing implications for stimuli
○ Mere exposure could influence our consumption
○ E.g. big ads placed throughout the airport (placed from a psychological view)
KC 3 — attention.
● Definition
○ → devoting cognitive resources to the stimuli
○ E.g. English readers tend to start upper left of a figure, so elements in that position
tend to received more attention
○ Pictures tend to get more and faster attention than words
○ Larger elements gain more attention than smaller ones
○ Colours and motion get more attention as well
● Characteristics
○ Limited ⇒ everyday, we are bombarded by tons of stimuli. We are not able to give
our attention to all we are exposed to
○ Selective ⇒ our brain chooses where to give our attention to
○ Divided ⇒ often done subconsciously
○ Voluntary or involuntary ⇒
■ Bottom-up (stimulus driven): researchers or marketers throw the stimulus
down at us without us choosing to give our attention to it; e.g. a strong light
shines upon us, we are automatically drawn
■ Top-down (goal-oriented): the subject volunteers to focus on the stimuli
● How to grab attention?
○ Promoting voluntary attention
■ Make it personal
■ Connect with needs
○ Promoting involuntary attention
■ Increase salience
■ Increase vividness
3
, uva msc business administration: digital marketing track | semester I - period II (2023-2024) [by gycc]
● What visual properties draw attention?
○ Colour, size, motion, pictures
○ Gestalt rules of visual processing
■ = a set of rules describing visual perception
■ Proximity ⇒ elements that are close together tend to be viewed as part of the
same object while those farther apart is seen as different objects
■ Similarity ⇒ elements that physically resemble each other tend to be viewed
the same while those dissimilar is viewed as different objects
■ Continuity ⇒ incomplete or partially hidden objects tend to be viewed as
whole or completed patterns
● Where can marketers act upon regarding visual properties?
○ Design
■ Visual properties of the product
■ Colour, composition, images, etc.
○ Display
■ Visual properties of the surrounding environment
■ Location, placement, orientation, etc.
● Another visual property of drawing attention: by creating the unexpected
○ Violations of visual expectations
○ Violations of previous knowledge
○ Violations of conventions or norms
(e.g. abnormal packaging)
● Another visual property of drawing attention:
biological visual responses
○ Think of sex, gender, faces and eyes
● Article notes
○ Preference for symmetry
○ Preference for centrality: according to the centre-stage effect consumers hold the
belief that in retail the products placed is central positions are more popular, which
also reflect the overall quality of the product (top-down approach)
○ However, people have central fixation bias
■ Natural initial response
■ The centre of the scene is often unconsciously considered as the optimal
location to extract information
■ There is a predisposition, called orbital reserve, which is an innate
preference for eye movements to place the pupils in the middle
○ Recent evidence suggest that looking at an item for longer can lead to higher choice
likelihood
○ The gaze cascade effect ⇒ individuals choose in the final seconds of the gaze
duration
○ Theoretical framework: inference and increased visual attention both try to explain
the horizontal centrality effect
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