Chapter 5:

Consumer Motivation
 Ten Key Concepts
• Concept of Motivation • Opponent-process
• theory
Consumer needs
• Optimum-stimulation
• Structure of emotions
level theory
• Maslow’s Need
• Motivation for
Hierarchy theory
Hedonic Experience
• McClleland Theory of
• Reactance theory
Learned Needs
• Perceived risk
• Consumer attributions
 The Concept of Affect
• Affect or feelings, can be defined as a “ class of
mental phenomena uniquely characterized by a
consciously experienced, subjective feeling state,
commonly accompanying emotions and moods
• Emotions are distinguished from moods by their
greater intensity and their greater psychological
urgency.
• When goals are satisfied, people experience
positive feelings. In contrast, when events thwart
the achievement of their goals, people
experience negative feelings
 The Concept of Affect
Experiential Perspective Consider role of affect in motivating C.B.
Areas of interest: Leisure
pursuits, affective impact ads

Attitude formation A component of attitude regarding

product, ads
Information Processing Influence memory, cognitive
capacity, attention
Choice Behavior Selecting an option that may feel best
Post purchase processes Post purchase satisfaction, brand loyalty
Communication Process Messages could be created that focus on
eliciting emotions
Situational influences Mood states results in part from the
consumer situation
 The Structure of Emotions

• Ten Fundamental Emotions People Experience:

– Disgust Interest
– Joy Surprise
– Sadness Anger
– Fear Contempt
– Shame Guilt
 The structure of Emotions

Aroused

Joy
Anger

Unpleas
Pleasant ant

contentment
Sadness

Passive
 Structure of Emotions
1. Do consumers experience strong Emotions?
2. Do consumer experience full range of Emotions
Findings suggest that the response to advertisement has two
emotional dimensions, one consists of positive effective states,
the other negative states. The implication of this finding is that a
single message or event can simultaneously create both good
and bad feelings in consumers
3. Do consumers differ in intensity of Emotions.
It has been shown that affect intensity differ with different people
People who are high on affect intensity respond more strongly to
advertisement than people with low affect intensity.
High affect intensity people react with greater empathy and
feelings of pain and fear appeals than do low affect intensity
people
High affect intensity show more positive attitude toward the object
of advertisement
 What is Motivation?
• Motivation refers to an activated state
within a person that leads to goal-directed
behavior.
– It consists of the drives, urges, wishes, or
desires that initiate the sequence of events
leading to a behavior.
Model of the Motivation Process

Learning

Needs Goal or
wants, need
Tension Drive Behavior
and fulfill-
desires ment

Cognitive
processes

Tension
reduction
 Motivation

• Motivation begins with the presence of a

stimulus that spurs the recognition of a need.
• Need recognition occurs when a perceived
discrepancy exists between an actual and a
desired state of being
– Needs can be either innate or learned.
– Needs are never fully satisfied.
– Feelings and emotions (I.e., affect) accompany
needs
 Motivation
• Expressive needs involve desires by
consumers to fulfill social and/or aesthetic
requirements.
• Utilitarian needs involve desires by
consumers to solve basic problems (e.g.
filling a car’s gas tank).
 Goals
• Generic Goals
– the general categories of goals that
consumers see as a way to fulfill their needs
– e.g., “I want to get a graduate degree.”
• Product-Specific Goals
– the specifically branded products or services
that consumers select as their goals
– e.g., “I want to get an MBA in Marketing
from, Iqra University
 The Selection of Goals
• The goals selected by an individual
depend on their:
– Personal experiences
– Physical capacity
– Prevailing cultural norms and values
– Goal’s accessibility in the physical and social
environment
 Achieving
Goals by
Subscribing
to a
Magazine
Different Appeals for Same Goal
Object
 Motivations and Goals
• Positive Motivation • Negative Motivation
– A driving force – A driving force away
toward some object from some object or
or condition condition
• Approach Goal • Avoidance Goal
– A positive goal toward – A negative goal from
which behavior is which behavior is
directed directed away
 Rational Versus Emotional
Motives
• Rationality implies that consumers select
goals based on totally objective criteria
such as size, weight, price, or miles per
gallon
• Emotional motives imply the selection of
goals according to personal or subjective
criteria
 Rational and Emotional motives in purchase
situation
Rational Motives Consumption Emotional Motives
Behavior
A large car is It will demonstrate
more that I am
comfortable Successful

It is a high quality Purchase of

car that performs Mercedes Car
well

It is powerful, sexy car

and it will make me
A number of my friends powerful and sexy
drive Mercedes
 The Dynamic Nature of
Motivation
• Needs are never fully satisfied
• New needs emerge as old needs are
satisfied
• People who achieve their goals set new
and higher goals for themselves
New and Higher Goals Motivate
Behavior
Changin
g
Consum
er Needs
 Failure to achieve
a goal may result
in frustration.
Some adapt;
Frustration others adopt
defense
mechanisms to
protect their ego.
 Methods by which
people mentally
redefine
Defense frustrating
Mechanism situations to
protect their self-
images and their
self-esteem.
 Defense Mechanisms

• Aggression • Projection
• Rationalization • Identification
• Regression • Repression
• Withdrawal
 Defense Mechanism
• Aggression:
Frustrated consumers boycotted
manufacturers / Retailers to reduce prices
• Rationalization:
Inventing plausible reasons for being unable
to attain their goals or the goal is not worth
pursuing
• Regression:
React to frustrating situation with childish or
immature behavior. A shopper attending a
bargain sale may fight over merchandize
rather than other person have it
 Defense Mechanism
• Withdrawal:
Simply withdrawing from the
situation
A person having difficulty achieving
higher position in an organization
may quit
• Projection:
Blaming ones own failures and
abilities on other objects or persons
A driver who has an accident may
blame the other driver
 Defense Mechanism
• Identification:
Subconsciously identifying with other persons
or situations they consider relevant
marketers frequently use it as basis for
advertising appeal
slice of life advertisements showing an
individual experiences a frustration and then
overcomes by using advertised product
• Repression:
Individuals may forget a need .Some times
repressed needs manifest themselves
indirectly
 Arousal of Motives
• Physiological arousal
• Emotional arousal
• Cognitive arousal
• Environmental arousal
 Philosophies Concerned With
Arousal of Motives
• Behaviorist School
– Behavior is response to stimulus
– Elements of conscious thoughts are to be
ignored
– Consumer does not act, but reacts
• Cognitive School
– Behavior is directed at goal achievement
– Need to consider needs, attitudes, beliefs,
etc. in understanding consumer behavior
Cognitive
Need
Arousal
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Self-Actualization
(Self-fulfillment)

Ego Needs
(Prestige, status, self esteem)

Social Needs
(affection, friendship, belonging)

Safety and Security Needs

(Protection, order, stability)

Physiological Needs
(Food, water, air, shelter, sex)
Appeal to Egoistic Needs
 Appeal to
Self-
Actualizatio
n
 A Trio of Needs
• Power
– individual’s desire to control environment
• Affiliation
– need for friendship, acceptance, and
belonging
• Achievement
– need for personal accomplishment
– closely related to egoistic and self-
actualization needs
Appeal
to
Power
Needs
Appeal to
Affiliation
Needs
Appeal
to
Achieve
ment
Needs
Midrange Theories of Motivation
• Opponent-Process Theory
• Optimum Stimulation Levels
• The Motivation for Hedonic Experience
• The Desire to Maintain Behavioral
Freedom
• The Motivation to Avoid Risk
• The Motivation to Attribute Causality
 Opponent-Process Theory
. . . explains that two things occur when a person receives a
stimulus that elicits an immediate positive or negative
emotional reaction:
– The immediate positive or negative emotional reaction
is felt.
– A second emotional reaction occurs that has a feeling
opposite to that initially experienced.
– The combination of the two emotional reactions
results in the overall feeling experienced by the
consumer.
It has broad explanatory power. It can be used to
account for variety of consumer behavior, such as drug
addiction ,cigarette smoking, jogging, video game
playing and dysfunctional behaviors sinking into debt
through overusing credit cards.
 Opponent-Process Theory
• Explains priming—the effects of a small
exposure to a stimulus.
When the person begins to consume the
reinforcing stimulus, opposite motivation has not
yet the chance to start build up. Without counter
acting motivation the experience is intensely
pleasurable, resulting in a strong drive to
consuming. Marketers institutively use this this
principle by providing samples in super markets.
 Optimum Stimulation Level
. . . is a person’s preferred amount of physiological
activation or arousal.
– Activation may vary from very low levels (e.g. sleep)
to very high levels (e.g. severe panic).
– Individuals are motivated to maintain an optimum level
of stimulation and will take action to correct the level
when it becomes to high or too low.
– Accounts for high vs. low sensation seeking people.
– Accounts for variety seeking
– Accounts for hedonic consumption—I.e., the need of
people to create fantasies, gain feelings through the
senses, and obtain emotional arousal.
 Maintaining Optimum Stimulation Levels
Marketing Implications
i. Various types of medicines
ii. Popular leisure activities
iii. Amusement parks, sports
iv. Spontaneous brand switching
v. Research study has shown that people with high
stimulation level:
a. Engage in greater amounts of information seeking
b. Feel boredom with repetitive ads
c. Reveal higher levels of variety seeking when
choosing fast food
d. Exhibit greater tendencies to gamble and seek risk
 Motivation for Hedonic Experiences
• Hedonic consumption refers to the needs of consumers to
use products and services to create fantasies, to feel new
sensations to obtain emotional arousal
1. Desire to experience emotions:
 The term hedonism generally refers to gaining pleasure
through senses. In consumer behavior context, it means the
feelings that consumers seek may not be uniformly
pleasurable.
 People seek to experience a variety of emotions, including
love, hate, fear, grief, anger, and disgust
 Emotional desire sometimes dominate utilitarian motives
when consumers are choosing products
 The type of products and services that hedonic consumption
researchers investigate are found within the “ Experiential
research Perspective and concentrate on products like
movies, rock concerts, theater, dance and sporting events
which are intrinsically more emotionally involving.
 Motivation for Hedonic Experiences
Desire for Leisure Activities
 Those activities pursued in free time or non-work
time.
 Leisure is personal experience and is
multidimensional.
 People seek satisfaction of number of different
needs:
i. Desire for intrinsic satisfaction
Activity is seen by the consumer rewarding in and
of itself.
ii. Involvement in the activity
activity is so absorbing that the person forgets all
about everyday life ( playing games)
 Motivation for Hedonic Experiences
iii. Perceived freedom
Activity is utterly without coercion. The person
has the perceived freedom to engage or not to
engage in
iv. Mastery of the environment or of oneself
the person attempts to learn something well
or to overcome some obstacle. The idea is to
test oneself or to conquer the environment
v. Arousal
The need for arousal is a major motivator of
leisure activities
 The Desire to Maintain
Behavioral Freedom
• Psychological reactance is the motivational state
resulting from the response to threats to behavioral
freedom.
– Two types of threats can lead to reactance:
• Social threats involve external pressure from other
people to induce a consumer to do something
• Impersonal threats are barriers that restrict the
ability to buy a particular product or service
– Frequent in marketing: e.g., pushy salesperson
– Scarcity effects: scarce products are valued
more. Limited time offer, limited supply.
 The Desire to Maintain Behavioral
Freedom
• For consumer to experience reactance
three requirements must be met
i. Consumer must believe he/she has the
freedom to make an unhindered choice
in given situation
ii. The consumer must feel his/her personal
freedom is threatened
iii. The buying decision must be one that is
of some importance to the consumer
The Motivation to Avoid Risk
– Perceived risk is a consumer’s perception of
the overall negativity of a course of action
based upon as assessment of the possible
negative outcomes and of the likelihood that
these outcomes will occur.
– Perceived risk consists of two major concepts
- the negative outcomes of a decision and the
probability these outcomes will occur.
 7 Types of Consumer Risks.
• Financial
• Performance
• Physical
• Psychological
• Social
• Time
• Opportunity Loss
 Factors Influencing Risk Perception

• Characteristics of the person—e.g., need

for stimulation
• Nature of the task
– Voluntary risks are perceived as less risky
than involuntary tasks.
• Characteristics of the product—price
• Salience of negative outcomes
Six risk-reduction strategies
– Be brand loyal and – Seek out information in
consistently purchase the order to make a well
same brand. informed decision.
– Buy through brand image – Buy the most expensive
and purchase a quality brand, which is likely to
national brand. have high quality.
– Buy the least expensive
– Buy through store image
brand in order to reduce
from a retailer that you financial risk.
trust.
The Motivation to Attribute
Causality
Attribution theory describes the processes
through which people make determinations of
the causality of action.
– Internal attribution is when a consumer decides
that an endorser recommended the product
because he or she actually liked the product.
– External attribution is when a consumer decides
that an endorser recommended the product
because he or she was paid for endorsing it.
 Augmentation-Discounting Model
• Discounting occurs if external pressures exist that
could provoke someone to act in a particular way - so
actions would be expected given the circumstances.
• The augmenting principle states that when a person
moves against the forces of the environment to do
something unexpected, the belief that the action
represents the person’s actual opinions, feelings, and
desires is increased.
• Fundamental Attribution error: One consistent
finding is that people are biased to make internal
attributions to others.
 Marketing Application Of Attribution
A. Develop believable advertisement:
Use strategies that enhance message augmentation by
influencing consumers to perceive the endorsement was
made for internally caused, rather than externally caused,
reasons
Develop messages that give both sides of arguments.
Particularly include messages that would be unexpected
from the organization
B. Resolve the product problem
Respond quickly and proactively to product problems to
enhance consumer beliefs that cause of the problem
should be attributed to bad luck rather than to the intentions
or negligence of the firm
C. Assess sales promotion
Use sales promotion cautiously to avoid having consumer
attribute the cause of their purchase to the incentive rather
than to the product’s quality