Consumer Behavior: Buying, Having, and
Being
Fourteenth Edition - Global Edition
Chapter 4
Learning, Remembering,
and Knowing
© 2024 Pearson Education Ltd.
Learning Objectives
4.1 Describe how conditioning results in learning.
4.2 Summarize how we learn about products and
consumption practices by observing others’ behavior.
4.3 Explain how our brains process and store information
about brands in our memory.
4.4 Discuss how knowledge about brands is organized in
our brains.
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Learning Objective 4.1
Describe how conditioning
results in learning.
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How Do We Learn?
• Learning
• Incidental learning
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Theories of Learning
• Behavioral learning theories focus on stimulus-response
connections
• Cognitive theories: perspectives that regard learning as a
set of internal mental processes that acquire and construct
knowledge from observing what others say and do
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Behavioral Learning Theories
• Classical conditioning: a stimulus that elicits a response is
paired with another stimulus that initially does not elicit a
response on its own
• Instrumental conditioning (also, operant conditioning): the
individual learns to perform behaviors that produce positive
outcomes and to avoid those that yield negative outcomes
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Figure 4.1 How Classical Conditioning
Works
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Marketing Application of Classical
Conditioning Principles
• Classical Conditioning Principle
– Brand equity: a brand has strong positive associations in
a consumer’s memory and commands a lot of loyalty as
a result.
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Marketing Applications of Repetition
• Repetition increases learning
• More exposures = increased brand awareness
• When exposure decreases, extinction occurs
• However, too much exposure leads to advertising wear out
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Marketing Applications of Classical Conditioning
Principles: The Halo Effect at Work
• Stimulus generalization:
tendency for stimuli similar to
a conditioned stimulus to
evoke similar, unconditioned
responses
– Family branding
– Product line extensions
– Licensing
– Look-alike packaging
• Consumer confusion
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For Reflection (1 of 7)
• How might classical conditioning operate for a consumer
who visits a new tutoring website and is greeted by the
website’s avatar who resembles Albert Einstein?
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Instrumental Conditioning
• Positive reinforcement
• Negative reinforcement
• Punishment
Positive reinforcement
occurs after consumers
try a new product and
like it
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For Reflection (2 of 7)
• Some advertisers use well-known songs to promote their
products. They often pay more for the song than for
original compositions.
– How do you react when one of your favorite songs
turns up in a commercial?
• Why do advertisers do this? How does this relate to
learning theory?
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Figure 4.2 Four Types of Reinforcement
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For Reflection (3 of 7)
• What kind of reinforcement is being used when stores
offer loyalty programs?
• Provide several examples and identify the reinforcement
approach being used
Loyalty
programs are a
popular way for
marketers to
apply
instrumental
conditioning
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Marketing Applications of Instrumental
Conditioning Principles
• Frequency marketing
Casino operators
program slot
machines to deliver
rewards on an
unpredictable
schedule to keep
players interested
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Learning Objective 4.2
Summarize how we learn about products and consumption
practices by observing others’ behavior.
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Cognitive Learning Theory
• Internal mental processes
• Observational learning--modeling
• How kids develop cognitive skills—theory of mind
• Kids message
comprehension
• Marketing application
of cognitive learning
principles
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Observational Learning
• Social default and modeling
• The consumer’s attention must be directed to the
appropriate model
• The consumer must remember what the model says or
does
• The consumer must convert this information into actions
• The consumer must be motivated to perform these actions
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Learning Objective 4.3
• Explain how our brains process and store information
about brands in our memory.
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Remembering
We learn about products by observing others’ behavior
Figure 4.3 Types of Memory
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How Are Brains Encode Information
• Memories are
often stored in
a narrative
way, creating a
story structure
that connects
pieces of the
event together
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For Reflection (4 of 7)
• How did your parents influence your development as a
consumer?
• How much freedom were you provided in terms of your
consumer choices?
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Memory
• Sensory Memory
• Short-term memory
• Long-term memory
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What Makes Us Forget?
• Decay
• Interference
• Motivated forgetting
• Memory efficacy
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What Helps Us Remember?
• Salience
– von Restoff Effect
– Mixed emotions
– Unipolar emotions
• Visual v s verbal cues
ersu
• Memory preservation
• Creating a narrative
Well-established brands can serve
as memory markers of earlier times
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How We Measure Consumers’
Memories for Marketing Messages?
Recognition versus recall
• Problems with memory
measures
– Response biases
– Memory lapses
▪ Omitting
▪ Averaging
▪ Telescoping
– Illusion of truth effect
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For Reflection (5 of 7)
• List three of your favorite foods
• What memories do you have associated with these foods?
• Are the foods associated with specific family events like a
gathering for St. Patrick’s Day? Explain.
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Memory Lapses, Biases, and False
Memories
Products help us to retrieve memories from our past
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Marketing Applications of Consumers’
Memories
Marketers may resurrect
popular characters to
evoke fond memories of
the past
• Nostalgia
• Retro brand
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For Reflection (6 of 7)
• What’s a memory that you just can’t seem to forget
(bonus, if you think of one related to a brand)?
• Now that you know the types of memory and how your
mind stores information, why do you think the memory
stays with you?
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For Reflection (7 of 7)
• What “retro brands” are targeted to
you? Were these brands that were
once used by your parents?
• What newer brands focus on
nostalgia, even though they never
existed before?
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Learning Objective 4.4
• Discuss how knowledge about brands is organized in our
brains.
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How Do We Organize What We Know
• Associative network
• Knowledge structures
Figure 4.5 An
Associative Network
for Automobiles
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Spreading Activation
• Brand-specific
• Ad-specific
• Brand identification
• Product category
• Evaluative reactions
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How Do We Put Products in
Categories?
Figure 4.6 Levels of Categorization
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Marketing Applications of Consumers’
Knowledge Structures
• Position a product
• Identify competitors
• Create an exemplar product
• Locate products in a store
• Create distinctive associations
Although other automotive
companies make electric
cars, for many drivers, the
Tesla is a category exemplar
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Chapter Summary
• Conditioning results in learning.
• We learn about products by observing others’ behavior.
• Our brains process information about brands to retain
them in memory.
© 2024 Pearson Education Ltd.
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