CONTRIBUTION OF SOCIAL SCIENCE TO CONSUMER BEHAVIOR

INTRODUCTION – CONSUMER BEHAVIOR

Consumer behavior is the study of individuals, groups, or organizations and the processes they use to select, secure, use and dispose of products, services, experiences or ideas to satisfy needs and the impacts that these processes have to satisfy needs and the impacts that these processes have on the consumer and society. It blends elements from psychology, sociology, social anthropology, marketing and economics. It attempts to understand the decision-making processes of buyers, both individually and in groups such as how emotions affect groups such as how emotions affect buying behavior. It studies characteristics of individual consumers such as demographics and behavioral variables in an attempt to understand people’s wants. It also tries to assess influences on the consumer from groups such as family, friends, sports, references groups and society in general. 

 

Consumer behavior study is based on consumer buying behavior with the customer playing the three district roles of user, payer and buyer. Research has shown that consumer behavior is difficult to predict even for experts in the field. Relationship marketing is an influential asset for customer behavior analysis as it has a keen interest in the re-discovery of the true meaning of marketing through the re-affirmation of the importance of the customer or buyer. A greater importance is also placed on consumer retention, customer relationship management, personalization, customization and one-to-one marketing. Social functions can be categorized into social choice and welfare functions. 
 

 

Each method for vote counting is assumed as social function but if arrow’s possibility theory is used for a social function, social welfare function is achieved. Some specifications of the social functions are decisiveness, neutrality, anonymity, monotonicity, unanimity, homogeneity and weak and strong pare to optimality. No social choice function meets these requirements is an ordinal scale simultaneously. The most important characteristics of a social function is identification of the alternatives and creating a logical relation with the ranks.

THE CONTRIBUTION OF SOCIAL SCIENCES TO CONSUMER BEHAVIOR

Social sciences have enabled marketers understand reasons people (consumers behave the way they do and appreciate the fact that consumers tend to behave in a certain manner given the presence of certain conditions or factors. Four major behavioural disciplines that have contributed tremendously to consumer behavior in particular and marketing in general are psychology, sociology, management, and economics.

Psychology– These subject studies individual and group behavior and interaction. It deals with interpersonal and intergroup or person to group relations as well as the general determinant of behavior. 

 

However, it deals with such areas as learning, thinking, and rememorizing, perceptions, imagination, emotion, motivation, attitude, personality, socialization, and communication systems. All these factors are vital to the understanding of consumer behavior. They enable us to understand various consumption needs of individual, their actions and reactions in response to different product messages, and the way personality characteristics and past experiences affect their product choices. 

 

Sociology– Can be defined as a study of social aggregate and groups. If studies man and consequences of his being a member of its society. It also deals with social institution and their organization in the current  society throughout the ages. It also concentrate on social systems and sub-system and the relations with groups and organizations. Sociology is especially interested in human interaction and this is the scientific study of behavior of social action in human groups. The influence of groups memberships, family structure and social class are also study by sociologist.

However, sociology is divided into such areas as industrial sociology, political sociology, economic sociology, urban and rural sociology. All these contribute to the understanding of consumer behavior and helps marketer to design appropriate marketing strategies.

Economics studies human behavior with reference to the relationship between scarce means and given ends. In other words it means that the study of human behavior in relation to production, distribution and consumption can be learned from the economics.

There are many theory concerning consumer behavior which were based on economics theory which states that individual acts rationally and maximized their utilizes i.e. benefit in the purchase of goods and services.

In order to understand consumer behaviour, it is essential to understand the buying process. Numerous models of consumer behaviour depicting the buying process were develop over the years Among all these models the one given by Howard and Sheth is the most comprehensive and largely approved model However, as the Howard-Sheth model is a very sophisticated model based on it a simplified is given below:

A simple model of consumer decision-making given the figure reflects the notion of the cognate or problem-solving consumer. This model has three components: Input, Process and Output.

Input:

The input component of consumer decision-making model comprises of marketing-mix activities and socio-cultural influences.

Process

The process component of model is concerned with ‘how’ consumers make decisions. This involves understanding of the influences of psychological factors on consumer behaviors. The process component of a consumer decision-making model consists of three stages: Need recognition, information search and evaluation of alternatives.

Output:

The output component of the consumer decision-making model concerns two more stages of purchase process activity: Purchase behaviour and post-purchase behaviour.

The buying process thus, is composed of a number of stages and is influenced by an individual’s psychological framework composed of the individual’s personality, motivations, perceptions and attitudes. The various stages of the buying process are:

1. Need Recognition

2. Information Search

3. Evaluation of Alternatives

4. Purchase Behaviour

5. Post-Purchaser Evaluation

1. Need Recognition

The recognition of need is likely to occur when a consumer is faced with a problem, and if the problem is not solved or need satisfied, the consumer builds up tension. Example: A need for a cooking gas for busy house wife. The needs can be triggered by internal (hunger, thirst, sex) and external stimuli (neighbor’s new Car or TV). The marketers need to identify the circumstance that trigger the particular need or interest in consumers. The marketers should reach out to consumers to find out what kinds of felt needs or problem arose, what brought them about how they led to this particular product.

2. Information Search

The consumer will search for required information about the product to make a right choice. How much search he undertakes depends upon the strength of his drive, the amount of information he initially has, the ease of obtaining additional information, the value he places on additional information and the satisfaction he gets from search.

The following are the sources of consumer information:

Ø Personal Sources: Family, friends, neighbours, past experience.

Ø Commercial Sources: Advertising, sales people, dealers, displays

Ø Public Sources: Mass media, consumer welfare organisation.

 

The practical implication is that a company designs its marketing mix to get its brand into the prospect’s awareness set, consideration set and choice set. If the brand fails to get into these sets, the company losses its opportunity to sell to the consumer.

As for the sources of the information used by the consumer, the marketer should identify them carefully and evaluate their respective importance as source of information.

 

3. Evaluation of Alternatives

When evaluating potential alternatives, consumers tend to use two types of information (I) a list of brands from which they plan to make their selection (the evoke set) and (ii) the criteria they will use to evaluate each brand. The evoke set is generally only a part – a subject of all the brands of which the consumer is aware.

The criteria used by the consumers in evaluating the brands are usually expressed in terms of product attributes that are important to them. The tributes of interest to buyers in some familiar products are:

Ø Two-wheeler; Fuel economy, pulling capacity, price

Ø Computers: Memory capacity, graphic capability, software availability

Ø Mouthwash: Colour, effectiveness, germ-killing, capacity, price taste/flavour

Consumers will pay the most attention to those attributes that are concerned with their needs.

 

4. Purchase Behaviour

Consumers make two types of purchases trial purchases and repeat purchases. If the product is found satisfactory during trial, consumers are like to repeat the purchase. Repeat purchase behaviour is closely related to the concept of brand loyalty. For certain products such as washing machine refrigerator, trial is not feasible and the consumer usually moves directly from evaluation to actual purchase. A consumer who decides to purchase will ma brand decision, quantity decision, dealer decision, timing decision and payment method decision.

5. Post-Purchase Evaluation

The consumer’s satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the product will influence subsequent behaviour. There are three possible outcomes of post-purchase evaluations by consumers in light of their experience with the product trial purchase.

Ø That the actual performance matches the standard leading to neutral feeling;

Ø That the performance exceeds the standards leading to positive disconfirmation, i.e. satisfaction; and

Ø That the performance is below the standard, causing negative disconfirmation, i.e. dissatisfaction.

If the product lives up to expectations of the consumers, they will probably buy it again. If the products performance is disappointing, the will search for more suitable alternative brand. Whether satisfied or dissatisfied with the product, the consumer will pass on their opinion on others.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, social sciences have contributed immensely to the understanding of consumer behavior. They study of consumer behavior involves elements of economics, the social sciences, and the physical sciences. An endless and diverse field of research and applications, consumer behavior considers such areas as buying decision – making, internal influences on the consumer and external influences on the consumer. An understanding of consumer behavior can lead to improved marketing strategies on the part of firms and organizations and can also lead to improve public policy.

REFERENCES

Belch, George E. and Belch, Michael A. ,(2009) Advertising and Promotion: An Integrated Marketing Communications Perspective, 8th ed. (McGraw-Hill Irwin, 2009.).

Dacko, Scott G., (2009).The Advanced Dictionary of Ma rketing (Oxford University Press, 2008.).

Hawkins, Del I., Mothersbaugh, David L, and Best, Roger J., Consumer Behavior: Building Marketing Strategy ( McGraw-HilL/Irwin, 200 7.).

Mady, T.T. (2011) Sentiment toward marke ring: should we care about consumer alienation and readiness to use technology? Journal of Consumer BehaviourlO (4): 192—204.

Olsen, Jerry C. and Peter, J. Paul, Consumer Behavior and Marketing Strategy (McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2008.).