Consumer Behavior Research

1. Consumer Behavior Research

2. Outline • Domains of research • Substantive domain • Conceptual domain • Methodological domain • Correlational research • Experimental research • Internal vs. external validity

3. The three domains of research(Brinberg and McGrath) Substantive domain Conceptual domain Methodo- logical domain

4. The substantive and conceptual domains • Substantive domain: • the real-world problem that is the focus of the research; • Conceptual domain: • the theoretical representation of the real-world problem; • usually stated as propositions or hypotheses expressing relationships between theoretical constructs;

5. Expertise, source attractiveness, message quality and attitude change

6. The methodological domain • the approach taken to investigate the real-world problem; • theoretical constructs are tied to manipulated or measured observed variables via correspondence rules; • the validity of theoretical propositions is inferred from associations between observed variables; • two types of research: • correlational research • experimental research

7. Expertise, source attractiveness, message quality and attitude change

8. Types of research • correlational research: the variables of interest are measured and the existence and possibly strength of the relationship between them is assessed by various methods (e.g., by computing a correlation); • experimental research: preferred research strategy for testing causal hypotheses because of two features: • experimental control of extraneous variables • experimental manipulation of the variable(s) of interest

9. Experimental effects • main effect: • a main effect is the effect of an independent variable on the dependent variable when the effect of other independent variables is ignored (i.e., averaged over); • interaction effect: • an interaction effect is present if the effect of an independent variable on the dependent variable depends on the level of (an)other independent variable(s);

10. Interpreting the results of experiments persuasion 47.6 68.3 expert source attractive source 45.6 66.2 no arguments presented arguments presented no arguments presented arguments presented

11. Interpreting the results of experiments persuasion 58.4 81.3 expert source attractive source 45.6 66.2 no arguments presented arguments presented no arguments presented arguments presented

12. Interpreting the results of experiments persuasion 45.6 81.3 expert source attractive source 58.4 66.2 no arguments presented arguments presented no arguments presented arguments presented

13. Internal vs. external validity • internal validity: question of whether there is a relationship between the observed and/or manipulated variables and whether there is a causal relationship between the variables in the form in which they were manipulated and/or measured; • external validity: question of whether generaliza-tions can be drawn about higher-order constructs from research operations and whether observed relationships can be generalized to and across populations of persons, settings, and times;