Psychological Processes

1. Psychological Processes

2. What are these processes? This refers to the psychological processes that govern buying behaviour of individuals and groups • Information Processing • Learning • Influencing attitudes and Behaviour

3. Information Processing • Exposure – achievement of proximity to a stimulus to activate the senses • Attention- allocation of processing capacity to stimulus • Comprehension – interpretation of stimulus • Acceptance – persuasive impact of stimulus • Retention – transfer of stimulus interpretation to memory

4. Exposure Given exposure to a stimulus of sufficient strength, a person’s sensory receptors are activated and a message is sent to the brain. This is called a sensation, which happens after crossing a threshold level

5. Threshold levels • Lower/absolute threshold – stimulus intensity below which sensation would not occur • Terminal threshold – above which additional doses of stimulus intensity has no effect on sensation • Difference threshold – smallest change in stimulus intensity that would get noticed

6. Weber’s Law • The change in stimulus intensity required to be noticeable is not on the amount but on the percentage change from the original stimulus. K = Δ I/I where K is a constant ΔI = change in stimulus intensity I = original stimulus intensity

7. Attention • Preattentive processing – limitation of processing capacity. 1st stage • Attention – allocation of processing capacity to stimulus. 2nd stage

8. Personal determinants of attention • Need/Motivation • Attitudes • Adaptation level • Span of attention

9. Size Colour Intensity Contrast Position Directionality Movement Isolation Novelty Learned ‘stimuli’ Attractive spokesperson Stimulus determinants of attention

10. Comprehension The interpretation of the stimulus. To derive meaning from the stimulus.

11. How does this happen? • Stimulus categorization – classifying stimulus using concepts stored in memory • Stimulus elaboration – integration between new knowledge and knowledge stored in memory • Stimulus organization – how people organize and rearrange stimuli into a meaningful whole (Gestalt psychology)

12. Linguistics Order effects Context Miscomprehension Motivation Hunger Expectation or perceptual set Stimulus determinants Personal determinants of Comprehension

13. Acceptance This is the persuasive impact of the stimulus

14. Acceptance depends on • Cognitive responses – SAs and CAs • Affective responses - feelings that are elicited by the stimulus

15. Retention Transfer of stimulus interpretation and persuasion into long term memory

16. Methods for enhancing retention • Interrelation between stimulus elements • Use concrete words rather than abstract words • Encourage self referencing • Mnemonics – jingles, rhymes, music,etc. • Repetition

17. Memory Memory is space allocated in the brain to store processed information and retrieve it as when desired. Our brain consists of two hemispheres • Left brain – logical, abstract and conceptual thinking • Right brain – creative, intuitive, imaginal • The connection is through the corpus callosum Normally people are ‘left’ or ‘right’ brain dominated

18. Memory consists of • Sensory memory – iconic (visual), echoic (auditory) – 0.25 sec • Short term memory - < 30 sec • Long term memory

19. Learning This is the process by which experience leads to changes in knowledge , attitudes and behaviour.

20. Learning takes place through • Cognitive learning – from changes in knowledge and information processing • Behavioural learning – observing behaviour and changes in behaviour Most consumer behaviour is learned behaviour

21. Cognitive learning • Rehearsal – mental repetition of information • Elaboration – the degree of integration between the stimulus and existing knowledge that occurs during information processing. It is influenced by the motivation and ability of the individual

22. Forgetting When you are unable to retrieve or access information stored in long term memory

23. Types of forgetting • Decay – memory trace will fade with passage of time • Interference – caused by learning new information over time.

24. Interference • Retroactive inhibition – recently learned information prevents retrieval of previously learnt information • Proactive inhibition – prior learning prevents hinders retrieval and learning of new information • Momentary forgetting – when information is present but retrieval is difficult because of limitations in accessibility

25. Determinants of information accessibility • Amount of information stored in memory within the same ‘content’ domain • Particular retrieval cues available at that time eg. Pops, jingles, key words,etc.

26. Measures of Cognitive learning • Recognition – from multiple choice • Recall – qualitative answers

27. Measures of cognitive learning • Aided recall • Unaided recall • Day after recall (DAR)

28. Behavioural learning • Classical conditioning • Operant conditioning • Shaping

29. Classical conditioning Unconditioned response Unconditioned stimulus Conditioned stimulus Conditioned Response

30. Determinants of Classical Conditioning • Strength of unconditioned stimulus • No. of pairings or strength of association

31. Extinction When the conditioned stimulus is unable to evoke the conditioned response. This will happen if the association with the US is broken with the CS

32. Generalization When for an existing stimulus – response relationship, a new stimulus similar to the stimulus is used to bring about the same response

33. Discrimination The process by which an individual learns to emit a response to one stimulus but avoids making the same response to a similar response

34. Operant Conditioning Instrumental learning concerned with how the consequences of a behaviour will affect the frequency or probability of the behaviour being repeated

35. Operant conditioning can take place through • Positive reinforcement • Negative reinforcement

36. Applications in Marketing • Sampling • Trials • Demonstrations • Test drives Research has proved that there is 60% more penetration when free sampling is done.

37. Shaping The process which encourages marketers to think about what behaviours must precede the ultimate act of purchase and how these prerequisite behaviour can be encouraged through appropriate reinforcements

38. Vicarious learning This is the process of learning through observing the action of others and the consequences of those behaviours. It includes elements of both cognitive and behavioural learning.