Consumer Behavior
CHAPTER 3 – LEARNING AND MEMORY
• Marketers understand that long-standing, learned connections between products and memories are a potent way to build and keep brand loyalty.
• Learning is a relatively permanent change in behavior caused by experience (not always directly, but by observation of events that affect others).
- An ongoing process
- Ranges from simple association between a stimulus (product logo - Coke) to a response (“refreshing soft drink”) – to a complex series of cognitive activities (writing an essay).
• Incidental Learning, the casual, unintentional acquisition of knowledge.
1. The Learning Process // Behavioral Theories vs. Cognitive Theories
Behavioral Learning Theories assume that learning takes place as the result of responses to external events.
- Approach the mind as a “black box” and emphasize the observable aspects of behavior.
- The observable aspects consist of the things that go in the box (the stimuli or events perceived) and the things that come out of the box (the responses, or reactions to these stimuli.
Classical Conditioning occurs when a stimulus that elicits a response is paired with another stimulus that initially does not elicit a response on its own (a natural, involuntary response).
• Over time, this second stimulus causes a similar response because we associate it with the first stimulus. > Pavlov example in dogs:
When he paired a neutral stimulus (a bell) with a stimulus known to cause a salivation response in dogs (he squirted dried meat powder into their mouths). The powder was an unconditioned stimulus (UCS) because it was naturally capable of causing the response. Over time, the bell became a conditioned stimulus (CS) – it did not initially cause salivation, but the dogs learned to associate the bell with the meat powder and began to salivate at the sound of the bell only. The drooling of these canine consumers because of a sound, now linked to feeding time, was a conditioned response (CR).
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• Marketers understand that long-standing, learned connections between products and memories are a potent way to build and keep brand loyalty.
• Learning is a relatively permanent change in behavior caused by experience (not always directly, but by observation of events that affect others).
- An ongoing process
- Ranges from simple association between a stimulus (product logo - Coke) to a response (“refreshing soft drink”) – to a complex series of cognitive activities (writing an essay).
• Incidental Learning, the casual, unintentional acquisition of knowledge.
1. The Learning Process // Behavioral Theories vs. Cognitive Theories
Behavioral Learning Theories assume that learning takes place as the result of responses to external events.
- Approach the mind as a “black box” and emphasize the observable aspects of behavior.
- The observable aspects consist of the things that go in the box (the stimuli or events perceived) and the things that come out of the box (the responses, or reactions to these stimuli.
Classical Conditioning occurs when a stimulus that elicits a response is paired with another stimulus that initially does not elicit a response on its own (a natural, involuntary response).
• Over time, this second stimulus causes a similar response because we associate it with the first stimulus. > Pavlov example in dogs:
When he paired a neutral stimulus (a bell) with a stimulus known to cause a salivation response in dogs (he squirted dried meat powder into their mouths). The powder was an unconditioned stimulus (UCS) because it was naturally capable of causing the response. Over time, the bell became a conditioned stimulus (CS) – it did not initially cause salivation, but the dogs learned to associate the bell with the meat powder and began to salivate at the sound of the bell only. The drooling of these canine consumers because of a sound, now linked to feeding time, was a conditioned response (CR).
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