Psychological Processes

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

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

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

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

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

Getting Attention

• The first step in getting your ad noticed by the target segment

• Advertising clutter• Noise clutter• Memory is less when viewed/heard with

competitive brand advertising.

Attention

• Preattentive processing – limitation of processing capacity. 1st stage

• Attention – allocation of processing capacity to stimulus. 2nd stage

Personal determinants of attention

• Need/Motivation• Attitudes• Adaptation level• Span of attention

Stimulus determinants of attention

• Size• Colour• Intensity• Contrast • Position

• Directionality• Movement• Isolation• Novelty• Learned ‘stimuli’• Attractive spokesperson

Primacy and Recency effects

Primacy• Being the first ad, it registers in the mind.

Recency• The last one is fresh in memory

Therefore such ad positions are priced at a premium.

What ads attracts attention?

• Product information that would help purchase decision

• Those that expose themselves to information that support these opinions and avoid discrepant information

• Those that desire to get exposed to information that stimulates

• Stimuli which is interesting

Information of Practical value

The behavioural tendency to process information depends on

• Need for information• Expectancy (Probability) that processing a

particular ad will lead to relevant information exposure

• Measure of the value of that particular as a source of relevant information

Long copy Vs short copy

• Readership drops sharply after 50 words but between 50 and 500 words there is hardly any difference.

• ‘The more you tell the more you sell’• ‘If you don’t have anything to say, then sing it.’ • Depends on whether it is under active search or

for future reference• Infomercials• Advertorials

Information that supports

• Dissonance theory – Cognitive dissonance is discomforting and people will try to reduce it. One mechanism is through selective exposure

• People tend to have a psychological preference for supportive information and avoid discrepant information. This is called selective exposure

• Ad awareness seems to be higher for those who already have higher brand attitudes – Rajeev Batra and Wilried Vanhonacker

• Involuntary exposure to non-supportive information shall increase selective exposure to information that supports

Information that interests

• People tend to notice information that is interesting to them – Russel Haley

• This where customer self-selection works when such ads are put in mass media.

Information that stimulates• Variety theory by Salvadore Maddi. This states

that novelty, unexpectedness, change and complexity are pursued because they are inherently satisfying.

• Adaptation level theory by H. Helson. People learn to associate stimuli with a reference point or adaptation level. Marked deviation from it shall attract attention.

Attention vs Recall

Recall of an ad is a necessary but not sufficient condition for persuasion.

• Ad repetition, higher frequency and higher SOV

• Using distinctive creative material in the ad• Merchandising using clues to recall ad at

the store

Attention vs Comprehension

• While getting attention is important it should not detract the viewer from the message

• The execution, models, props, etc. must not take precedence over the brand.

• Persuasion takes place when good comprehension takes place. Processing would take central or peripheral routes of processing depending on the comprehension.

Comprehension

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

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)

Personal determinants of Comprehension

• Linguistics• Order effects• Context• Miscomprehension

• Motivation• Hunger• Expectation or perceptual set• Stimulus determinants

What is perception?

It is the process where an individual receives stimuli through the various senses

and interprets them

The Perception Process

Stimulus Cognition

Active Search

Passive search

Passive Attention

Simplify

Distort

Organize

Attention Interpretation

Stimulus Conditions

Intensity

Size

Message

Novelty

Position

Context

Audience Conditions

AttitudesValuesInterestsConfidenceSocial ContextCognitive Style

Perceptual organization

• People tend to see objects as a whole than see individually its parts. – S. E. Asch

• First impressions are important.• Closure• Assimilation – Contrast• Miscomprehension

Interpretation vs Comprehension

• Objective comprehension What is the take-out of the brand? – copy test

scales• Subjective comprehension Explicit – the ad story Implicit – using the ad information along with

knowledge and experience already stored in memory

The deeper the level of subjective comprehension, the more effective the ad will be credibility, likeability, persuasive and recall – David Mick

Acceptance

This is the persuasive impact of the stimulus

Acceptance depends on

• Cognitive responses – SAs and CAs• Affective responses - feelings that are

elicited by the stimulus

Retention

Transfer of stimulus interpretation and persuasion into long term

memory

Methods for enhancing retention

• Interrelation between stimulus elements• Use concrete words rather than abstract

words• Encourage self referencing• Mnemonics – jingles, rhymes, music,etc.• Repetition

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

Memory consists of

• Sensory memory – iconic (visual), echoic (auditory) – 0.25 sec

• Short term memory - < 30 sec• Long term memory

Learning

This is the process by which experience leads to changes in

knowledge , attitudes and behaviour.

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

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

Forgetting

When you are unable to retrieve or access information stored in long

term memory

Types of forgetting

• Decay – memory trace will fade with passage of time

• Interference – caused by learning new information over time.

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

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.

Measures of Cognitive learning

• Recognition – from multiple choice• Recall – qualitative answers

Measures of cognitive learning

• Aided recall• Unaided recall• Day after recall (DAR)

Behavioural learning

• Classical conditioning• Operant conditioning• Shaping

Classical conditioning

Unconditioned stimulus

Conditioned stimulus

Unconditioned response

Conditioned Response

Determinants of Classical Conditioning

• Strength of unconditioned stimulus• No. of pairings or strength of association

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

Generalization

When for an existing stimulus – response relationship, a new stimulus

similar to the stimulus is used to bring about the same response

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

Operant Conditioning

Instrumental learning concerned with how the consequences of a behaviour

will affect the frequency or probability of the behaviour being

repeated

Operant conditioning can take place through

• Positive reinforcement• Negative reinforcement

Applications in Marketing

• Sampling• Trials• Demonstrations• Test drives

Research has proved that there is 60% more penetration when free sampling is done.

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

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.