Consumer choice is influenced by a myriad of alternatives, ranging from the desires of the consumers, to their expenditures. Economists have attempted to study the different factors that influence consumer choices over the years, with these researches offering a lot of insight into the different dynamics the influence the supply and demand curve. Part of understanding consumer choice is comprehending the processes that underlie judgment and decision making (Reisen, Hoffrage & Mast, 2008).For this reason, in the processes of investigating the different aspects that determine consumer choice, economists have come up with different paradigms for such studies, which include the structural modeling and the process tracing paradigms. In general, many of the studies into consumer choice have to be guided by studies into cognition and the thought process (Bartels & Johnson, 2015). Thus, this paper will attempt to delve deeper into the topic of consumer choice, with the aim of understanding the role played by cognition and the thought process. To this end, the paper will also make use of an article, which it shall review and find other information to back it up.
Article Review
This paper shall review the article Connecting Cognition and Consumer Choice by Daniel Bartels and Eric Johnson. According to the article, there is need to bring the study of cognition closer to the attempts at understanding consumption. According to the authors, there are four major reasons why there is need for a study of cognition and its relations to consumer research. First, such a study is necessary due to the huge role played by consumer choices to overall life choices. In other words, consumer choices form a central part of our lives, and therefore there is need to use research that enables a better understanding of the consumption process. Second, the authors find that the study of cognition as a part of the study on consumer choices will enable producers and policy makers to help consumers make better choices. Third, they found that such a study was a treasure trove in terms of the raw data it was bound to generate. Finally, the authors state that indeed, the study of consumer choices basically entailed the study of cognitive processes in general.
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The article categorizes consumer research into three broad areas; the first is stated to be ‘information processing,’ which is a field that focuses on the thought process itself and how it works towards influencing the choices made by the consumer, such as motivational processes. Secondly, consumer research has to entail the ‘consumer culture theory,’ which is the use of qualitative data for studying both experiential and socio-cultural aspects of consumption. The third field of research is defined under ‘behavioral decision research,’ which analyzes how decisions are actually made, how they should be made and how the decision making process can be improved. The authors conclude that unlike was previously thought that the study of consumer choice was simply meant for selling more goods, it can indeed act as an independent and important field of study, including assisting in understanding cognition and decision making processes.
Analysis
According to Bettman, Luce and Payne (1998), consumers are often faced with the tough decision of choosing the best out of several choices, and that this process often involves making tradeoffs, such as having to choose between price and safety when they are making the purchase of a vehicle. They propose the use of the rational choice theory, which theorizes that the decision maker must have very well defined preferences, that every option within a choice set has its assumed utility that only that option has and that the consumer themselves have the capacity to compute which of those choices will maximize the value received (Bettman, Luce & Payne, 1998).
Therefore, according to this theory, the decisions made by an individual are very much in line with their cognition process. The key to any decisions made by a consumer lies with finding the best value out of all the choices availed. As clearly indicated by Bettman, Luce and Payne, despite there being other factors at play, such as the utility of the option and the preferences of the consumer, it is their computational skills that eventually determine what they buy. However, it would be unsatisfactory to simply state that only the cognition process plays such a major role. The research by Dhar and Sherman (1996) indicates that there are other aspects at play when dealing with a choice set and the decision making process.
Their research indicates that individuals will consider the commonness and uniqueness of a commodity before determining what to buy. Often, commonness may be taken as a positive factor since it builds brand trust and leads to a higher consideration by consumers. Nevertheless, uniqueness also plays a critical role, since at various points, it may be the deciding factor, and in other instances, it may lead to negativity. Consequently, what matters most to consumer choice is the impact that either of these two has on the product. If it is common, is it in a good way, maybe due to affordability and reliability. On the other hand, if it is unique, is it still reliable, affordable, and does this uniqueness increase its usability or diminish it.
In conclusion, consumer choice is an aspect guided by very many different factors, chief of which is the cognition process of the consumer that enables them to determine which preferences stand out from a choice set. But cognition is not the only aspect determining consumer choice, as other aspects, such as the characteristics of the choice set also play a major determinative role.
References
Bartels, D. M., & Johnson, E. J. (2015). Connecting cognition and consumer choice. Cognition , 135 , 47-51.
Bettman, J. R., Luce, M. F., & Payne, J. W. (1998). Constructive consumer choice processes. Journal of consumer research , 25 (3), 187-217.
Dhar, R., & Sherman, S. J. (1996). The effect of common and unique features in consumer choice. Journal of Consumer Research , 23 (3), 193-203.
Reisen, N., Hoffrage, U., & Mast, F. W. (2008). Identifying decision strategies in a consumer choice situation. Judgment and decision making , 3 (8), 641.
