This edited volume will help business and academic researchers understand the means-end approach to understanding consumers. This is a qualitative marketing research method to gain customer insight into decision making.
In the last two years, consumers have experienced massive changes in consumption – whether due to shifts in habits; the changing information landscape; challenges to their identity, or new economic experiences of scarcity or abundance. What can we expect from these experiences? How are the world's leading thinkers applying both foundational knowledge and novel insights as we seek to understand consumer psychology in a constantly changing landscape? And how can informed readers both contribute to and evaluate our knowledge? This handbook offers a critical overview of both fundamental topics in consumer psychology and those that are of prominence in the contemporary marketplace, beginning with an examination of individual psychology and broadening to topics related to wider cultural and marketplace systems. The Cambridge Handbook of Consumer Psychology, 2nd edition, will act as a valuable guide for teachers and graduate and undergraduate students in psychology, marketing, management, economics, sociology, and anthropology.
Handbook of U.S. Consumer Economics presents a deep understanding on key, current topics and a primer on the landscape of contemporary research on the U.S. consumer. This volume reveals new insights into household decision-making on consumption and saving, borrowing and investing, portfolio allocation, demand of professional advice, and retirement choices. Nearly 70% of U.S. gross domestic product is devoted to consumption, making an understanding of the consumer a first order issue in macroeconomics. After all, understanding how households played an important role in the boom and bust cycle that led to the financial crisis and recent great recession is a key metric. - Introduces household finance by examining consumption and borrowing choices - Tackles macro-problems by observing new, original micro-data - Looks into the future of consumer spending by using data, not questionnaires
This text takes a strategic approach to consumer behavior; that is, once you know how consumers behave and react, what do you do about it? New to this edition is a much needed balance between the strategic approach and consumer rights and social implications.
Whether we're buying a pair of jeans, ordering a cup of coffee, selecting a long-distance carrier, applying to college, choosing a doctor, or setting up a 401(k), everyday decisions—both big and small—have become increasingly complex due to the overwhelming abundance of choice with which we are presented. As Americans, we assume that more choice means better options and greater satisfaction. But beware of excessive choice: choice overload can make you question the decisions you make before you even make them, it can set you up for unrealistically high expectations, and it can make you blame yourself for any and all failures. In the long run, this can lead to decision-making paralysis, anxiety, and perpetual stress. And, in a culture that tells us that there is no excuse for falling short of perfection when your options are limitless, too much choice can lead to clinical depression. In The Paradox of Choice, Barry Schwartz explains at what point choice—the hallmark of individual freedom and self-determination that we so cherish—becomes detrimental to our psychological and emotional well-being. In accessible, engaging, and anecdotal prose, Schwartz shows how the dramatic explosion in choice—from the mundane to the profound challenges of balancing career, family, and individual needs—has paradoxically become a problem instead of a solution. Schwartz also shows how our obsession with choice encourages us to seek that which makes us feel worse. By synthesizing current research in the social sciences, Schwartz makes the counter intuitive case that eliminating choices can greatly reduce the stress, anxiety, and busyness of our lives. He offers eleven practical steps on how to limit choices to a manageable number, have the discipline to focus on those that are important and ignore the rest, and ultimately derive greater satisfaction from the choices you have to make.
From identity theft to product recalls, from what we once thought of as unshakeable institutions to increasing concerns about sustainability, consumer issues are an integral part of modern life. This fully updated third edition of Consumer Economics offers students an accessible and thorough guide to the concerns surrounding the modern consumer and brings to light the repercussions of making uninformed decisions in today’s economy. This definitive textbook introduces students to these potential issues and covers other key topics including consumer behavior, personal finance, legal rights and responsibilities, as well as marketing and advertising. Combining theory and practice, students are introduced to both the fundamentals of consumer economics and how to become better-informed consumers themselves. Highlights in this new edition include: New Critical Thinking Projects feature to encourage students to develop their critical thinking skills through analysing consumer issues. Expanded coverage of social media and the impact of social influence on consumers. Revised Consumer Alerts: practical advice and guidance for students to make smart consumer decisions. A new Companion Website with a range of presentation materials and exercises related to each chapter. Fully updated throughout, this textbook is suitable for students studying consumer sciences – what works, what doesn’t, and how consumers are changing.
Consumer Credit and the American Economy examines the economics, behavioral science, sociology, history, institutions, law, and regulation of consumer credit in the United States. After discussing the origins and various kinds of consumer credit available in today's marketplace, this book reviews at some length the long run growth of consumer credit to explore the widely held belief that somehow consumer credit has risen "too fast for too long." It then turns to demand and supply with chapters discussing neoclassical theories of demand, new behavioral economics, and evidence on production costs and why consumer credit might seem expensive compared to some other kinds of credit like government finance. This discussion includes review of the economics of risk management and funding sources, as well discussion of the economic theory of why some people might be limited in their credit search, the phenomenon of credit rationing. This examination includes review of issues of risk management through mathematical methods of borrower screening known as credit scoring and financial market sources of funding for offerings of consumer credit. The book then discusses technological change in credit granting. It examines how modern automated information systems called credit reporting agencies, or more popularly "credit bureaus," reduce the costs of information acquisition and permit greater credit availability at less cost. This discussion is followed by examination of the logical offspring of technology, the ubiquitous credit card that permits consumers access to both payments and credit services worldwide virtually instantly. After a chapter on institutions that have arisen to supply credit to individuals for whom mainstream credit is often unavailable, including "payday loans" and other small dollar sources of loans, discussion turns to legal structure and the regulation of consumer credit. There are separate chapters on the theories behind the two main thrusts of federal regulation to this point, fairness for all and financial disclosure. Following these chapters, there is another on state regulation that has long focused on marketplace access and pricing. Before a final concluding chapter, another chapter focuses on two noncredit marketplace products that are closely related to credit. The first of them, debt protection including credit insurance and other forms of credit protection, is economically a complement. The second product, consumer leasing, is a substitute for credit use in many situations, especially involving acquisition of automobiles. This chapter is followed by a full review of consumer bankruptcy, what happens in the worst of cases when consumers find themselves unable to repay their loans. Because of the importance of consumer credit in consumers' financial affairs, the intended audience includes anyone interested in these issues, not only specialists who spend much of their time focused on them. For this reason, the authors have carefully avoided academic jargon and the mathematics that is the modern language of economics. It also examines the psychological, sociological, historical, and especially legal traditions that go into fully understanding what has led to the demand for consumer credit and to what the markets and institutions that provide these products have become today.
This pathbreaking volume expands on the construct of psychological ownership, placing it in the contexts of both individual consumer behavior and the wider decision-making of consumer populations. An individual’s feeling of ownership toward a target represents the perception that something is “mine!”, and is highly relevant to buying and relating to specific goods, economic and health decision-making and, especially salient given today’s privacy concerns, psychological ownership of digital content and personal data. Experts analyze the social conditions and cognitive processes concerning shared consumer experiences and psychological ownership. Contributors also discuss possibilities for socially responsible forms of psychological ownership using examples from environmental causes, and the behavioral mechanisms involved when psychological ownership becomes problematic, as in cases of hoarding. Included among the topics: Evidence from young children suggesting that even legal ownership is fundamentally psychological. Ownership, the extended self, and the extended object. Psychological ownership in financial decisions. The intersection of ownership and design. Can consumers perceive collective psychological ownership of an organization? Whose experience is it, anyway? Psychological ownership and enjoyment of shared experiences. Psychological ownership as a facilitator of sustainable behaviors including stewardship. Future research avenues in psychological ownership. Psychological Ownership and Consumer Behavior pinpoints research topics and real-world issues that will define the field in the coming years. It will be especially useful in graduate classes in marketing, consumer behavior, policy interventions, and business psychology.
This is the first-ever book about product and country images. It discusses the nature and role and influence of product-country images in international marketing strategy and consumer behavior. Thousands of companies use country identifiers as part of their international marketing strategy, and hundreds of researchers have studied the ways in which these identifiers influence behavior. As markets become more international, the more prominently the origin of products will figure in sellers' and buyers' decisions. The time is ripe for practitioners and academicians to delve into the insights offered in this seminal volume so as to better prepare for meeting the competitive challenges of the global marketplace. Product-Country Images is a wide-ranging and state-of-the-art book offering specific information and case studies to further understanding of the various aspects of this complex topic.