Consumer Psychology

Consumer psychology seeks to describe and explain consumer behavior. It provides the advertisers opportunities to investigate issues such as factors that are most important when people decide to purchase a particular item. Also, it seeks to analyze the benefits of a product or service relating to a set of market segments; and whether or not advertisements such as, television, billboards or magazines can convince an unenthusiastic customer to try a new product or service for the first time.

The first noted consumer psychologist was John B. Watson. Watson suggested that baby powder advertisements should play on the inherent sense of insecurity experienced by many first-time mothers.

“If psychology would follow the plan I suggest, the educator, the physician, the jurist,and the businessman could utilize our data in a practical way.” -John B. Watson

In addition, Ivan Pavlov’s introduced his philosophy of Classical Conditioning. Classical Conditioning is a condition centered on stimulus association. Classical Conditioning has 4 components:

• Unconditioned Stimulus: Causes automatic reflex response.
• Conditioned Stimulus: Something that is learned before creating a response.
• Unconditioned Response: A reflex that has happened automatically without having to learn how to do it.
• Conditioned Response: A reflex that can be evoked in response to a conditioned stimulus.

Each Component generates a stimulus response through association. Therefore, in theory, Classical Conditioning is used to stimulate the unconscious trigger from a previous association with a product.

John B. Watson and Ivan Pavlov noted that conditioning is the process of learning. Consumer Psychology is, based on these applied theories, motivation of particular interest groups by appealing to basic needs and/or desires. Carl Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs explores the range of consumer emotions and desires that advertisers hope to appeal to. The Five Levels of Hierarchy coincide with the consumers needs: The Psychology Need, Security Need, Social Need, Esteem Need and Self-Actualizing Need. Each need consists of a fulfillment that the consumer desires and each need must be met in order to reach the next level of fulfillment. The three classical Psychology authors teach us basic fundamentals of Human Nature and Conditioning which are essential when using advertising that manipulate the consumer.

Take Away: Critical thinking must be exercised when subjected to this manipulation versus the actual need or desire for the product or service.

Reference:
http://www.chroniclebooks.com/ image of dog w/leash
http://www.cartoonstock.com/ image of dog in chair
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/classical_conditioning.com
http://psychology.about.com/od/theoriesofpersonailiy/a/hierachryneed.htm
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/637615/John-B-Watson
http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/watson.htm
http://www.wsu.edu/~taflinge/psych1.html
http://www.myscp.org/media.aspx
http://www.consumerpsychologist.com/

Bias in Wording

The Prospect Theory was created by Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahnmenen (pictured left) in 1979. According to the Prospect Theory, people value a certain gain more than a probable gain with equal or greater value, while the opposite is true for losses (see fig. 2). Furthermore, the discontentment associated with the loss is greater than the pleasure associated with the same amounts of gain.

To demonstrate, A study was conducted by Amos Tversky that investigated the cause and effect of the Prospect Theory. The study consisted of 120 Stanford graduates. The participants were used to give their preference of dying from natural causes versus unnatural causes. The following data summarizes the probabilities of each type of death in an itemized format.
Estimates of Probabilities of Death From Various Causes:

Cause: Subject Estimates/ Statistical Estimates

Heart Disease: 0.22 /0.34

Cancer: 0.18 /0.23

Other Natural Causes: 0.33/ 0.35

All Natural Causes: 0.73/ 0.92

Accident: 0.32/ 0.05

Homicide: 0.10/ 0.01

Other Unnatural Causes: 0.11/ 0.02

All Unnatural Causes: 0.53 / 0.08
The above data represent the probability estimate of one group in the study. Another group was not asked to estimate the probabilities for separate causes but only the probability of death by natural versus unnatural causes. The probability estimate of a natural death by this second group was 0.58, significantly lower than when the subjects considered each cause separately. The second group's estimate of an unnatural death was 0.32, again significantly lower than for the first group. The most notable aspect of the estimates is that the subjects significantly underestimated the probabilities for natural causes and vastly overestimated the probabilities for unnatural causes. This indicates that probably people give more attention to worrying about the unnatural dangers and not enough to the natural dangers (Berstein, 1996).

The work done by Kahneman and Tversky demonstrated people's attitudes toward risks concerning gains may be quite different from their attitudes toward risks concerning losses. In addition, authors use the prospect theory to create bias. When an author applies the prospect theory to his or her writing, the author can then cause the reader to change their focus on loss and gain by appealing to the reader's emotion.

Take Away: Words are powerful. When an author uses statistics, information has to be delivered without being skewed or slanted to their point of view. And ask myself, are all the subjects involved in the study being held equal, or are they manipulated to illustrate a philosophy?.

Reference:
Peter Bernstein, Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk, John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1996.
symptomresearch.nih.gov (graph)

Power of Music

Music affects everyone in every way. Music is all around us: in stores, restaurants, elevators, bathrooms, television shows and theaters. Whether we like it or not, music is everywhere and is used for many things. But, we ask ourselves, could there be a ploy for when music is being used and played?" For example, when music is played in restaurants, is it played for mood enhancement, or to drown out conversation and to add privacy? Music can maintain listeners' attention by engaging them in a number of ways, including keeping them alert, intrigued, anxious, happy and even sad. During an examination, I compared the role of music in news reporting versus entertainment. I found that when music is combined with media, it has the power to manipulate and cause an unconscious reaction.

For instance, after examining broadcast WTVF News Channel 5 in Nashville, TN. I found there was no music playing during the dialogue. However, during the introduction and synopsis of the telecast, there was a strong, hard hitting, musical theme. The theme was only played at the beginning, before and after commercial breaks, and at end of the telecast. I found this to be extremely interesting as I drifted off from watching the telecast; the loud introductory music would act as a cue to redirect my focus back to the news. In addition, during some dialogues, there were the sounds of sirens, rushing water, fire trucks, etc... I believe that this type of audio realism gives the audience a brief feeling of actually being there.

Entertainment uses music that covers a wide range of emotions, such as, suspense, fun and exhilarating. I found that strategically selected music contributes to our unconscious mind’s eye by making us react physically and mentally without reason. I compared the use of music in telecasts with music found in entertainment programming, specifically episodes from HBO's series "Big Love" and "The Sopranos." I found that in the scenes that had some type of drama, there was a “moment theme” as the particular scene played out.

Applying critical thinking to the uses of music created awareness of how music is actually used and for what reasons by questioning its administrations.

Take Away: Music is very powerful. Music is used to exploit our unconscious mind’s eye for the purpose of how and why music is actually used by media producers to persuade and influence by behavior. Critical thinking is applied directly in questioning reason, sound, and purpose.

Related Studies:

• (2003)Education Resource Information Center (ERIC)-Effects of background music
  www.eric.ed.gov
• (2005)The “Mozart Effect”
  http://www.parenting-baby.com/Parenting-Baby-Music-Research/Music-Research.htmlMozart Effect
• (2001) Brain and Emotion Research-University of Wisconsin, Madison
  http://www.news.wisc.edu/packages/emotion/