Goal Setting and Goal Striving in Consumer

BehaviorRichard P. Bagozzi & Utpal Dholakia

Presented by: -Shreekanth Dangi

(091203002)

Introduction Much of Consumer behavior is goal-directed.

Durables (e.g., buying a computer for the purpose of managing finances),

Nondurables (e.g., searching for a detergent that will be gentle, easy to use, and effective)

Services (e.g., joining a health club to keep body weight under control)

Ideas or persons (e.g., deciding to vote for a candidate who will promote the voter's personal welfare).

Buyers in organizations Such as when hospital pharmacy and therapeutics

committees search for, choose, and prescribe drugs that will be safe, efficacious, and Inexpensive.

Introduction…All these goals share a focus on a specific outcome/s that

consumption can produce. A desired outcome (e.g., ease of use) enters the mind of the decision maker and can be defined as a specific type of goal, namely, “a mental image or other end point representation associated with affect toward which action may be directed.”

Consumption goals are not limited to end states but also encompass experiences, sequences of interconnected happenings, and on-going processes.

A person’s vacation goal might be depend on experiences.

The Role of Goal in Consumption: An Organizing ModelThe formation of goal concepts and the enactment of

purposive action in relation to goals take place complexly and at various stages in decision making and consumer behaviour.

Goal setting involves decision making processes in which, figuratively, the consumer addresses two broad questions:

“What are the goals I can pursue, and why do I want or not want to pursue them?“

Goals are activated either externally, such as when the context presents opportunities or imposes imperatives, or internally, such as when the consumer constructs a goal schema or chooses from among self-generated alternatives.

The Role of Goal in Consumption: An Organizing Model….Given a sufficiently strong desire to pursue a

goal, actual goal pursuit will commence in one of three conditions.

1. Habitual goal-directing behavior E.g. Running a credit card through the scanner at the supermarket

checkout counter.

2. Impulsive acts3. Goal Intentions

E.g. For end performances (“I intend to buy a Sony DVD player tonight”) or particular outcomes to be achieved through the execution of instrumental acts (e.g., "I intend to lose two pounds by exercising vigorously with my ProForm treadmill during the next week”.)

Goal settin

g

How do consumers form

or arrive at their goals?

How do they

realize that they

have a goal?

How are the motivational aspects of a

goal represented in the mind or language

of the consumer?

Can consumers have goals and not be

aware of them?

Conscious goal arousal First,goals can be forced on

people, through coercion or

reward power or, more subtly, by virtue of their position in an organization,

family, or other social unit,

whereby they are obligated to work

toward predefined ends.

Second, people often

simply "have" a goal, in the sense that it

arises automatically

because of biological, emotional, moral, or

ethical forces.

Third, the goal on which

we concentrate herein is the

type that arises from reasoned

reactions to either

external stimuli or internal stimuli.

Simplest and most frequently used approach to capturing consumer evaluations of products or services

Attitudes and their specific product/service antecedentsOR Attitudes and their general antecedent value orientations.

Attitude model

Advantage: their simplicity, ease of operationalization, and usefulness in prediction.

Disadvantage rests in the limited way they accomplish explanation and understanding of consumer behaviour.

Howard elaborated on the stages in consumer behaviour, particularly for what he termed “extensive problem-solving” situations, and presented the process as a "two-level choice":

Choice of product class is believed to be initiated by Terminal

values (e.g., "a comfortable life“)

Choice of a brand in the chosen product class is hypothesized to

be determined by attitudes toward the known brands; these

attitudes are, functions of beliefs about the brands according to

criteria that are based on Instrumental values (ex.

"ambition").

How might the motivational foundation for a consumer's goal be ascertained?

attributes Abstract attributes

Functional consequences

Psychosocial consequences

Instrumental values Terminal value

One way this has been approached is with the laddering technique.

New Approaches to Goal SettingThere are at least two fundamentally different

approaches to the problem of representing a consumer's motivation for choosing a goal:

1. Cognitive psychology2. Discursive psychology

These points of view might apply to consumer goal-directed behaviour.

Goal-derived categories, in contrast, are believed to arise through conceptual combination by manipulation of existing knowledge in memory.

Barsalou (1991) further proposes that goals and their attributes are represented in frames, which he defines as “Flexible, loosely organized bodies of knowledge.“

For example, the frame for a vacation goal.

Subtypes

Specific Attribute

AttributeLocation, activities,

objects etc.

Departure, Duration….

Arrangements at

locationMinor travel

Preparations, travel…

Major travel

The primary motivation for engaging in a focal goal comes about through the superordinate goals it serves.

We can imagine these superordinate goals as ends or standards by which the focal goal is rationalized. The superordinate goals are arranged by level of abstractness from the lowest ("fit into my clothes") to the highest ("enjoy life") and are shown as interconnected through inference like relationships.

Any argument can be supported directly by multiple claims as evidence. Each claim, in turn, can be challenged on the bases of its justification. The justifications offered in support rest on evidence and also can be challenged or explained. A particular argument typically will rely on some finite sequence of claims, depending on the reasoning of the arguer. Antaki(1989*) uses similar ideas to generate networks of causal attributions, and a somewhat similar approach has been taken.

Goal Setting, Prefectural, and the Activation of IntentionsAnalogous to value hierarchies, superordinate goals and their

organization provide a basis for decision making, but something more is needed to activate intentions.

A counterfactual is a conditional statement that contains both an antecedent expressed as a hypothetical (e.g., "if X happens") and a consequence expressed as an implication ("then Y will occur").

"If only 1 had invested in bonds, I would not have lost as much money as I did through stock purchases.“

"I am disappointed by my losses in the stock market, but they would have been even worse if I had, as originally planned, invested in futures."

When a person generates a counterfactual [prefectural] that reverses a negative outcome, he or she is likely to make the attribution [that] there is an effective action that can be taken in the future.

Goal striving

Intentions are much more than uncompleted portions of plans whose execution has begun. They provide the psychological mechanism or bridge between goal setting and goal striving, as well as serve control and executive functions in goal pursuit.

Intentions and Memory Intentions are formed at multiple stages of decision making

(i.e.. during goal setting and goal pursuit), exist in different forms, and have different functions.

A consumer with a goal intention is committed in principle to the execution of actions needed to achieve the goal.

INTENTION1. Goal intention2. Implementation intentions

Both are stored abstractly in declarative memory and must be retrieved before further progress in goal pursuit can occur.

To realize an implementation intention, recognition of execution conditions must occur. The memory processes for both types of intentions involve internalized verbal instructions.

Many consumption decisions are fulfilled at a time quite remote from the point when an intention first was formed.

Memory processing

One refers to remembering to perform an action at a

future point in time and has come to be known as

"Prospective Memory”Recall of goal intention.Vigilant to external cues.

Remembering the content of the action to perform and the conditions for its execution.

“Retrospective memory”.Used during execution.

Deliberative and directive.

Appraisal of MeansAfter a goal has been chosen and a goal intention

formed, the next task that the consumer faces is the problem of how to reach the goal.

For a goal that has been pursued frequently in the past, a decision maker might activate a stored rule or script such as "use the means that I used last time," routinized problem-solving model.

For new goals or goals that are high in salience or difficult to achieve, the next step in the goal attainment process is the evaluation of alternative means to determine the best course of action.

Bagozzi Appraisal processSelf-efficacy: Person’s capabilities to exercise control

over the means needed to achieve a goal. E.g. difficult to use product. software etc..

Action-outcome expectancies: Assessments of the likelihood that the initiation of goal-directed behaviours as means to an end will lead to goal achievement. E.g. goal to weight loss. Own gym or membership.

Affect toward means: Goal-directed behaviours have affective or evaluative consequences that are independent of the value of the goal per se but that nevertheless can inhibit or promote the decision to use them in goal pursuit.

Action PlanningAfter an intention to seek a goal is formed and a decision to

use a particular means is made, the means appraisal processes culminate in the formation of an implementation plan of action that specifies when, where, how, and how long each of the actions necessary for goal attainment will be carried out.

Such plans have a strong cognitive component and are hierarchical representations that control the order in which the behaviour will be sequenced for goal attainment, as well as specify objects in the environment as cues for initiating action.

Planning also facilitates the initiation of goal-directed behaviours in the presence of the specified opportunity, which enables people to respond to good opportunities, even if they present themselves for only a short moment.

Finally, planning provides distinct volitional benefits by facilitating self-regulatory processes when impediments to plan implementation occur or temptations arise.

Sub dimension action planning Completeness: which refers to how fully each

individual link in the course of action is specified.

Specificity: which pertains to the various anticipated situational contexts and the specificity of actions to be executed in each context.

Novelty: which depends on whether the cues and sequences specified are well practiced, familiar, and reliable for the individual.

Maintenance and Protection of intentionsIn many cases, especially when there is a time gap

between intention formation and action initiation, impediments to the enactment of the actions necessary for goal attainment may occur after the implementation plan has been formed.

E.g. a store may be stocked out of a favourite brand, a more appealing movie may be discovered playing in the multiplex theatre after the arrival.

Kuhl (1984) identifies seven volitional self-regulatory processes that, through strategies such as inhibiting the processing of information that supports competing intentions, controlling emotional reactions, and maintaining high levels of motivation, protect the chosen intention and implementation plan from being abandoned during the period between intention formation and action initiation.

Initiation of ActionIf the elements of the implementation plan in memory

are activated at the appropriate time (during what is called the "performance interval"), action will be initiated and executed as specified by the plan.

As action unfolds, monitoring and control processes help retrieve plan elements from memory, compare them with progress and the reality of the situation, and make continuous corrections to the subsequent plan elements before translating them into action.

“Goal consummation point”: As we move each step toward goal, motivational processes damper.

ConclusionRelation of Framework to Consumer Research

Priorities Goal-setting processes are especially important in the

adoption of new products. The greater the degree of "newness," the more difficult it is for a consumer to evaluate the product and relate it to his or her needs because, by definition, no prior experience exists with the product.

Goal-striving processes seem particularly pertinent brand loyalty. Much is known about loyalty and patterns of switching at aggregate levels, but less seems known about where and when, in the post-decision-making period, loyalty must be sustained psychologically or breaks down.

Still other consumers loyal to a brand may require distinct marketing efforts to protect plans and intentions from threats from competitors, bad word-of-mouth communication, or indifference.

ConclusionAn understanding of the role played by goals in

consumer behaviour, as well as the processes of goal setting and goal pursuit, is critical to the advancement of knowledge in the field.

This is likely to provide insights to marketing practitioners in many ways, from developing richer, more representative, and more accurate models of purchase forecasting to designing optimal communication stimuli and store displays and training of salespeople.