Chapter 4

Motivation and Values

CONSUMER
BEHAVIOR
Global Edition 9e
Michael R. Solomon

1
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 Learning Objectives
When you finish this chapter, you should
understand why:
• It’s important for marketers to recognize that
products can satisfy a range of consumer
needs.
• The way we evaluate and choose a product
depends upon our degree of involvement with
the product, the marketing message, and/or
the purchase situation.

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 Learning Objectives (continued)
• Our deeply held cultural values dictate the
types of products and services we seek out
or avoid.
• Consumers vary in the importance they
attach to worldly possessions, and this
orientation in turn has an impact on their
priorities and behaviors.

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 The Motivation Process
• Motivation refers to the
process that leads people
to behave as they do
• It occurs when a need is
aroused
• The ad shows desired
state and suggests a
solution (purchase of
equipment)

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 Needs and Motivation
• Needs may be utilitarian or hedonic
• The desired end state is the goal
• The degree of arousal is drive
• Personal and cultural factors combine to
create a want – one manifestation of a need
• Motivation is described in terms of strength
and direction

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 Motivational Strength
• Motivational strength: degree of willingness
to expend energy to reach a goal
• Drive theory: biological needs that produce
unpleasant states of arousal (e.g., hunger)
• Expectancy theory: behavior is pulled by
expectations of achieving desirable
outcomes

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 What Do We Need?

Biogenic Needs

Psychogenic Needs

Utilitarian Needs

Hedonic Needs

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 Motivational Conflicts
• Goal valence (value): consumer will:
• Approach positive goal
• Avoid negative goal
• Example: Partnership for a Drug-Free
America communicates negative
consequences of drug addiction for those
tempted to start

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 Figure 4.1 Types of Motivational Conflicts

• Two desirable
alternatives
• Cognitive dissonance

• Positive & negative

aspects
of desired product
• Guilt of desire occurs

• Facing a choice with

two
undesirable
alternatives
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Specific Needs and Buying Behavior

NEED FOR ACHIEVEMENT NEED FOR AFFILIATION

Value personal accomplishment Want to be with other people
Place a premium on products Focus on products that are used
that signify success (luxury in groups (alcoholic
brands, technology products) beverages, sports bars)

NEED FOR POWER NEED FOR UNIQUENESS

Control one’s environment Assert one’s individual identity
Focus on products that allow Enjoy products that focus on
them to have mastery over their unique character
surroundings (muscle cars, (perfumes, clothing)
loud boom-boxes)

•
 Levels of Needs in the Maslow Hierarchy

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 An Appeal to One’s Need for Safety

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 Discussion
• Create an advertising slogan for a pair of
jeans, which stresses one of the levels of
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

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 Consumer Involvement
• Involvement: perceived relevance of an
object based on one’s needs, values, and
interests
• We get attached to products:
• “All in One” restaurant tattoo on
consumer’s head
• Lucky magazine for women who obsess
over shopping
• A man tried to marry his car when his
fiancée dumped him
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 Figure 4.3 Conceptualizing Involvement

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 Levels of Involvement:
From Inertia to Passion
• Inertia is consumption at the low end of
involvement; decisions made out of habit
(lack of motivation)
• Flow state occurs when consumers are truly
involved
• Sense of control
• Concentration
• Mental enjoyment
• Distorted sense of time
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 Cult Products

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 Product Involvement

• Product involvement is the consumer’s

level of interest in a product

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 Discussion
• Interview each other about a particular
celebrity.
• Describe your level of involvement with the
“product” and devise some marketing
opportunities to reach this group.

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 Tactics to Boost Motivation to Process
• Appeal to consumers’ hedonic needs
• Use novel stimuli
• Use prominent stimuli
• Include celebrity endorsers
• Provide value customers appreciate
• Let customers make messages
• Create spectacles or performances
• Develop mobile experiences like alternate
reality games
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 Purchase Situation Involvement
• Purchase situation involvement: differences
that occur when buying the same object for
different contexts.
• Example: wedding gift
• For boss: purchase expensive vase to
show that you want to impress boss
• For cousin you don’t like: purchase
inexpensive vase to show you’re
indifferent

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 Table 4.1 Measuring Involvement

To me (object to be judged) is:

1. important _:_:_:_:_:_:_ unimportant
2. boring _:_:_:_:_:_:_ interesting
3. relevant _:_:_:_:_:_:_ irrelevant
4. exciting _:_:_:_:_:_:_ unexciting
5. means nothing _:_:_:_:_:_:_ means a lot
6. appealing _:_:_:_:_:_:_ unappealing
7. fascinating _:_:_:_:_:_:_ mundane
8. worthless _:_:_:_:_:_:_ valuable
9. involving _:_:_:_:_:_:_ uninvolving
10. not needed _:_:_:_:_:_:_ needed

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 Consumer Values
• Value: a belief that some condition is
preferable to its opposite
• Example: looking younger is preferable
to looking older
• Products/services = help in attaining
value-related goal
• We seek others that share our values/
beliefs
• Thus, we tend to be exposed to
information that supports our beliefs
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 Core Values
• Core values: values
shared within a culture
• Enculturation: learning the
beliefs and values of one’s
own culture
• Acculturation: learning the
value system and
behaviors of another
culture

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 Discussion
• What do you think are the three to five core
values that best describe Americans today?
• How are these core values relevant to the
following product categories:
• Cars?
• Clothing?
• Higher education?

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 Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions
• Power distance
• Individualism
• Masculinity
• Uncertainty avoidance
• Long-term orientation

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 Table 4.2 Terminal and Instrumental Values

Instrumental Value Terminal Value

Ambitious A comfortable life

Capable A sense of
accomplishment
Self-controlled Wisdom

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 List of Values (LOV)
• Identifies nine consumer segments based on
values they endorse; and
• Relates each value to differences in
consumption behaviors.
• Example: those who endorse sense of
belonging read Reader’s Digest and TV
Guide drink and entertain more, and prefer
group activities

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 Means-End Chain Model
• Very specific product attributes are linked
at levels of increasing abstraction to
terminal values
• Alternative means to attain valued end
states
• Laddering technique uncovers consumers’
associations between specific attributes
and general consequences

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 Figure 4.4 Hierarchical Value Maps
for Vegetable Oil in Three Countries

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 Conscientious Consumerism
• Conscientious consumerism is a focus on
personal health merging with a growing
interest in global health
• LOHAS (lifestyles of health and
sustainability): Consumers who:
• Worry about the environment
• Want products to be produced in a
sustainable way
• Spend money to advance what they see as
their personal development and potential
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 Figure 4.5 Carbon Footprint Breakdown

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 Materialism
• Materialism: the importance people attach
to worldly possessions
• “The good life”...“He who dies with the
most toys, wins”
• Materialists: value possessions for their
own status and appearance
• Non-materialists: value possessions that
connect them to other people or provide
them with pleasure in using them
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 Chapter Summary
• Products address a wide range of consumer
needs.
• How we evaluate a product depends on our
involvement with that product, the marketing
message, and the purchase situation.
• Our cultural values dictate the products we
seek out and avoid.
• Consumers vary in how important
possessions are to them.
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