Chapter 2: Motivation, Ability, and Opportunity
CHAPTER 2
MOTIVATION, ABILITY, AND OPPORTUNITY
Chapter Summary
This chapter is the students’ introduction to factors that can influence consumers to
behave in ways that result in market exchanges. The role of the instructor in this
chapter is to help the students understand these concepts, as well as to help place
them in a marketing context that the students can understand.
Motivation reflects an inner state of activation that moves the consumer to engage in
goal-relevant behaviors, effortful information processing, and detailed decision
making. Motivated consumers often experience affective or cognitive involvement. In
some cases, this involvement may be enduring; in other cases, it may be situational,
lasting only until the goal has been achieved. Consumers experience greater
motivation when they regard a goal or object as personally relevant, or when it relates
to their self-concept, values, needs, emotions, goals, and/or calls for self-control;
when it entails perceived risk; or when it is moderately inconsistent with their prior
attitudes.
Even when motivation is high, consumers may not achieve their goals if their ability or
opportunity to do so is low. Similarly, if consumers lack the financial, cognitive,
emotional, physical, or social and cultural resources, they may not have the ability to
make a decision. Age and education also affect ability. Highly motivated consumers
may also fail to achieve goals if lack of time, distractions, complex or large amounts of
information, or lack of control over information flow limit the opportunity to make
decisions.
CHAPTER LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After studying this chapter, students will be able to
1. Show how motivation influences high-effort behavior, high-effort information
processing and decision making, and felt involvement.
2. Discuss the four types of influences that determine the consumer’s motivation to
process information, make a decision, or take an action.
3. Explain how financial, cognitive, emotional, physical, and social and cultural
resources, plus age and education, can affect the individual’s ability to engage in
consumer behaviors.
4. Identify the three main types of influences on the consumer’s opportunity to
process information and acquire, consume, or dispose of products.
CHAPTER OUTLINE
I. Consumer Motivation and Its Effects
A. High-Effort Behavior
1. Motivation is an inner state of aroused energy directed toward achieving
a goal. An outcome of motivation is behavior that takes effort.
Chapter 2: Motivation, Ability, and Opportunity
Abstract, enduring beliefs about what is right/wrong, important, or
good/bad.
a) Something may be personally relevant.
b) Your self-concept or your view of yourself and the way you
think others see you is important in marketing.
c) Consumers are more motivated to attend to and process
information when they find it consistent with their values or
beliefs that guide what people regard as important or good.
3. Needs
An internal state of tension experienced when there is a discrepancy
between the current and an ideal or desired physical or psychological
state.
a) Types of Needs
i. Social needs (Social needs are externally directed and relate to
other individuals (e.g., the need for esteem, succor, and
modeling).
ii. Nonsocial needs (those whose achievement is not based on
other people (e.g., the need for sleep, novelty, control, and
understanding).
iii. Functional needs (those that motivate the search for products
that solve consumption-related problems.)
iv. Symbolic needs (those that affect our sense of self, self
expression, and social position or role.)
v. Hedonic needs (reflect sensory pleasure and includes needs
for sensory stimulation, cognitive stimulation and novelty
(nonsocial hedonic needs), as well as need for reinforcement,
sex and play (social hedonic needs).
vi Needs for cognition and stimulation. (Those who have a high
need for cognition are more likely to process information
actively and engage in cognitive processing during decision
making as compared to those who have a low need for
cognition.) Also, Those who have a high OSL need more
sensory stimulation; have been found to be involved in
shopping and seeking information about brands; they show
higher involvement in ads than those with a lower OSL.
b) Characteristics of Needs
i. Needs are dynamic.
ii. Needs exist in a hierarchy.
iii. Needs can be internally or externally aroused.
iv. Needs can conflict. There are 3 kinds of need conflicts:
—Approach-avoidance conflict occurs when a given behavior is
seen as both desirable and undesirable because it satisfies
some of the consumer’s needs but fails to satisfy others.
—Approach-approach conflict occurs when the consumer faces
the task of choosing among two or more equally desirable
options that fulfill different needs.
Chapter 2: Motivation, Ability, and Opportunity
—Avoidance-avoidance conflict occurs when the consumer
faces the task of choosing between equally undesirable
options.
4. Identifying Needs
a) Identifying consumers’ needs is useful to marketers, but doing so is
not easy.
b) Consumers may be unaware of their needs or have trouble
explaining them.
c) Inferring consumers’ needs based only on behaviors is difficult as
the same need can be expressed in diverse behaviors
d) Inferring needs in a cross-cultural context is particularly difficult.
e) Methods like non-directed projection ask consumers to interpret
ambiguous stimuli (like cartoons, word associations, sentence
completions). These techniques often allow consumers to reveal
their needs by using their own words to express thoughts about a
topic.
B. Goals
1. A goal is a particular end state or outcome that a person would like to
achieve.
2. Goal Setting and Goal Pursuit
a) After we set a goal, we are motivated to form a goal intention; plan
to take action; implement and control the action; and evaluate
success or failure in attaining the goal.
3. Goals and Effort
a) Consumers vary in how much effort they will exert to achieve a
goal.
b) Research suggests that the amount of effort exerted by a consumer
may depend on the success of achieving other, potentially
unrelated goals.
c) The amount of effort also depends on feedback showing progress
toward goal achievement.
4. Types of Goals
a) Goals vary in whether they are concrete or abstract.
b) Goals may be described as promotion-focused (achieving positive
outcomes) or prevention-focused (avoiding negative outcomes).
c) Consumers may have goals to regulate how they feel and/or what
they do.
5. Goals and Emotions
a) Goals are important because the success or failure to achieve a
goal can affect how consumers feel.
b) According to appraisal theory, emotions are determined by how
consumers evaluate (or appraise) a situation. When an outcome is
consistent with consumers’ goals, they appraise the situation
favorably and feel positive emotions.
Chapter 2: Motivation, Ability, and Opportunity
c) Appraisal theory also posits that other appraisal dimensions,
including normative/moral compatibility, certainty, and agency, will
affect how consumers feel.
6. Self-Control and Goal Conflict
a) Self control is the process consumers use to regulate feelings,
thoughts, and behavior in line with long-term goals.
b) Ego depletion is the outcome of decision-making effort that results
in mental resources being exhausted.
7. The Challenge of Information Processing
8. The Challenge of Emotion Regulation
9. Marketing Implications
c) Enhance motivation to process communication. Marketers can
enhance consumers’ motivation to process promotional material by
making the information as personally relevant as possible, by
appealing to their self concepts, values, needs or goals.
d) Product Development and Positioning
c) Encouraging Specific Behaviors
Consumers’ needs and goals have particular relevance to marketers.
i. Needs can be used to segment markets.
ii. Marketers can attempt to create new needs.
iii. Marketers can identify unfulfilled needs or create alternatives
that are more satisfying.
iv. Marketers can resolve need conflicts.
C. Perceived Risk
1. Perceived Risk Overview
a) Perceived risk is defined as the extent to which the consumer is
uncertain about the personal consequences of buying, using, or
disposing of an offering.
b) Perceived risk tends to be higher when: 1) little information is
available about the offering; 2) the offering is new; 3) the offering
has a high price; 4) the offering is technologically complex; 5)
brands differ significantly in quality allowing consumers to make an
inferior choice; 6) the consumer has little confidence or experience
in evaluating the offering; and/or 7) the opinions of others are
important and the acquisition, use or disposition of the offering may
be judged by others.
c) Perceived risk may also vary by culture or by specific demographic
categories within a culture.
2. Types of Perceived Risk
a) Performance risk reflects uncertainty about whether the product or
service will perform as expected.
b) Financial risk reflects consumers’ concerns about their monetary
investment in a product or service.
c) Physical (or safety) risk refers to the potential harm that a product
or service might pose to one’s safety.
Chapter 2: Motivation, Ability, and Opportunity
d) Social risk refers to the potential harm to one’s social standing that
may arise from buying, using, or disposing of an offering.
e) Psychological risk reflects consumers’ concern over the extent to
which a product or service fits with the way they perceive
themselves.
f) Time risk reflects uncertainties over the length of time consumers
must invest in buying, using, or disposing of the product or service.
3. Risk and Involvement
a) Involvement can be classified by risk level. The higher the risk, the
higher the involvement.
b) Since high risk is uncomfortable, consumers are likely to attempt to
reduce or resolve risk by gathering more information or by relying
on brand loyalty.
4. Marketing Implications
a) When perceived risk is high, marketers can either reduce
uncertainty or reduce the perceived consequences of failure.
b) When perceived risk is low, marketers have to increase risk
perceptions to make emotional appeals more convincing.
D. Inconsistency with Attitudes
1. Consumers tend to be motivated to process messages that are
moderately inconsistent with existing knowledge or attitudes, because
they are perceived as moderately threatening or uncomfortable. The
consumer is motivated to remove or understand this inconsistency.
2. Consumers are less motivated to process information that is highly
inconsistent with their prior attitudes.
III. Consumer Ability: Resources to Act
A. Ability is defined as the extent to which consumers have the necessary
resources (knowledge, intelligence, and money) to make the outcome
happen.
B. Resources to Act
Resources are financial, emotional, cognitive, emotional physical, social and
cultural, and education and age.
1. Financial Resources: Financial resources are often managed by a
financial planner. The lack of money constrains consumers who might
otherwise have the motivation to engage in monetary exchanges with
marketers.
2. Cognitive Resources: Based on experience and knowledge
3. Emotional resources: are the consumers’ ability to experience empathy
and sympathy. Higher levels of intelligence and education will both
enhance the consumer’s ability to process information that is more
complex and to make decisions.
4. Physical Resources: Body power can impact how, when and where
consumers make decisions. Old age has been associated with a decline
in certain cognitive skills and thus reduced ability to process information.
Chapter 2: Motivation, Ability, and Opportunity
QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW AND DISCUSSION
Possible answers are as follows.
1. What are the three major sources of effort consumers invest in making
acquisition, usage, and disposition decisions?
2. How is motivation defined, and how does it affect felt involvement?
3. What are some objects of involvement for consumers?
4. Why are personal relevance, self-concept, and values important for
motivation?
5. What determines the ranking of needs in Maslow’s hierarchy?
6. What types of goals do consumers have?
Goals are more specific and concrete than needs are. A goal is a particular end
7. According to appraisal theory, what do emotions have to do with goals?
8. What is self-control and how does it relate to conflicting goals?
Copyright © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.
9
9. Why do conflicting goals pose a challenge to information processing and
emotion regulation?
10. What are six types of perceived risk, and how does perceived risk affect
personal relevance?
Perceived risk is the extent to which the consumer is uncertain about the
11. What five types of resources affect ability to process information and make
decisions?
12. Identify some of the elements that contribute to consumer opportunity for
processing information and making decisions, and suggest how marketers can
make use of these for marketing purposes.
Chapter 2: Motivation, Ability, and Opportunity
SUGGESTED EXERCISES AND TEACHER GUIDELINES
1. Randomly select ten ads from a magazine. Develop questions designed to
assess a consumer’s involvement in an ad (both cognitive and affective) and
motivation to process information from the ad. Select a sample of 20–30
consumers to look at the ads and answer the questions. Which types of ads tend
to be higher in involvement? Which types of ads tend to be lower in involvement?.
How do these ads tend to differ in terms of (a) recognition of consumers’ needs,
(b) structure and content, and (c) assumption of consumer knowledge or
expertise?
2. Develop your own projective test, depicting some purchase or usage situation for
a product or service of your choice. What kinds of needs are revealed by your
test? What are the implications for the marketer of that product or service?
3. Watch TV and the associated ads for half an hour. At the end of your viewing,
write down ads, you remember. Use the concepts of motivation, ability and
opportunity to describe why you processed and remembered these commercials.
What was it about the ad, your prior knowledge or use of these products, or the
environment in which you viewed the ads that made them memorable?
4. Visit a retail website (e.g., Staples.com, HotTopic.com and BarnesandNoble.com)
and carefully examine the description and information provided about one of the
featured products. Also, read the site’s descriptions of shipping and payment
options. What perceived risks are being addressed by the information on this
site? How does the retailer either reduce risk perceptions or enhance risk
perceptions with respect to the featured product or the shipping and payment
options?
5. Select a high-involvement product you are interested in buying, such as a new
car or a new computer system. Identify the factors that make this product
personally relevant to you, such as how it relates to your specific goals or needs.
Next, consider how product knowledge or experience, age, and money affect
your ability to process marketing information about this product and make a
purchase. Finally, analyze how the opportunity factors related to time, distraction,
and information affect your behavior toward making this purchase. What can
marketers of this type of product do to enhance your motivation, ability, and
opportunity to buy from them?
ADDITIONAL DISCUSSION QUESTIONS WITH SAMPLE ANSWERS
These discussion questions can be used as in-class activities or as thought questions
for students to consider while reading the chapter, or to test their understanding of the
material after the reading and lecture are complete.
1. How can consumer needs be classified? Define each term and provide an
example of how a vehicle or a piece of jewelry, for example, might meet each
type of need.
TYPE OF NEED
EX: VEHICLE
EX: FANCY WATCH
A. (1) Social needs:
externally directed needs
that require the presence
of others.
To keep up with the
Joneses.
Because a friend said
you’ll love it.
A. (2) Nonsocial needs:
needs for which
achievement is not based
on other people.
Consistency. “I always
buy this brand of vehicle.”
Because it is a reliable
brand.
Chapter 2: Motivation, Ability, and Opportunity
B. (1) Functional needs:
needs that satisfy a
consumption-related
problem.
It’s a way to get to the
office.
I need to know what time
it is.
B. (2) Symbolic needs:
needs connected to the
sense of self (how we are
perceived by others).
To appear cool; to fit in
with my friends;
everybody has one.
The watch lets my clients
know I have “made it.”
B. (3) Hedonic needs:
needs that fill a desire for
sensory pleasure and
emotional arousal.
To feel the sensation of
speed; to feel the
engine’s power.
The watch looks
attractive and feels sleek.
C. (4) Cognition or
stimulation needs: need
for mental and sensory
challenge.
It has the latest complex
global tracking device, a
DVD player, etc.
It can keep track of the
time in three different
time zones, take
messages and act as
compass.
2. Explain how motivation influences consumer behavior.
3. Discuss the three factors that determine the amount of effort and involvement
consumers put into searching for information, making choices, and judging
whether an experience is satisfactory.
The three factors are motivation, ability, and opportunity. Motivation, the inner
ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS
1. Describe those factors that might influence consumers’ (a) motivation to process,
(b) ability to process, and (c) opportunity to process the information contained in
an ad.
2. Describe the key aspects of motivation. Explain how these aspects operated the
last time you (or members of your group) (a) went out to eat, (b) bought new
clothes, (c) went to a movie.
Chapter 2: Motivation, Ability, and Opportunity
Take a large jar of pennies to class. Ask students to estimate the number of
pennies they’ve seen, touched, saved, or handled in their lifetimes. Write these
estimates, which generally are in the thousands, on the board. Tell students to
take out a sheet of paper and draw a picture of each side of a penny, including
words as well as images. After a few minutes, give each student a penny from the
jar to compare to the drawing. Students typically realize that they failed to include
a number of large and small details in their pictures. Use the exercise to
demonstrate that even when we have the ability and opportunity to observe
and/or learn about something, we will not do so if we lack the motivation or
interest.
2. “An Enlightening Experience” Exercise*
Take 12 to 15 votive candles (more or less, depending on the size of the room
and the number of students) to class and position them around the room. At the
start of class, light the candles, and then conduct the session as you normally
would. Fifteen minutes before the end of class, talk to students about how the
candlelight affected their MAO. Students usually report a variety of different
responses and reactions to having the candles in the classroom. Some say they
like it; others find it extremely uncomfortable. Some say it makes them sleepy and
unable to concentrate, while others say the experience is so novel that they are
more alert and engaged than usual. Some say it causes them to speak in softer
tones, while some report that they felt as if they had to strain to see the instructor
and others in the class. Use the experience to discuss the effect of environment
on MAO.
3. Consider visiting local malls or auto dealerships to find examples of marketing
efforts that relate to consumers’ motivation, ability, or opportunity to acquire a
particular product that you can bring to the classroom. Examples of these efforts
might include point-of-purchase displays, sample sizes of products, unique
packaging, and interactive devices (e.g., sweepstakes). Use these examples to
stimulate discussion about how marketers are or are not using principles of
consumer behavior to support their marketing efforts. Here are a few examples
you could bring into the discussion during class:
a. Advertisements that have a high amount of copy versus lesser amounts of
copy. Discuss the factors that could affect the use of more or less copy in
advertisements, considering the issues of consumer motivation, ability, and
opportunity.
b. A product that has some risk associated with it that is relevant to your
students. A credit card application is one such example, as is a student loan
application. Discuss how risk can influence the likelihood of a consumer
making a purchase decision.
c. A marketing communication that is designed to address consumers’ ability to
process information. For instance, ads that use slang or languages other
than English are targeted toward specific audiences. Discuss how these ads
may or may not be more successful.
Chapter 2: Motivation, Ability, and Opportunity
b) How would consumer motivation, ability, and opportunity affect your
brand compared to others in your category (i.e., competitors)?
c) What would you do to address the issues of motivation, ability, and
opportunity if you were preparing a marketing effort for your brand?
3. Large-group discussions
a) First have groups present their ideas about the first question, then
proceed to discuss each of the subsequent questions.
b) If there are many groups, share the discussion among all groups,
though not all groups may answer all of the questions.
III. Debrief and Unveil Concepts
A. Discuss the activity itself
1. The purpose of this discussion is to allow students to express what they
felt about the experience itself.
2. Ask students to describe their experiences of “doing” the activity.
a) Likes and dislikes about what just happened
b) How they felt during the experience
c) What is realistic, unrealistic about the exercise?
d) What will be different when they do this for their own brand?
B. Discuss the content of the experience.
1. The purpose of this discussion is to ensure that students “take away”
important learning points.
2. Ask students to describe the important points the experience teaches.
a) The importance of understanding a consumer’s motivation, ability,
and opportunity to engage in exchange when developing a
marketing effort
b) How to study consumers to learn about their motivation, ability, and
opportunity to process information about your brand
3. record student responses.
a) Write down their ideas as they are presented.
b) Concentrate on the principles being discussed rather than the
examples.
c) Help them to see the interrelationships between their responses.
IV. Execute
A. Apply what has been learned
1. Lead a discussion on how the concepts can be applied in organizations.
a) What barriers may be faced in applying the concepts from the
exercise?
b) What can be done to help others understand the concepts when
you use them at work?
B. Transfer and use the knowledge.
1. Encourage students to make a record in their notes about how they will
use the ideas in the workplace.
2. Even if they do not have a specific job, how will they remember to use
what they have learned?