CHAPTER 5
Consumer Learning
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After reading, studying and analyzing this chapter, students should be able:
5.1 To understand the elements of learning.
5.2 To understand behavioral learning, classical conditioning, and the roles of stimulus
generalization and discrimination in marketing.
5.3 To understand instrumental conditioning and the objectives and methods of reinforcement.
5.5 To understand how consumers process information.
5.7 To understand the impact of involvement and passive learning on purchase decisions.
5.8 To understand how to measure the outcomes of consumer learning.
CHAPTER SUMMARY
Learning Objective 5.1: To understand the elements of learning.
Learning is the process by which individuals acquire the purchase and consumption knowledge
and experience they apply to future, related behavior. Consumer learning is a process that
evolves and changes as consumers acquire knowledge from experience, observation, and
interactions with others and newly acquired knowledge affects future behavior. It ranges from
Learning Objective 5.2: To understand behavioral learning, classical conditioning, and the
roles of stimulus generalization and discrimination in marketing.
Behavioral learning (also referred to as stimulus-response learning) maintains that observable
responses to external stimuli signal that learning has taken place. Behavioral learning focuses on
the inputs and outcomes of learning; that is, on the stimuli that consumers select from the
environment and the behaviors that result. There are three forms of behavioral learning: classical
conditioning, instrumental (or operant) conditioning, and observational (or modeling) learning.
Classical conditioning (also known as Pavlovian conditioning) is learning where repetition
Learning Objective 5.3: To understand instrumental conditioning and the objectives and
reinforcement schedules.
Learning Objective 5.4: To understand observational learning.
Observational learning (or modeling) is the process through which individuals learn behavior by
observing the behavior of others and the consequences of such behavior. Advertisers recognize
the importance of observational learning in their selection of models, whether celebrities or
unknowns. Many ads feature likeable models achieving positive outcomes to common problem
situations through use of the advertised product.
Learning Objective 5.5: To understand how consumers process information.
The human mind processes the information it receives. Consumers process product information
by attributes, brands, comparisons between brands, or a combination of these factors. The
number and complexity of the relevant attributes and available alternatives influence the
Learning Objective 5.6: To understand cognitive learning as a form of consumer decision-
making.
Cognitive learning is the systematic evaluation of information and alternatives needed to meet a
recognized unfilled need or solve a problem. Unlike behavioral learning, which focuses on
largely instinctive responses to stimuli, cognitive learning consists of deliberate mental
Learning Objective 5.7: To understand the impact of involvement and passive learning on
purchase decisions.
The consumer involvement model proposes that people engage in limited information processing
in situations of low importance or relevance to them, and in extensive information processing in
situations of high relevance. Hemispheric lateralization (split-brain) theory gave rise to the
notion that television is a low-involvement medium that results in passive learning and that print
and interactive media encourage more cognitive information processing.
Learning Objective 5.8: To understand how to measure the outcomes of consumer learning.
Measures of consumer learning include recall and recognition tests, and attitudinal and
behavioral measures of brand loyalty. Brand loyalty consists of both attitudes and actual
behaviors toward a brand, and both must be measured. For marketers, the major reasons for
CHAPTER OUTLINE
INTRODUCTION
2. Repeating advertising messages about brands and their benefits, rewarding people for
3. Marketers are concerned with how individuals learn because they want to teach them, in their
roles as consumers, about products, product attributes, and potential consumer benefits; about
where to buy their products, how to use them, how to maintain them, even how to dispose of
them.
*****Use Key Term learning Here; Use Figure #5.1 Here*****
The Elements of Consumer Learning
1. Consumer learning is a process; that continually evolves and changes as a result of newly
acquired knowledge or from actual experience.
a) Both newly acquired knowledge and personal experience serve as feedback to the
individual and provide the basis for future behavior in similar situations.
***** Use Learning Objective #5.1 Here*****
2. Unfulfilled needs lead to motivation, which spurs learning. The degree of relevance of the
3. If motives serve to stimulate learning, cues (price, styling, packaging, advertising, and store
4. How individuals react to a cue—how they behave—constitutes their response.
a) A response is not tied to a need in a one-to-one fashion.
5. Reinforcement, the reward (pleasure, enjoyment and benefits) that the consumer receives
after buying and using a product or service, increases the likelihood that a specific response
(e.g. loyal repurchase behavior) will occur in the future as the result of particular cues or
stimuli.
*****Use Key Term reinforcement Here; Use Figure #5.2 Here *****
Classical Conditioning
1. Behavioral learning is sometimes called stimulus-response learning because it is based on
the premise that observable responses to specific external stimuli signal that learning has
taken place.
2. Classical conditioning is viewed as an automatic response that builds up through repeated
exposure and reinforcement.
a) Early classical conditioning theorists regarded all organisms as passive recipients that
could be taught certain behaviors through repetition (i.e., conditioning).
b) Conditioning involved building automatic responses to stimuli. (Ivan Pavlov was the
first to describe conditioning and to propose it as a general model of how learning
occurs.)
*****Use Key Terms conditioned learning, unconditioned stimulus, and conditioned stimuli
Here; Use Figure #5.4, and #5.5 Here*****
3. Cognitive associative learning suggests learning is not a reflexive action, but rather the
4. Repetition works by increasing the strength of the association between a conditioned
stimulus and an unconditioned stimulus and slows the process of forgetting.
a) After a certain number of repetitions, attention and retention declines.
b) This effect is known as advertising wear-out and can be decreased by varying the
5. Making the same response to slightly different stimuli is called stimulus generalization.
a) Stimulus generalization explains why imitative “me too” products succeed in the
marketplace: consumers confuse them with the original product they have seen
advertised.
c) In product line extensions, the marketer adds related products to an already established
brand, knowing that the new product is more likely to be adopted when it is associated
with a known and trusted brand name.
*****Use Review and Discussion Question #5.3 Here; Use Key Terms stimulus
6. Stimulus discrimination is the opposite of stimulus generalization and results in the
selection of specific stimulus from among similar stimuli.
a) The consumer’s ability to discriminate among similar stimuli is the basis of positioning
strategy, which seeks to establish a unique image for a brand in the consumer’s mind.
b) Unlike the imitator who hopes consumers will generalize their perceptions and attribute
special characteristics of the market leader’s products to their own products, market
*****Use Key Term stimulus discrimination Here*****
Instrumental Conditioning
1. Instrumental conditioning is based on the notion that learning occurs through trial-and-
error, and the stimulus that results in the most satisfactory response is the one that is learned.
a) According to American psychologist B. F. Skinner, most individual learning occurs in a
*****Use Learning Objective 5.3 Here; Use Key Term instrumental conditioning Here; Use
Review and Discussion Question #5.1 and #5.3 Here; Use Figure #5.6 Here*****
2. Skinner distinguished two types of reinforcement (or reward) influence, which provided that
the likelihood for a response would be repeated.
a) The first type, positive reinforcement, consists of events that strengthen the likelihood
of a specific response.
*****Use Key Terms positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement Here; Use Hands-
on Assignment #5.11 Here *****
3. Incentivized advertising is a new application of positive reinforcement. It provides
consumers with rewards for watching ads.
4. Marketers have identified three types of reinforcement schedules: continuous
reinforcement, fixed ratio reinforcement, and variable ratio reinforcement.
a) Continuous reinforcement offers a reward after each transaction.
*****Use Key Terms continuous reinforcement, variable ratio reinforcement, fixed ratio
reinforcement Here*****
5. When a learned response is no longer reinforced, it diminishes to the point of extinction; that
is, to the point at which the link between the stimulus and the expected reward is eliminated.
*****Use Key Terms extinction and forgetting Here*****
7. The reinforcement of behaviors that must be performed by consumers before the desired
behavior can be performed is called shaping, which increases the probability that desired
consumer behavior will occur.
*****Use Key Term shaping Here*****
8. Timing has an important influence on consumer learning.
a) Question—should a learning schedule be spread out over a period of time (distributed
learning), or should it be “bunched up” all at once (massed learning)?
i) Massed advertising produces more initial learning
ii) A distributed schedule usually results in learning that persists longer
*****Use Key Terms distributed learning, massed learning Here*****
Observational Learning
1. Observational learning (also called modeling) is the process through which individuals
learn behavior by observing the behavior of others and the consequences of such behavior.
3. Children learn much of their social behavior and consumer behavior by observing their older
siblings or their parents.
*****Use Learning Objective 5.4 Here; Use Key Term observational learning Here; Use
Review and Discussion Question #5.4 Here*****
Information Processing
1. Cognitive learning is based on mental activity; it consists of mental processing of data rather
than instinctive responses to stimuli.
a) Cognitive learning theory holds that the kind of learning most characteristic of human
beings is problem solving, and it gives some control over their environment.
b) The human mind processes the information it receives.
c) Consumers process product information by attributes, brands, comparisons between
brands, or a combination of these factors.
*****Use Key Term cognitive learning Here; Use Learning Objective #5.5 Here; Use Figure
5.8 Here*****
2. The components of information processing are storing, retaining and retrieving information;
this takes place in process that uses a sensory store, a short-term store, and a long-term store.
a) Sensory store—all data comes to us through our senses, however, our senses do not
transmit information as whole images.
i) The separate pieces of information are synchronized as a single image.
ii) This sensory store holds the image of a sensory input for just a second or two.
iii) This suggests that it’s easy for marketers to get information into the consumer’s
*****Use Key Terms sensory store and data rehearsal Here; Use Review and Discussion
Question #5.5 Here *****
*****Use Key Terms encoding and information overload Here*****
3. Retention—information is constantly organized and reorganized as new links between
chunks of information are forged.
a) Studies show that a brand’s sound symbolism and the brand’s linguistic characteristics
5. Environmental triggers are cues in the environment that remind a person of something, and
then she or he talks about it.
6. Figure 5.10 indicates the top six reasons that consumers recall branded content on the
internet.
a) Tells them something new
b) Entertains them
c) Inspires them
d) Teaches them something
e) Shocks them
f) Makes them act
*****Use Key Terms retention, data retrieval, chunking, environmental triggers Here; Use
Figure #5.10 Here*****
Cognitive Learning
1. Cognitive learning is the systematic evaluation of information and alternatives needed to
solve a recognized but unfulfilled need or unsolved problem.
a. It occurs when a person has a goal and must search for and process data in order to
make a decision or solve a problem.
b. The tricomponent attitude model consists of three stages:
i. The cognitive stage – the person’s knowledge and beliefs about a product
ii. The affective stage – the person’s feeling toward and evaluations of a product
as “favorable” or “unfavorable”; and
iii. The conative stage – the person’s level of intention to buy the product.
c. For a long time, consumer researchers believed that the complex processing of
information by consumers depicted in the cognitive learning model was applicable to
all purchase decisions.
d. Some theorists began to realize that there were some purchase situations that simply
did not call for extensive information processing and evaluation.
*****Use Learning Objective 5.6 Here; Use Key Terms cognitive stage, affective stage and
conative stage Here; Use Figure 5.11 Here*****
Consumer Involvement and Hemispheric Lateralization
1. Consumer involvement is focused on the degree of personal relevance that the product or
purchase hold for that consumer.
a) High-involvement purchases are those that are very important to the consumer and
thus provoke extensive problem solving and information processing.
b) Low-involvement purchases are purchases that are not very important to the
consumer, hold little relevance, and have little perceived risk, and thus, provoke very
limited information processing.
c) Involvement has been conceptualized and measured in a variety of ways, including
product involvement, brand involvement, and advertising involvement.
***** Use Learning Objective 5.7 Here; Use Key Term consumer involvement Here; Use
Review and Discussion Question #5.10 Here *****
2. A marketer aspires to have consumers who are involved with the purchase also view its
brand as unique.
3. Many studies showed that high purchase involvement coupled with perceived brand
differences lead to a high favorable attitude toward the brand, which in turn leads to less
variety seeking and brand switching and to strong brand loyalty.
4. Hemispheric lateralization or split-brain theory, originated in the 1960’s.
a) The premise is that the right and left hemispheres of the brain specialize in the kinds of
information they process.
i) The left hemisphere is the center of human language; it is the linear side of the
*****Use Key Terms hemispheric lateralization Here; Use Figure #5.13 Here*****
5. Passive learning is thought to occur through repeated exposures to low-involvement
information processing.
a) Right-brain theory is consistent with classical conditioning and stresses the importance
of the visual component of advertising, so it affects processing of TV commercials
b) Printed information is verbal information and is processed on the brain’s left side.