Attitudes and Intentions Chapter 6 Attitudes and Intentions

What is an Attitude? Attitude A person’s overall evaluation of a concept Affective responses created by the affective and cognitive systems An overall evaluation is formed when consumers integrate knowledge, meanings, or beliefs about the attitude concept

What is an Attitude? cont.

What is an Attitude? cont. Goal of the integration process is to analyze the personal relevance of the concept and determine whether it is favorable or unfavorable Evaluations produced by the attitude formation process may be stored in memory

What is an Attitude? cont. Whether a given attitude will affect interpretation or integration processes depends on its accessibility in memory or its probability of activation Factors that can influence the accessibility of attitudes Measuring attitudes

What is an Attitude? cont. Attitudes toward what? Various physical and social objects Intangible objects Behaviors or actions

What is an Attitude? cont. Levels of attitude concepts Levels of specificity Product class Product form Brand Model Brand/model general situation Brand/model specific situation Marketers must precisely identify the attitude concept at the level of specificity most relevant to the marketing problem of interest

What is an Attitude? cont.

What is an Attitude? cont. Marketing implications Brand equity Involves a strong, positive brand attitude Based on favorable meanings and beliefs Accessible in memory Creates a strong, favorable consumer-brand relationship

What is an Attitude? cont. Can obtain brand equity in three ways Build it Borrow it Buy it Attitude tracking studies Marketers can use measures of consumers’ attitudes to indicate the success of marketing strategies

Attitudes Toward Objects

Attitudes Toward Objects cont. Salient beliefs Activated beliefs Only salient beliefs about an object create a person’s attitude toward that object Many factors influence which beliefs about an object will be activated in a situation and thus become salient determinants of Ao Salient beliefs vary over time or situations for some products

Attitudes Toward Objects cont. The multiattribute attitude model

Attitudes Toward Objects cont. Fishbein theory Evaluations of salient beliefs cause overall attitude Overall attitude is a function of two factors Strengths of the salient beliefs associated with the object Evaluation of those beliefs

Attitudes Toward Objects cont. Model components Belief strength Perceived probability of association between an object and its relative attributes Affected by past consumer experiences with an object Typical number of salient beliefs about an attitude object unlikely to exceed seven to nine

Attitudes Toward Objects cont. Belief evaluation Reflects how favorably the consumer perceives that attribute Not necessarily fixed over time or constant across different situations Marketing implications Understanding customers Diagnosis of marketing strategies Understanding situational influences

Attitudes Toward Objects cont. Attitude-change strategies Adding a new salient belief about the attitude object Increasing the strength of an existing positive belief Improving the evaluation of a strongly held belief Making an existing favorable belief more salient

Attitudes Toward Behavior Most research has found rather weak relationships between attitudes toward an object and specific single behaviors

Attitudes Toward Behavior cont. The theory of reasoned action

Attitudes Toward Behavior cont. Assumes consumers consciously consider the consequences of alternative behaviors under consideration and choose the one that leads to the most desirable consequences Outcome is an intention to engage in the selected behavior Proposes that any reasonably complex voluntary behavior is determined by the person’s intention to perform that behavior

Attitudes Toward Behavior cont. The theory is not relevant for extremely simple or involuntary behaviors Model components Behaviors (B) Behavioral intention (BI) Attitude toward the behavior or action (Aact) The subjective or social norm (SN)

Attitudes Toward Behavior cont. Marketing implications The situational context in which behavior occurs can have powerful influences on consumers’ behavioral intentions To develop effective strategies, it is important to determine whether the Aact or SN component has the major influence on behavioral intentions

Attitudes Toward Behavior cont. Although intentions determine most voluntary behaviors, measures of consumers’ intentions may not be perfect indicators of the actual intentions that determine the behavior

Intentions and Behaviors Factors that can weaken the relationship between measured behavioral intentions and the observed behaviors of interest Intervening time Different levels of specificity Unforeseen environmental event Unforeseen situational context

Intentions and Behaviors cont. Degree of voluntary control Stability of intentions New information

Intentions and Behaviors cont. Despite less-than-perfect accuracy, measures of purchase intentions are often the best way to predict future purchase behaviors Certain behaviors just cannot be accurately predicted from beliefs, attitudes, and intentions

Summary Defined attitude as a consumers’ overall evaluation of an object Discussed how attitude objects varied in levels of abstraction and specificity Discussed consumers’ attitudes toward objects and described Fishbein’s multiattribute model of how salient beliefs create attitudes toward objects

Summary cont. Discussed the theory of reasoned action, which identifies consumers’ attitudes toward performing behaviors and social influences as the basis for behavioral intention Considered the problems of using measures of behavioral intentions to predict actual behaviors

Summary cont. Identified consumers’ activated knowledge, in the form of beliefs, as a basic factor underlying their attitudes, subjective norms, and intentions, and ultimately their behaviors Showed that these activated salient beliefs and the resulting attitudes and intentions are sensitive to situational factors in the environment, including marketing strategies