consumer essay questions

Essay Topics
Homework Help
Essay Types
Essay Examples
Become a Tutor

100 Hot Consumer Behavior Essay Topics

In this article you will find a brief overview of consumer behavior research and consumer psychology examples as well as a practical guideline on how to write an essay on consumer behavior. Most importantly, this article will provide you with 100 hot consumer behavior essay topics that will make choosing a topic so much easier for you. This list is a real gem if you are looking for:

essays topics
topics for presentation
assignment topics
topics for projects

Consumer Behavior Research

Consumer behavior is social science that involves marketing, psychology, sociology, ethnography, behavioral economics, and anthropology. The concept of consumer behavior involves intentions, decisions, and actions connected with purchasing goods and services, using them, and disposal activities. In essence, any behavior associated with purchasing anything can be considered as consumer behavior.

When we investigate consumer behavior, the topics of research include, but are not limited to:

Motives of purchase
Impact of the society/social group on purchase intentions
Usage rates
Possibility of repurchase
Word of mouth
Ethnographic factors of consumer behavior
Methods of impacting and predicting consumer behavior
Consumer decision styles
Role of emotions in consumer behavior
Customer loyalty

Consumer Psychology Examples

In the market environment, customers seek to purchase goods and services to meet their needs, while sellers strive to develop marketing strategies that would be the most impactful in motivating consumers to buy. That being said, marketing strategies are often designed to make the product more appealing to customers by influencing emotions and feelings.

Consumer psychology examples include the ways in which marketing campaigns influence consumer behavior. Appealing to customers by making a marketing campaign touching, emotional, or funny, are all examples of consumer psychology.

Let us consider several examples of consumer psychology, both good and bad, to get a better understanding of how marketing manipulates feelings of customers.

Successful consumer psychology example

Procter & Gamble’s “Thank you, Mom” Campaign is emotional and strong, focusing on how mothers support their children no matter what. This campaign was tied to the 2018 Winter Olympics and promoted inclusion, diversity, and family values.

Consumer psychology failure example

One of the most notable marketing failures of the 2010s is, without a doubt, Pepsi commercial in 2017 . The ad exploited unity, freedom, and diversity as a way to communicate to every customer, depicting a carbonated soda as an element equally important as protest, democracy, and equality. An attempt to manipulate customer feelings was so obvious that the ad was taken down after a severe backlash.

How to Write an Essay on Consumer Behavior: Outline

Generally, just about any essay includes 3 major parts, namely introduction, body paragraph, and conclusion . Whichever of the hot consumer behavior essay topics you choose and whatever length your essay is, you can use the following outline to construct a logically structured essay that will engage your readers and will reflect your topic to the full.

1. Introduction

Hook – the first sentence or two in your introduction that grabs readers’ attention. Can be a quote, relevant statistical data, interesting fact about your topic, a question, or a strong statement. Hook is like a good ad campaign – it sells the rest of the essay to your readers and motivates them to continue reading. Hook also demonstrates your skills of presenting your topic of choice
Presentation of the topic – reveal what you will write about. Make sure to be clear and concise
Topic background – reveal the general perspective in which you will research specific concept or phenomenon
Thesis statement – a sentence that contains the main idea of your essay
Transitional hook – typically the last sentence in an introduction that smoothly connects the introduction with body paragraph. Refer to what you will write about in the body paragraph to bridge the introduction with the rest of the paper

2. Body paragraph – the number of body paragraphs can vary depending on essay length, while their general structure and elements are uniform

Topic sentence – reveal in the nutshell what the paragraph is about
Details about the sub-topic , such as statistical data, findings from relevant and credible sources, interim conclusions, etc.
Concluding sentence – summarize the paragraph
Transition sentence – ensure logical transition between body paragraphs. Concluding and transition sentences can be merged into one sentence.

3. Conclusion – summary of your essay. Don’t simply rewrite your main findings, but reveal them in logical sequence, demonstrating connection among facts, cause and effect relationships, and concepts. Restate your thesis statement with regard to the findings you write about in your body paragraphs.

How to Research Consumer Behavior

Here is a list of 7 unconventional sources of information about consumer behavior that will help you find out more about your chosen topic:

Customer review websites and customer reviews for different products
Conduct a survey on survey website, such as Survey Monkey
Interview your friends, family, or basically anyone you would like to
Social media pages of brands and customer comments on them
Blogs on products and brands
Newspaper articles on market trends
Your own experience – you are a customer and your opinion is a source of information that matters

Consumer Behavior Essay Do’s and Don’ts

Research your topic in various sources
Outline your essay before writing
Reconsider thesis statement after writing every body paragraph
Don’t simply paraphrase thesis statement in conclusion, but restate it with regard to information you’ve researched in body paragraph
Make introduction and conclusion clear and concise, optimal length for each is around 10% of the essay
Use citations not only to avoid plagiarism, but to demonstrate your dedication and hard work researching your topic
Write your introduction after completing the body paragraph and conclusion – this is a secure way to write an introduction that represents your paper in the best way possible because you know what the paper is about
Proofread your essay to make sure you avoid grammar mistakes
Rely solely on your opinion, opinions of your interviewees, or results of a survey if you conduct one – it is unprofessional and you will most likely miss a lot of aspects of the topic
Write lengthy intros and conclusions – your intro is supposed to intrigue and interest, while conclusion remind of major points rather than include actual research
Avoid topic sentences – these are important elements of essay structure
Ignore coordinating thesis statement after writing the paper – it can turn out to be out of touch with your body paragraph content

The topics below are designed to be versatile, interesting, topical, and truly compelling for essays, presentations, assignments, and projects.

Let’s get started!

Influence of price on consumer behavior
Price change and consumer behavior in luxury goods market
Customer luxury value perception
Mass marketing of luxury and consumer behavior
Prestige-seeking consumer behavior
Customer behavior and marketing strategy in luxury segment
Review and analysis of successful/unsuccessful examples of marketing strategies in luxury segment
Self-concept in consumer behavior
Symbolism and market behavior
Impulsive purchasing
Attachment and consumer behavior
Cross-cultural consumer behavior
Cultural dimensions and consumer behavior: the role of indulgence
Convergence and divergence in consumer behavior
Greenwashing as a marketing strategy
Consumer reaction to “green” brand claims
Current problems in consumer behavior
Consumerism as a form of consumer behavior
Risk taking in consumer behavior
Consumer value and consumer behavior
Consumer behavior trends in online shopping
Sensory marketing and consumer behavior
Consumer perception of price
Consumer perception of quality
Brand extensions and brand relatedness
Mainstream vs trendy products and consumer behavior
Personal values and consumer behavior
Word of mouth and electronic word of mouth as a factor influencing consumer behavior
Brand ambassadors and consumer behavior
Corporate social responsibility as a factor influencing consumer behavior
Brand image and consumer behavior
The role of customer trust in consumer behavior
The impact of negative online reviews on product perception and purchase intention
The role of social media peer communication in shaping consumer behavior
Is consumer behavior rational?
The role of value maximization in consumer behavior
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and consumer behavior
Impact of prior experience on purchase intention
Neuromarketing in consumer behavior
Neuromarketing and ethics
The role of aesthetic taste in consumer behavior
Customer retention methods
Effects of sexual advertising on consumer purchase intentions
The role of packaging in consumer purchase intention
Brand sustainability as a positive factor of consumer purchase intention
Product placement and its effect on consumer behavior
Innovations as a factor influencing consumer behavior
Color-emotion associations
Pink for girls, blue for boys: gender differentiation of children’s’ goods
Marketing power of emotions
Emotions and brand attitude
Measures of purchase intention
Customer satisfaction measures
Customer satisfaction and customer loyalty
Customer loyalty and repurchase intentions
Brand familiarity and purchase intention
Smartphones, e-waste, and disposal activities
How fast fashion brands attract customers
Perceived quality and purchase intention
Organic food customer perception
Purchase intention and celebrity endorsements
Social media influencers and consumer behavior
Do customers care about business ethics?
Purchase intention and controversial products
Consumer animosity
Impact of the country of origin image on consumer behavior
Determinants of purchase intention
Repurchase intention in services
Customer satisfaction and repurchase intention
Consumer clothing disposal behaviors
Personal factors of consumer disposal tendencies
Masstige brands and consumer behavior
Brand advocacy development
Customer relationship management trends
Purchasing power and consumer behavior
Economic conditions and consumer behavior
Education level of consumer behavior
Consumer decision style overview
Hedonistic decision style
Brand-conscious customer choice
Social status and consumer behavior
Impact of sales associates on consumer purchase intention and behavior
Product life cycle and consumer behavior
New product adoption types
Factors that cause brand-switching
Online consumer behavior types
Guerilla marketing and consumer behavior
Concept of brand awareness and its impact on consumer behavior
Impact of the Internet on buying process
Perfectionist consumer decision style
Behavior of a healthcare customer
Consumer behavior of Generation Y
Shopping behavior of baby boomers
Generation Y vs Baby Boomer consumer behavior
Brand loyalty of Millenials
Brand awareness and social media
Generation Z consumer behavior
Future consumer trends 2020
Situational variables and consumer behavior
Methods of predicting consumer behavior

Consumer behaviour Essay

To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
As a template for you assignment

This paper critically focuses on Consumer Decision-making Process models of purchase and post-purchase in relation to the hospitality industry. The paper shall determine the extent these models are vague and all-encompassing, especially when applying to postmodern hospitality industry with the fragmented nature of consumer behaviour, and emerging trends in the global provision of products and services.

Scholars interested in the field of consumer behaviours have developed several models as attempts to explain consumers’ decision-making processes when making a purchase, and what follows after the purchase. Gordon and Saunders have identified six of such stages that involve passive and active consumption phases or sequences (Foxall, 2004).

They identify these stages as emerging needs, active consideration, researching, short-listing, purchase and post-purchase. Smith also supports these stages in his work.

A part from these scholars, other scholars have also offered different perspectives on consumer decision-making process (Kotler, Bowen and Makens, 1999; Chambers, Richard and Lewis, Robert, 2000; Onkvisit and Shaw, 1994; Howard and Sheth, 1996). However, critics argue that such models are vague and tend to be all-encompassing.

Introduction

Gabbott and Hogg offer a brief definition of consumer behaviour as “any behaviour involved in the course of buying, using and disposing of products” (Gabbott and Hogg, 1998). Critics have noted that this definition is vague and not practical. From this definition, we can learn that consumer behaviour is a technical issue to describe precisely.

Engel, Blackwell, and Miniard have offered an advance definition of consumer behaviour as “activities which directly involve decision processes prior and after stages of obtaining, consuming and disposing products” (Blackwell Engel and Miniard, 2001). They further explain how consumers choose products and services using a model of Consumer Decision-making Process (CDP).

This model indicates how consumers make decisions before undertaking any purchase decision and post-purchase decision. Consumers make their purchase at the fourth stage after undergoing all other previous stages.

Consumers look at the value of the products or service they have purchased against the satisfaction derived or fulfilled from using the product. This experience is fundamental for defining the fifth stage, post-purchase evaluation, which takes a mental evaluation of the value of the purchase.

We have noted that depending on the CDP model alone may not provide the necessary information when applied in a marketing environment. This is because there are other various factors that influence every process of CDP.

Understanding factors that influence stages of CDP model may help markets persuade consumers who intend to use their products or competitors. Consumers are likely to purchase services or products that have solved their problems in cases of recurring needs. This is a purchase they know.

The CDP model must recognise that factors such as culture, personal preferences, social status, family, and the situation also influence consumers’ purchasing behaviours.

At the individual level, we have attitude, resources, motivation, personality, and knowledge. For instance, we may consider how consumers who are conscious environmental behaviour towards purchasing green products or services in the hospitality industry.

Characteristics of products and services in the hospitality industry

Hospitality industry mainly caters for tourists or visitors have that need a unique range of services and products. We can group these services and products as packages e.g. accommodation and meals, or stand-alone products such as catering, and entertainment, among others.

We shall focus on a combination of services and products at the hospitality industry so as to enable us to understand the consumer decision-making processes when making such purchases.

This sector largely deals in provisions of services. According to marketing studies and theorists, services are intangible purchases. Thus, such purchases never really result into any ownership. In this regard, they offer various characteristics of services as follows. The hospitality industry offer services that are intangible. We can never touch, see, taste, or even smell them before we make the purchase.

Marketers in the field of hospitality offer images of their services, such as accommodation locations and the surrounding environment to make such services appear real to the consumer. This is a means of overcoming intangibility. However, such techniques do not necessarily overcome intangible characteristics of such services as tourists have to care when purchasing such services in the hospitality industry.

Services in the hospitality industry also have inseparability characteristics between production and how the service works during consumption. This characteristic influences consumer’s purchasing behaviour. Consumers may link the service to the provider together with the performance, and change their purchasing pattern if the services do not meet their expectations.

Services also tend to be heterogeneous in nature. This means services providers at the hospitality industry may find it difficult to offer the same service to every consumer when their needs arise. Different aspects like emotional status of the customer may also affect how he or she perceives the service at a certain time.

It means that consumers of hospitality products and services may not be able to predict the quality of services they may receive at their favourite places. In addition, consumers cannot depend on past their experiences in order to make subsequent purchase decisions regarding the same services or products.

There may be inherent changes in the services, service providers, or the consumers themselves that may affect the quality as well as experience of services offered.

Services also lack ownership, at least to the consumer. Consumers only experience the service through their purchases and access. Consumers will not own the service. Thus, services serve the purpose of a need satisfaction rather than tangible ownership. Therefore, purchases of services will have significant effects on emotional aspects of the consumer.

The above characteristics are just some of the aspects that may influence consumers of the hospitality industry. Marketing pundits also look at the distinction between convenience goods and shopping goods. Convenience goods tend to have low prices and high frequencies of purchases, unlike other goods that have high prices with low frequencies of purchases.

In this regard, we look at shopping goods as serving higher-order needs according to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Howard and Sheth note “the purchase of convenience-type goods involves the consumer in a routine problem-solving behaviour, whereas the purchase of shopping goods involves the consumer in an extensive problem-solving behaviour” (Howard and Sheth, 1996).

We can note that consumers will spend a lot of time in order to understand complex issues of services they are about to purchase in the hospitality industry. The acts of choosing tourism destinations and subsequent service providers involve high-level purchases that require consumers to search for information and make informed purchases.

It requires a high-level of commitment, time, and significant spending. Thus, Middleton and Clarke observe that such influences result into low brand loyalty and expectations of repeat purchases, and low chain of distribution (Middleton and Clarke, 2001).

Complexity in Consumer Behaviour in the Hospitality Industry

Consumers involved in purchasing hospitality products and services usually experience some technical issues. Most products and services in the hospitality industry need a high degree of involvement in making purchase decisions and a high degree of consumer commitment. This is due to the nature of products and services that consumers wish to purchase.

Thus, there are no routine or similar behaviour patterns when making such decisions. Consumers consider every purchase unique and need different approaches in making purchase decisions. Consumers in the hospitality industry must first carry out a thorough marketing research before settling on a given decision.

In turn, decision-making processes tend to take longer than when purchasing other products or services. Factors that may influence consumers at this stage may also set in, such as a holiday destination, type of holiday, individual preferences and among other factors.

Consumers link intangible services and products to high levels of insecurity in the purchasing process. The challenge is that consumers cannot have a test of the product before they make any purchase. In this case, most consumers only rely on the assurances from the services or products vendors.

The level of insecurity involved results into complex behaviour patterns where consumers collect information from several sources, including agencies. Information may come from the family, advertisement, travel agents, companies’ Web sites, and social media, among others.

Holidays and visits are significant events in an individual’s life. Thus, there is a considerable level of emotions involved. Holidays restore physical health and provide a chance of escaping the routine of workplaces. Holidays are expensive. This implies that the decision to take a holiday may affect other members of the family, or colleagues in cases of where companies cater for such packages.

This calls for compromises at some points, especially with regard to a holiday destination. There may also be some pressing needs such as purchasing new items, car, improving a home. Thus, family members or colleagues may consider such an expensive holiday a waste of resources.

Consumers who wish to purchase hospitality products and services normally experience strong influences from other people such as family members, colleagues and reference groups. The study of behaviour patterns that are under influences from diverse aspects is extremely difficult. At the same time, such opinion leaders also have tendencies of changing their beliefs and opinions over time.

Most decisions consumers make about visits are long-term decisions that take a considerable amount of time to plan. The challenge is that people may be at different statuses of their minds when they plan their visits, and when they actually go for such visits.

Such decisions depend on aspects of the future that they might not be able to predict. The dynamic nature of the tourism industry may affect such decisions depending on the cost variations, climate changes and lately security.

Purchases made in the hospitality industry involve high levels of search for information. Factors such as emotions and individual preferences may determine the extent to which a consumer will seek for such information.

There is a wide consultation of different sources of information, and the final choice depends on such information gathered. There is a high level of complexity involved as people search for information and make decisions. It may also mean that decisions can change abruptly depending on the new information discovered.

The complex nature of making purchase decision-making processes in a hospitality industry is different from making purchases of other routinely used goods.

The intangible nature, uncertainty of the future and unpredictable of service standards make the process of purchasing services and products a complex experience for consumers. This implies that marketers in may have difficulties when promoting their services and products to such consumers.

The decision-making process in the hospitality industry

The decisions consumers make to buy products and services in the hospitality industry are due to complex processes involved. These factors relate to the consumer, and other external factors that he or she may not be able to control when making a decision of purchasing a service or product without prior experience.

In addition, the nature of products and services in the hospitality industry also make purchase decision-making process a complex affair. For instance, in choosing a holiday destination, consumers consider such factors as the destinations itself, mode of travel, type of accommodation services, the length of the holiday period, the time of the holiday, package of the holiday, and agent to provide tour services.

These are among many factors that may influence the decision-making process of a consumer when choosing a holiday package and subsequent purchase.

We can note that the scope and number of such factors are wide and numerous. We also realise that choosing the destination alone is not enough and not an end in itself. There are issues and activities to engage in once in a holiday destination.

Visitors will also make further decisions regarding how to spend their time, what meals to take, and where to take them among others. We can notice that these decisions look simple. However, they form part of the complex decision-making processes that tourists must critically look before making any purchases.

Decision-making models in hospitality

Cooper and associates provide three processes in the development of consumer behaviour with reference to purchase processes (Cooper et al, 2005). First, there was the early phase of 1930 and 1940s (early empiricist) where emphasis was on empirical research. Still, the industry tried to establish effects of advertising, product distribution, and promotion decisions.

Second, there was the motivational phase in the 1950s where attention focused on “focus groups, in-depth interviews and consumers’ perception studies, and other projective approaches” (Cooper et al., 2005).

The focus was on what factors motivate consumers to make their purchases. Third, there was the formative phase. This phase included published textbooks by consumer behaviour theorists such as Engel, Blackwell, Kollat, Howard and Sheth.

Most early approaches on the study of consumer behaviour “focused on manufacturing industries, and they later moved to general service industries” (Cooper et al, 2005). In the 1970s, scholars began creating purchase models in the area of tourism. These models presented linear representations of decision-making processes.

It was Moutinho who developed a tourist behaviour model that was different from the rest with two scopes (Moutinho, 1987). First, the model provided for three distinct stages in the consumer decision-making process. These were “pre-decision stage and decision process, post-purchase evaluation, and future decision-making” (Moutinho, 1987).

The model also provided opportunities for feedback mechanism. Second, the model recognised three behavioural aspects in making purchase decisions, such as motivation, cognition, and learning.

The Consumer Information Processing Model: Source: Adopted from Kotler (1997)

Post-purchase Evaluation

Post-purchase evaluation occurs as a result of purchase decision. In this context, the consumer considers the level of purchase involvement. As we have identified above, purchases in the area of hospitality are high levels involvement.

In other words, the level of concern for the purchase is high in the hospitality industry because such decisions are not habitual purchases. The process is a continuum where the flow is from low to high level (Solomon, 2006).

High level of involvement during purchase decision-making process will result into an extensive post-purchase evaluation. Consumers usually question if their decisions to make purchases were the best among other alternatives. This is what we call post-purchase cognitive dissonance.

Elaborate Post-purchase Evaluation: Source: Adopted from Hawkins, Best, and Coney (1983)

Consumers are likely to experience such dissonance if the purchase is irrevocable, involves a high level of commitment, individual factors, selection among alternatives, and the importance of the decision.

Post-purchase experience of dissonance makes the consumer feel uncomfortable. Consequently, they resort to a number of ways to reduce such feelings. These may include preferences for the choice, disregard other alternatives, avoid negative comments about the choice, and reduce the importance of purchase decision.

Consumers who fail to reduce the level of dissonance may experience dissatisfaction with their choices. In this process, the consumer is likely to identify new problems and engage in the process of satisfying the need created due to dissatisfaction by the initial purchase. Consumers will use their experiences and negative feeling like part of the new information in making the decision for the next purchase.

Analysis of the purchase decision models

There are inherent weaknesses that exist in consumer decision-making process models. These models do not explicitly show how consumers undergo complex processes when making decisions of purchasing services in the hospitality industry. These models cannot serve marketers when designing their marketing strategies.

Most critics argue that such models do not rely on any empirical research; thus, may not present reality of how consumers make their purchase decisions. In addition, most of these models are out-of-date in the postmodern hospitality industry, which is ever dynamic as consumers’ preferences are not static.

For instance, the tourism and hospitality industry has experienced changes with regard to the rapid changes in the Internet as a means of booking and purchasing hospitality packages and airline tickets, explosion of no-frills budget airlines, the development of all-encompassing holiday destinations, evolution of direct marketing, and changes in the buying behaviours of tourists that involve last-minute and spontaneous purchase decisions.

Third, a number of models that exist in the field of tourism, hospitality, and event management have their origins in North America, Northern Europe, and Australia. This implies that these models do not cater exhaustively cater for emerging markets in Eastern Europe, South America, Asian and African markets.

These models also tend to classify activities in the hospitality industry as homogeneous. However, consumers of such products are different and unique in their own ways.

Some of these factors that may influence characteristics of visitors may include their travelling patterns i.e. as an individual, family or group, past experiences of such tourists, and personal traits, which may involve planning patterns such as last-minute decisions or considerable amount of time for planning.

A number of models do not account for influences of motivators and determinants that affect consumers during decision-making processes. Some factors that influence consumers’ decision-making processes may dominate other factors and account for the entire decision-making process. However, such factors mainly depend on individuals’ preferences such as hobbies, means of travelling, or preferences for leisure activities, among others.

Other models take rational approaches to decision-making processes in purchases, which is not always the case. The ability to make rational decisions in purchasing among visitors depends on the availability of information.

In most cases, tourists may have access to imperfect information that does not give true accounts of their alternatives. In addition, rationality of the purchase decision-making process also depends on an individual’s factors such as personal opinions and prejudice.

These models assume that consumers’ activities and purchase patterns are constant. They fail to account for emerging trends such as conference tourism, holiday destinations, holiday patterns, effects of globalisation and instant decision-making process among some visitors. Such factors influence the nature of the decision and purchase patterns among consumers.

Postmodern consumers of hospitality industry

Studies show that purchases and consumption in the hospitality industry have become fragmented. The perceived social roles have experienced “breakdown and left majority to adopt any identity they want in a postmodern society” (Thomas, 1997).

In the field of hospitality, the postmodern consumption rotates around “changes in consumer cultures of the late capitalism and the emergence of communication technology” (Brown, 1995). These changes have affected marketing trends in hospitality services (Williams, 2002). Thomas notes postmodernism has significantly influenced marketing.

Thus, he elaborates “Marketing, real-time, real-world marketing is thoroughly postmodern because postmodern marketing openly challenges some of the major axioms of the conventional wisdom as reflected in the standard marketing textbooks” (Thomas, 1997).

Thomas lists axioms that relate to postmodern as “consumer needs, consumer sovereignty, behavioural consistency, customer orientation perceived value, product image, buyer and seller separation, individual and organisation distinction, product and process separation, and consumption and production division” (Thomas, 1997).

We can relate these elements to consumption in the hospitality industry and establish consumerism in postmodern.

According to postmodernism, there is no single privileged form of knowledge, i.e. no theories are superior or inferior to others. Thus, it is no longer possible to believe in a generalisation or meta-discourse. A better understanding of postmodernism should entail sensitivity to differences, fragmented individuality, embrace uncertainty, and discourage the use of consensus to suppress heterogeneity.

In the field of hospitality consumption, we must embrace parallel and emerging trends in the social world. This refers to both self and other spheres of life. Postmodernism recognises that there is a lack of unity, lack of unifying central ideas, order, and lack of coherence.

Lack of certainty applies to an individual as well as the whole system. Therefore, the fragmented nature of consumer decision-making process models results from the fact that postmodernism does not recognise coherent and unified approach to issues as there is also general lack of certainty.

There is also breakdown in the system that leads to distinctions and differences. In turn, we have fragmentation in processes that replace unity or totality. Changes in society will allow for conditions of postmodernism characterised by hyperreality, ambiguity and reproduction of features (Gabriel and Lang, 1995).

Thus, postmodernism does not support any suggestions to replace or impose order to the existing chaotic and fragmented reality. Postmodernism puts it that we should embrace the “limitations of knowledge, question the value of generalisations and accept the impossibility of universal truths” (Thomas, 1997).

Fragmentation also emerges due to a low level of commitment to any one brand. What exists is only a momentary attachment, brand repositioning, and regeneration.

Thus, if we apply the principle of none is superior or inferior to another, then marketing becomes only sensible when it recognises language, symbols and elements of communication that imply and signify essential images in marketing. In the hospitality, the breakdown in the system affects marketing in the hospitality industry, which relates to the universal principle of marketing (Williams, 2002).

Postmodernism tends to question ideas behind generalisations and concepts in overarching theories as it sees them as limited in scopes. Thus, it posits that marketing approaches tend to impose order on the chaotic and fragmented statuses of the modern hospitality industry.

Postmodernism argues that there that the knowledge that exists has limitations about the nature of fragmentation. There is little empirical evidence to support generalisations regarding consumers’ consumption and behaviour patterns.

In addition, consumers’ consumption trends are not orderly and unpredictable. Consumers act on their wishes, ignore the set standards, and fail to maintain systems that may guide their activities (Brown, 1995). Thus, consumers are unreliable and changeable. Dynamic characteristics of modern consumers in the hospitality industry present difficulties in predicting buying behaviours and decision-making processes.

Conclusions

This research has looked at the purchase and post-purchase models in consumption of hospitality services. Academicians and market theorists have made their inputs in order to provide theoretical account of the processes.

However, these models offered by theorists have inherent weaknesses both in describing and explaining how consumers make their purchase decisions. Some of these weaknesses result from elaborate decision-making patterns involved in choosing a holiday destination and subsequent activities.

The consumer decision-making process in purchasing hospitality services is a complex affair. It depends on a number of factors that originate from an individual and other external factors.

However, the models present linear processes that do not account for the complex nature and a high level of decision-making process consumers undergo when choosing a holiday destination. Despite these theories and models, understanding consumer behaviour in consumption of hospitality services remains complex.

The post-purchase evaluation occurs as a result of the decision to purchase. It is also a high-level involvement process due to the nature of the decision and purchase involved. Consumers will experience post-purchase cognitive dissonance due to their purchases. However, in most cases, they tend to find ways of reducing negative feeling about their purchases.

With reference to postmodernism, consumption of hospitality services remain unpredictable, fragmented and not attached to reality. Postmodernism believes that consumers of today live in a world of doubt, ambiguity, and uncertainty. Thus, applying a model to explain their decision-making processes involving a purchase remains difficult to limitation of knowledge.

To this end, we cannot apply generalisations to account for behaviours of consumers in the hospitality industry. Still, marketing remains a complex process as predicting purchasing patterns and consumptions among customers are also difficult.

Most consumers will base their purchase decisions on their wishes, make last-minute decisions, and create new trends in demand for services and products. Such are the difficulties that make these theories fragmented and all-encompassing.

Reference List

Blackwell, R, Engel, J and Miniard, P 2001, Consumer Behaviour, 9th edn, Harcourt Education, Boston, MA.

Brown, S 1995, Postmodern Marketing, Routledge, London.

Chambers, R and Lewis, R 2000, Marketing leadership in hospitality: foundations & practices, 3rd edn, John Wiley & Sons, New York.

Cooper, C, Wanhill, S, Fletcher, J, Gilbert, D, & Fyall, A. 2005. Tourism: Principles and Practice, Pearson, New York.

Foxall, G 2004, Consumer Behaviour Analysis V1, Routledge, New York.

Gabbott, M and Hogg, G 1998, Consumers and Services, Wiley, New York.

Gabriel, Y and Lang, T 1995, The Unmanageable Consumer, Sage, London.

Howard, J and Sheth, J 1996, The Theory of Buyer Behaviour, John Wiley, New York.

Kotler, P, Bowen, J and Makens, J 1999, Marketing for Hospitality and Tourism, Prentice-Hall, New York.

Middleton, V and Clarke, J 2001, Marketing in Travel and Tourism, Butterworth-Heinemann, London.

Moutinho, L 1987, ‘Consumer Behavior in Tourism’, European Journal of Marketing, vol. 21, no. 10, pp. 3-44.

Onkvisit, S and Shaw J 1994, Consumer Behavior: Strategy and Analysis, Macmillan College Pub-lishing Company Inc, New York.

Solomon, M 2006, Consumer Behavior, Prentice Hall Europe, New Jersey.

Thomas, M 1997, ‘Consumer market research: does it have validity? Some postmodern thoughts’, Marketing Intelligence & Planning, vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 54–59.

Williams, A 2002, Understanding the Hospitality Consumer- Hospitality, Leisure and Tourism, Butterworth-Heinemann Ltd, London.

Online Shopping and Purchase Decision
From Modernism to Postmodernism
Postmodernism in Anthropology
Consumer Decision-Making Models: Analysis & Critique
Consumer behaviour and decision models
Consumer Behaviour Change
Consumer Behaviour Gap Inc
Apple Inc.: Customer Service
Chicago (A-D)
Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2019, May 15). Consumer behaviour. https://ivypanda.com/essays/consumer-behaviour-essay/

"Consumer behaviour." IvyPanda , 15 May 2019, ivypanda.com/essays/consumer-behaviour-essay/.

IvyPanda . (2019) 'Consumer behaviour'. 15 May.

IvyPanda . 2019. "Consumer behaviour." May 15, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/consumer-behaviour-essay/.

1. IvyPanda . "Consumer behaviour." May 15, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/consumer-behaviour-essay/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Consumer behaviour." May 15, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/consumer-behaviour-essay/.

30 Important Theory of Consumer Behavior Questions and Answers [With PDF]

The fourth chapter of our economics learning course is “ Theory of Consumer Behavior . ” In this article, we’ll learn the 30 most important “ theory of consumer behavior ” questions and their answers.

By reading this post, you can quickly prepare for economics courses as well as other competitive exams such as Vivas, job interviews, and school and college exams.

Theory of Consumer Behavior Questions and Answers

Question 01: What is utility?

Answer: In general, “utility” refers to a product’s usefulness. However, in economics, the word “utility” has a specific meaning. In economics, utility is defined as a product’s or service’s ability to meet a human need. For example, food, houses, clothes, education, etc. are all utilities.

Answer: The following are the key characteristics of a utility:

Question 03: Why is it important to define and measure utility?

Answer: With the help of utility measurement, we can learn more about how consumers and, by extension, the market as a whole make decisions about what to buy.

Question 05: What is the cardinal utility approach?

Question 06: What are the assumptions of the cardinal utility approach?

Question 07: What are the limitations of the cardinal utility approach?

Answer: The limitations of the cardinal utility approach are as follows:

Answer: The three basic concepts of utilities are as follows:

Question 09: What is the total utility?

Answer: The average utility is found by dividing the total utility a consumer gets from a good or service by the number of units of that good or service that the consumer uses.

Average utility = TUx/Nx

Nx is the quantity of good X that was consumed.

Question 13: What is “zero marginal utility”?

Answer: If getting an extra unit of good has no effect on the total utility, then the marginal utility of that extra unit is equal to zero.

Answer: So the relationship between total utility and marginal utility is as follows:

This rule was first talked about by the German economist Hermann Heinrich Gossen. In 1890, the famous economist Alfred Marshall gave a clear explanation of what it meant.

Question 19: What are the applications of the law of diminishing marginal utility?

Question 20: What are the limitations of the law of diminishing marginal utility?

Answer: Since the law of diminishing marginal utility is based on a number of assumptions, it doesn’t always work. The main limitations of this law are explained below.

Question 22: What are the assumptions underlying the law of equi–marginal utility?

Answer: The following are the assumptions underlying consumer equilibrium:

Question 25: What is the ordinal utility approach or indifference curve analysis?

Answer: An indifference curve shows how different combinations of two goods can give the consumer the same amount of satisfaction.

Question 29: What are the characteristics of the indifference curve?

Answer: The key characteristics of the indifference curve are as follows:

If you read these 30 important “ theory of consumer behavior ” questions and answers on a regular basis, you will gain a better understanding of the chapter.

Consumer Behavior - Free Essay Examples and Topic Ideas

The marketing concept underlines that gainful marketing starts with the revelation and comprehension of consumer needs and afterward builds up a marketing blend to fulfill these requirements. Hence, a comprehension of consumers and their needs and acquiring conduct is fundamental to fruitful marketing. Shockingly, there is no single hypothesis of consumer conduct that can thoroughly clarify why consumers carry on as they do. Rather, there are various theories, models, and concepts making up the field. Furthermore, most of these ideas have been obtained from an assortment of different controls, for example, sociology, psychology, anthropology, and economics, and must be incorporated to comprehend consumer conduct.(Peter & Donnelly, 2011).

📘 Free essay examples for your ideas about Consumer Behavior
🏆 Best Essay Topics on Consumer Behavior
⚡ Simple & Consumer Behavior Easy Topics
🎓 Good Research Topics about Consumer Behavior
📖 Essay guide on Consumer Behavior

Essay examples

Essay topic.

Save to my list

Remove from my list

Joseph Pine’s View of The Difference in Consumer Behavior as Depicted in His Book, What Consumers Really Want
The Intricacies of Food Photography
Consumer Behavior Case Study Do Our Avatars Learn
Top High End Vape Mods for 2017
Consumer Behavior Overview
Advantages and Disadvantages and Effects of Gst on Consumer
Factors Influencing Consumer Behavior
Consumer behavior perception and knowing customers isn’t
Write about Consumer behavior
Impact of The Packaging on Consumer Buying Behaviour
Inderstanding Consumer Behaviour Towards Luxury Products
Online Consumer Shopping Habits and Behavior
The Theory Of Consumer Behavior Assumes That Consumers Attempt To Maximize:
Consumer Buying Behavior
What is Consumer Buying Behaviour?
Consumer Behaviour Price & Memory
The Asch Phenomenon and Consumer Behavior
Consumer Behavior and Marketing Strategy
Consumer Behavior Case Study Analysis
Consumer Buyer Behavior:
Consumer behavior and Customer insight
Marketing Factors Affecting Consumer Behavior
Starbucks Case for Consumer Behavior Essay
Consumer Buying Behavior Marketers
5.Characteristics Affecting Consumer Behavior:
Investigating the Consumer Behaviour of Millennials in the Tourism Industry
Consumer Promotions Defined and Consumerism
Kiwi: Consumer Service and Behavior
Nature of the Consumer Decision Making
Consumer Behavior In The Fashion Industry
Consumer Behavior Literature Review
In marketing psychological factors that influence on one’s consumer behavior are 1
Leveraging Consumer Behaviour – Coca Cola Case Study
Consumer Buying Behavior – Marketing to teenagers
Consumer Behaviour – Decision Process

Social, marketing, and situational impacts

The chapter starts by inspecting social, marketing, and situational impacts on consumer decision making. These give data that can impact consumers’ contemplations and sentiments about purchasing different products and brands. How much this data impacts consumers’ decisions relies upon various psychological impacts. Two of the most significant of these are product knowledge and product involvement. The section finishes up by talking about the consumer decision-production process.(Peter & Donnelly, 2011).

Social classes

Social classes make dependent on such things as wealth, skill, and power. The absolute best pointer of social class is occupation. Nevertheless, excitement presently is in the effect of social class on the individual’s lead.(Peter & Donnelly, 2011). Upper Americans involve 14 percent of the populace and are separated basically by having high earnings. This class remains the gathering where the quality product is most prized and notoriety brands are ordinarily looked for. The middle class contains 34 percent of the populace, and these shoppers need to make the best choice and purchase what is famous. They are worried about style and purchasing what specialists in the media suggest. The working class includes 38 percent of the masses, people who are ‘family individuals’ who depend strongly upon relatives for budgetary and energetic assistance. Lower Americans involve 16 percent of the populace and are as assorted in qualities and utilization objectives as are other social levels. Most get an open hotel, food stamps, and Medicare. The basic solicitations of this social occasion are sustenance, dress, and various staples.(Peter & Donnelly, 2011).

Extensive, Limited, and Routine decision making

The consumer decision making involves certain types such as Extensive, Limited, and Routine decision making. The process of consumer decision making involves certain steps such as need recognition, alternative search, alternative evaluation, purchase decision and post purchase evaluation. (Peter & Donnelly, 2011)

These components can identify with many purchasing choices. For instance, post-purchase dissonance may be relied upon to be available among numerous purchasers of such items as vehicles, significant apparatuses, and homes. In these cases, the choice to purchase is typically a significant one both financially and psychologically, and various good choices are generally accessible.(Peter & Donnelly, 2011).

As noted, scientists have additionally examined post purchase buyer fulfillment. Much of this work has been founded on what is known as the disconfirmation paradigm. Essentially, this methodology sees fulfillment with items and brands because of two different factors. The primary variable is the desires a shopper has about an item before purchase. These desires concern the convictions the customer has about the item’s exhibition.(Peter & Donnelly, 2011).

To conclude, This section introduced a review of consumer behavior. Social, marketing, and situational influences on consumer decision making were discussed first, trailed by a discussion of two significant mental components: item information and item association. Consumer decision making, which can be extensive, limited, or routine, was seen as a progression of stages: need acknowledgment, elective pursuit, elective assessment, purchase decision, and post purchase assessment. Plainly, understanding consumer behavior is essential for creating fruitful marketing techniques.(Peter & Donnelly, 2011)

Peter, J. P., & Donnelly, J. H. (2011). A preface to marketing management (Twelfth ed). McGraw-Hill/Irwin.

FAQ about Consumer Behavior

👋 Hi! I’m your smart assistant Amy!

Don’t know where to start? Type your requirements and I’ll connect you to an academic expert within 3 minutes.

Essay on Consumer Behaviour: Top 8 Essays | Microeconomics

Here is a compilation of essays on ‘Consumer Behaviour’ for class 9, 10, 11 and 12. Find paragraphs, long and short essays on ‘Consumer Behaviour’ especially written for school and college students.

Essay on Consumer Behaviour

Essay Contents:

Essay on the Modern Approach of Consumer Behaviour

Essay # 1. Introduction to Consumer Behaviour:

ADVERTISEMENTS:

Microeconomic theory tends to assume that individuals are the economic agents exercising the act of consumption, the decision to purchase goods and services. The consumer is assumed to choose among the available alternatives in such a manner that the satisfaction derived from consuming commodities (in the broadest sense) is as large as possible.

This implies that he is aware of the alternatives facing him and is capable of evaluating them. All the information pertaining to the satisfaction that the consumer derives from various quantities of commodities is contained in his ‘utility function’.

We assume that each consumer or family unit has complete information on all matters pertaining to its consumption decision. A consumer knows precisely what his money income will be during the planning period. ‘Utility’ refers to subjective satisfaction derived from consumption of commodities.

The 19th century economists, namely W. Stanley Jevons, Leon Walras and Alfred Marshall came up with the cardinal theory of consumer behaviour. They considered utility is measurable just as the weight of objects. The consumer is assumed to possess a cardinal measure of utility when he is able to assign every commodity, a number representing the amount or degree of utility associated with it.

Under this theory, it is possible to measure marginal utility (MU) of a commodity, whereby by MU we mean a change in utility due to a change in per unit of consumption of a commodity. Another property is the existence of Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility (LDMU).

This means as a consumer keeps on consuming successive units of the same commodity, consumption of other commodities held fixed, marginal utility diminishes. Total utility increases at a decreasing rate for successive units of consumption of a particular commodity.

Essay # 2. Assumptions of Consumer Behaviour under Cardinal Theory :

(i) Utility is numerically measurable.

(ii) Marginal utility is the unit of measurement of utility.

(iii) Marginal utility of money (or total budget) is constant.

(iv) The Law of DMU holds,

(v) Independence axiom holds.

Total utility can be expressed as sum of utilities pertaining to each commodity separately. For example, let utility be a function of two goods x 1 and x 2 , i.e.,

In Fig. 1 we divided consumption space into four zones — I, II, III, IV. Due to the axiom of non-satiation it is observed that consumption bundle, XPY (X has more of x 2 than Y for the same x 1 ). Similarly, ZPY Hence all the points in zone I are superior to Y and all the points in zone III are inferior to Y.

The remaining two zones, viz., II and IV are important to draw indifference map as follows:

A ray through origin, OH, passes through Zone II. All Space points on OP are inferior to Y but XPO i.e., somewhere between P and X where there is switch of preferences say point M. Successive drawings of such a ray through origin can make us safely assert that there is a point say M which is indifferent to X. Similar exercise can be carried out with Zone IV and joining these points like W, M, Y, T, we get a curve called Indifference Curve.

An indifference curve is a locus of points in a commodity space—or commodity bundles—among which the consumer is indifferent. Each point on an indifference curve yields the same utility as any other point on that indifference curve. The IC approach has been applied in areas of international trade and public finance, community (social) indifference curves (ICs and SICs) are used to show gains from trade.

Similarly, ICs are used to compare to the welfare effects of a lumpsum tax and a price distorting tax. IC approach including the Slutsky theorem is also used to show the effect of income tax on a worker’s labour-leisure choice. At times SICs are used to compare cost of living indices and then show the effects of price inflation.

We may now summarise the basic properties of indifference curves as follows:

1. IC is Downward Sloping:

In Fig. 2, along the IC, utility is constant. Therefore, when consumption of one commodity increases, given the level of other commodity, utility increases. But since total utility is constant, additional utility has to be sacrificed by reducing the consumption of other commodity. Hence IC is downward sloping.

2. ICs are Non-Intersecting:

In Fig. 3, CPB (since C has more of x 1 than B for same x 2 ). But CIA as both C and A lie in same IC, IC 0 . Again, BIA, as both B and A lie on same IC 1 .

. . . Therefore, by the axiom of transitivity, CIB (or BIC) which is not possible or gives contradictory results. Therefore ICs cannot intersect.

3. Higher ICs give Higher Utility:

It can be seen that BPA, as more of x 2 is consumed in B than A for the same amount of x 1 . Hence all the points on IC 1 are preferred to all the points on IC 0 , as it gives higher utility. Again, CPB as for same x 2 , more of x 1 is consumed. Therefore, all points on IC 2 are preferred to all points on IC 0 and IC 1 as it gives more utility. Higher IC gives higher utility (Fig. 4).

4. ICs are Convex to the Origin:

Axiom 4 leads to convexity of IC which implies diminishing MRS where by MRS we mean absolute necessary reduction in consumption of x 1 due to additional consumption of x 2 by one unit such that total utility is fixed (assuming two commodities x 1 and x 2 only)

Now we shall discuss about budget constraint and budget lines. The budget line is set off more commodity bundles than can be purchased, if the entire money income is spent.

Hence, budget constraint is given by following equation:

where m = total money income (assumed constant).

P i = price of i th commodity

X i = i th commodity, i = 1, 2,…, n

In a two-commodity framework, therefore, the budget constraint will be

m=p 1 x 1 + p 2 x 2

or, x 2 = (m/p 2 – p 1 /p 2 ) x 1 [This is indeed the equation of a downward sloping straight line.]

The solution of problem of maximisation of utility subject to the budget constraint is the main motive behind the theory of consumer behaviour.

Properties of Demand Functions :

Demand functions are homogeneous of degree zero in prices and income which means that equi-proportional and unidirectional changes in prices and money income do not alter optimality condition. This homogeneity postulate suggests that the consumer is free from money illusion.

Consumers’ initial equilibrium is point E. Every time his income increases the budget line shifts F and G are the corresponding equilibrium points. The locus of all the equilibrium points is called income consumption curve. In the Fig. 6 both x 1 and x 2 are normal goods.

If x 1 is inferior the ICC will be backward bending and if x 2 is inferior it will be forward falling. See (Fig 7). If consumption of a good falls as income rises, then such a commodity is called inferior goods. So one important prediction is that if the consumer spends all his income on two goods, both cannot be inferior at the same time.

The relation between money income and quantity consumed is explained by a function is known as the Engel’s curve. Now we allow the price of one of the two goods to fall. Suppose that of x 1 falls. In this case the budget line becomes flatter and the consumer is able to reach higher indifference curves and enjoy more utility or satisfaction, thus improving his level of welfare.

So every time P 1 falls, the consumer moves to higher IC and reaches a new equilibrium point. The locus of successive equilibrium points is the price consumption curve (PCC) which shows the consumer’s reaction to a single price change which changes the price ratio, i.e., p 1 /p 2 .

There are two uses of PCC. First, we can derive the consumer’s demand curve for a commodity from the PCC. According to the ordinal approach, the demand curve for a normal good is downward sloping due to price effect which has been decomposed by Hicks and Slutsky into two parts, namely, substitution effect and income effect. The slope of the demand curve depends on the relative strength of the two effects which, in turn, depends on the nature of the commodity under consideration.

From the PCC we can predict price elasticity of demand (e) by using the total outlay method.

Three points will be noted in the context:

(i) If PCC is downward sloping, demand for x 1 is price elastic.

(ii) If PCC is horizontal, demand for x 1 is unitary price elastic.

(iii) If PCC is upward sloping, demand for x 1 is price inelastic.

Essay # 5. Price Effect as a Sum-Total of Substitution Effect and Income Effect:

From the Marshallian demand curve (constant money income demand curve) it is not possible to explain the price effect because Marshallian approach is based on LDMU, i.e., cardinal theory. It was John Hicks and E. Slutsky who decomposed the price effect into two parts. Thus, two new concepts of demand curve have emerged, namely,

(i) Real income constant demand curve (the Slutsky demand curve)

(ii) Total utility constant demand curve (the Hicks demand curve)

We shall now construct Marshallian demand curve and compensated demand curve for a normal good in a two-commodity framework.

From the price effect such derivation of the demand curve for x 1 is as follows:

Let initial budget line be AS in Fig. 10(a) for price p 1 , corresponding equilibrium x 1 at E 0 is x 1 . Hence for price p 1 , x 1 is plotted in Fig. 10(b). If p 1 falls slope of budget line falls and hence AB becomes flatter. The budget line becomes AB’. The consumer reaches higher utility level on IC 2 and new equilibrium x 1 is x 1 M . Plotting this in Fig. 10(b) and joining E 0 and E M in Fig. 10(b), we get the negatively sloped demand curve for x 1 which is the Marshallian demand curve, D M .

We will construct D H and D S for same initial conditions as the one we considered while drawing the Marshallian demand curve. Let price of x 1 , p 1 fall from p 1 o to p 1 ’. For Hicksian demand curve we consider budget line, CD tangent to initial IC 0 implying constant utility level even as new price ratio P’ 1 /P 2 and hence parallel to AB’. Because of movement from E 0 to E H , x 1 rises from x 1 to x 1 H . This is purely substitution effect, and joining E 0 and E M we get Hicksian demand curve D H .

If we follow the Slutsky approach, we can make the following two Predictions:

(i) Perfect Substitutes:

If two commodities are perfect substitutes like blue and black ink for a colour blind person the IC will be a straight line with PE = SE and IE = 0.

(ii) Perfect Compliments:

If two commodities are perfect complements like left and right shoe SE = 0 Thus, PE = IE. For Slutsky demand curve we consider budget line C’ D’ , which passes through initial equilibrium point E 0 implying that consumer is just enough to purchase initial equilibrium commodities even at new price ratio P’ 1 /P 2 , hence parallel to AB.

This hypothetical budget line is thus to the right of CD and hence consumer reaches higher IC, IC 1 . Consumption of x 1 rises, hence when plotted in 10(b), we see that D S is flatter than D M . The movement from E S to E M is the income effect.

The substitution effect is always negative because the entire IC approach is based on the of substitution which suggests that the consumption of one commodity is always at the expense of the other but IE is negative in case of normal good, if we consider change in real income. Thus in case of a normal good the negative income effect reinforces the negative, SE so as to make the price effect very strong in this case and the demand curve is relatively flat.

In case of an inferior good, IE is positive but less-strong than the substitution effect. So the price effect is still negative but less strong than that in the case of a normal good. In case of a Giffen good, which is essentially a price phenomenon, the positive income effect is stronger than the negative substitution effect so as to cause price effect to be positive. This is one of the exceptions to the empirical law of demand. These points are summarized in Table 1.

An important aspect of ordinal theory is the derivation of Slutsky Equation. This is done in the mathematical appendix.

Essay # 6. The Hicksian Interpretation of Consumer Behaviour:

Hicks define own-price substitution effect in terms of constant utility.

According to SARP, if (x 1 , x 2 ) is revealed preferred to (y 1 , y 2 ) (either directly or indirectly) and (y 1 , y 2 ) is different from (x 1 , x 2 ) then (y 1 , y 2 ) cannot be directly or indirectly revealed preferred to (x 1 x 2 ). Likewise, in the ordinal theory under revealed preference approach it can be proved that substitution effect is always negative. Let prices be given by P° when a consumer purchases a commodity bundle X° when X’ was affordable. This means X° is purchased at P° when X’ was affordable. This is possible only when,

Essay # 8. Modern Approach to Consumer Behaviour:

An alternative approach to the theory of consumer demand was pioneered by K. Lancaster. He argued that goods are demanded as their characteristics. It is these characteristics that yield utility. Thus, we may consider three different goods say sugar, honey and saccharixe. But they may have only two characteristic, viz., sweetness and calories. If a new sweetener is produced we analyse it not as a new good but as one better that has the same characteristics.

Thus, compared with traditional analysis, the new approach has two advantages:

(i) We can study the introduction of new goods,

(ii) We can study the effects of changes in quality.

Comparison with traditional approach:

In the traditional theory, the consumer’s indifference curves are given in terms of the original set of goods. Now if a new good is introduced in the market we have to introduce a whole new set of indifference curves or surfaces. All the information in the preference about old set of goods is discarded.

In terms of the new approach we can make an insightful analysis of consumer choice. In the real commercial world many of the so-called new goods are actually the same as the old goods with the characterisation of different proportions.

Thus, if we consider the preferences in terms of characterisation we can analyse introduction of new goods very easily. We do not have to discard any old set of preferences as worse. If new goods appear in the market with new characteristics, we have to introduce a new set of preferences.

A major advantage of the characteristic approach is that it permits the analysis of many goods. At times the number of goods is considerably higher than the number of characteristics. Furthermore, once we think in terms of characteristics we have to consider substitution effect which is different from the substitution effect of the traditional theory.

2 Main Reasons for the Change in Equilibrium | Consumer Behaviour
Essay on Demand: Top 8 Essays Demand | Microeconomics
Indifference Curve Theory of Consumer Behaviour
Essay on Consumer’s Equilibrium | Economics

Research 101

How to Calculate Your Sample Size Using a Sample Size Formula

November 25, 2021

Patrick Hyland

Advanced Research

100 Open-Ended Survey Questions for Effective Consumer Research

Consumer research surveys are an impactful way to gain valuable customer insights. Here is a list of 100 open-ended survey questions to get you started.

March 22, 2024

Market Research

Because we live in a globalized economy, market trends and customer preferences constantly morph and change over time. This only leaves brands with (open-ended) questions about their customers.

Among the constant waves of competition and increasing power of choice given to consumers, a company’s ability to maintain an agile strategy with this added pressure will determine its rate of survival over the next decade.

With that in mind, conducting effective and impactful market research is now more essential to basic business survival than at any point in history.

That's why we put together this epic list of 100 open-ended survey questions for market research.

Should I Use Closed-Ended or Open-Ended Survey Questions?

Often, the first step in collecting consumer data is developing a strong customer survey that has high response rates. The type of questions you use would then be dependent on the type of insights you are looking to collect.

A close-ended question can be highly effective in helping you achieve quantitative data of your customers. For example, if you were conducting research on condiment usage patterns, multiple answer or rating scale questions can help you quickly understand the percentage of users that consume cilantro on a weekly basis.

On the other hand, open-ended questions can help you gain qualitative data and customer insights . For example, as part of the same research, open-ended questions can you help collect free form verbatims on what difficulties survey respondents face when they cook with spices.

What is an example of an Open-Ended Survey Question?

Good survey questions are built with specific insights in mind. Within the world of market research, we believe that strong qualitative survey questions can fall under five broad categories:

Customer Behavior: Understanding general consumer trends and purchase behavior.
Customer Feedback: Understanding what customers feel about your products and services.
Concept Testing: Understanding what customers feel about a new concept for a product or feature.
Marketing: Understanding the effectiveness of your marketing and advertising campaigns.
Competitive Analysis: Understanding how your brand and product stand up against your competitors.

Implementing the appropriate open-ended questions in a survey helps you collect the most relevant insights to your needs. But what are the different types of questions and response options your company can use to collect the strongest survey data?

Customer Behavior Survey Questions

What does the customer journey look like for your consumers? What are some of the key pain points they face? Use these questions to gain better insights into those behaviors and preferences.

What solutions did you try before using our product?
When you started using our product, what were you thinking about?
How do you typically find information about this type of product?
What websites do you use to discover new products?
What do you research about a product before purchasing it?
What type of product do you research the most before purchase?
What is the biggest difficulty you face when purchasing this type of product?
How does Product X make you feel?
How have you tried to solve Problem Y?
What are the main challenges you are currently facing without a product like Product X?
What persuaded you to [action] today?
What is stopping you from [action] today?
Now that you’ve solved Problem Y, what’s next?
What influences you to purchase from a store in person?
What influences you to purchase a product online?
What deters you from purchasing a product online?
What discourages you from purchasing a product in-store?
What is your preferred brand of this product?
At what point do you re-purchase this product type?
What additional product are you likely to purchase alongside this product?
How do you feel before purchasing this product?
How do you feel immediately after purchasing this product?
What factors determine your budget for this product?

Customer Feedback Survey Questions

Customer feedback management has a bad reputation for existing in quantitative scales of 1 to 5 and smiley faces of measurement delivered via cold email. Whether a customer’s feedback for your product or service is positive or not, this type of data collection will likely not give your company the feedback you want. Instead, try a few of these open-ended questions to collect quick, meaningful data.

Follow Up: Why do you like using that feature?
Follow Up: What makes you say that?
What surprised you about using this product?
What annoys you about this product?
What problem does our product solve for you?
How well does our product solve your problem?
What part of our product is easy to use?
What were the main difficulties you faced when using our product?
How could we have helped you better use our product?
If you could change one thing about our product, what would you change?
What other features would you have liked to see on this product?
Describe how you feel about our product.
How can we improve your general experience with the company?
In what situations do you use our product?
If someone asked you about this product, what would you say to them?
What is the primary benefit that you have received from using our product?
Who would you recommend our product to?
Describe your experience with our customer service team.
What is the main factor that influences your decision to switch brands?
How does past experience influence your decision to purchase from a brand?
What do you expect from customer service after purchasing a product?
What are your standards of quality when purchasing similar products?
How do you prefer that a customer service team handles your complaints?
What celebrity can you see endorsing or representing this product?
Describe your purchasing process for this type of product.
What influences your decision to purchase a new product?
What was disappointing about your last experience with us?
What was delightful about your last experience with us?

Concept Testing Survey Questions

Your company can collect data on a variety of types of customer feedback - and you don’t have to wait until after a product’s launch. Gauge customer interest for new products or features by writing a survey that measures perception, usage, tone, and experience before the concept ever reaches fruition. Use these questions to launch your inquisition into a new concept.

How would you use this new feature?
Follow Up: Why don’t you like that part of the feature?
What considerations do you have when deciding on a version of the product?
Among these different versions of the product, why did you decide on _____?
How does this new feature make you feel?
What excites you about this new feature?
Follow Up: Why did you answer that way?
If you had a magic wand and could have any new feature that you wanted on this product, what would it be?
Have you seen something similar to this feature elsewhere?
How do you think this new feature will improve your experience?
How much would you expect to pay for this product?
How do you envision incorporating this product into your daily life?
Describe why this product is innovative.
Describe why this product is not so innovative.
At what stage of development do you think this product is at?

Marketing Survey Questions

Qualitative research is not exclusive to product development and concept testing. Surveys can also be used to understand the customer and consumer perceptions of marketing and advertising campaigns. These questions will help your company better understand external perceptions of your product.

What do you think about our product’s story?
What originally attracted you to our product?
What do you like best about the messaging we use to promote our product?
How would you explain our product to a friend, family member, or colleague?
In one line, describe our product.
What communication channels would you prefer we use?
What supplementary content would help you use our product?
Where exactly did you first hear about us?
What companies or products do you perceive as our competitors?
How does our messaging stand out from the competition?
Who do you think uses our product?
Which product attributes are most important to you?
What would you improve about the product description?
Write a one-sentence description of this product.
How could our brand be more honest and transparent?
What charity pairs well alongside our product?
How could our product be more tailored to you?
What does our product design make you feel?
What does the product design remind you of?

Competitive Analysis Survey Questions

Although competitors come up in a variety of conversations with customers, asking specific competitive analysis questions is your time to dig deeper into your market share and potentially obtain internal information from competing companies.

How would you feel if you couldn’t use our product?
What other solutions have you considered?
Which other options did you consider before choosing our product?
Why did you choose our product rather than a competitor’s?
What do we do better than other companies in this field?
Who should we try and learn from?
What would you use as an alternative if our product was no longer available?
What are the first three brands in this category that come to your mind?
In your opinion, what could we do to stand out from the competition?
In the past three months, what have you heard about our brand?
How would you describe your overall opinion of our brand?
Do you have any additional comments or feedback for us?
What could we have done to get a 10/10 today?

So you’ve developed a strong set of questions. What’s next? Check out the next step in our guide to writing better online surveys or discussion guides .

How to Avoid Confirmation Bias in Research

Hidden Insights: The Power of Participant Voting in Market Research

Compressing Research Timelines Without Sacrificing Quality

Stay up-to date..

Stay ahead of the curve. Get it all. Or get what suits you. Our 101 material is great if you’re used to working with an agency. Are you a seasoned pro? Sign up to receive just our advanced materials.

Get insights in your inbox . Sign up to stay up to date on the latest research tactics and breakthroughs.

No data capture tricks. No bull SEO content for ranking. Just good, solid, honest, research ed.

By entering your email address, you agree to receive marketing communications in accordance with our privacy policy.

Request a demo

Dive Deeper

Type above and press enter or press close to cancel.

Questions to ask when studying consumer behavior, know your customers: maximize your marketing efforts.

Understanding how your customer behaves helps you offer the right product or service that meets their needs and desires, even when they don’t know what they want . Knowing what to offer, to whom and when helps drive effective marketing. We need to know what’s inside consumers’ minds to understand accurately.

First, let’s review a couple of terms:

Consumers – are people who use services and products
Shoppers and Customers – are the people who buy products and services

Questions to Ask When Studying Consumer Behavior

When we need to get inside the actual mind of a consumer, we turn to consumer research. Let’s talk about the difference between market research and consumer research:

Market research is an organized, systematic effort to gather information about customers or markets. It is a vital component of any business strategy and provides information about market needs, size, competitors and customers. It tends to be factual and statistic based. It is the “WHAT” of customers and markets.
Consumer research is information that enables a company to determine why their customers behave how they do about their brand. With this information, organizations can use insight to affect purchase behavior. It is the “WHY” of customers and brands.

12 Survey Questions to Ask for Effective Consumer Behavior Research

1. Who purchases your products and services?

Is it females or males? Is your target audience children? Low income or wealthy? Demographics are essential, but they are only part of the equation.

2. Who makes the buying decision?

Often, a purchase is made by someone who did not make the decision. Say a restaurant wants to update its interior – an architect or interior designer makes the buying decision.

3. Who influences purchase decisions?

A great example of this is children. The mom or the dad buys the product. Sometimes, one parent decides and the other buys. However, the child is the primary influencer .

4. How are purchase decisions made?

Take the example regarding children — a child goes to their mom and requests a toy. Then, the mom relays that request to the other parent, who buys the toy based on the child, who is the primary influencer. This is an orderly fashion of purchase decisions, which is something a marketer should know.

5. Why does the customer buy?

Consider what the customer’s needs are when buying a product. In the above example, a parent buys a toy for their child., and each customer buys a product for different reasons. Now, you can analyze behavior based on why they are buying .

6. Where is the product purchased?

Is it at a discount store, online or a high-end retailer? Knowing this relays information about how far a customer will go to buy a brand.

7. Why does a customer prefer one brand over another?

Most consumers have brand preferences – when you determine why the customer favors one brand over another, you will see several features that the customer prefers.

8. When do people buy a product?

Is the “when” seasonal, external or internal?

9. What is the product’s perception?

Is the item seen as a good value? Is it premium or luxury? Product perception is a large part of creating word of mouth, so you need positive perception, so your customer recommends it to someone else.

10. What social factors influence a buying decision?

Some people may never understand why others buy Audis or BMWs. A person with a high net worth may feel strongly about these brands because their social standards dictate that. Social factors play a significant role in purchase decisions.

11. What role does lifestyle play?

For example, consider a person who loves yoga – they are more likely to purchase a yoga mat. Say another individual loves cycling – they are likely to buy a helmet. Learning about lifestyle is a critical part of consumer behavioral studies.

12. What role do demographics play in buying decisions?

Imagine a toy company shows its products on a news channel, or the interior design service courts a startup with a limited budget? Would they be able to capture their customer’s attention? Furthermore, an older adult will probably buy different products than a teenager.

There are more aspects to consider, like economic conditions, purchasing power and the benefits the customer seeks.

Influencing Your Audience: It’s Psychological

Consider how we — as humans — process information and make decisions. For example, consumers rarely actively consider a purchase decision or brand. They are driven almost exclusively by instinct and intuition. So, how do we design research that delivers information, insight and inspiration?

Let’s look at the differences concerning information, insight, inspiration and impact:

Information: lays the foundation. Information is the most basic output of any consumer research as we gather data and facts about consumers to describe the marketplace, the target consumer and their behavior. Information lays the foundation and includes:

Demographics
Product and brand usage
Behaviors and habits
Media usage

Insight: connects emotionally. Distilling information is key to identifying insights about a target consumer’s motivations. Gathering and filtering information means taking what you know from a base of information and asking questions. Why are people the way they are?

Why do they feel the way they do? Where is that spot in their emotional and logical minds (or both) where we need to aim the marketing message? Ultimately, an insight is a discovery about an underlying motivation that drives consumers’ actions.

Beliefs and values
Motivations

Inspiration : activating insights and telling stories. It’s not enough to identify an insight; an insight has to inspire consumers to act on them.

That means communicating insights in a way that fits into a consumer’s lifestyle and popular culture, which requires thoroughly understanding the world around your consumer and inside their hearts and minds.

Conversations
Cultural trends

Impact: measuring if it worked. Consumer research has to measure changes that marketing efforts create in how consumers think, feel and act. Often this means tracking key attitudinal and behavioral measures over time as gathered through various research efforts.

Return on investment

Finding the sweet spot

Bringing studies and brand insight together helps you develop your brand purpose. Hitting your strategic sweet spot allows you to engage with and persuade faster, meaningfully and with less effort (read: less investment).

Furthermore, by performing studies, you will understand several factors:

Attitudes: Consumer attitudes often affect their beliefs regarding specific products. Using consumer behavior models helps marketers create campaigns that appeal to consumers.
Cultures: Evolving cultures impact on marketing campaign’s design. Studying consumer psychology can help you understand cultural nuances, helping you determine your product’s target market.
Perceptions: Studying consumer perceptions about your brand might help you uncover negative opinions, which you can work on to improve your offering.
Lifestyle: Comprehending consumer lifestyles can allow you to tweak your products to meet their specific requirements.

Final Thoughts

Understanding your customers is critical to success. You can employ many methods to unearth what goes into the purchase decision process, and it starts with asking the right questions.

By understanding what drives your customers’ decisions, you can offer your customers the correct information at each stage of the consumer journey . You will improve your marketing strategy and ensure you meet your customers’ needs.

Understanding your target audience is key to reaching them. Stefanini offers digital marketing solutions to get essential demographic info into your hands.

Ready to consult with a Stefanini expert?

Enhance Digital Marketing Capabilities with Stefanini

Stefanini is ready to bring the latest and best digital tools needed to optimize your operation.

Our team of experts will examine your processes and use their knowledge to find the technology that meets the unique concerns of any production line.

Ready to get started? Contact us today to speak with an expert!

Digital Marketing

Join over 15,000 companies

Get Our Updates Sent Directly To Your Inbox.

Join our mailing list to receive monthly updates on the latest at Stefanini.

transforming data through track and trace with klabin case study

Build Your IT Support Offering Quickly

Our eBook “LiteSD – Choose Endlessly Scalable Success” reveals how to integrate LiteSD platform into your organization.

Ask SophieX

Consumer Awareness Essays

Becoming a more conscious consumer, popular essay topics.

American Dream
Artificial Intelligence
Black Lives Matter
Bullying Essay
Career Goals Essay
Causes of the Civil War
Child Abusing
Civil Rights Movement
Community Service
Cultural Identity
Cyber Bullying
Death Penalty
Depression Essay
Domestic Violence
Freedom of Speech
Global Warming
Gun Control
Human Trafficking
I Believe Essay
Immigration
Importance of Education
Israel and Palestine Conflict
Leadership Essay
Legalizing Marijuanas
Mental Health
National Honor Society
Police Brutality
Pollution Essay
Racism Essay
Romeo and Juliet
Same Sex Marriages
Social Media
The Great Gatsby
The Yellow Wallpaper
Time Management
To Kill a Mockingbird
Violent Video Games
What Makes You Unique
Why I Want to Be a Nurse
Send us an e-mail

English Discussion on Consumerism

esl discussions.com.

HOME: More Discussions

PDF | Word | Help my site

THE DISCUSSION ON CONSUMERISM

STUDENT A's QUESTIONS (Do not show these to Student B.)

(1)	Which (social) facts influence consumerism?
(2)	Are there any benefits in consumerism?
(3)	What is the role of product labels (like food or clothing brands) in consumerism?
(4)	Do you believe special occasions like Christmas or Easter have become too consumeristic?
(5)	Is there a way to escape the culture of consumerism?
(6)	Do you think there are more consumerist women than men? Why?
(7)	Are teenagers and children becoming consumerists earlier?
(8)	Does mass media and society affect teenage consumerism?
(9)	In your opinion, are consumerist people less creative?
(10)	What is ethical consumerism?

STUDENT B's QUESTIONS (Do not show these to Student A.)

(1)	Is consumerism a pathology?
(2)	What is “green consumerism”? Is it a contradiction?
(3)	How does consumerism affect the environment and nature?
(4)	Do you agree with extreme anti-consumerism philosophies and attitudes?
(5)	Do you believe that changing your spending habits can make a big difference in your life?
(6)	Is consumerism spoiling our culture?
(7)	Our world economy is based on consumerism. Will consumerism always be predominant?
(8)	Has consumerism changed over the years?
(9)	What is medical consumerism?
(10)	Which jobs are strictly related to consumerism?

Skip to main content
Skip to secondary menu
Skip to primary sidebar
Skip to footer

A Plus Topper

Improve your Grades

Essay on Consumer Rights | Consumer Rights Essay for Students and Children in English

February 14, 2024 by Prasanna

Essay on Consumer Rights: A consumer is defined as someone who buys goods and services for directly using them rather than reselling them or using them or some other indirect use. Consumer protection or consumer right is the right to have clarity of information regarding a product’s quality, quantity, potency, price and purity. These rights are curated to protect consumers from unfair trade.

Consumer rights are predetermined declarations which are established by law. Consumer organisations are also made which help these consumers to exercise their right if and when treated unfairly. Consumer rights are a very special set of rules which prevent huge frauds committed by huge business corporations.

You can also find more Essay Writing articles on events, persons, sports, technology and many more.

Long and Short Essays on Consumer Rights for Students and Kids in English

We are providing students with essay samples on a long essay of 500 words and a short essay of 150 words on the topic Consumer Rights.

Long Essay on Consumer Rights 500 Words in English

Long Essay on Consumer Rights is usually given to classes 7, 8, 9, and 10.

Consumer protection is the rights given to a consumer for having clarity of information regarding the product that they buy. They have the right to have full information about the quality, quantity, price, standard and purity of the product. It is to be mentioned, however, that consumer rights are solely for the consumers who buy a product for their direct use and not for reselling it.

Consumer protection is considered to be falling udert e arena of “private law.” It is a way of preventing consumers as well as the state rom financial scams, financial frauds and bankrupt businesses. Countries like Australia, Brazil, United States of America and the United Kingdom, have consumer protection laws in the nation-state level. They also have specific state organisations to help their consumers.

Constitutional Laws: As many as 47 constitutions in the present day include some consumer rights to be enforced in their constitution.

Consumer Protection In India:

In India, the most important consumer rights fall under The Consumer Protection Act of 1986. According to this law, not only the individual consumers but a company, a group of consumers, an undivided Hindu family, all have the power to exercise their rights. The consumer rights mentioned in the law are-

The right to be protected from harmful and hazardous goods and services.
The right to be informed in details about the quality as well as the performance of a good.
The right to freedom of choice of goods and services.
The right to be heard in all the decision-making processes which are related to the interests of the consumers.
The right to seek redressal on the infringement of consumer rights.
The right to the completion of consumer education.

Keeping the condition of the consumers in mind, The Government of India and its Ministry of Consumer Affairs, opened a nodal organisation called the Department of Consumer Affairs to protect the consumers from frauds and unfair treatment. If there is an infringement of these rights, then a proper claim for redressal can be made in a consumer court.

The circumstances under which a complaint can be made in a consumer court:

If the goods or services purchased by the person has one or more defects.
If a trader or a service provider resort to unfair means of business.
If a trader or a service provider charges a price above what has been agreed upon under law.
Goods or services that cause a certain safety hazard to the users or the consumers.

Right to Consumer Education:

It is the right of every citizen to have an education regarding consumer protection. The education makes sure that the consumer has all the knowledge and information required regarding their rights and claims. Consumer forum is a quasi-judicial mechanism at the district, state and national level. It is a three-tier mechanism consisting of the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum, the State Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum and the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum. It is till now one of the most successful judicial tribunal introduced by the Government.

Short Essay on Consumer Rights 150 Words in English

Short Essay on Consumer Rights is usually given to classes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.

Consumer Protection or Consumer Rights refer to the rights that a consumer is granted to have clarity of information about a product that one has bought. It is the right of the consumer to know about the quality, quantity, price, standard and purity of a product. Consumer Rights are an essential aspect of the judicial system as it can prevent elaborate financial frauds, financial scams and bankruptcy.

As many as 47 countries have included consumer protection and consumer rights as constitutional law. In India, consumer rights come under the Consumer Protection Act of 1986. There is also a three-tier quasi-judicial mechanism in India in all the district, state and national level. This tribunal is called the Consumer Forum. Among the different rights that a consumer enjoys, there are right to know full information about the product bought, right to be protected from hazardous products, right to consumer education, right to freedom of choice of goods and services and right to redressal upon the infringement of these rights.

10 Lines on Consumer Rights in English

Nearly 47 countries have it as a constitutional right.
The Consumer Protection Act came into being in 1986.
The ministry of the Government is called The Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution.
The Department of Consumer Affairs has been made for addressing complaints.
On the infringement of any consumer rights, the consumer can complain in a consumer court.
Consumer course is of three-tier in India.
It is a quasi-judicial body.
It exists in the district-state and national level.
The district-state-national forums entertain complaints of 20 lacs, one crore and more than one crore respectively.
Consumer rights are one of the most efficient aspects of today’s judicial system.

FAQ’s on Consumer Rights Essay

Question 1. Why is consumer rights important?

Answer: Consumer Rights are important because they prevent the consumer and individual from unfair trade, financial frauds and scams.

Question 2. What are the forums called?

Answer: The Consumer Forums are called the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum, State Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum and the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum.

Question 3. What is the Consumer Helpline Number in India?

Answer: Consumer Helpline Number is 1800114000 or 14404.

Picture Dictionary
English Speech
English Slogans
English Letter Writing
English Essay Writing
English Textbook Answers
Types of Certificates
ICSE Solutions
Selina ICSE Solutions
ML Aggarwal Solutions
HSSLive Plus One
HSSLive Plus Two
Kerala SSLC
Distance Education

Revealed: Harvard Business School’s New MBA Essays For Applicants

Share on Facebook
Share on Twitter
Share on LinkedIn
Share on WhatsApp
Share on Reddit

Harvard Business School’s Baker Library.

With just 10 weeks before its first application deadline on Sept. 4th, Harvard Business School today (June 25) revealed a newly revised application for MBA candidates, including a new set of three short essays along with a refresh on how it will evaluate applicants for future classes.

The new prompts?

Business-Minded Essay : Please reflect on how your experiences have influenced your career choices and aspirations and the impact you will have on the businesses, organizations, and communities you plan to serve. (up to 300 words)

Leadership-Focused Essay : What experiences have shaped who you are, how you invest in others, and what kind of leader you want to become? (up to 250 words)

Growth-Oriented Essay : Curiosity can be seen in many ways. Please share an example of how you have demonstrated curiosity and how that has influenced your growth. (up to 250 words)

NEW HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL ESSAYS PUT THROUGH BY NEW MBA ADMISSIONS CHIEF

Eagerly awaited by thousands of prospective students and admission consultants, you can bet that the admissions pages of the HBS website were continually refreshed all morning for a glimpse at the new essay. The Harvard Business School essay prompt for the Class of 2027 was posted at 10:30 a.m. with the opening of the 2024-2025 application online.

This year’s change was put through by Rupal Gadhia , who joined the school as managing director of admissions and financial aid last October. A 2004 Harvard MBA, Gadhia came to the school with no previous admissions experience, having been the global head of marketing for SharkNinja robots.

In explaining the change in a blog post , Gadhia noted that “we have refreshed the criteria on which we evaluate candidates. We are looking for applicants who are business-minded, leadership-focused, and growth-oriented…This is your opportunity to discuss meaningful or formative experiences that are important to you that you haven’t had a chance to fully explore elsewhere in your application…Be authentic, be yourself.”

WHAT HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL IS REALLY LOOKING FOR IN THE NEW ESSAYS

The school added some context to its new criteria for admission, more clearly defining what it means by business-minded, leadership-focused, and growth-oriented.

Business-Minded

We are looking for individuals who are passionate about using business as a force for good – who strive to improve and transform companies, industries, and the world. We are seeking those who are eager to solve today’s biggest problems and shape the future through creative and integrated thinking. Being business-minded is about the interest to help organizations succeed, whether in the private, public, or non-profit sector. This business inclination can be found in individuals with a variety of professional and educational experiences, not just those who come from traditional business backgrounds.

In Your Application: We will look for evidence of your interpersonal skills, quantitative abilities, and the ways in which you plan to create impact through business in the future.

Leadership-Focused

We are looking for individuals who aspire to lead others toward making a difference in the world, and those who recognize that to build and sustain successful organizations, they must develop and nurture diverse teams. Leadership takes many forms in many contexts – you do not have to have a formal leadership role to make a difference. We deliberately create a class that includes different kinds of leaders, from the front-line manager to the startup founder to the behind-the-scenes thought leader.

In Your Application: Your leadership impact may be most evident in extracurriculars, community initiatives, or your professional work.

Growth-Oriented

We are looking for individuals who desire to broaden their perspectives through creative problem solving, active listening, and lively discussion. At HBS you will be surrounded by future leaders from around the world who will make you think more expansively about what impact you might have. Our case and field-based learning methods depend on the active participation of curious students who are excited to listen and learn from faculty and classmates, as well as contribute their own ideas and perspectives.

In Your Application: We will look for the ways in which you have grown, developed, and how you engage with the world around you.

TIGHTER TIMEFRAME FOR ROUND ONE APPLICANTS

The new essay prompts come nearly two months after candidates to the school’s MBA program would more typically know what was expected of them. Some admission consultants say the delay over the prompt’s release, along with nearly a month’s slow down in releasing application deadlines, is “wildly insensitive” to applicants who will have less time than normal to prepare for the round one deadline of Sept. 4th.

That’s especially true because the most successful applicants to HBS have highly demanding jobs that consume the vast majority of their time. Many candidates go through multiple drafts of their essays to get them as close to perfection as humanly possible. MBA admission consultants are expecting a lot of up-to-the-deadline work this year to help prep candidates for Harvard and other top business schools.

The new application still preserves the post-interview reflection for applicants who are invited to a 30-minute admissions interview. Within 24 hours of the interview, candidates are required to submit a written reflection through the school’s online application system.

REACTION TO THE NEW CHANGE IS MIXED

Early reaction to the change suggests the likelihood of mixed reviews. “This is an uninspired and odd set of questions,” says Sandy Kreisberg, founder of HBSGuru.com and an MBA admissions consultant who closely reads the tea leaves of Harvard’s admissions process. “I don’t know how it’s different from what else do you want us to know about you, frankly,” he adds in a reference to last year’s single essay prompt.

“HBS has certainly moved from the abstract to the concrete,” believes Jeremy Shinewald, founder and CEO of mbaMission, a leading MBA admissions consulting firm. “Some applicants previously felt like they didn’t know where to start and some weren’t sure if they had answered the question, even when they were done. Now, the questions are quite straightforward and all have a cause and effect relationship — one where the applicant discusses the past to reveal the present or future. Smart applicants will understand how to share their experiences and, more importantly, how to relay their values. Some will mistakenly try to whack HBS over the head with stories of their epic feats, but the key isn’t to brag or embellish – the key is to simply create a clear relationship, via narrative, between past experience and true motivations.”

Shinewald found it astonishing that Harvard could not have made the change earlier. “It is, of course, surprising that HBS left applicants on edge until the last minute, all to create very traditional essays,” he adds. “As applicants learn in MBA classrooms, change can be hard and take time. The bottom line here is that these essays are somewhat of an applicant’s dream – they allow the savvy applicant to play to their strengths and draw on their best anecdotes and experiences to create a complete story. Some applicants will lament the absence of a ‘Why HBS?’ prompt, but my guess is that the admissions committee recognized that they would get an almost homogenous collection of essays touting the case method and other well known features. HBS gets some kudos for keeping the focus on the applicant.”

Adds Petia Whitmore of My MBA Path: “I think they reflect one of the traits of this new generation of candidates which is that they don’t handle ambiguity well. So it seems like Harvard had to spell out what they’re looking for way more prescriptively than in the past.”

Some, however, find the new essays a return to the past. “To me, the prompts feel quite regressive, and a return to the more formulaic approach that pervaded MBA applications two decades ago,” believes Justin Marshall, a New York-based MBA admissions consultant. “Because the previous prompt was so open ended, it forced applicants to be introspective and self-aware. You couldn’t just ramble for 900 words; you had to identify themes in your life to show how your personal experiences shaped your values, your leadership style, and your goals. Comparatively, these new prompts are much more paint-by-numbers. Applicants will likely cover the same ground in terms of topic, but there’s very little room for nuance and self-expression. I think it will be harder for applicants with less conventional backgrounds and experiences to differentiate themselves. I’m sure HBS grew tired of reading so many painfully earnest ‘life story’ essays, but I suspect they’ll soon find themselves yearning for essays that have a heartbeat and personality. 250 words just doesn’t allow for that unless you’re a very crafty writer.”

Whatever the case, getting into Harvard’s MBA program is still a daunting exercise. Last year, 1,076 of the 8,264 candidates who applied for admission to Harvard Business School gained admission, an acceptance rate of 13.2%, making HBS the second most selective prestige MBA program in the country after Stanford Graduate School of Business which had an admit rate of 8.4%. Harvard saw a 15.4% drop in MBA applications from the 9,773 it received a year-earlier.

Joint degree applicants for the Harvard Medical School, Harvard School of Dental Medicine, Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Harvard Law School, and Harvard Kennedy School must provide an additional essay: How do you expect the joint degree experience to benefit you on both a professional and a personal level? (up to 400 words)

BIGGEST CHANGE IN HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL ESSAY IN NEARLY A DECADE

Joint degree applicants for the Harvard Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences must provide an additional essay: The MS/MBA Engineering Sciences program is focused on entrepreneurship, design, and innovation. Describe your past experiences in these areas and your reasons for pursuing a program with this focus. (recommended length: 500 words). Applicants will also be able to respond to an optional essay.

In any case, it’s the biggest change in Harvard Business School’s application in nearly a decade. The last time HBS made a major switch, moving to the essay prompt it just eliminated, was in 2016. That change to just one essay with no word limit and a post-interview reflection was made by then admissions chief Dee Leopold.

When Leopold applied to Harvard as an MBA candidate in 1978, she had to write eight essays. Over her years as managing director of admissions, she first cut the essays down to four and then one, making it optional, and finally the one last prompt with a post-interview reflection, saying that applying to HBS should not be a writing contest .

OUR BUSINESS CASUAL PODCAST: The New HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL MBA Application: Fortuna Admissions’ Caroline Diarte-Edwards and ApplicantLab’s Maria Wich-Vila join P&Q’s John A. Byrne to offer applicant advice on how to answer the new HBS essay prompts

DON’T MISS: 2024-2024 MBA APPLICATION DEADLINES or HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL WILL NOW UPDATE ITS MBA ESSAY

Questions about this article? Email us or leave a comment below.

Stay Informed. Sign Up! Login Logout Search for:

What Harvard Business School Really Wants: How To Ace The HBS Essay

How To Ace The INSEAD Video Questions

Why Are MBA Application Goals Important?

How Can I Improve My Chances Of Getting Into Business School – With A Scholarship?

How To Use Poets&Quants MBA Admissions Consultant Directory
How To Select An MBA Admissions Consultant
MBA Admission Consulting Claims: How Credible?
Suddenly Cozy: MBA Consultants and B-Schools
The Cost: $6,850 Result: B-School

Our Partner Sites: Poets&Quants for Execs | Poets&Quants for Undergrads | Tipping the Scales | We See Genius

Contributors
Mission and Values
Submissions
The Regulatory Review In Depth

Protecting Consumers from the Dark

Will rasenberger.

Scholar argues that the EU’s AI Act needs redrafting to protect consumers from manipulative digital practices.

Advances in artificial intelligence (AI) now allow digital sellers, social media companies, and other digital operators to manipulate the choices of digital consumers with greater precision, sometimes without the consumer’s awareness.

The European Union’s recently approved Artificial Intelligence (AI) Act could address AI-driven “dark patterns”—deceptive design techniques some digital platforms use to shape consumers’ perceptions and actions. Yet the Act is too vague and uncertain, argues Mark Leiser . In a recent paper , Leiser argues that some dark patterns could slip through the cracks. He urges European policymakers to clarify crucial provisions of the Act to protect consumers from these growing threats to their autonomy.

Dark patterns deceive consumers into making purchases or subscribing to services, consenting to broad third-party uses of personal data, or otherwise acting in ways that benefit digital platforms. These devices are all detrimental to consumers’ interests but vary widely in their subtlety and sophistication.

Legacy dark patterns such as hidden charges, obscured buttons, misleading navigation features, and preselected options can victimize vulnerable groups but are rather straightforward for EU regulators to identify and enforce against.

More insidious tactics driven by algorithms and artificial intelligence—“darker” and “darkest” patterns, in Leiser’s phrasing—pose a greater challenge to regulate .

The tactics include “sensory manipulation,” such as subliminal messaging and the use of imperceptible noises or background audio at frequencies that induce desired psychological responses.

Algorithmic manipulation, another dark pattern, builds on covert surveillance of consumer behavior, in presenting consumers with curated streams of information that can determine what content they engage with. Adaptive algorithms may introduce or rigidify users’ cognitive and behavioral biases and distort their decisions to the benefit of platform operators. These processes are opaque, leaving consumers unaware of the extent to which their choices are pre-configured, Leiser argues.

Behavioral conditioning techniques, furthermore, provide subtle positive or negative feedback to users, to encourage or discourage certain online behaviors. Some digital interfaces replicate games, in dispensing tangible or virtual rewards to users for taking certain “pathways” to the operator’s preferred objectives.

Platforms may combine these and other tactics to overwhelm users’ psychological defenses. Dark patterns may influence behavior immediately, such as causing the user to make a certain purchase, or alter the user’s preferences incrementally over time.

It is not always a simple task to distinguish legitimate, hard bargaining persuasion from deceptive manipulation. Although the EU’s Digital Services Act prohibits superficial dark patterns, it and other consumer protection and data privacy laws may not address more deeply embedded deceptive designs, Leiser states.

The AI Act, upon whose terms the European Parliament and Council reached a provisional agreement on December 8, 2023, could change that, Leiser writes, but not in its current form. The Act subjects AI systems to requirements of varying stringency depending on the risks that a system poses to consumers’ well-being and rights. Article 5 of the Act would ban the most harmful AI systems.

Article 5(1)(a) would prohibit AI systems that use “subliminal techniques beyond a person’s consciousness to materially distort a person’s behavior in a manner” that could cause physical or psychological harm.

Article 5(1)(b) would prohibit AI systems that exploit vulnerable populations, due to age or disability, to materially distort their behavior in a manner that could cause physical or psychological harm.

Leiser observes that the open-endedness of Article 5’s legal wording is a double-edged sword. In potentially addressing all devices of subconscious manipulation, the provision may fail to ban any in particular.

The notions of subconscious influence and psychological harm, Leiser notes , lack a uniform meaning across the medical, psychological, and legal fields. Policing the boundary between conscious and subconscious influences could prove impossible for regulators without clearer guidance.

Showing a causal nexus between a subliminal technique and some material harm, a requirement for imposing liability, will also be difficult in practice. Leiser is concerned that many dark patterns that alter a user’s behavior incrementally may not meet the causation threshold.

In practice, many dark patterns that “navigate the peripheries of consciousness without breaching into the territory of material harm” could go unregulated.

Leiser recommends a more precise framework, backed by psychological as well as technological research, with definite applications to manipulative AI systems.

Leiser provides a table categorizing various “psychological techniques” by the types of manipulation they represent and the material harms they may cause–for instance, mental health issues or overconsumption. He argues that such a rigorous understanding of how dark patterns can harm consumers must inform Article 5’s reach.

With this understanding in mind, the drafters should clarify ambiguous concepts, Leiser argues . His proposed redrafting of 5(1)(a) omits the imprecise term “subliminal techniques.” Instead, it bans AI systems that “employ techniques which exert an influence on individuals at a subconscious level,” including “any form of stimuli not consciously registered.”

If “subliminal techniques” are to remain part of 5(1)(a)’s language, Leiser suggests they be defined as “any attempt to influence that bypasses conscious awareness, including non-perceptible stimuli.”

Leiser would also alter 5(1)(b)’s scope to ban practices that exploit certain psychological traits, such as suggestibility, “nudgeability,” and various cognitive biases, in addition to recognized mental disabilities. Section 5(1)(b) could be written to prohibit targeting users based on any distinct characteristic.

Furthermore, Leiser suggests that the Act should clarify that AI systems may not influence users’ values and decisions by any nonobvious means. The drafters should use express wording to prohibit both tactics inducing immediate consumer responses and those that alter consumer preferences and behavior incrementally, which may not produce immediate, tangible harms.

New AI systems will enable dark patterns that target individuals’ biases and vulnerabilities with frightening precision. The onus is on policymakers, in the EU and elsewhere, to be more precise themselves in drafting regulation to protect the freedom of consumer choices, Leiser concludes .

Related Essays

Biden’s Artificial Intelligence Legacy

Regulators discuss proposals to promote responsible use of artificial intelligence.

Reviving Workers’ Bargaining Power Amidst Evolving Tech

Scholar proposes a new regulatory model to strengthen workers’ bargaining powers.

A Right to a Better Decision

Public preferences for human decisions may give way in time to calls for governmental decisions made by artificial intelligence.

Share full article

Supported by

Guest Essay

The Imperial Supreme Court

The facade of the Supreme Court building.

By Kate Shaw

Contributing Opinion Writer

The court’s decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, which overruled the 40-year-old Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, won’t affect Americans’ lives in as stark and immediate a way as the 2022 decision overruling Roe v. Wade.

But like Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Loper Bright has the potential to fundamentally transform major aspects of the health, safety and well-being of most Americans. That’s especially true when it is viewed alongside some of the other major cases about agency power the court has handed down in recent terms — and indeed in recent days — that have stripped agencies of power and shifted that power directly to federal courts.

Just this week, the court eliminated a key mechanism used by the Securities and Exchange Commission to enforce securities laws and enjoined an important Environmental Protection Agency emissions standard based on, in the words of Justice Amy Coney Barrett in dissent, an “underdeveloped theory that is unlikely to succeed on the merits.”

Out of the 1984 Chevron decision came the doctrine of Chevron deference. In essence, Chevron deference allowed agencies to use their expertise to determine how to carry out laws passed by Congress — laws intended to keep our air and water clean, our drugs safe and effective, and our securities markets protected from fraud and deception.

The Supreme Court has now decreed that it, rather than agencies staffed by individuals with deep subject matter expertise and answerable to presidential appointees, will be the final arbiter of the meaning of every statute passed by Congress.

What does it mean to require agencies to take the “best” or “appropriate” or “feasible” steps to reduce air and water pollution, or to keep workplaces safe? While Chevron directed courts to defer to agencies when they brought their expertise to bear on such questions and produced reasonable answers, the court will now decide for itself.

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber? Log in .

Want all of The Times? Subscribe .

IMAGES

Sample/practice exam 2017, questions and answers
Essay Question
Consumer Essay 2015 SAMPLE
Consumer Behavior Exam Questions Essay Example (100 Words)
Consumer Behaviour Essay
Consumer Essay

COMMENTS

100 Hot Consumer Behavior Essay Topics
100 Hot Consumer Behavior Essay Topics. The topics below are designed to be versatile, interesting, topical, and truly compelling for essays, presentations, assignments, and projects. Let's get started! Influence of price on consumer behavior. Price change and consumer behavior in luxury goods market.
Understanding Consumer Behavior
Understanding consumer behavior is one of the critical elements in the success of a business. Consumers play a significant role in any economic model in determining products that are in demand. According to BBC, since the COVID-19 pandemic, consumer behavior has significantly changed (Latham, 2021). Get a custom Essay on Understanding Consumer ...
118 Consumerism Essay Topic Ideas & Examples
If you are tasked with writing an essay on consumerism, here are 118 topic ideas and examples to inspire and guide your writing process: The rise of consumerism in modern society. The history and evolution of consumerism. The impact of consumerism on the environment. Consumerism and its relationship with capitalism.
130 Consumerism Essay Topic Ideas & Examples
The issues of escalating costs and prices of health care as well as poor quality of services should be adequately addressed. Wealthy & Educated vs. Poor & Uneducated Americans on Consumerism. In this paper, the author analyzed the attitudes of wealthy and educated and poor and uneducated Americans towards consumerism.
Consumer Behavior exam questions Essay
The final exam consists of 4 essay questions. ALL questions are compulsory. Each question will be worth 10 marks for a total of 40 marks. Possible questions: Question 1 (a) Explain the peripheral route to persuasion and discuss the ways in which marketers can influence low-effort consumer attitudes.
Consumer behaviour
Gordon and Saunders have identified six of such stages that involve passive and active consumption phases or sequences (Foxall, 2004). They identify these stages as emerging needs, active consideration, researching, short-listing, purchase and post-purchase. Smith also supports these stages in his work.
Consumer behavior essay questions
Consumers' emotional, mental, and behavioral responses to marketing activities. Essay 1: False decision of Motivation (false consensus)- if you like something than you think everyone else does False decision of Repeated Behavior- the majority of behavior is repeated False decision of Rationally Cognitive dissonance -we make the assumption ...
30 Important Theory of Consumer Behavior Questions and ...
Theory of Consumer Behavior Questions and Answers. The 30 most important "theory of consumer behavior" questions and answers are as follows: Question 01: What is utility? Answer: In general, "utility" refers to a product's usefulness. However, in economics, the word "utility" has a specific meaning.
Consumer Behavior
Pages • 7. Paper Type: 1600 Word Essay Examples. Consumer behavior is the way that consumers choose to spend their incomes. The orthodox theory of consumer behavior assumes that consumers choose their expenditures to maximize their utility subject to constraints imposed by their preferences and budget.
Consumer's Behavior
Consumer's Behavior . Essay Questions With Answers - Free download as Word Doc (.doc / .docx), PDF File (.pdf), Text File (.txt) or read online for free. The document provides questions and explanations about economic concepts related to demand, including: - The difference between price consumption curves, demand curves, individual demand curves, and market demand curves.
Consumer Behaviour Final Exam Sample Paper
Consumer Behaviour Final Exam Sample Paper - Free download as Word Doc (.doc), PDF File (.pdf), Text File (.txt) or read online for free. This document contains a multiple choice section with 20 questions testing knowledge of concepts in consumer behavior such as organizational consumers, product positioning, market research methods, motivation theories, perception, learning, attitudes, and ...
20 Topics on Consumer Behavior for a Critical Thinking Essay
Here is a list of 20 topics which will help you write a great critical thinking essay on consumer behavior. You can use these as is or merge two inter-related ones if you think you can do them justice. You can also use these 20 titles for inspiration and come up with your own unique topic. Using Unorthodox Marketing Channels in Brand Building.
Essay on Consumer Behaviour: Top 8 Essays
Here is a compilation of essays on 'Consumer Behaviour' for class 9, 10, 11 and 12. Find paragraphs, long and short essays on 'Consumer Behaviour' especially written for school and college students. Essay on Consumer Behaviour Essay Contents: Essay on the Introduction to Consumer Behaviour Essay on the Assumptions of Consumer Behaviour under Cardinal Theory Essay on the Mathematical ...
100 Open-Ended Survey Questions for Effective Consumer Research
Good survey questions are built with specific insights in mind. Within the world of market research, we believe that strong qualitative survey questions can fall under five broad categories: Customer Behavior: Understanding general consumer trends and purchase behavior. Customer Feedback: Understanding what customers feel about your products ...
Questions to Ask When Studying Consumer Behavior
Questions To Ask When Studying Consumer Behavior. Saturday, 20 August 2022 ∙ 6 minutes read. Digital Marketing. Share. Data annotation is a critical process that demands accuracy, precision, and adherence. When starting a new annotation project, defining the scope and parameters is necessary for goal achievement.
Past exam essay questions
Section C. Essay Question. Q1 Discuss the consumer decision-making process for purchasing nappies and a new TV respectively, with reference to differences across segments. Answer. Typically, the decision-making process occurs on a scale spanning habitual, limited over extended forms. When consumers make important purchasing decisions, they go ...
MBA Notes
Here are the Consumer Behaviour Questions with Detailed Answers 1. Define Consumer Behavior and explain the different kinds of consumers. Answer: Consumer behavior is a very common term in the field of marketing. It basically implies the combination of decision processes, actions, previous experiences, and external influences that define ...
Sample/practice exam 2017, questions and answers
Classical conditioning Repeat exposure to a stimulus to create a stimulus response e., brand logos, colours, jingles, Operant conditioning Positive reinforcement presenting something positive to induce a certain outcome behaviour e., extra ml in the shampoo bottle Negative reinforcement withdrawing something negative to induce a certain outcome ...
Consumer Awareness Essay Examples
Becoming a More Conscious Consumer. Section One My perception and feeling toward consumption have changed since I learned that mainstream marketing and production practices negatively impact the environment. I had been purchasing based on how affordable something was, its quality, and whether it was convenient for me.
Questions On Consumer Behaviour And Consumer Behavior
In the following sections, matters such as consumer characteristics, types of consumer buying decisions and what makes the decision-making process will be discussed in order to show how an industry can influence the various stages of the purchase of a kitchen. 2. The Characteristics that Affect Consumer Behaviour 2.1 Personal factors
Short and Long Questions
Short and Long Questions - Free download as Word Doc (.doc), PDF File (.pdf), Text File (.txt) or read online for free. This document contains a list of short questions and long answers related to key concepts in consumer behavior. Some of the topics covered in the short questions include self-image, consumer decision process stages, attitude model components, group dynamics, opinion ...
ESL Discussions: Conversation Questions: Speaking Lesson: CONSUMERISM
ESL Conversation Lesson Questions: Free classroom handouts. English lesson on CONSUMERISM. Use for debates, discussions, speaking, conversations, independent learning and more.
Essay on Consumer Rights
Essay on Consumer Rights: A consumer is defined as someone who buys goods and services for directly using them rather than reselling them or using them or some other indirect use. Consumer protection or consumer right is the right to have clarity of information regarding a product's quality, quantity, potency, price and purity.
New Authentication for email from September 2024
Special Topics (26) Video Hub (462) Most Active Hubs. Microsoft 365. Microsoft Teams. Windows. Security, Compliance and Identity. Outlook. Planner. Windows Server. Azure. Exchange. Intune and Configuration Manager. Content Management. SQL Server. Microsoft Viva. Connect and learn from experts and peers .
Analysis and commentary on CNN's presidential debate
Read CNN's analysis and commentary of the first 2024 presidential debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump in Atlanta.
Revealed: Harvard Business School's New MBA Essays For Applicants
With just 10 weeks before its first application deadline on Sept. 4th, Harvard Business School today (June 25) revealed a newly revised application for MBA candidates, including a new set of three short essays along with a refresh on how it will evaluate applicants for future classes. The new prompts? Business-Minded Essay: Please reflect on how your experiences have influenced your career ...
Protecting Consumers from the Dark
Advances in artificial intelligence (AI) now allow digital sellers, social media companies, and other digital operators to manipulate the choices of digital consumers with greater precision, sometimes without the consumer's awareness.. The European Union's recently approved Artificial Intelligence (AI) Act could address AI-driven "dark patterns"—deceptive design techniques some ...
Opinion
This reasoning echoes Justice Neil Gorsuch in an earlier case invalidating a Covid-era test-or-vaccine mandate from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration for large employers.
Consumer Behavior exam questions
The final exam consists of 4 essay questions. ALL questions are compulsory. Each question will be worth 10 marks for a total of 40 marks. Possible questions: Question 1 (a) Explain the peripheral route to persuasion and discuss the ways in which marketers can influence low-effort consumer attitudes.
Regulation S-P: Privacy of Consumer Financial Information and
In addition, the amendments extend the application of requirements to safeguard customer records and information to transfer agents; broaden the scope of information covered by the requirements for safeguarding customer records and information and for properly disposing of consumer report information; impose requirements to maintain written ...