Consumer Decision Making

Abstract

In the consumer behaviour literature several perspectives on consumer decision making have\nbeen considered, including the ‘value perspective’, the ‘information processing perspective’,\nthe ‘emotional perspective’, and ‘cue utilization theory’. In this paper, a framework which\nintegrates several perspectives on consumer decision making and which hypothesizes possible\nlinks between several basic constructs is developed. The framework is tested by the use of\ntwo experimental designs. The results of this study support the complexity of consumer\ndecision making: (A) Consumers do not use their cognitive and affective skills independently,\nrather they affect each other; (B) the cognitive, evaluative constructs of quality and attitude\nhad significant direct effects on buying intention in both experiments, whereas the affective\nconstruct of emotion had no significant effects on buying intention in both experiments; (C)\nprice affected in both experiments perceived quality, which in turn affected attitude, which in\nturn affected buying intention. At the same time, price had no direct effect on buying\nintention.