The Attitude-to-Behavior Process: Implications for Consumer Behavior

 

Within any given product category, consumers typically can choose among a variety of specific brands. Presumably, consumers' attitudes toward each brand (i.e., their summary evaluations) guide or influence this selection process. Indeed, such an assumption appears to be central to much advertising. Although a goal of advertising is often to increase sales, the manner in which this goal is pursued is often via social influence attempts directed at attitudes.

According to the model of attitude-behavior process, the critical concern with respect to the attitude-to behavior process is the extent to which the attitude influences one's definition of the event that is occurring. Thus, in the context of a consumer making a purchase decision, the question becomes "What are the consumer's immediate perceptions of the brand(s) under consideration?"

Does a previously formed summary evaluation of an attitude object bias one's perceptions of the object in the immediate situation? A considerable literature indicates that attitudes are capable of biasing perceptions in this way. 

Within the context of consumer behavior, normative knowledge may sometimes exert a greater impact on individuals’s definitions than their own attitudes do. Regardless of one's personal views, one's knowledge regarding the consensual preferences of one's friends, for example, may influence strongly the decision to purchase and serve a particular wine at a dinner party. Thus, normative information regarding appropriate behavior in a given situation may affect one's definition of the situation. This definition of the situation may outweigh one's perceptions of the attitude object itself in the individual's construal of the event. This may be one reason why attitude--behavior consistency occurs only sometimes. (Fazio and Herr, 1993)