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Consumer Behaviour And Marketing Communication
ATTITUDES
Attitudes are individual’s basic orientation for or against people and phenomena. These are factors that
constitute the basic building blocks leading to buying behaviour. Attitudes are either negative or positive
towards a person, object, product or idea.
Attitudes consist of three basic factors:
• COGNITIVE: this is the bundle of information and beliefs held by the individual.
• AFFECTIVE: this relates to feelings or emotional aspects of the attitude.
• BEHAVIOURAL: these are tendencies to behave in a certain way or readiness to respond.These factors operate in a balanced and stable relationship to one another.
FUNCTIONS OF ATTITUDES
- ADJUSTMENT: The individual attempts to maximize rewards and minimize punishments
in his external environment. - EGO-DEFENSIVE: Attitudes may function as a defence mechanism to protect an individual
self-image from feeling of inferiority, anxiety or unacceptable impulses. - VALUE EXPRESSIVE: An individual may derive satisfaction by expressing attitudes that
reflect his beliefs and enhance his self-image. - KNOwLEDGE: Attitudes provide standards for evaluating and understanding individual’s
environment.
ATTITUDE CHANGE
An imbalance between factors affecting attitude dimensions of cognitive, affective and behavioural may
result in an attitude change. Every individual attempts to maintain a balance between these factors.
Attitudes tend to be organized; a change in one affects the other dimensions. If an attitude changes,
compensating changes must also take place in other attitudes, if one factor becomes inconsistent it will
lead to a change in one of the attitudes components and bring about modification of the persuasive
communication that caused the change or lead to rejection of the incoming message. A strong and well-
entrenched attitude may be hard to change by promotional means. Attitude change may not necessarily
lead to behaviour change.