About

Consumer behaviour analysis is concerned with the application of behavioural economics to the marketplace of human purchase and consumption activities. It is particularly concerned with the behaviour of consumers in affluent marketing-oriented economies where analogues with economic behaviour in the laboratory are apparent. The work of the Consumer Behaviour Analysis Research Group is methodologically based on the application of behavioural economics to the market place and, in particular, to the analysis of consumer and marketer behaviour in natural settings.

'Behavioral economics' describes several subdisciplines which seek to unite economics and psychology. The term is applied, for instance, to Simon's tempering of neoclassicism with the cognitive limitations of real-world economic actors, to Kahneman and Tversky's demonstrations of the boundaries of economic rationality, and to Ainslie's picoeconomics of intertemporal conflict among the competing interests of hyperbolic discounters. Nor are these schools of behavioral economics discrete subdisiplines in themselves but approaches that overlap and impinge upon one another. As a consequence, behavioral economics is one of the most exciting and potentially fruitful spheres of intellectual activity currently available to those who strive to understand economic behavior.

One source of behavioral economic thought and practice derives from the confluence of operant psychology with microeconomics over the last forty years. Behavior is economic to the extent that involves the allocation of a limited number of responses to produce an array of benefits; at the same time, this allocation incurs costs. This covers all that behavior analysts study as operant choice: it is not that the behavior itself is inherently economic but that certain tools can be brought to bear in its analysis. The benefits and costs relate ultimately to biological fitness and are seen most graphically in the acquisition of primary reinforcers in the course of which potentially fitness-enhancing alternatives are foregone. But secondary reinforcers also play a central role in the relationship of individual conduct to biological fitness via economic choice.

Operant choice is economic behavior: the allocation of limited responses among competing alternatives; hence, the definitions of rewards found in biology and neuroeconomics which casts them as 'stimuli for which an organism will work'. Both matching analysis and behavioral economics, which are at the heart of this paper, lead to the conclusion that all behavior is choice and can be analyzed in economic terms. Consumer behavior analysis has a more restricted sphere of application: human economic and social choices which involve social exchange.

In examining this contribution in its potential to illuminate consumer behavior in situ, this paper ranges over broad economic psychology that derives from Herrnstein's discovery of matching, Baum's formalization of laws of matching, and the ensuing interaction of behavioral psychology and experimental economics pioneered by Hursh, Rachlin and others. Its chief focus is on the critical evaluation of behavioral economics in this tradition, the findings and theories of which stem mainly from experimental analyses of the behavior of non-humans, to consumer choice in the natural settings of affluent, marketing-oriented economies. Consumer behavior analysis is a synthesis of behavioral economics with the real world complexities of consumer choice in a marketing-oriented economy. Hence, it adds a further dimension to the work of behavioral economists by combining it with marketing science, notably exemplified by the empirical work of Ehrenberg and his colleagues on aggregate patterns of consumer choice. Whilst recognizing that the rats and pigeons have taught us much about economic behavior, it is concerned primarily with human behavior, in naturally-occurring settings, subject to marketing influence (Foxall, 2001, 2002). In turn, however, consumer behavior analysis recognizes
the contributions of behavioral economics to our understanding those patterns of consumer behavior.

The unifying framework for this research is the Behavioral Perspective Model (BPM), a critical elaboration of the three-term of contingency of behavior analysis, as it embraces complex economic choice in the marketplace (Foxall, 1990/2004, 1997, 2005, 2007, 2010). Our work has involved translating the techniques underlying matching analysis to real-world economic situations, and the consequences of our findings for economic issue such as the substitutability, complementarity and independence of commodities. We have also investigated the elasticities of demand for consumer goods using behavioral economic techniques adapted to consumer behavior analysis (Foxall et al., in press), and the role of essential value in understanding consumer choice in the market place (Oliveira-Castro et al., 2011). The results support the BPM as a means of investigating consumer behavior in the market place but we have not been concerned only with the behavior of consumers. Our analysis of the Marketing Firm (TMF) brings economic and psychological thought to bear on understanding the role of the modern marketing-orientated business organization in shaping and responding to consumer choice (Foxall, 1999; Vella & Foxall, 2011). Our research also involves issues relating to evolutionary psychology and temporal discounting (Foxall, 2010), addiction (Foxall & Sigurdsson, 2012), the neuroeconomics of consumer behavior (Foxall, 2008), and the philosophical and theoretical aspects of explaining consumer choice (Foxall, 2007).

Foxall, G. R. (1990/2004). Consumer Psychology in Behavioral Perspective, London and New York: Routledge. (Republished 2004 by Beard Books, Maryland, USA.)
Foxall, G. R. (1997). Marketing Psychology: The Paradigm in the Wings. New York and London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Foxall, G. R. (1999). The marketing firm. Journal of Economic Psychology, 20, 207—234.
Foxall, G. R. (2001). Foundations of Consumer Behavior Analysis, Marketing Theory, 1, 165—199.
Foxall, G. R. (2002). (Ed.) Consumer Behavior Analysis: Critical Perspectives in Business and Management. London and New York: Routledge.
Foxall, G. R., (2004). Context and Cognition: Interpreting Complex Behavior. Reno, NV: Context Press.
Foxall, G. R. (2005). Understanding Consumer Choice. London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Foxall, G. R. (2007). Explaining Consumer Choice. London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Foxall, G. R. (2010). Interpreting Consumer Choice: The Behavioral Perspective Model. New York and London: Routledge.
Foxall, G. R. and Sigurdsson, V. (2012). Drug use as consumer behavior. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 35(1).
Foxall, G. R., Oliveira-Castro, J. M., James, V. K. and Schrezenmaier, T. C. (2007). Behavioral Economics of Consumer Brand Choice. London and NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
Foxall, G. R., James, V. K., Chang, J. and Oliveira-Castro, J. M. (2010a). Substitutability and complementarity: Matching analyses of brands and products. Journal of Organizational Behavior Management. 30(2), 145 — 160.
Foxall, G. R., James, V. K., Oliveira-Castro, J. M., & Ribier, S. (2010b). Product substitutability and the matching law. The Psychological Record, 60, 185—216.
Foxall, G. R., Yan, Ji, Oliveira-Castro, J. M. and Wells, V. (in press). Brand-related and situational influences on demand elasticity. Journal of Business Research.
Oliveira-Castro, J. M., Foxall, G. R., Yan, J., and Wells, V. K. (2011). A behavioural-economic analysis of the essential value of brands. Behavioural Processes, 87, 106—114.

CBAR Members

Gordon Foxall, CBAR Director. Professor at Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University. Foxall@cf.ac.uk
Mirella Yani-de-Soriano. Lecturer at Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University. Yani-de-sorianom@cf.ac.uk
Zuha Abu Hasan, undertaking a PhD on environmentally-responsible consumer behaviour.
Zurina Mohaidin, undertaking a PhD on consumer behaviour as foraging.
Kevin Vella, undertaking a PhD on the marketing firm and evolutionary approaches to the business orgnaisation.
Max Greene, undertaking a PhD on connectionist modelling of consumer choice.
Karena Smiling, undertaking a PhD on the essential value of consumer brands
Sumana Laparojkit (MaRy), undertaking a PhD on collective intentionality and informational reinforcement as influences on the behaviour of car club members.