Consumer Behavior Course Reflection

Introduction

This was a great course to be a part of. The course text book had good consumer behavior related topics and researches to offer. I am confident that this course would help me pan my future education career as I have always been interested in understanding business management but have never been able to narrow down the field to a specific area of research or study. After studying this course and especially the diverse topics related to consumer behavior, I can see a clear picture of the consumer behavior related filed of business management. I think that I would be planning to go for more courses related to consumer behavior to be able to do some objective research in this field. This course had much to offer like understanding consumer shopping strategies, the way marketers target consumers, the ethical responsibilities of the marketers, Consumer Lifetime Value, Chunking and much more. I would like to talk about two of the topics that were really tempting to me in the following discussion.

Functions of the consumer attitude

The topic related to the 4 functions of consumer attitude was something that I really enjoyed. The reason behind it could be that I was able to relate it to real life example I think. These functions of attitude are responsible to motivate the consumers to make purchasing decisions that in return bring in profits for the companies that do the marketing and advertisement. The four functions are Utilitarian, Knowledge, Value Expressive, and Ego Defensive.

I have experienced the above functions myself as well. For example once I had worked hard on a project and was laying down on my chair when I saw an advertisement which stated that it’s a good idea to have a cup of a certain brand of tea after hard work. I was hence tempted to take a cup of tea as I thought of it as a reward of my hard work. I have also experienced the use of ego defensive attitude by an advertisement. I was really busy with my work and was unable to contact my father to wish him a happy birthday. Once I realized that I have not wished him a birthday, my ego defenses were in action and I told myself that it was not necessary to wish someone a birthday each year and it was ok to forget such occasions from time to time. The same day I watched an advertisement where a son had been sorry for his behavior while sending his father a gift to say sorry. I realized that I should also apologize to my father and hence sent him a gift with a sorry dad card. My father was really happy and he accepted my apology with an open heart.

Motivation

During my presentation, what drives human behavior, I was able to understand the motivations of a human and how it moves upwards or downwards. Especially Maslow’s hierarchy of needs was a great topic to study and present. I was able to learn that humans have different motivations at different stages of their lives. In the same way there are different factors that could cause this motivation related to different stages in a human life. Self-Actualization which seemed to be the upper level of a human need fulfillment was something I believe everyone would wish for. But in an ideal situation, I think that it might not be possible to achieve as humans are always driven by greed and other motivations to achieve as much of the material world as it is possible.

Conclusion

This course had been a great opportunity for me in understanding different aspects of consumer behavior. I would like to thank Adam State University’s management for such an opportunity and hope to be part of many more courses at Adam State University in the future.