Consumer Behaviour-Subway

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION 2

USE OF SELF-PERCEPTION THEORY IN MARKETING 3

PRODUCTS SOLD USING SELF-PERCEPTION THEORY (SPT) 5

CONCLUSION 7

REFERENCES 8

INTRODUCTION

Self-perception theory (SPT) is an account of attitude formation developed by psychologist Daryl Bem. It states that people develop their attitudes (when there is no previous attitude-due to a lack of experience, etc. and the emotional response is ambiguous) by observing their own behaviour and concluding what attitudes must have caused it. The theory is counterintuitive in nature, as the conventional wisdom is that attitudes determine behaviours. Furthermore, the theory suggests that people induce attitudes without accessing internal cognition and mood states. The person interprets their own overt behaviours rationally in the same way they attempt to explain others’ behaviours (Guéguen, 2002).

This paper will discuss further in details how marketers make the use of the self-perception theory to market products and service they offer.

USE OF SELF-PERCEPTION THEORY IN MARKETING

Self-perception theory is also an underlying mechanism for the effectiveness of many marketing or persuasive techniques. One typical example is the foot-in-the-door technique, which is a widely used marketing technique for persuading target customers to buy products. The basic premise of this technique is that, once a person complies with a small request (e.g. filling in a short questionnaire), he/she will be more likely to comply with a more substantial request which is related to the original request (e.g. buying the related product). The idea is that the initial commitment on the small request will change one’s self-image, therefore giving reasons for agreeing with the subsequent, larger request. It is because people observe their own behaviours (paying attention to and complying with the initial request) and the context in which they behave (no obvious incentive to do so), and thus infer they must have a...