BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS AND CONSUMER PSYCHOLOGY

The paper examines the epistemological status of a comprehensive model of purchase and consumption derived from a critique of behavior analysis. Part 1 describes the provenance of the model's research program. Part 2 identifies the complexities with which a behavior analytical model of consumer choice contends: verbal behavior and marketing interventions in affluent consumer-orientated economies. Such complexity results in an interpretative account of consumer behavior. In Part 3 the Behavioral Perspective Model of purchase and consumption is described and refined. The model's components - the consumer's learning history, the consumer behavior setting, purchase and consumption responses, and their reinforcing and punishing consequences - are derived and described. Four operant classes of consumer behavior, defined by the environmental contingencies controlling them, are identified: Maintenance, Accumulation, Pleasure and Accomplishment. In Part 4, the model employs these classes in the interpretation of broad sequences of consumer choice. First, consumer behavior is described as a hierarchy of these operants over the consumer life cycle, exemplified by reference to household saving and financial asset management; the operant classification is then used to interpret consumer behavior as an evolutionary process, exemplified by the adoption and diffusion of innovations. Finally, the model is evaluated according to the criteria of description, delimitation, generation and integration.