The Routledge Companion to Consumer Behavior

The key to marketing is understanding and satisfying consumer needs, thus a knowledge of consumer behavior is essential to any organization dealing with customers, users, or clients. This book promises to be a contemporary classic. It brings together an international set of scholars, many of whom are "household names", to examine the diverse approaches to consumer behavior topics. The editors employ a micro to macro structure, dividing each topic into three parts: one reflecting foundational work, one focused on emerging trends, and one covering practical applications. Each part examines the relationship between consumer behaviour and motivation, including well-being, gender, social class, and more, and concludes with practitioner perspectives on the challenges and opportunities that come with understanding customers. Readers will gain insight into how drives that are constantly in flux relate to other aspects of human cognition and behavior, allowing them to reach customers successfully, and to meet their needs. With contributions from leading scholars, including Sidney Levy and Jagdish Sheth, this volume sets the standard as the most comprehensive, cutting-edge resource on the subject of consumer behavior. Students of consumer behaviour and marketing will find this a useful exploration of a fast-moving field, fundamental to the welfare of companies, government, non-profits, and consumers. It will also benefit new and established academic researchers as well as practitioners who want to stay on top of current knowledge.

Michael R. Solomon is Professor of Marketing at Saint Joseph's University, USA. Tina M. Lowrey is Professor of Marketing at HEC Paris, France.

Part I: Introduction; Preface; A History of the Study of Consumer Behavior; Climate, Culture, and Consumption: Connecting the Dots; Part II: Well-Being; Materialism: Conceptualizations, Antecedents, and Consequences; The Therapeutic Utility of Shopping: Retail Therapy, Emotion Regulation, and Well-Being; Part III: Perception; Drivers, Consequences, and Remedies of Biased Size Perceptions in Marketing; Implications of Product Anthropomorphism Through Design; Part IV: Learning & Memory; The Recall and Use of Narratives as Declarative and Procedural Consumer Knowledge; The Lies Consumers Tell: The Opportunities and Challenges of Studying Consumer Deception; Part V: Self/Gender; The Interplay of the Desired and Undesired Selves in Everyday Consumption; Gender and the Self: Traversing Feminisms, Masculinities, and Intersectionality Towards Transformative Perspectives; Part VI: Motivation/Values/Personality; Social Values in Consumer Psychology: Key Determinants of Human Behavior; The Dynamics of Multiple Goal Pursuit: Situation and Personality as Determinants of Goal Stickiness and Switching; Part VII: Decision Making; Pricing in the Digital Age: Implications for Consumer Behavior; The Quantified Self: Self-Regulation in Cyborg Consumers; Part VIII: Attitudes & Branding; How Consumers' Attitudes Towards Brands Are Shaped; Brand Attitude Structure; Part IX: Language; The Influence of Marketing Language On Brand Attitudes and Choice; On the Search for the Perfect Brand Name; Part X: Buying/Retailing/Services/Disposal; How Retailing Cues Influence Shopping Perceptions and Behavior; Using Visual Design to Improve Customer Perceptions of Online Assortments; Part XI: Family Power and Gender Dynamics in Contemporary Families; Conducting International Consumer Research with Children: Challenges and Potential Solutions; Part XII: Groups/Social Media Social Media; Segmented Clusters versus Social Groupings & Status Games: The Changing Landscape of Luxury Consumers; Part XIII: Subcultures; Community Lost: The Unrealized Collaborative Market Potential of Credit Unions Hope; Coconstructing institutions one brick at a time: appropriation and deliberation on LEGO Ideas; Part XIV: Social Class/Power; The Hidden Hand of Social Class; Impoverished Consumers: What We Know, What We Don't Know, and What We Should Do; Part XV: CultureMultiple Shades of Culture: Insights from Experimental Consumer Research; The Case for Exploring Cultural Rituals as Consumption Contexts; Part XVI: Applied Consumer Behavior; Consumer Behavior in the Marketing Information Ecosystem; Emerging Trends for Consumer Behavior Practitioners