The behavior analysis of consumer choice:
An introduction to the special issue
Gordon R. Foxall *
Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University, Aberconway Building, Colum Drive,
Cardiff CF10 3EU, Wales, UK
Abstract
Consumer behavior analysis combines theories and findings from marketing science, consumer
research, and behavior analysis/behavioral economics. Research in this field covers the
whole gamut of experimental and quasi-experimental designs from traditional laboratory formulations
to more open investigations of consumer behavior in simulated and natural environments.
A problem that arises is that of interpreting real-world consumer behavior in
terms of experimental and survey research. This special issue contains papers that examine
consumer choice over a range of laboratory and naturalistic settings, which demonstrates
the progress that is being made in this new sub-discipline and exemplifies the variety of interpretations
of consumer choice it makes available.
Ó 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
PsycINFO classification: 3900
JEL classification: M310
Keywords: Behavioral economics; Behavior analysis; Consumer choice; Marketing
1. Introduction
Consumer behavior has generally been surveyed through cognitive lenses whether
the underlying discipline of its students has been psychology or economics. Both ascribe
rationality to the consumer, though the word can have rather different meanings
in each instance; both generally assume that the consumer knows what he or she
*
Tel.: +44-29-2087-4275; fax: +44-29-2087-4419.
E-mail address: foxallg@cardiff.ac.uk (G.R. Foxall).
0167-4870/$ - see front matter Ó 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/S0167-4870(03)00002-3
Journal of Economic Psychology 24 (2003) 581–588
www.elsevier.com/locate/joep
wants, and is capable of obtaining, processing and using the information required to
make sensible choices in light of his or her objectives. Choice itself has been viewed
as a cognitive activity. On this view, it is usual to distinguish choice from other forms
of behavior by pointing out that it involves a multiplicity of possible outcomes, the
arousal of conflict as a result of the individualÕs perception that mutually exclusive
outcomes are open to him or her, and an attempt to reduce this conflict by means
of cognitive activity (Foxall, 2004).
But there is another view of choice, one which relates it to its consequences, which
has proved useful in unifying psychology and economics, and which has practical
outcomes for social policy and marketing. It arises from the intersection of a particular
school of psychology, behavior analysis, and experimental economics, which together
form a field known to its practitioners as behavioral economics. This is a rather
more restricted use of the term than is usual and requires some explanation.
This behavior analysis which provided one input to behavioral economics derives
ultimately though probably increasingly remotely from radical or ÔSkinnerianÕ behaviorism
which involves the analysis of behavior in terms of its contingent relationships
with the consequences it produces. Thus, ÔA behavioral contingency consists of a
stimulus, a response, and the outcome the response produces in the presence of that
stimulusÕ (Malott, 1986, p. 208). We can summarize the basic paradigm, the Ôthreeterm
contingency,Õ as SD
! R ! SR
where SD
is a cue or Ôdiscriminative stimulus,Õ R
is a response, and SR
is a reward or Ôreinforcing stimulus.Õ In view of the barrage of
criticism aimed at this paradigm as the cognitive revolution entered its ascendancy
from the 1960s onwards, this may seem an unpromising basis for a discipline that
attempts to analyze and explain modern economic behavior and even to provide
managerial and policy advice. But behavior analysts have produced two research
programs in recent decades that have profound implications for the study of economic
choice.
First, behavior analysis has come to treat subject areas that lie at the very heart of
cognitive psychology, among them thinking, decision making and language. The distinction
between behavior that is simply the result of the individualÕs direct contact
with the environment (Ôcontingency shapedÕ behavior) and that which is the result of
verbal interventions from others or from the individual him/herself (Ôrule-governedÕ
behavior) is particularly relevant here. The advent of investigations of stimulus
equivalence, and naming, to give two examples, have transformed behavior analysis
from a school of psychology that was once easily disparaged to an exciting intellectual
and practical exploration of human complexity.
Second, the development of behavioral economics itself has led the analysis of behavior
into new areas of application. The realization that the elements of the classic
behavioral experiment matched so well the features of the market place opened up a
means of testing economic theories not otherwise available. SubjectsÕ responses were
an analogue of money or labor, the rewards of their responding were analogous to
goods and services bought or wages earned, and the schedule requirements provided
an analogue of price or wage rate. Early experiments, conducted with rats and pigeons
as subjects, proved valuable not only for demonstrating the basic relationships
between behavior and reward that economic theory posited but as a forum for dis-
582 G.R. Foxall / Journal of Economic Psychology 24 (2003) 581–588
cussing, if not resolving, policy issues. Both labor and consumer theory have been
empirically demonstrated by these means (Kagel, Battalio, & Green, 1995).
But, while investigations that involve animals as subjects are nothing out of the
ordinary in experimental psychology, they are a world apart from the kinds of research
usually undertaken by marketing scientists. They are pertinent nonetheless
to the goal of consumer behaviour analysis: the establishment of an approach to (human)
consumer behaviour that relates it to its situational influences, its environmental
determinants, its context. Nevertheless, work involving human subjects – usually
the inmates of prisons, schools or hospitals taking part in token economy experiments
– have allowed these basic findings to be replicated in a quasi-experimental
context that bore close resemblance to the market place.
The resulting synthesis of economics and psychology is an impressive case of social
science collaboration but it does not go far enough in light of the effects of the
marketing-oriented economy on consumer choice. The need to incorporate marketing
variables has led to the development of consumer behavior analysis (Foxall, 2001,
2002) which brings together the theories and findings of marketing science and behavior
analysis/behavioral economics. Recent research in this field has included
the whole gamut of experimental and quasi-experimental work from tight laboratory
formulations of the traditional kind to more open investigations of consumer behavior
in simulated and natural environments.
Consumer behavior analysis is a broadly conceived framework of analysis that
draws on economic psychology, behavioral economics and marketing and whose
content ranges from the experimental studies we have noted to philosophical, theoretical
and non-experimental empirical studies of consumer choice in relation to its
situational determinants.
2. Science and interpretation
The experimental analysis of non-humansÕ economic behavior, which has historically
dominated the field, is primarily a laboratory-based research that examines basic
propositions with respect to the influence of cost and benefit manipulations on
relative responding. Although the findings of such research can be valuable in
suggesting interpretations of complex human economic behavior that may not be
amenable to experimental analysis, the multiple causation of human economic consumption
often renders such interpretative accounts piecemeal or suspect because
they fail to handle the whole range of influences on consumer choice in naturally occurring
situations that have their sources in product characteristics, advertising and
other promotional campaigns, competitive pricing strategies, and distribution policies.
These characteristics of marketing-oriented economic systems exert a global influence
on consumer choice that is potentially within the control of firms – the
Ômarketing mixÕ. In addition, non-marketer influences derive from interpersonal
(e.g., word-of-mouth) communications among consumers themselves, governmental
interventions, the prior experience of customers, and situational influences on purchase
and consumption such as temporary stock-outs.
G.R. Foxall / Journal of Economic Psychology 24 (2003) 581–588 583
Although a plausible operant interpretation of consumersÕ product and brand
choices necessarily involves the search for naturally occurring analogues of the setting
and consequential stimuli that can be shown to influence relative responding in
the laboratory, it requires also some recognition of the role of the complex of both
price and non-price influences on consumer behavior beyond the laboratory.
Studies of token economies have in some degree bridged the gap between laboratory
and everyday life by providing more realistic analogues of naturalistic consumer
behavior (a useful review is provided by Winkler, 1980). In addition, laboratory experiments
with human subjects have enabled propositions about matching to be examined
empirically in a simulated shopping mall context (Hantula, DiClemente, &
Rajala, 2001; Rajala & Hantula, 2000), and other experiments have allowed propositions
with regard for instance to unit pricing to be examined with human consumers
(e.g., Madden, Bickel, & Jacobs, 2000). However, there remain problems of
interpreting the behavior of consumers acting in situ and subject to the multiple influences
of modern marketing management and the societal influences that shape
consumption. Psychology has long attempted to formulate rules of correspondence
by which the theoretical constructs it employs to denote unobservable operations
can be related to observed behavior. The aim of radical behaviorists has generally
been to avoid theoretical terms of this kind but we need rules of correspondence
of a different sort: rules that relate the findings of laboratory research to the interpretation
of everyday life to which we address ourselves.
Operant interpretations of complex behavior also invite, and may benefit from,
comparison with other sources of interpretation, notably those derived within the
prevailing cognitive paradigm. In cognitive portrayals of choice, the goal-oriented
behavior of the decision-taker is influenced by his or her motives, perceptions, beliefs,
attitudes, and intentions which are the means and outputs of information reception
and processing. Choice is among options whose probabilities differ not only
according to their distribution in the external environment but by their portrayal
in mental space. Considered behaviorally, however, choice is the rate at which a particular
behavior is performed, usually in the context of other competing behaviors
(Herrnstein, 1997). On this view, choice is not a single event but the distribution
of behavior over time, the proportion of times that A is chosen over B or B over
C. The behavioral explanation for choice is sought not in mental deliberations but
in the environmental events that accompany the behaviors in question, the pattern
of reward and punishment that increases or decreases the probability of those behaviors
being repeated. The analysis of any one choice (i.e., any one sequence of behavior)
requires the analysis of other behavioral choices that might have been enacted
instead and the configurations of reward and punishment that maintain or inhibit
them.
Choice has typically been studied experimentally by behavior analysts and behavioral
economists as the allocation of behavior between competing alternatives, i.e.,
between two manipulanda which deliver qualitatively identical reinforcement on unique
schedules. The food-deprived non-human participants in most experiments of
this kind allocate their behavior by matching relative response rate to relative reinforcement
rate, a pattern that suggests an interpretation of more complex allocative
584 G.R. Foxall / Journal of Economic Psychology 24 (2003) 581–588
behavior such as brand selection by human consumers on a sequence of shopping
trips. While some attempt has been made by behavior analysts and behavioral economists
to extrapolate from the laboratory setting in order to provide an interpretation
of human choice (e.g., the allocation of limited funds among brands), the
complexity of this human activity compared with even the most sophisticated experimental
contingencies casts doubt on the adequacy of experimental analogues as
means of depicting this aspect of consumer behavior.
3. The special issue
This special issue contains both theoretical/methodological, and empirical papers.
The paper by Diane DiClemente and Donald Hantula, ÔApplied Behavioral Economics
and Consumer Choice,Õ belongs to the first category. It considers the nature
of a behavioral perspective on consumer psychology as one founded upon direct observation
and measurement of consumer behavior, longitudinal analyses which may
employ a small number of participants, and a reliance on the basic theory of behavior
analysis for explanatory purposes. The paper provides a useful historical view of
the relationship between behavior analysis and consumer psychology from the time
of Watson onwards and discusses the two contemporary paradigms for a behavior
analysis of consumer psychology, the Behavioral Perspective Model and the Behavioral
Ecology of Consumption approaches. The paper concludes by suggesting further
development of the two strands (both of which tie consumer behavior to
evolutionary theory, an inspiration for WatsonÕs early work) in conjunction with Relational
Frame Theory, with the intention of providing a complete account of consumer
psychology.
The empirical papers describe a range of experimental styles from those approximating
traditional laboratory-based investigation to those involving computer simulation
of shopping experiences to quasi-experimental studies of consumersÕ
discounting behaviors, observed consumer behavior in supermarkets, and the analysis
of consumersÕ real-time brand choices. In other words, from the relatively closed
behavior setting of the laboratory to the relatively open consumer behavior setting of
the ongoing marketplace of everyday transactions. All have their place in the development
of consumer behavior analysis, since they argue persuasively against the conventional
wisdom that behavior analysis has little to contribute to the study of choice
by bringing to the attention of a broader audience of behavioral economists new
work in the conceptualization and empirical investigation of consumer behavior.
Paul Smeets and Dermot Barnes-Holmes (ÔChildrenÕs emergent preferences for
soft drinks stimulus-equivalence and transferÕ) discuss the phenomenon of stimulus
equivalence in the context of choosing an everyday consumer product. They discuss
details of their own and other experimentersÕ results, considering the different designs
employed and candidly admitting the difficulties of designing experiments to provide
reliable comparisons with previous empirical work. This open approach enables
them to make some illuminating suggestions for further research, based on their
own discussion of the inevitable differences between scientifically rigorous laboratory
G.R. Foxall / Journal of Economic Psychology 24 (2003) 581–588 585
experimentation and situations arising in the real world. This paper is important for
its use of Relational Frame Theory in understanding consumer choice for products
that are ordinarily subject to considerable marketing activity and open to aggressive
marketplace competition.
Carter Smith and Donald HantulaÕs paper, ÔPricing effects on foraging in a simulated
internet shopping mall,Õ investigates the effects of price increases upon the percentage
of CDs bought in different stores within a simulated internet mall, in the
context of foraging experiments. Post-experimental electronic questionnaires established
participantsÕ perceptions of selection, price, overall quality of service and so
on, making it possible to show the relationship between the cost of the CDs and their
later recall of the convenience (or otherwise) of the shopping experience. This paper
makes a double contribution, since the theoretical and methodological approaches
adopted are wide-ranging and innovative, giving a high degree of environmental control
to the investigators, without invalidating the data, so combining results valuable
in their own right with a useful way forward for others designing experiments in the
future. Once again, the behavioral economics of consumer choice is addressed to the
analysis of economic behavior with close real-world analogues.
In ÔDiscounting delayed and probabilistic rewards: Processes and traits,Õ Joel Myerson,
Leonard Green, Scott Hanson, Daniel Holt, and Sara Estle investigate the relationship
between two key phenomena in the field of behavioural economics:
temporal and probability discounting (i.e., an individualÕs tendency to discount delayed
or probabilistic rewards). This work is part of a programme of research by
these authors on the temporal distribution of economic rewards and the role of consumersÕ
discounting in their decision making. The review by Rachlin (2000), one of
the undoubted leaders in the field, is instructive not only as an overview of this approach
but for its integration of this kind of research into the wider behavioural
analysis of self-control. The reported study aims to determine which equation provides
the best fit for probability discounting. Identification of the nature of the relationship
between these phenomena is used to speculate on whether temporal and
probability discounting reflect the operation of one or more psychological processes
or personality traits. For example, if both types of discounting reflect impulsiveness,
then it might be that an impulsive individual would engage in steep discounting of
delayed rewards (i.e., impatience) but shallow discounting of probabilistic rewards
(risk taking), resulting in a strong negative correlation.
Jorge Oliveira-Castro (ÔEffects of base price upon search behavior of consumers in
a supermarket: An operant analysis,Õ) investigated the effects of product base price
upon the duration of search behavior of consumers in a supermarket using an operant
framework. Two field experiments were conducted to investigate the possible effects
of product base price on the duration of search. The results demonstrate
systematic effects of base price on search duration, corroborating those found in
the literature using laboratory simulations and surveys. No record of consumersÕ verbal
reports about their search patterns was obtained. This type of field study may be
useful in investigating the level of correspondence between what consumers say
about what they do (in the widely used techniques of interviews and questionnaires)
and what they actually do. Here is work that brings the investigation of consumer
586 G.R. Foxall / Journal of Economic Psychology 24 (2003) 581–588
decision making in naturalistic settings a stage closer to the marketplace of everyday
shopping.
ÔThe behavioral economics of consumer brand choice: Establishing a methodologyÕ
by Gordon Foxall and Teresa Schrezenmaier reports an investigation of the
economic behavior of individual consumers in naturally occurring settings. Emanating
from the fact that most previous work on economic behavior has been conducted
with non-human animals or in non-naturalistic settings, the paper is part of
a series in a new area of research examining to what extent economic principles apply
to brand choice in consumer markets. The authors demonstrate that economic
behavior of individual consumers when buying fast-moving consumer goods exhibits
both matching and maximization. Most consumers practice multi-brand purchasing
and the brands purchased tend to be substitutes. The apparently random
purchasing of different, though almost identical, products is explained by slight
price differences. Maximization was found but not in an ÔabsoluteÕ sense, as consumers
bought the cheapest product in their set of consideration, rather than the
cheapest available to them. These authorsÕ work suggests that both marketing researchers
and behavioral economists need to recognize that the findings show some
significant variations from their traditional theories, and the paper concludes with
an attempt to formulate the kinds of Ôrules of correspondenceÕ that will facilitate the
required integration.
The final paper is the second of the non-empirical contributions. ÔPutting a
Radical Socialness into Consumer Behavior,Õ by Bernard Guerin, discusses the importance
of studying consumer behavior in terms of the context in which consumption
behavior occurs. The discussion regarding the effects of money on social
behavior shows clearly how economic considerations become an important contextual
issue when examining consumption decisions. The author encourages the utilization
of various intensive methods of research in the study of consumer behavior.
While some of the qualitative methods mentioned in the paper are both laborious
and time consuming, it is imperative to promote the use of these methods in order
to further our understanding of consumption behavior. This is the most wide-ranging
paper of all; its ideas could be expanded into several papers. Guerin has long
been concerned to integrate the behavior analysis of social interaction with the
theories and findings of the broader social sciences (see, for instance, Guerin,
1994), and here he paints a broad picture of possible futures for consumer behavior
analysis.
Acknowledgements
My heartfelt thanks go to the contributors, to the reviewers, to Tony Dnes for
handling the review process for the Foxall and Schrezenmaier paper, to the regular
editors, and to the publishers for making this issue possible. I have every expectation
that it will act as a catalyst to further work in the behavioral economics of consumption
and every hope that it will bring behavioral economists, economic psychologists
and marketing scientists closer together in the pursuit of consumer behavior analysis.
G.R. Foxall / Journal of Economic Psychology 24 (2003) 581–588 587
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