IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/joreco/v58y2021ics0969698919315632.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The use of event related potentials brain methods in the study of Conscious and unconscious consumer decision making processes

Author

Listed:
  • Ozkara, Behcet Yalin
  • Bagozzi, Richard

Abstract

The question of whether consumer purchasing decisions are conscious choices or unconscious has long been studied in marketing. The ability to measure mental changes with high temporal resolution makes the EEG-based event-related potentials (ERP) method very useful in studying the distinction between consciousness and unconsciousness. Although experiences with brands significantly affect the awareness or unconsciousness of decisions to purchase, ERP studies have ignored experiences of consumers in relation to brand purchases. For this purpose, EEG recordings of participants were taken in the order they saw brand names: experienced brands, review-based brands, and unknown brands. Participants chose one of the three options for the brands they saw on the screen: buying, not buying, and no idea. 35 people participated in the study. The results indicate that early ERPs, which are unconscious mental reactions, related to purchase decisions for previously unknown brands. Late ERPs associated with conscious mental reactions are related to purchasing review-based brands or experienced brands. We conclude that purchasing decisions about unknown brands occur as a result of automatic, unconscious mental processes, whereas purchasing decisions about previously experienced brands and based on consumer reviews result from conscious mental processes. Our study is the first that demonstrates the relationship between ERP's and purchasing decisions, with an experimental design focused on consumer experience and consciousness.

Suggested Citation

  • Ozkara, Behcet Yalin & Bagozzi, Richard, 2021. "The use of event related potentials brain methods in the study of Conscious and unconscious consumer decision making processes," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:joreco:v:58:y:2021:i:c:s0969698919315632
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jretconser.2020.102202
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0969698919315632
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jretconser.2020.102202?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:cup:judgdm:v:6:y:2011:i:6:p:520-530 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. J. Edward Russo & Margaret G. Meloy & T. Jeffrey Wilks, 2000. "Predecisional Distortion of Information by Auditors and Salespersons," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 46(1), pages 13-27, January.
    3. Eroglu, Sevgin A. & Machleit, Karen A. & Davis, Lenita M., 2001. "Atmospheric qualities of online retailing: A conceptual model and implications," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 177-184, November.
    4. Tanya L. Chartrand & Joel Huber & Baba Shiv & Robin J. Tanner, 2008. "Nonconscious Goals and Consumer Choice," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 35(2), pages 189-201, April.
    5. Samuel Greenhouse & Seymour Geisser, 1959. "On methods in the analysis of profile data," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 24(2), pages 95-112, June.
    6. Morrin, Maureen & Ratneshwar, S., 2000. "The Impact of Ambient Scent on Evaluation, Attention, and Memory for Familiar and Unfamiliar Brands," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 157-165, August.
    7. Doyle, John R. & Bottomley, Paul A., 2004. "Font appropriateness and brand choice," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 57(8), pages 873-880, August.
    8. Alison Harris & Ralph Adolphs & Colin Camerer & Antonio Rangel, 2011. "Dynamic Construction of Stimulus Values in the Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 6(6), pages 1-13, June.
    9. Jiménez, Fernando R. & Mendoza, Norma A., 2013. "Too Popular to Ignore: The Influence of Online Reviews on Purchase Intentions of Search and Experience Products," Journal of Interactive Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 226-235.
    10. Bargh, John A, 2002. "Losing Consciousness: Automatic Influences on Consumer Judgment, Behavior, and Motivation," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 29(2), pages 280-285, September.
    11. Kacen, Jacqueline J. & Hess, James D. & Walker, Doug, 2012. "Spontaneous selection: The influence of product and retailing factors on consumer impulse purchases," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 19(6), pages 578-588.
    12. Zaltman, Gerald, 2000. "Consumer Researchers: Take a Hike!," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 26(4), pages 423-428, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Blasco-Arcas, Lorena & Lee, Hsin-Hsuan Meg & Kastanakis, Minas N. & Alcañiz, Mariano & Reyes-Menendez, Ana, 2022. "The role of consumer data in marketing: A research agenda," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 436-452.
    2. Zhiwei Xu & Siqi Liu, 2024. "Decoding consumer purchase decisions: exploring the predictive power of EEG features in online shopping environments using machine learning," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-13, December.
    3. Friedmann, Enav & Weiss-Sidi, Merav & Solodoha, Eliran, 2024. "Unveiling impact dynamics: Discriminatory brand advertisements, stress response, and the call for ethical marketing practices," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    4. Xu, Zhiwei & Zhang, Miao & Zhang, Pengfei & Luo, Jiawen & Tu, Mengting & Lai, Yuanhang, 2023. "The neurophysiological mechanisms underlying brand personality consumer attraction: EEG and GSR evidence," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    5. Wang, Ying & Zhao, Jincan & Pan, Jialing, 2024. "The investigation of green purchasing behavior in China: A conceptual model based on the theory of planned behavior and self-determination theory," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Anastasia Nedelko & Olga Lupova & Alexey Gorin & Alexandra Kuznetsova & Vasily Klucharev & Anna Shestakova, 2017. "An Analysis of Brand Association Perception Using N400 Evoked Potential," HSE Working papers WP BRP 77/PSY/2017, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    2. Gorin, Aleksei & Nedelko, Anastasia & Kosonogov, Vladimir & Vakhviyainen, Maria & Tugin, Sergey & Moiseeva, Victoria & Klucharev, Vasily & Shestakova, Anna, 2022. "N400 correlate of brand associations," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    3. Tibert Verhagen & Daniel Bloemers, 2018. "Exploring the cognitive and affective bases of online purchase intentions: a hierarchical test across product types," Electronic Commerce Research, Springer, vol. 18(3), pages 537-561, September.
    4. Fuduric, Morana & Varga, Akos & Horvat, Sandra & Skare, Vatroslav, 2022. "The ways we perceive: A comparative analysis of manufacturer brands and private labels using implicit and explicit measures," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 221-241.
    5. Kim, Aekyoung, 2022. "The paradox in happiness sales: How can happiness primes backfire?," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 540-552.
    6. Laura Smarandescu & Terence Shimp, 2015. "Drink coca-cola, eat popcorn, and choose powerade: testing the limits of subliminal persuasion," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 26(4), pages 715-726, December.
    7. Agus Sugiarto & Cheng-Wen Lee & Andrian Dolfriandra Huruta & Christine Dewi & Abbott Po Shun Chen, 2022. "Predictors of Pro-Environmental Intention and Behavior: A Perspective of Stimulus–Organism–Response Theory," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(23), pages 1-17, December.
    8. T. Poehlman & Ravi Dhar & John Bargh, 2016. "Sophisticated by Design: the Nonconscious Influence of Primed Concepts and Atmospheric Variables on Consumer Preferences," Customer Needs and Solutions, Springer;Institute for Sustainable Innovation and Growth (iSIG), vol. 3(1), pages 48-61, March.
    9. Yang Zhao & Yixuan Li & Ning Wang & Ruoxin Zhou & Xin (Robert) Luo, 2022. "A Meta-Analysis of Online Impulsive Buying and the Moderating Effect of Economic Development Level," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 24(5), pages 1667-1688, October.
    10. Wörfel, Philipp, 2021. "Unravelling the intellectual discourse of implicit consumer cognition: A bibliometric review," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    11. Kirk, Colleen P. & McSherry, Bernard & Swain, Scott D., 2015. "Investing the self: The effect of nonconscious goals on investor psychological ownership and word-of-mouth intentions," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 186-194.
    12. Le Liu & Yinyun Yan & Xin Tian & Zuoliang Jiang, 2024. "Impact of Text and Image Information on Community Group Buying Performance: Empirical Evidence from Convenience Chain Stores," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(11), pages 1-14, May.
    13. Komal Nagar, 2018. "Assessing the Impact of Online Retailer Models on Consumer’s Attitude and Purchase Intentions," IIM Kozhikode Society & Management Review, , vol. 7(1), pages 1-12, January.
    14. Victor Stango & Jonathan Zinman, 2014. "Limited and Varying Consumer Attention: Evidence from Shocks to the Salience of Bank Overdraft Fees," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 27(4), pages 990-1030.
    15. Wei-Ching Wang & Chung-Hsien Lin, 2024. "Exploring the Importance of Destination Attributes of Sustainable Urban Waterfronts: Text and Data Mining of Tourists’ Online Reviews," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(6), pages 1-17, March.
    16. Norma Naima Rüther & Marco Tettamanti & Stefano F Cappa & Christian Bellebaum, 2014. "Observed Manipulation Enhances Left Fronto-Parietal Activations in the Processing of Unfamiliar Tools," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(6), pages 1-9, June.
    17. Ella Ward & Song Yang & Jenni Romaniuk & Virginia Beal, 2020. "Building a unique brand identity: measuring the relative ownership potential of brand identity element types," Journal of Brand Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 27(4), pages 393-407, July.
    18. Román, Sergio & Riquelme, Isabel P. & Iacobucci, Dawn, 2023. "Fake or credible? Antecedents and consequences of perceived credibility in exaggerated online reviews," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    19. Mansoora Ahmed & Sun Zehou & Syed Ali Raza & Muhammad Asif Qureshi & Sara Qamar Yousufi, 2020. "Impact of CSR and environmental triggers on employee green behavior: The mediating effect of employee well‐being," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 27(5), pages 2225-2239, September.
    20. Prarawan Senachai & Puthipong Julagasigorn, 2024. "Retail mix instruments influencing customer perceived value and customer engagement: a conceptual framework and research agenda," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-14, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:joreco:v:58:y:2021:i:c:s0969698919315632. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-retailing-and-consumer-services .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.