Chapter-10: Motivation and Involvement

Chapter-10: Motivation and Involvement

The Nature of motives:

A motive is an inner state that mobilizes bodily energy and directs it in selective fashion toward goals usually located in the external environment. This definition implies that motives involve two major components: (i) a mechanism to arouse bodily energy, (ii) a force that provides direction to that bodily energy. For example, when our hunger is aroused, we are usually directed toward particular food.

The arousal component activates general tension or restlessness but does not provide direction for release of this energy. It might be compared to the generally random thrashing about newborn babies often show. The directive aspects of motives focuses such aroused energy toward some goal in the individual’s environment. That is often our hunger is aroused, we are usually directed toward particular food.

The Role of Motives:

As it has already been noted, the role of motives is to arouse and direct the behavior of consumers. The arousal component activates bodily energy so that it can be used for mental and psychical activity. Motives have several important functions for guiding behavior:

(i) Defining basic striving: Motives influences consumers to develop and identify their basic striving. Included among basic strivings are safety, affiliation, achievement or other desired states, which consumers seek to achieve. They serve to guide behavior in a general way across a wide variety of decisions and activities.

(ii) Identifying goal objectives: People often view products or services as a means by which they can satisfy their motives. In fact, consumers often go one step further and think of products as their goals, without realizing that they actually represent ways of satisfying motives. This motivational push that influences consumers to identify products as goal objectives is of great interest to marketers, particularly since it appears that it can be influenced. 

(iii) Influencing choice criteria: Motives also guide consumers in developing criteria for evaluation products. It appears that marketers are also capable of influencing consumer’s choice criteria. In some cases, this occurs because consumers are not consciously aware of their motives. For example, a salesperson for air conditioners may remark that one model is more efficient than others.

(iv) Directing other influences: At a more fundamental level, motives affect the individual determinants of perception, learning, personality, attitudes, and how people process information. This also results in directional influences on  behavior.

Classifying Motives:

Since the early 1900s many thousand of motive concepts have been suggested to account for the great diversity of human behavior. The need is to group so many suggestions into a more manageable set of general categories soon become apparent. A variety of classification schemes ranging form the simplified to the complex have been proposed.

Simplified schemes: A number of classification methods are simplified so that they group motives on the basis of one unique characteristic of interest.

(i) Physiological vs Psychogenic- Physiological motives are oriented toward directly satisfying biological needs of individual, such as hunger, pain avoidance and thirst. Psychogenic motives focus on the satisfaction of psychological desires (seeking achievement, status or affiliation). Although general agreement exists about the number and nature of psychological motives, there is less consensus about their psychogenic counterparts.

(ii) Conscious vs unconscious- Conscious motives are those of which consumers are quite aware, whereas a motive is said to be unconscious when the consumer is not aware of being influenced by it. It also suggested that people are not conscious of some motives because they don’t want to confront the true reason for their purchase. In other case, consumers simply may not be aware of the true motive behind many of their purchase.

(iii) Positive vs negative: Positive motives attract consumers toward desired goals, while negative motive ones direct them away from undesirable consequences. Positive attractions exert the predominant influence, but a few very important cases of negative forces do exist.

Motive Arousal:

The arousal concept concerns what actually energizes consumers’ behavior. Although arousal activates bodily energy, it provides little, if any, direction to behavior.

Triggering arousal: A variety of mechanisms can trigger the arousal of motives and energize consumers.

(i) Physiological conditions: One source of arousal acts to satisfy our biological needs for food, water, and other life-sustaining necessities. Depriving such a bodily need generates an uncomfortable state of tension. When this tension is sufficiently strong, arousal occurs to provide energy necessary to satisfy the need.

(ii) Cognitive activity: Humans engage in considerable cognitive activity (thinking and reasoning) even when the objectives of their thoughts are not physically present. This thinking, considered by some to be daydreaming or fantasy, can also act as a motive trigger. One way this occurs is when consumers deliberate about unsatisfied wants.

(iii) Situational conditions: The particular situation confronting consumers may also trigger

arousal. This can occur when the situation draws attention to an existing physiological condition, as when noticing and advertisement for coca cola suddenly makes you aware of being thirsty.

(iv) Stimulus properties: Certain properties of external stimuli themselves also seem to have the power to generate arousal. These collective properties include the characteristics of novelty, surprising ness, ambiguity, and uncertainty. Stimuli possessing a sufficient amount of these properties have the potential of drawing attention to themselves by arousing an individual’s curiosity or desire for exploration.

Motive structuring:

Motives do not act on consumers in an arbitrary manner. They fit together in a unified pattern. This suggests the existence of a priority scheme or structuring mechanism. The structuring of motives also provides a central theme or organization for the consistency of influence.

Maslow’s hierarchy: The concept of a hierarchy underlies many schemes offered to explain the structuring of motive influences. To be useful, the hierarchy concept must also help explain what factors influence the relative ordering of motives. Maslow has classified motives into five groupings and suggested the degree to which each would influence behavior.

(i) Physiological need: Motives, which seek basic body requirements including water, food, and oxygen. These motives have the greatest influence on behavior until they are adequately satisfied. They play dominant role in our behavior.

(ii) Safety motives: Motives for security, protection, and stability in one’s life. We would expect this to influence various purchase behavior such as concern with auto smoke alarms.

(iii) Belongingness and love: those motives oriented toward affection and affiliation with others. Most of us feel to share our feelings.

(iv) Esteem: motives oriented achievement, prestige, status, and self-confidence.

(v) Self-actualization: Those motives relating to self-fulfillment and maximizing one’s potential.

Maslow also argued that as individuals progress from being dominated by physiological motives toward self-actualization, they grow psychologically and come to develop more wants and to seek a greater variety of ways to satisfy particular motives. Thus, in our economy, consumers dominated by the higher motives of esteem or self-actualization will be expected to show interest in a greater variety of products and services than consumers dominated by lower order motives.

Motive Combinations:

It is convenient to discuss motives separately, as id they influence consumers independently and one at a time. Actually, they often interact, leading to a combined influence or to situation in which they conflict and exert opposing influences on behavior.

(i) Motive linking: because motive can differ in how specific they are, it is possible for a linking to occur at various levels of generality. Safety may actually be made up of more specific motives, including those relating to security and protection. Therefore, achievement of a specific motive can be a means of approaching a more general motive, which is viewed as the goal.

(ii) Motive building: It is very important to realize that a given product can satisfy various motives at the same time approximate level of specific influence. This results in the building or combining of influences on consumer’ decisions. A desire for transportation can bundle with motives for achievement, social recognition, safety, and economy.

(iii) Motive conflict: Motives can also conflict with each other to affect how consumers interact with the marketplace. Motives viewed as influencing the attracting or repelling forces of goals in the individual’s environment. The degree to which a product or service satisfies a motive will therefore determine its attracting (positive) force, and how adverse it is to a motive will influence its repelling (negative) forces.

Approach-approach conflict: This is a situation in which conflict exists between two desirable alternatives, such as when a consumer must decide how to allocate purchasing amount between a home exercise center and a microcomputer.

Avoidance -avoidance conflict: This situation occurs when consumers face choices between two alternatives, both of which are perceived as being negative in nature. The alternatives may be repair bill of television or large expense to replace the TV set.

Approach-avoidance conflict: Situations in which consumers are in conflict between a positive and negative alternative. Buying a suitable car requires a sizeable amount of purchasing dollars. Approach avoidance conflict also happens in more subtle ways such as when consumers must choose between alternative brands of a given product in which, compared to one another, each brand has both positive and negative features.

Consequently, salespeople have developed closing techniques to encourage customers to make a decision. (i) Advantages/disadvantages close- negative and positive features of each alternative are summarized. (ii) Critical feature close- stress is placed on one or few critical features of one brand that other does not possess. (iii) Critical time close- one brand is in short supply, or a special sale is about to close emphasizing the immediacy of the decision. 

Motivation research:

We have noted that many consumers are unaware of the motives influencing their purchase behavior. That is some motives may not reach the consumer’s consciousness, and others may be repressed because to deal with them may be uncomfortable. This presents difficulty to the marketer who needs to understand consumers in order to design the most effective mix of marketing offerings. Any direct attempts to determine such motives, say by interviewing consumers, may only yield surface explanations or rationalizations that hide true striving.

The concept of motivation research has offered as a means of identifying consumers true, underlying purchase motives. The term is typically not used to describe just any type of research on motivational issues. It refers to certain research techniques and, to some extent, ways of interpreting information about motivation generated by those techniques.

Briefly stated, the methods involve disguised and indirect techniques in an attempt to probe consumers’ inner motives without arousing defense mechanisms, which can generate misleading results.

Potential Limitations of Motivation Research: (i) Sample sizes are frequently small because of the costly nature of depth interviewing. (ii) Motivation research studies have generated inconsistent findings, and this leaves the marketer in a quandary as to what action should be taken. (iii) Some findings are difficult for the marketer to capitalize on. (iv) Motivation researchers have been criticized for improperly employing research techniques borrowed from psychologists.

The lacks of such standards in marketing make it difficult to determine whether many motivation research findings are truly representative of most consumers. Despite its potential limitations, motivation research has been a valuable research tool in a number of situations.

Involvement:

Involvement is related to the consumer’s value and self-concept, which influence the degree of personal importance ascribed to a product or situation. It can vary across individuals and different situations. It is related to some form of arousal. On the basis of these and other characteristics, it has been suggested that involvement incorporates the critical properties of (i) intensity – degree of arousal, and (ii) directional influence. The stronger the felt link (degree of involvement) the more intense the motivated state will be experienced.

Dimensions of involvement: The concept of involvement is multifaceted in that it appears to have a number of important dimensions.

Antecedents: A variety of variables are thought to precede involvement and influence its nature and extent. These so-called antecedents are be viewed as bases or sources that interact with each other to generate the degree of involvement the consumer will experience at any time. It is helpful to group the variables into (i) person, (ii) stimulus/object, and (iii) situational categories.

Moderating Factors: Several variables or conditions may exist to limit or constrain the impact of antecedents on consumers’ state of involvement. The consumer’s opportunity to process information and consequently will influence the level that will be experienced. The consumer’s ability to process information may influence the level of involvement that is experienced.

Involvement Properties: Involvement may be thought of as an internal state that the consumer experiences. This internal state has arousal properties and, like motivation, it also has a directional influence on how consumers will behave. As an internal state, involvement may be viewed as having three main properties: (i) intensity, (ii) direction, and (iii) a level of persistence.

Response Factors: The response dimension characterized how a consumer behaves under different involvement conditions. That is, it describes the mental and physical actions or reactions the consumer engages in. Therefore, the response dimension is a function of the type of involvement generated and the situations confronted.    

Marketing Implications:

For numerous products or situations, many consumers are quite uninterested in learning about alternative brands and their characteristics. Consumers may make many purchase decisions without first developing clear brand attitudes or even having much knowledge about alternative brands. Given that involvement can vary across consumers and situations, these conclusions have a number of marketing strategy implications.

A primary consideration is to determine whether any strategy should account for different levels of involvement. If only a small proportion of the market operates on a low involvement condition for the brand in question it may not be economical to consider strategy. 

A second involvement-related strategy would be an attempt to move low-involvement consumer to higher levels. Of course, the specific situation will determine the feasibility of this alternative.

A third strategy option is possible – segmenting consumers into high and low involvement groups and tailoring marketing programs for each.

Low-involvement consumers could be created to with inexpensive models that are rather nondescript and disposable. Frequent television commercials could remind mass audiences of the brand depending on the involvement in the purchase decision-making.

• Consumer Behavior @ Md. Akteruzzaman, Assistant Professor of Marketing, Chittagong University