2.2 Consumer Behavior

Worked Examples

Key Terms

• Authority Principle
• Consensus Principle
• Consistency Principle
• Consumer Behavior
• Consumer Psychology
• Liking Principle
• Personal Factors
• Persuasion
• Psychological Factors
• Purchasing Patterns
• Reciprocity Principle
• Sales Tactic
• Scarcity Principle
• Situational Factors
• Sociological Factors
• Unity Principle

Practice Questions

6 questions. Nothing here is recorded or scored.

1. Question 12.2.C.1, 2.2.C.4

   Cobalt Finch Ceramics

   Ivy Santos, a high school senior, runs Cobalt Finch Ceramics, a stall selling her handmade mugs at a monthly craft fair. Three other stalls sell mugs, so shoppers can meet the same want four ways and weigh price, glaze, and feel before choosing. Behind her table Ivy pins a corkboard of short notes from past buyers describing their mugs in daily use, two dozen so far. At the front edge sits a dish of small glazed clay magnets, free to anyone who stops. The vendor at the next stall urges her to tell shoppers each design is the last one available, including designs with duplicates boxed under the table. Ivy declines the line, and she letters a small card reading one of a kind for the three mugs whose copper glaze she cannot repeat.

   The corkboard of buyer notes is best identified as a sales tactic built on which of the following principles of influence?

   • A.The authority principle, because the notes come from owners with years of experience using mugs.
   • B.The liking principle, because the friendly notes build rapport between Ivy and each shopper.
   • C.The consensus principle, because the notes show that many buyers chose these mugs.
   • D.The unity principle, because reading the notes makes a shopper part of the owners' community.
   Check answerHide answer

   Answer: C

   A.

   The test is expertise. Authority persuades through credentials, a doctor endorsing a product or a certificate on a wall, and Ivy's note writers claim nothing beyond having owned a mug for a while.

   B.

   A friendly-feeling stall is a side effect, not the mechanism. The liking principle works through rapport with the seller herself, and the corkboard's persuasive power comes from what other buyers did, which is consensus.

   C.

   Correct. The principles of influence, described by the psychologist Robert Cialdini, are psychological factors that cause people to comply with a request, and marketers build sales tactics on them. The consensus principle states that individuals tend to follow the norms of their social group, so a business that promotes positive customer feedback creates the sense that most buyers like the product. Two dozen notes from satisfied strangers tell a browsing shopper that people like her already chose these mugs.

   D.

   Overreads membership. Unity works when customers feel part of a group, through exclusive communities or invitations to cocreate a product, and reading strangers' notes confers no membership.

2. Question 22.2.C.1, 2.2.C.6

   Which of the following best explains how the dish of free magnets can increase mug sales?

   • A.Receiving something of value leaves shoppers feeling obligated to give back, often by buying a mug.
   • B.The magnets build rapport with Ivy herself, and shoppers buy from sellers they have warmed to.
   • C.The magnets appeal to a shopper's self-image as someone who supports young local artists.
   • D.The magnets make the handmade mugs look rarer than the mugs at the three rival stalls.
   Check answerHide answer

   Answer: A

   A.

   Correct. The reciprocity principle states that individuals feel obligated to reciprocate when given something of value, which is why marketers offer free samples, trials, and gifts. A shopper who pockets a free magnet carries a small felt debt to the stall, and buying a mug settles it.

   B.

   Names a real side effect and the wrong engine. Liking persuades through rapport and relatability, and a giveaway's tested mechanism is the obligation it plants.

   C.

   Describes consistency, the principle that people repeat behavior matching their self-image, the way a brand courts buyers who see themselves as health-conscious. A magnet in a dish makes no identity claim.

   D.

   Scarcity runs on perceived rarity, and a dish of free magnets says nothing about how rare the mugs are. The giveaway works on the shopper's sense of obligation rather than on the supply of mugs.

3. Question 32.2.C.2

   Which of the following best explains Ivy's decision to refuse the vendor's line while keeping the one-of-a-kind cards?

   • A.Scarcity persuades only when a seller invents the shortage, so a true card cannot motivate.
   • B.Refusing the vendor's line means Ivy has set the scarcity principle aside for the whole fair.
   • C.Scarcity claims about handmade goods are prohibited at in-person markets by consumer protection law.
   • D.A true rarity claim uses scarcity honestly, while the false line risks deception.
   Check answerHide answer

   Answer: D

   A.

   Nothing in the principle requires an invented shortage. Perceived rarity is what persuades, and a genuine shortage is the cleanest source of that perception, which is why the card on an unrepeatable glaze still works.

   B.

   Fails on the stimulus. Ivy still letters cards for the three unrepeatable mugs, so the principle stays in use everywhere it is true.

   C.

   No such prohibition exists. Scarcity claims are legal at any market when they are true, and what consumer protection law polices is deception, like calling a duplicated design the last one available.

   D.

   Correct. The scarcity principle states that the rarer an item seems, the more people tend to want it, and the principle runs on perceived rarity, so real rarity produces that perception honestly: the card on an unrepeatable glaze keeps the persuasive pull and keeps the claim true. The false version invites the deception that consumer protection laws exist to catch, and at a monthly fair with returning shoppers, one duplicate spotted in a box undoes months of corkboard trust.

4. Question 42.2.A.2, 2.2.B.1

   Bluestem Coffee

   Bluestem Coffee, a drive-through coffee stand, pulls one member's records from its loyalty app. The table shows four weeks of visits.

   Week | Visits | Time window | Order each visit | Price per coffee Week one | 5 | 7:10 to 7:25 a.m. | One medium coffee | $4 Week two | 5 | 7:10 to 7:25 a.m. | One medium coffee | $4 Week three | 5 | 7:10 to 7:25 a.m. | One medium coffee | $4 Week four | 5 | 7:10 to 7:25 a.m. | One medium coffee | $4 Which conclusion is supported by the table?

   • A.The member systematically compares the rival coffee stands nearby before deciding on each stop.
   • B.The purchases form a habitual pattern of 20 visits at one medium coffee each, totaling 80 dollars.
   • C.The member's lifetime value to Bluestem Coffee works out to 80 dollars over the relationship.
   • D.The loyalty app commits the member to buying five medium coffees in each of the coming weeks.
   Check answerHide answer

   Answer: B

   A.

   Claims deliberation the table contradicts. A shopper comparing rivals each morning would show varied stops, varied times, and varied orders.

   B.

   Correct. A purchasing pattern is a consumer's typical routine for making purchases, read through timing, frequency, and quantity, and this table holds all three steady: one fifteen-minute window, five visits a week, one coffee each. Five visits across four weeks is twenty, and twenty coffees at 4 dollars is 80 dollars. Small routine buys like a workday coffee run on habit; a rational process of systematically comparing alternatives fits consequential purchases like a home.

   C.

   Borrows the previous topic's vocabulary. Lifetime value estimates total spending across the whole customer relationship, and this table shows one month of it.

   D.

   Reads a record as a commitment. The app logs what the member did, and it binds nobody to a future purchase; a routine that has held for four weeks can still break in week five.

5. Question 52.2.B.2

   A city ordinance bars restaurants from handing out single-use plastic straws. Within a year, local stores stock paper and metal straws, and reusable-straw sales climb. Which of the following best explains the change in purchasing patterns?

   • A.A legal limit gives rise to substitutes, because the need the straw served survives.
   • B.The ordinance removed the need the straws served, so demand for straws of any kind disappeared.
   • C.The change is a situational influence, because the layout of the local stores shifted their displays.
   • D.Consumer protection law requires a banned product to be replaced by a licensed alternative.
   Check answerHide answer

   Answer: A

   A.

   Correct. Laws shape purchasing patterns by regulating what consumers can buy and when and where they can buy it. When a law makes a product harder to obtain, the want it served survives, so consumers find substitutes and businesses arrive to sell them. The straw leaves, the drink stays, and paper and metal fill the gap.

   B.

   Breaks the chain at the wrong link. The ordinance changed what restaurants could hand out, and the want the straw served went untouched, which is exactly why the reusable versions sold.

   C.

   Borrows a neighboring factor family. Situational influences are temporary conditions like store noise, lighting, and timing, and an ordinance is a legal factor that holds until it is repealed.

   D.

   Invents a licensing rule. Consumer protection laws help people avoid products that are fraudulent or unsafe, and nothing in them orders a replacement, licensed or otherwise. The substitutes appeared because the want persisted, not because a law demanded them.

6. Question 62.2.A.6

   A candle shop plays quiet music, keeps the lighting warm, and sets open testers by the entrance so shoppers smell the candles immediately. Shoppers who came in to browse frequently leave with a purchase. Which of the following best identifies the factor influencing these purchases?

   • A.A personal factor, because the purchase turns on each shopper's occupation, income level, and budget.
   • B.A social and cultural factor, because the other shoppers in the aisle set the buying norm she follows.
   • C.A situational influence, because store design creates temporary conditions that encourage buying.
   • D.A psychological factor, because the warm room changes a shopper's underlying values and beliefs.
   Check answerHide answer

   Answer: C

   A.

   Personal factors, like age, education, income level, budget, occupation, and lifestyle, shape what a consumer needs and can afford, and they follow the shopper everywhere. Nothing about this store visit depends on who the browsing shopper is; the pull comes from the room itself.

   B.

   Social and cultural factors work through peers, family, social status, cultural norms, and media, the people and expectations around the buyer. The scenario's pull comes from lighting, music, and scent, the store's designed conditions, and no norm set by the other shoppers is described.

   C.

   Correct. Situational influences are temporary conditions that encourage or discourage buying, created by store design elements like noise, lighting, and organization, by timing, and by product availability. The music, the warmth, and the testers work on the shopper only while she stands inside them.

   D.

   The test is what changed. The store adjusted the shopper's surroundings for twenty minutes, and her values and beliefs walked out the same as they walked in.

CED Codes

2.2.A.1 · 2.2.A.2 · 2.2.A.3 · 2.2.A.4 · 2.2.A.5 · 2.2.A.6 · 2.2.B.1 · 2.2.B.2 · 2.2.B.3 · 2.2.C.1 · 2.2.C.2 · 2.2.C.3 · 2.2.C.4 · 2.2.C.5 · 2.2.C.6 · 2.2.C.7 · 2.2.C.8