Consumer Attitudes and Attitude Formation Process

• Attitude is our positive (liking), negative (disliking) or indifferent (neutral, neutrality, aloofness) evaluation of an object, a person or people (including ourselves), a topic or an idea, and our tendency to act in a certain way based on these evaluations (Koç, 2019).
• Attitude is defined as the positive or negative evaluations felt by the individual toward objects, concepts, ideas or symbols (Loudon & Bitta, 1993).
• Attitude is “the tendency to evaluate a symbol, object or event in a negative or positive way” (Katz, 1960).

The problem that comes to the forefront in defining the concept of attitude is that it overlaps with concepts such as ‘belief’, ‘opinion’, ‘value’, ‘habit’, ‘character/personal trait’, ‘motive’ and ‘ideology’ (McKenzie, 2010: 19). This situation is mostly caused by the fact that the attitude is an ‘evaluation’ in its essence (Petty, Wegener and Fabrigar, 1997: 611). Attitudes often play an influential role in people’s opinions. For this reason, it is not correct to separate attitudes from feelings, values, ideas, and beliefs (Ünal, 2008).

The purpose of studies on attitude is to predict and to explain behavior of individuals (Eiser, 1997). For marketers, it is a crucial issue to create a consumer attitude or to create an attitude in consumers or to change an existing attitude. Attitudes often play an influential role in people’s opinions. For this reason, it is not correct to separate attitudes from feelings, values, ideas, and beliefs (Ünal, 2008). They are very important in terms of marketing as they help to understand feelings and thoughts of consumers more clearly and play a big role in predicting and determining the factors that may change consumers’ behavior (Allport, 1935). For this reason, it is very important for marketers to uncover the attitudes of consumers to make predictions about their future behaviors,and to do marketing studies on how to develop attitudes in order to influence their future behavior.

Attitude Consistency is defined as overlapping the potential output of an individual in the face of a hypothetical situation that the individual will experience when the situation in question happens (Pearl, 2010). Strong attitudes are more stable in different situations and even over a wide period of time. Therefore, it can be consistently recalled from memory. Weak attitudes, on the other hand, are less accessible and can be affected by situations quickly and constantly change (Bohner & Dickel, 2011).

Attitudes are complex, interrelated, consistent, learning-based, variable concepts that are necessarily felt towards an object, i.e. object of an attitude. In terms of consumer behavior, an “object” can be a product, brand, service, price, package, advertisement, promotional material, retailer, store, a sales staff, among many aspects of consumption (Schiffman and Wisenblit, 2015).

According to the consistency principle, if certain attitude elements are derived from the same general ideological trends, they must be related to each other (Judd & Milburn, 1980).

To sum up, consumers’ attitudes to object of attitudes i.e. products, brands, stores, restaurants etc.can be complex. They vary according to (Blythe, 2001:54):

• valence – whether the attitude is positive, negative or neutral;

• extremity – the strength and the power of the attitude;

• resistance – the degree to which the attitude can be changed by outside influences;

• persistence – the degree to which the attitude erodes over time; and

• confidence – the level at which the consumer believes the attitude is correct.

There are three elements of an attitude: cognitive, emotional and behavioral. The cognitive element refers to the knowledge and beliefs of the consumer about an object or event. The emotional element characterizes feelings about objects. The behavioral element represents goals and the desire to act towards the goal.

Attitude initiators mainly stem from external stimuli such as: shops, advertisements, attitude objects, situations etc.

Refer to Figure 5.1 on page 111 for further information.

Behavioral element expresses how a person will act toward sensory and behavioral elements (Ünal, 2008). Since the behavioral element reflects a tendency to act in accordance with emotional and cognitive elements, it is action oriented. In other words, it expresses the possibility of an attitude transforming into a behavior. There are two types of behavior related to the behavioral element, which are emotional behavior and normative behavior.

Involvement refers to consumers’ perceptions of importance or personal relevance of an object, event, or activity. High involvement indicates high importance given to the object of attitude, low involvement indicates low importance given to the object of attitude (for example, brands, stores, tastes, prices etc.)

We can list the main factors that are effective in preventing attitude (liking a brand) from turning into behavior (buying the brand) as follows (Ünal, 2008; Bilgili, 2016);

• Low level of involvement of a consumer towards a product/brand in question causes a mismatch between consumer’s attitude and behavior.

• If a consumer does not have an experience of using the product, his/her attitude will be weak, and this influences behavior negatively.

• Attitudes do not turn into behavior when the characteristic of a brand is not linked to the values of a consumer.

• Although the increase in the price and the difficulty of transportation may not change the attitude of a consumer, it may reflect negatively on the behavior of the consumer.

Consumers approach a product purchase decision as a problem-solving process. In the first level of hierarchy, the consumer forms his beliefs about a product or a brand by accumulating knowledge (beliefs) regarding relevant attributes of the product/brand. Later, the consumer evaluates his beliefs and forms a feeling about the product (affect). In the second level of hierarchy, the first step also starts with beliefs. This is a behavioural learning situation. Behavior is carried out based on beliefs formed by knowledge, emotions occur just after the behavior. In the third level of hierarchy, affect comes first, then the behaviour, and then beliefs. At the affect level of hierarchy, we can notice that hedonic consumption and beliefs are formed after a behavior based on emotions is realized.

For more information, refer to figure 5.2.

Different people can develop the same attitude towards the same people, events, objects or phenomena for completely different reasons (Solomon et al., 2006a). Attitudes have different functions (Çalık, 2009). These functions are considered as utilitarian, value-expressive, egodefensive, and knowledge functions.

Ego-defensive function emerges in the attitude of consumers to protect themselves from external threats or internal emotions (Solomon et al., 2006). For example, when the American company Campbell’s launched their instant soups, they encountered an unexpected failure in Brazil. Because Brazilian women stated that they did not want to experience the embarrassment of serving the soup that they did not prepare (Saydan & Kanıbir 2007). This resistance towards the brand stems from egodefensive function. In such cases, the individual tends to attribute negative personality traits that he/ she cannot accept its existence in himself/herself to others (Kağıtçıbaşı, 1999: 173). Because a person experiences an inner conflict and is disturbed by this conflict (Gregory, et al., 2002).

Utilitarian function is related to the basic principles of reward or punishment, Value expressive function explains consumers’ core values, Ego-defensive function serves consumers to protect themselves from external threats or internal emotions. The need for order, structure or meaning supports knowledge functions of attitudes.

Factors such as genetic factors, physiological conditions (maturation, perception, learning ability), direct experience with attitude subject, personality, socialization process (adaptation to society), group membership, and social class affect the formation of attitude (Ustaahmetoğlu, 2013).

The basic strategies used in forming or changing attitudes are as follows (Hoyer & McInnis, 2008);

Changing beliefs: There are two ways to follow in changing beliefs: (1) strengthening beliefs that the offering has positive, important consequences or (2) lessening the belief that it has negative consequences. Marketers often use this when consumers are inclined to listen to messages and have strong beliefs that are difficult to change.

Changing evaluations: Changing the direction of evaluations in the minds of consumers is the path followed in this strategy. For example, emphasizing that a detergent produced by a company does not wear clothes down while removing stains can change the current consumer evaluation of stain removing detergents.

Adding a new belief: This strategy is applied by marketers if there is a problem in the quality perception of the product or if the price of a product is higher than that of the competitors. A new feature added to the existing product or a decrease in price will be effective in changing attitudes. For example, emphasizing the “doublesided softness” feature of Solo toilet paper is an effort to add a new belief (Koç, 2019).

Encouraging attitude formation based on imagined experience: Marketers can communicate information through ads featuring vivid language, detailed pictures, or instructions to encourage consumers to imagine the experience. Doing this may produce positive brand attitudes as long as consumers are good at imagining things and as long as they focus on positive aspects rather than potentially negative aspects.

Targeting normative and accepted beliefs: This strategy aims to change the beliefs accepted by society. An example of this method is that a chocolate brand emphasizes that its products are beneficial because they contain vitamins.

Reciprocity: It refers to what people get in return for forming a positive attitude towards an event or object. Therefore, when forming an attitude, the benefit to be obtained by the consumer should be emphasized very well or it would be useful to give some encouraging awards.

Scarcity: The more difficult it is to obtain a product or brand, the more attractive it becomes as its quantity decreases. Therefore, it can be very useful to emphasize scarcity in messages to create an attitude. In particular, the use of restriction in campaigns can be given as an example.

Authority: The person who gives the message to the consumer to form an attitude is also of great importance. This person’s competence, relevance and credibility are significant, i.e. recommendation of a health product by a doctor.

Consistency: When consumers create an attitude towards any product or service, they may carefully act in a way that does not contradict themselves. Therefore, it would be beneficial to be careful not to contradict the individual and social values of the consumers in the messages aimed at forming an attitude.

Liking: It is very important that the people who give the message to create any attitude are liked by the consumers in the target audience.

Consensus: People look up those around them to inform their decisions when they are uncertain with respect to a certain course of action to take. Therefore, a consensus creates a direction that is approved by society a consumer lives in.

Internalization: At a high level of involvement, deep-seated attitudes are internalized and become part of the person’s value system. These attitudes are very difficult to change because they are so important to the individual. For example, many consumers had strong attitudes towards Coca-Cola and reacted quite negatively when the company attempted to switch to the New Coke formula. This allegiance to Coke was obviously more than a minor preference for these people: the brand had become intertwined with their social identities, taking on patriotic and nostalgic properties.

For more information on the influence of levels of commitment on attitudes, refer to page 118.

Attitude theories can be handled under three main headings: “Cognitive-Consistency Theories”, “Functional Theories”, and “Social Judgment Theories”. The Balance Theory is categorized under Cognitive Consistency Theories. Although various consistency theories differ in many aspects, they all have a common goal to reduce inconsistency and return the individual to a state of equilibrium. Cognitive consistency theories offer four distinct theories: balance theory, congruity theory, affective-cognitive consistency theory, and cognitive dissonance theory.

The most used method in attitude measurement is attitude scales. In this method, questionnaires consisting of questions are prepared according to the attitude scales determined and consumers are expected to answer the questions. Numerical results are attributed to the answers of the consumers according to the attitude scale, and various analyses are made on the results to predict consumer attitudes. What is generally understood from measuring attitudes is that it allows individuals to respond to sequential sentences or adjective sentences in the direction of their own feelings. These lists of adjectives and sentences are called “scale”. The most popular scales are Bogardus Scales, Thurstone Scales, Likert Scales, Semantic Scales, Guttman Scales and Osgood scales.

Reliability refers to the consistency, stability and repeatability of the data collected by the researcher. Validity expresses the precision and accuracy of scientific findings.