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Consumer Behavior Research

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CHAPTER 2

Consumer Research

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

After studying this chapter students should be able to:
1. Compare the differences between customer research and marketing research.
2. Describe the differences between quantitative research and qualitative research.
3. Understand the use of positivist and interpretivist research.
4. Describe the steps in the consumer research process.
5. Explain the difference between primary and secondary research.
6. Discuss the differences between qualitative and quantitative research designs and why you would choose one over the other.
7. Discuss the differences between qualitative and quantitative data collection instruments or methods.
8. Identify the various probability and
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2. Early on, researchers thought that consumers were logical problem solvers who objectively evaluated the goods and services available to them and selected those that gave them the highest utility at the lowest cost. Soon they realized that consumers were not always consciously aware of why they made the decisions they did. 3. In 1939, a Viennese psychoanalyst named Ernest Dichter began to use Freudian psychoanalytic techniques to uncover the hidden motivations of consumers. 4. By the late 1950s, his research methodology (called motivational research), which was essentially qualitative in approach, was widely adopted by consumer researchers. 5. As a result of Dichter’s work and subsequent research designed to search deep within the consumer’s psyche, consumer researchers today use two different types of research methodology to study consumer behavior—quantitative research and qualitative research.

*****Use Key Terms motivational research, quantitative research and qualitative research Here; Use Learning Objective #2 Here*****

Quantitative Research

1. Quantitative research is descriptive in nature, and is used by researchers to
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