CHAPTER
4
MOTIVATION AND
VALUES
CHAPTER OBJECTIVES
When students finish this chapter they should understand why:

It’s important for marketers to recognize that products can satisfy a range of consumer
needs.

The way we evaluate and choose a product depends upon our degree of involvement with
the product, the marketing message, and/or the purchase situation.

Our deeply held cultural values dictate the types of products and services we seek out or
avoid.

Consumers vary in the importance they attach to worldly possessions, and this orientation
in turn has an impact on their priorities and behaviors.
CHAPTER SUMMARY
Marketers try to satisfy consumer needs, but the reasons any product is purchased can vary
widely. The identification of consumer motives is an important step in ensuring that the
appropriate needs will be met by a product. Motivation refers to the processes that cause people
to behave as they do. Marketers are very interested in consumer goals, drives, and wants.
Traditional approaches to consumer behavior have focused on the abilities of products to satisfy
rational needs (utilitarian motives), but hedonic motives (e.g., the need for exploration or for fun)
also play a role in many purchase decisions. Drive theory focuses on biological needs that
produce unpleasant states of arousal. This theory explains some of human behavior but not all.
Expectancy theory suggests that behavior is largely pulled by expectations of achieving desirable
outcomes—positive incentives—rather than pushed from within.
Motivational conflicts occur. Three conflicts are characterized in the chapter. First, in an
approach-approach conflict, a person must choose between two desirable alternatives. Second, in
approach-avoidance conflict, many products and services we desire have negative consequences
attached to them. Lastly, in avoidance-avoidance conflict, consumers face a choice with two
undesirable alternatives.
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As demonstrated by Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the same product can satisfy different needs,
depending upon the consumer’s state at the time. In addition to the consumer’s objective
situation (i.e., whenever basic physiological needs have already been satisfied), the consumer’s
degree of involvement with the product must be considered.
A fact of the marketplace is that not all consumers are motivated to the same extent. Involvement
refers to the level of perceived personal importance and/or interest evoked by a stimulus (or
stimuli) within a specific situation. Involvement has many faces. Included in these are product
involvement, message-response involvement, and purchase situation involvement. Degree of
involvement becomes a means by which to segment a market and, therefore, devise strategies to
reach different involved segments.
Consumer motivations are often driven by underlying values. In this context, products take on
meaning because they are seen as being instrumental in helping the person to achieve some goal
that is linked to a value (such as individuality or freedom). Numerous forms of values are
examined in the chapter. Also examined are scales that measure the shift in values over time.
This chapter concludes with an examination of the impact that the events of September 11, 2001,
had on societal values.
CHAPTER OUTLINE
1. The Motivation Process
a. Motivation refers to the processes that cause people to behave as they do. Once
a need has been activated, a state of tension exists that drives the consumer to
attempt to reduce or eliminate the need.
b. Needs can be:
1) Utilitarian—a desire to achieve some functional or practical benefit.
2) Hedonic—an experiential need, involving emotional responses or fantasies.
c. The desired end state is the consumer’s goal. Marketers try to create products and
services that will provide the desired benefits and permit the consumer to reduce
this tension.
d. With the consideration of unmet needs, a discrepancy exists between the
consumer’s present state and some ideal state. Tension is created. The consumer
seeks to reduce tension. The degree of arousal is called a drive.
e. Personal and cultural factors combine to create a want. This is one manifestation
of a need.
1) Once a goal is attained, tension is reduced and the motivation recedes.
2) Motivation can be described in terms of:
a) Its strength.
b) Its direction.
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2. Motivational Strength
a. The degree to which a person is willing to expend energy to reach one goal as
opposed to another reflects his or her underlying motivation to attain that goal.
Biological Versus Learned Needs
b. Early work on motivation ascribed behavior to instinct (the innate patterns of
behavior that are universal in a species). When an instinct is inferred from the
behavior it is supposed to explain, this circular explanation is called tautology.
c. Drive theory focuses on biological needs that produce unpleasant states of arousal.
1) Tension reduction has been proposed as a basic mechanism governing human
behavior.
2) Homeostasis—goal-oriented behavior that attempts to reduce or eliminate an
unpleasant state and return to a balanced one.
3) Drive theory runs into difficulty when it tries to explain why people sometimes do
things that might increase a drive state (such as delaying gratification).
d. Expectancy theory suggests that behavior is largely pulled by expectations of
achieving desirable outcomes—positive incentives—rather than pushed from
within.
3. Motivational Direction
a. Motives have direction as well as strength. Most goals can be reached by a number of
paths.
Needs Versus Wants
b. The specific way a need is satisfied depends on the individual’s unique history,
learning experiences, and his or her cultural environment.
1) The particular form of consumption used to satisfy a need is termed a want.
Types of Needs
c. Needs can be:
1) Biogenic needs—food, water, air, and shelter.
2) Psychogenic needs—power, status, affiliation.
3) Utilitarian needs—emphasizes objective, tangible attributes (miles per gallon).
4) Hedonic needs—subjective and experiential (excitement, self-confidence,
fantasy).
Motivational Conflicts
d. A goal has valence, which means that it can be positive or negative. Therefore
goals can be sought or avoided.
1) Not all behavior is motivated by the desire to approach a goal.
2) Consumers often find themselves in situations in which different motives, both
positive and negative, conflict with one another.
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e. Conflicts can occur. Three different types of goal conflicts are:
1) Approach-approach conflict—a person must choose between two desirable
alternatives.
a) The theory of cognitive dissonance is based on the premise that people
have a need for order and consistency in their lives and that a state of
tension is created when beliefs or behaviors conflict with one another.
b) People attempt to reduce dissonance.
c) A state of dissonance exists when there is a psychological inconsistency
between two or more beliefs or behaviors.
2) Approach-avoidance conflict—many products or services we desire have
negative consequences attached to them.
3) Avoidance-avoidance conflict—a choice between two undesirable
alternatives.
Classifying Consumer Needs
f. Much research has been done on classifying human needs.
1) Various universal need classifications have been attempted.
2) There seems to be no universally accepted list (though many needs are common
to all lists).
a) Murray’s psychogenic needs—used as the basis for the Thematic
Appreciation Test (TAT).
g. Those needs that seem particularly relevant to buying behavior include:
1) Need for achievement.
2) Need for affiliation.
3) Need for power.
4) Need for uniqueness.
h. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs implies that the order of development is fixed. This
hierarchy is most closely associated with product benefits that people might be
looking for. Lower order needs must be satisfied before climbing the needs ladder.
The needs are:
1) Physiological.
2) Safety.
3) Social.
4) Esteem.
5) Self-actualization.
i. Problems with Maslow’s method include:
1) Climbing the ladder is not set in stone. Some activities cover several levels of
needs.
2) The hierarchy may be culture-bound.
3) Consumer’s have different needs priorities.
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4. Consumer Involvement
a. Involvement refers to “a person’s perceived relevance of the object based on their
inherent needs, values, and interests.”
1) Involvement can be viewed as the motivation to process information.
2) As involvement increases, people devote more attention to ads related to the
product, exert more cognitive effort to understand these ads, and focus their
attention on the product-related information in them.
Levels of Involvement: From Inertia to Passion
b. The type of information processing that will occur depends upon the consumer’s
level of involvement. It can range from simple to elaborate processing.
1) Simple processing—only basic features of a message are considered.
2) Elaboration—information is linked to one’s preexisting knowledge systems.
c. Because a person’s degree of involvement can be conceived as a continuum,
consumption at the low end of involvement is characterized by inertia.
1) In this state, decisions are made out of habit because the consumer lacks the
information to consider alternatives.
2) To the contrary, decisions can be very passionate and carry great meaning for a person.
3) In consumer situations of high involvement, the consumer enters a flow state, where
the consumer is in an elated state of focus and concentration and loses track of time.
d. Cult products command fierce consumer loyalty, devotion, even worship.
The Many Faces of Involvement
d. Involvement can be cognitive or emotional. There are several types of broad
involvement:
1) Product involvement is related to a consumer’s level of interest in a particular
product. Sales promotions increase this involvement. A powerful way to enhance
product involvement is through mass customization.
2) Message-response involvement (or advertising involvement), refers to the
consumer’s interest in processing marketing communications. Vigilante marketing, where
freelancers and fans film their own commercials for favorite products and post them
on Web sites, is a hot trend.
a) Television is considered a low-involvement medium.
b) Print is considered a high-involvement medium.
3) Purchase-situation involvement refers to differences that may occur when
buying the same object for different contexts. Social risk is considered.
5. Measuring Involvement
a. Measurement of involvement is important for a variety of reasons.
1) An involvement profile can be constructed using the following components:
a) Personal interest in a product category.
b) Perceived importance of the potential negative consequences associated
with a poor product choice.
c) The probability of making a bad purchase.
d) The pleasure value of the product category.
e) The sign value of the product category.
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2) It is possible to segment by involvement levels. There is diversity among
involvement groups.
3) There are specific strategies that can be used to increase involvement.
a) Appeal to hedonic needs (sensory appeals).
b) Use novel stimuli (cinematography, sudden silences, or unexpected
movements in commercials).
c) Use prominent stimuli (loud music, large ads, color, or fast action).
d) Include celebrity endorsers.
e) Build a bond with the consumer (relationship marketing—example, R. J.
Reynolds Tobacco).
b. A value is a belief that some condition is preferable to its opposite.
1) Two people can believe in the same behaviors but their underlying belief
systems may be quite different.
2) Consumers often seek out those that have similar belief systems to their own.
Core Values
c. Every culture has a set of core values that it imparts to its members. Core values do
change over time. In many cases, values are universal.
1) What sets cultures apart is the relative importance or ranking of universal
values. This set of rankings is a culture’s value system.
2) Every culture is characterized by its members’ endorsement of a value system.
3) Each set of core values that uniquely define a culture is taught to that culture
by socialization agents (parents, friends, and teachers).
a) The process of learning the beliefs and behaviors endorsed by one’s own
culture is termed enculturation.
b) Acculturation is the process of learning the value system and behaviors
of another culture.
Applications of Values to Consumer Behavior
d. Despite their importance, values have not been as widely applied to direct
examination of consumer behavior as might be expected. The reason is that many
values are very general or relative by nature (e.g., freedom, security, inner peace).
Because values drive much of consumer behavior, it could be said that virtually all
consumer research is ultimately related to the identification and measurement of
values.
1) Research has tended to classify values as being:
a) Cultural (such as security).
b) Consumption-specific (such as convenient shopping or prompt service).
c) Product-specific (such as ease of use or durability).
2) Research in values:
a) The Rokeach Value Survey—the psychologist Milton Rokeach identified
two sets of values:
1. Terminal values—desired end-states that apply to many different
cultures.
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2. Instrumental values—composed of actions needed to achieve these
terminal values.
b) The List of Values (LOV)—identifies nine consumer segments based on
the values they endorse (and then relates these to consumption).
c) The Means-End Chain Model—specific product attributes are linked at
increasing abstraction to terminal values via “laddering.” Laddering is
a technique whereby consumers’ associations between specific attributes
and general consequences are uncovered.
d) Syndicated Surveys—a variety of surveys are available.
1. The Yankelovich Monitor attempts to track changes in values over time.
2. This survey identifies voluntary simplifiers as consumers who believe that
once basic needs are met, additional income will not add to happiness.
3. Modern syndicated surveys that track changes in values are VALS2,
GlobalScan, New Wave, and the Lifestyles Study.
Materialism: “He Who Dies with the Most Toys, Wins . . .”
e. Materialism refers to the importance people attach to worldly possessions.
1) America is a highly materialistic society.
2) Materialists are more likely to value possessions for their status and
appearance-related meanings.
Consumer Behavior in the Aftermath of September 11
a. The events of September 11, 2001, led to a marked shift in values. Terror management
theory argues that anxiety and awareness of mortality motivates people to cling to deepseated cultural beliefs.
b. This value shift was evident in the shift in consumer purchases from travel and hospitality
to home improvement products and carryout foods.
c. One of the biggest value shifts related to consumers’ willingness to sacrifice privacy for
security.
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