Observation About Module Theme for Week 6: Judgement

Question 1: Observation about Module/Theme for Week 6: Judgement

This module is a deeper progression of understanding the psychological core, the effects emotions; stimuli and memory have on judgement and eventually how that impacts our decision. In taking a keen look at consumer behavior this is its core what gets us to decide on whether to buy or not. Judgement as noted in the text is “the evaluation of an object or estimate of likelihood of an outcome or event” (Wayne D Hoyer, The Process of Making Decisions, 2014), your thought process on the product or service if it possess certain features, will work or perform in a certain manner. In using judgement we assess goodness or badness, which means we are using imagery. Sensory memory comes back into this module which is “imaging an event in order to make a judgement” (Wayne D Hoyer, Judgement & Decision Making based on high effort, 2014). This is a very interesting relationship, it is from the assessment of judgement that we engage in decision making, “making a selection among options or courses of action” (Wayne D Hoyer, The Process of Making Decisions, 2014).

The Module also explores the effects emotions/stimuli or event has and the weight placed on the judgement can either be mental or emotional accounting. A person’s ability to categorize spending and savings decisions is mental accounting and the intensity of positive or negative stimuli is emotional accounting helping to influence the buying behavior (Wayne D Hoyer, From Eposure to Comprehension, 2014). Instinctively judgement speaks to our self-involvement and once one is formed it’s our motivated reasoning that transitions into confirmation which is the decision (Wayne D Hoyer, Motivation Ability & Opportunity, 2014).

Biases are factors that can affect the judgement process, our self-concept, memory and recall tangles with our perceived judgement of negativity or positivity and takes into account another stimulus, our mood  (Wayne D Hoyer D. M., Motivation Ability & Opportunity, 2014),  (Wayne D Hoyer, 2014). These can all bias the judgement process which also affects the decision or outcome of the buying behavior (Wayne D Hoyer, The Process of Making Decisions, 2014).

When we make high effort consumer decisions we set criteria to help to frame the decision in order of importance or relevance to the topic (Wayne D Hoyer, The Process of Making Decisions, 2014). This is particularly important to marketers as they are able to decipher the process by which consumers engage in rational or systematic decision making behaviors. Ultimately the judgement used to decide on a compensatory or non-compensatory model to affect the outcome of high effort decisions (Wayne D Hoyer, The Process of Making Decisions, 2014). The appraisal theory comes back to the forefront, “our emotions are determined by the way we think or appraise the situation” (Wayne D Hoyer, Motivation Ability & Opportunity, 2014). So a consumer’s characteristics can affect their judgement, biased by their memory affecting the decisions they make (Wayne D Hoyer, Judgement, Decision Making based on High Behavior, 2014).