Martin, Drew

Wells, Victoria

White Rose Research Online

This is a repository copy of Research frontiers in cognitive, socio-cognitive, behavioural, social and applied psychology: implications for marketing theory and consumer research.White Rose Research Online URL for this paper:https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/122424/Version: Accepted VersionArticle:Martin, Drew and Wells, Victoria orcid.org/0000-0003-1253-7297 (2017) Research frontiersin cognitive, socio-cognitive, behavioural, social and applied psychology: implications for marketing theory and consumer research. Journal of Marketing Management. pp. 873-877.ISSN 0267-257X https://doi.org/10.1080/0267257X.2017.1337668eprints@whiterose.ac.ukhttps://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/Reuse Items deposited in White Rose Research Online are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved unless indicated otherwise. They may be downloaded and/or printed for private study, or other acts as permitted by national copyright laws. The publisher or other rights holders may allow further reproduction and re-use of the full text version. This is indicated by the licence information on the White Rose Research Online record for the item. Takedown If you consider content in White Rose Research Online to be in breach of UK law, please notify us by emailing eprints@whiterose.ac.uk including the URL of the record and the reason for the withdrawal request. Research Frontiers in Cognitive, Socio-Cognitive, Behavioural, Social and Applied Psychology:  Implications for Marketing Theory and Consumer Research  Victoria Wells Sheffield University Management School. Sheffield University, UK victoria.wells@sheffield.ac.uk   Drew Martin College of Hospitality, Retail and Sport Management, University of South Carolina, USA MARTIN11@mailbox.sc.edu   Both marketing and consumer behaviour regularly draw from social science disciplines including psychology, sociology, geography, economics and anthropology amongst many others.  This multidisciplinary perspective, particularly in consumer behaviour research is well known and accepted (McInnis and Folkes, 2010).  As Baron, Zaltman and Olson (2017- this issue) note, “marketing’s practice of borrowing ideas and methodologies from many disciplines is commendable and even essential”.  Even as early as the mid-1960’s, Twedt (1965) notes that consumer psychology “merits the consideration of at least 25 disciplines” (pp 265) and many consumer and marketing researchers tend to associate with a particular discipline and corresponding approaches to research (Simonson, Carmon, Dhar, Drolet and Nowlis, 2001).  Certainly, consumer and marketer behaviour are too complex to be meaningfully captured from one perspective (Simonson, Carmon, Dhar, Drolet and Nowlis, 2001) and “the understanding and prediction of consumer behaviour may be more quickly achieved by free exchange of theories and ideas” between disciplines (Twedt, 1965:  267).  Historically, psychology, and in particular cognitive and social psychology provide the main theoretical foundations for consumer research (Simonson, Carmon, Dhar, Drolet and Nowlis, 2001; Pham, 2013).  More recently, postmodern approaches such as anthropology, sociology and history receive increasing support (Jacoby, Johar and Morrin, 1998), but psychology remains central to how researchers choose to understand consumers and marketplaces.  The focus on psychology guides this special issue.   Even a casual perusal through marketing and consumer behaviour journals identifies the most established psychological theories. Given consumer psychology’s development as a discipline with unique theories away from the original disciplines, these findings are surprising (Simonson et al., 2001).   Failure to revisit original disciplines misses opportunities to push inquiry that advances theoretical and empirical boundaries.  Borrowing theoretical lenses from psychology allows researchers to explore frontier-questioning schools of thought.  Reliance on the status quo delimits our current understanding of theory and practice.  Indeed, one of Pham’s (2013) ‘seven sins of consumer psychology’ states that a narrow adoption of theories is problematic for developing consumer psychology as a discipline.   The frontier offers unexplored territory waiting for intellectual discovery; frontier research requires bold approaches and theories.  This special issue’s editorial goal is to focus on marketing and consumer research studies that utilise novel approaches from psychology, of whatever psychological field, to better understand consumers and marketers’ behaviour.   The manuscripts cover a range of innovative approaches and highlight novel applications of psychological disciplines such as cognitive psychology, social psychology, neuropsychology, and applied psychology.   The four manuscripts appearing in this special issue are the best of the manuscripts submitted for consideration.  While this special edition’s intent is to introduce readers to a wide range of psychologies, the following articles focus primarily on cognitive and social psychological aspects.  This outcome reflects the state of consumer psychology over the last 40 years—confirming  Pham’s (2013) narrow lens concerns.  While this special edition could not move away from these sub discipline foci, the authors take a variety of approaches,  use widely diverse samples, and employ both conceptual and empirical lenses to gain new insights into a range of consumer and marketing issues such as alcohol consumption, charitable donations, experiential purchases and collative actions drawing from both commercial and social fields.  A number of submissions investigate neuropsychology, but these papers sadly require further development.  To address this important area, commentaries that focus on this area (see below) provide some background.   The special issue contains three commentary essays (Baron, Zaltman and Olson; Lee, Brandes, Chamberlain and Senior; Romaniuk and Nguyan) and four competitive papers (Huang, Zheng, Carlson and Giurge & ??; Gregory-Smith and Manika, Summers and Summers; Mittal and Sundie).   Two of the commentaries (Baron et al and Lee et al) reflect a growing interest in neuropsychology and the field’s implications for marketing and consumer research.   Lee, Brandes, Chamberlain and Senior reflect on the first ten years of research into neuromarketing.  The lead author was of one of the first researchers to use the term ‘neuromaketing’ (Lee, Broderick, and Chamberlain, 2007). Nick Lee’s unique embedded perspective on this subject influences a ‘major upsurge’ in interest (Lee, Brandes, Chamberlain and Senior – this volume).  In this review the authors highlight a typical neuromarketing study, common ways of measuring brain activity, event-based study designs, intrinsic brain activity, and well as highlighting potential alternative modalities in neuromarketing.  Lee, Brandes, Chamberlain and Senior also reflect on neuromarketing’s future.  They discuss both negative (little movement from the basic position in 2007) and positive (the general acceptance of neuroscientific methodologies to study marketing and consumers) viewpoints and conclude with a detailed manifesto for the future of neuromarketing.   Baron, Zaltman and Olson highlight the use of other disciplines within marketing as a key feature of the discipline.  Their commentary however focuses on problems arising when principles and methodological rigour (i.e., even minor changes cause significant issues) from the home discipline (e.g., neuropsychology) are not carried over to consumer and marketing psychology.  Their commentary draws from specific examples within neuromarketing highlighting issues around the use of implicit association testing and neuroimaging.  This approach provides an excellent background and review of useful techniques in this area.  This discussion should be particularly interesting for researchers new to neuropsychology.  They highlight a range of techniques and the problems of voodoo correlations and reverse inference.  By writing this commentary, they highlight the importance, especially at the frontiers between disciplines,  of being true to the original discipline and being transparent about ideas and methods.  Best practice is of the greatest importance in the appropriate use of borrowing from related disciplines and methodologies.  The authors provide a cautionary tale for any researchers working at the frontiers.   The first two commentaries together provide a well needed overview and critique of neuromarketing.  They offer a historic background (last ten years), a present state, and a methodological perspective.  These commentaries provide useful information for established and fledgling neuromarketers alike.   Romaniuk and Nguyean’s commentary highlights how modern technologies such as smart phones and tablets change consumer behaviour significantly.  They suggest that researchers need to take note that modern consumers behave differently and therefore that marketing research needs to evolve.  The authors focus on the informant’s attention span.  They note that technology makes people more transient and variable, and highlight the importance of a better understanding of the attention phenomena in consumer research.  Attention is fundamental in the consumers’ thought processes that they go through and likely affects the level and type of information consumers process.  While not always conscious, attention is a key piece in the puzzle of understanding consumers’ behaviours and responses to marketing stimuli.  Romaniuk and Nguyan make links to neuroimaging (aligning well to the first two commentaries above) and highlight the importance of considerations around the methodologies researchers employ to analyse attention focusing on helping improve external validity.  In doing so they focus on issues of variability in attention levels, the role of distractions, and minimising attention leading/assumptive questions. All three commentaries highlight the importance of a robust and relevant methodology—a key concern of marketing and consumer psychology.  Methodological issues are ongoing concerns of consumer psychology, and have been since the discipline’s inception.  Twedt (1965) describes the marketplace as a living laboratory reflecting the experimental base of most psychology work and focuses on the scientific method. “[T]he consumer psychologist knows appropriate statistical tools, and how to design experiments that yield a maximum amount of truth at a minimum cost” (Twedt 1965:  266).  This special issue contains articles using the standard experimental method, a common psychology research method.  This edition also includes papers that also utilise more descriptive and interpretative methods such as interviews, alongside the experimental approach.    As another methodological point, the special issue editors want to make a plea for relevance beyond the choice of methodologies.  As Pham (2013) notes “our research is not as relevant as it should be with respect to our external constituents- businesses, policy makers and consumers.  We should conduct and encourage more field studies with real consumers and real behaviour” (pp 421). Sadly, most academic research retreats from the realities of practice (Hughes, Tapp and Hughes, 2008).  A great need exists for more mode 2 research where “research problems [are] framed in the context of application” (Bartunek & Rynes, 2014: 1187)” and the outcome likely will lead to greater impact from the results.   The first competitive paper, by Hung, Zheng, Carlson and Giurge explores cognitive psychology and sensory marketing.  The paper builds on embodied cognition theory and metaphor theory.  The paper focuses on and establishes the metaphorical link between sadness and the bodily sensation of heaviness highlighting how the bodily sensation of heaviness can intensify sadness.  The paper utilises studies across a diverse range of contexts (valuation of a teddy bear, intention to donate, sofa preference, and choice of an energy-saving product, sports drinks advertising).  These findings relate to both commercial and social marketing.  The authors examine this metaphorical link, via an experimental study methodology, to examine how marketers can and do appeal to sadness which triggers consumer’s empathic engagement.  The findings advance the understanding of the use of this emotion by marketers.  One of the article’s key contribution is that sadness is a bodily state that involves the sensorimotor system.  To conclude, the authors highlight a number of practical ways to employ their findings in marketing and in particular in social and non-profit marketing.   Gregory-Smith and Manika, build on the idea of identity and compartmentalisation of identity.  Their research links to the social psychology literature.  This study integrates Amiot et al.’s (2007) theory of integration of social identities, focusing on the compartmentalisation and integration of drinking identities.  The study uses a real world, longitudinal sample using an already available online 14-day alcohol tracking activity.  The study supplements this data with  personal interviews.  Alcohol behaviour studies are increasing in recent years as public health initiatives become more focused on pro-active strategies to reduce drinking overall and to encourage more sensible drinking patterns.  This paper uncovers rationalisation of drinking behaviours and how compartmentalisation or integration tendencies affect consumers’ healthy versus unhealthy drinking patterns.  Study results provide valuable guidance to policy makers and social marketers alike.   Summers and Summers build their research on social identity theory and additionally self-categorisation theory.  They also focus on social psychological elements.  Studying medical marijuana, the paper focuses on motivation to support social causes.  In particular, the study highlights the discussion regarding intent-to-act on behalf of a minority out-group.   The research advances the understanding of the use of advocates and the role of social marketing in motivating intention to engage in collective action to support causes that may not directly affect the individual.  The article examines current polies around the use of medical marijuana and studies message frames, perceived injustice (anger) and empathy as key elements in the process.  The research utilises the Australian social issues questionnaire to quantitatively examine what influences the willingness of people to take part in collective action on behalf of an out-group.  The approach helps to examine the issues and finds that the message frame and the message advocate’s position are critical in influencing the willingness for people to take part in collective action.  The paper concludes by highlighting the importance of using emotions in social marketing.   Finally, Mittal and Sundie use a Life History Theory Perspective to examine how unpredictability and harshness during childhood may translate into a decreased propensity to consume novel experiences in adulthood (i.e., experiential purchase and consumption options).  This research builds on critiques of materialism and the pursuit of material possessions.  Essentially, spending more on experiences could lead to a happier and more gratifying life.  The authors examine the phenomena across a range of studies including an initial pilot study of MTurk participants, examining experiential consumption, followed by four studies (studies 1-4) examining the impact of fast life strategy on the value given to experiential purchase options, enjoyment of experiences and also examining the impact of psychological process, perceived lack of control over life outcomes and prior purchase on individual consumption choices.    While of relevance to commercial and social marketing, the paper highlights the role of key social issues, in this case childhood experiences and deprivation, and their potential effects on consumption patterns in later life.   Interestingly, all four competitive papers either focus primarily on or have significant implications for social issues.  All four research papers use non-profit and social marketing approaches.   This result is not a complete surprise.  As early as 1976, Jacoby describes a concern for social issues as an emerging trend in consumer psychology research. Later, Jacoby et al (1998) highlight consumer research’s role in developing and evaluating public policy.  This special edition confirms the presence and continuance of this trend.   In conclusion, the guest editors would like to thank the authors of both the commentaries and the papers for choosing the Journal of Marketing Management as an outlet for their research.  Further,  they carefully addressed reviewers’ comments when revising their manuscripts.  Finally, a quality journal edition is not possible without top-flight reviewers.  We greatly appreciate the time and effort from the reviewers who generously provided their time and expertise to review manuscripts for this special issue.  These peers provided extensive and detailed feedback to the authors to guide them in developing their work for the special issue. Without their hard work this special issue would not exist.  References: Baron, A.S., Zaltman, G., & Olson, J. (2017) Barriers to advancing the science and practice of marketing, Journal of Marketing Management, 33(11-12), pp? doi: 10.1080/0267257X.2017.1323839 Jacoby, J. (1976) Consumer Psychology:  An Octennium, Annual Review of Psychology, 27, 331- 358.  doi: 10.1146/annurev.ps.27.020176.001555 Jacoby, J., Johar, G.V., & Morrin, M. (1998) Consumer Behavior:  A Quadrennium, Annual Review of Psychology, 49, 319-344. doi: 10.1146/annurev.psych.49.1.319 MacInnis, D.J., & Folkes, V.S. (2010) The Disciplinary Status of Consumer Behavior: A Sociology of Science Perspective on Key Controversies, Journal of Consumer Research, 36, 899-914.  doi:  10.1086/644610 Pham, M.T. (2013) Editorial:  The seven sins of consumer psychology, Journal of Consumer Psychology, 23(4), 411-423.  doi: 10.1016/j.jcps.2013.07.004 Simonson, I., Carmon, Z., Dhar, R, Drolet, A., & Nowlis, S.M. (2001) Consumer Research:  In Search of Identity, Annual Review of Psychology, 52, 249-275. doi: 10.1146/annurev.psych.52.1.249 Twedt, D.W. (1965) Consumer Psychology, Annual Review of Psychology, 16, 265-294.   https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.ps.16.020165.001405 Whan Park, C. (2012) Editorial Note:  Two types of attractive research:  Cute research and beautiful research, Journal of Consumer Psychology, 22, 299-302. doi: 10.1016/j.jcps.2012.05.005  

Research frontiers in cognitive, socio-cognitive, behavioural, social and applied psychology: implications for marketing theory and consumer research

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