Consumer Decision Making Overview

Principles

Definition

Consumer decision making is a core research area within marketing, psychology, and economics that investigates the processes individuals and households employ when selecting, purchasing, using, and disposing of goods, services, ideas, or experiences. This field analyzes the sequence of cognitive, affective, and behavioral stages consumers undergo, influenced by internal psychological factors and external social, cultural, and situational variables, providing critical insights for marketing strategy, public policy, and behavioral economics.

Ontological type

Core Theories

Decision Stages

Psychological Drivers

Key developments

Key Figures

Value-Based Information Processing era

Elizabeth C. Hirschman [1] was active across New York University [3] and Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey [4] during the Value-Based Information Processing era. Hirschman [1] contributed through the 1982 paper The Experiential Aspects of Consumption: Consumer Fantasies, Feelings, and Fun [7], elucidating experiential and affective dimensions of consumption and showing why value-driven processing mattered for consumers in this era. Morris B. Holbrook [2] was affiliated with Columbia University [5] and Graduate School USA [6] in this period. Holbrook [2] coalesced the same paper The Experiential Aspects of Consumption: Consumer Fantasies, Feelings, and Fun [7] into a framework that links hedonic and experiential value with cognitive evaluation, underscoring why experiential value is central to value-based information processing in purchase decisions.

Segmentation and Preference Heterogeneity era

Richard H. Thaler [1] is a prominent economist whose work in this era intersected with positions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology [3] and Cornell University [4]. His key contributions in this era include Mental Accounting and Consumer Choice [7], a 2008 paper that helped explain how mental accounting shapes consumer choice and the heterogeneity of preferences that segmentation models aim to capture. Donald L. Ferrin [2] is a scholar whose work in this period spanned institutions such as State University of New York [5] and University at Buffalo, State University of New York [6]. His key contribution in this era includes A trust-based consumer decision-making model in electronic commerce: The role of trust, perceived risk, and their antecedents [8], which illustrated how trust and perceived risk mediate heterogeneity across value-based segments and informed targeted forecasting.

Digital Contextualization of Choice era

Elmira Djafarova[1] is associated with Northumbria University[3] and Newcastle College[4] during the Digital Contextualization of Choice era. Elmira Djafarova[1]'s 2016 paper Exploring the credibility of online celebrities' Instagram profiles in influencing the purchase decisions of young female users[7] demonstrates how perceived credibility shapes consumer decisions in social-media contexts, offering a mechanism to map beliefs and attitudes onto online actions in this era. Donald R. Lehmann[2] is associated with Columbia University[5] and the University of Colorado Boulder[6] during this era. Lehmann[2]'s 2019 paper Task-Dependent Algorithm Aversion[8] argues that people display different levels of aversion to algorithmic recommendations depending on task type, a finding that helps explain the moderation of intention–behavior links in digital platforms and guides design and risk management to close intention-action gaps.