5 Consumer Behavior Models Every Brand Should Know
Five established models, each built to answer one question about buyers. What each predicts, one published finding behind it, and what a brand can ask of it.
Answer to the question
What is a consumer behavior model?
A consumer behavior model is a simplified account of the forces that shape what people buy. Five worth knowing are the multi-attribute attitude model, the theory of planned behaviour, the elaboration likelihood model, dual-process theory and constructive choice. Each answers a different question for a brand.
Key takeaways
- Martin Fishbein's 1963 work is the root of the multi-attribute attitude model, in which a brand's overall score comes from weighted attribute beliefs; Tetsuo Sugimoto (1982) found that prediction weakened when the importance component was removed.
- Christopher Armitage and Mark Conner (2001) pooled 185 studies of the theory of planned behaviour: it explained 39 per cent of the differences in intention and 27 per cent of the differences in behaviour.
- Richard Petty, John Cacioppo and David Schumann (1983) found argument quality mattered more under high involvement and the endorser mattered more under low involvement.
- Jonathan Evans and Keith Stanovich (2013) defend a view in which fast processes give a default response unless slower reasoning overrides it.
- James Bettman, Mary Frances Luce and John Payne (1998) argue that choice is constructive: preferences are often built at the moment of choice, using strategies that depend on the task.
Every consumer behavior model is a simplification built to answer one question, which is why the 5 below can sit side by side without competing.
Each rests on a published piece of research, and each tells a brand something different about where to look.
What does a consumer behavior model actually do?
A model names the few forces that matter and says how they combine. It cannot forecast a single purchase. The textbook Consumer Behaviour, by Neal, Quester and Hawkins, draws on several such frameworks, including the attitude, involvement and decision-type models below. Used as a guide to what to measure, a consumer behavior model gives a team a shared question and a place to start measuring. Choosing a consumer behavior model is therefore a decision about which question to ask first, before any survey is written or any data is pulled. The five here come from different decades and different corners of the field, and the table near the end sets them next to each other.
The oldest of the five is the multi-attribute attitude model, traced to Martin Fishbein's 1963 work on the link between beliefs about an object and the attitude held toward it. The idea is that a buyer holds a set of beliefs about a brand, each attached to an attribute such as price, taste or durability, and weighs each belief by how much that attribute matters to them. Adding the weighted scores gives an overall attitude. Neal, Quester and Hawkins list four ways a brand can move that score: change a belief, shift the importance of an attribute, add a new belief, or change the ideal level a buyer has in mind.
Tetsuo Sugimoto tested this family of models in 1982 and found that about three quarters of the subjects in a task built on the Fishbein model followed the multiplication of belief by importance, and that prediction got weaker when the importance component was taken out. A brand that uses this consumer behavior model asks buyers to rate itself and its rivals on the same short list of attributes, then looks for the attribute where a small belief change would lift the total most.
How do intentions and persuasion routes differ?
Icek Ajzen's 1991 review set out the theory of planned behaviour, which predicts a person's intention from three things: their attitude toward the act, the social pressure they feel and how much control they believe they have. Intention, together with perceived control, then predicts what they do.
A 2001 meta-analysis by Christopher Armitage and Mark Conner pooled 185 independent studies published up to the end of 1997. The theory explained 39 per cent of the differences in intention and 27 per cent of the differences in behaviour. Perceived control added to both, and the social pressure component was generally a weak predictor of intention. Behaviour measured by self-report was explained better than behaviour that was observed.
Those figures show a model that carries real information and leaves most of the picture open. The planned-behaviour model points to the step between wanting and doing. If customers say they intend to buy but do not, the question becomes whether they feel able to: whether the price, the booking process or the delivery window makes the act feel within reach. A team can check this cheaply by asking intending customers which step felt hardest and counting the answers by step.
The elaboration likelihood model is credited to Richard Petty and John Cacioppo, and the seed textbook presents it as a theory that attitude change runs by a central route when involvement is high and a peripheral route when it is low. In a 1983 experiment, Petty, Cacioppo and David Schumann showed students a magazine advertisement for a product. The advertisement carried either strong or weak arguments and was endorsed either by prominent sports figures or by ordinary citizens, and students saw it under high or low involvement. Argument quality shaped attitudes more when involvement was high, while the endorser mattered more when involvement was low.
A purchase the buyer cares about rewards clear evidence. A purchase made in passing is shaped more by who or what surrounds the message. The same product can need both kinds of communication, aimed at different moments.
How do defaults and on-the-spot choices work?
Dual-process theories divide thinking into two kinds. Jonathan Evans and Keith Stanovich reviewed the debate in 2013 and defended the distinction against five lines of criticism, granting that some criticisms hit parts of the literature. They favour a view in which fast, autonomous processes produce a default response unless slower reasoning overrides it, and they describe the slower kind as resting on working memory and the ability to think hypothetically.
The seed textbook gives the same spectrum a commercial form in habitual, limited and extended decision making, with a regular purchase of a familiar cereal as its example of the habitual end. Where buying runs on defaults, being the easy default is the aim. Where it calls for slow comparison, the work is making comparison manageable.
Constructive choice is the most recent of the five. James Bettman, Mary Frances Luce and John Payne argued in 1998 that consumer choice is constructive. Because people have limited processing capacity, they often lack well-defined preferences beforehand and put them together when asked to choose, using strategies that depend on the demands of the task. Their paper reviews the evidence against an integrative framework and marks where research is still thin.
Seen this way, attention moves from what customers say they want to the setting in which they decide. The number of options, the way they are laid out and the effort each comparison takes can all shape which strategy a buyer uses, and so which option wins. A team can test this by showing the same options in two layouts and watching which comparison strategy each layout invites.
Which of the five fits which question?
The table sets the five next to each other, with the question each one puts to a brand.
| Model | Origin | Predicts | Brand question |
|---|---|---|---|
| Multi-attribute attitude | Fishbein, 1963 | Overall attitude from weighted attribute beliefs | Which attribute belief is cheapest to move? |
| Theory of planned behaviour | Ajzen, 1991 | Intention from attitude, social pressure and perceived control | Do customers who intend to buy feel able to? |
| Elaboration likelihood | Petty and Cacioppo, 1980s | Route of persuasion, set by involvement | Does this moment call for evidence or for cues? |
| Dual process | Reviewed by Evans and Stanovich, 2013 | Default response unless slower reasoning overrides it | Is the category run on defaults or on comparison? |
| Constructive choice | Bettman, Luce and Payne, 1998 | Preferences assembled to fit the task | How does the choice setting shape the strategy used? |
Because the five are tools for different jobs, the choice follows the problem. A brand with a perception problem reaches for the attribute scores, one with a gap between interest and sales reaches for planned behaviour, and one whose message is not landing checks involvement first. Category teams studying repeat buying look at defaults, and teams redesigning a shelf, a menu or a page look at how choices get built.
Most real questions need two of them, and picking the pair is the first piece of analysis. A sensible pair is one model for what customers think and intend and one for the setting in which they decide.
Common questions
What is a consumer behavior model?
A consumer behavior model is a simplified account of the forces that shape what people buy, such as beliefs, intentions, involvement and the way a choice is framed. It organises evidence and suggests what to measure.
Which consumer behavior model is most widely used?
No single one leads. Attribute-based attitude models and the theory of planned behaviour are staples of research, while the elaboration likelihood model is common in message design. The right choice depends on the question being asked.
Can a consumer behavior model predict a purchase?
Only partly. A pooled review of 185 studies found the theory of planned behaviour explained 27 per cent of the differences in behaviour, so models guide analysis rather than forecast individual choices.
Sources
Neal, C. M., Quester, P. G., & Hawkins, D. I. Consumer Behaviour. Seed book; vault hub Books/Consumer Behaviour.
Fishbein, M. (1963). An investigation of the relationships between beliefs about an object and the attitude toward that object. Human Relations, 16(3). doi:10.1177/001872676301600302 https://doi.org/10.1177/001872676301600302
Sugimoto, T. (1982). A study for the validity of multi-attribute attitude models. The Japanese Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. doi:10.2130/jjesp.22.37 https://doi.org/10.2130/jjesp.22.37
Ajzen, I. (1991). The theory of planned behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 50(2). doi:10.1016/0749-5978(91)90020-T https://doi.org/10.1016/0749-5978(91)90020-T
Armitage, C. J., & Conner, M. (2001). Efficacy of the theory of planned behaviour: A meta-analytic review. British Journal of Social Psychology, 40(4). doi:10.1348/014466601164939 https://doi.org/10.1348/014466601164939
Petty, R. E., Cacioppo, J. T., & Schumann, D. (1983). Central and peripheral routes to advertising effectiveness: The moderating role of involvement. Journal of Consumer Research, 10(2). doi:10.1086/208954 https://doi.org/10.1086/208954
Evans, J. St. B. T., & Stanovich, K. E. (2013). Dual-process theories of higher cognition: Advancing the debate. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 8(3). doi:10.1177/1745691612460685 https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691612460685
Bettman, J. R., Luce, M. F., & Payne, J. W. (1998). Constructive consumer choice processes. Journal of Consumer Research, 25(3). doi:10.1086/209535 https://doi.org/10.1086/209535