Context and Cognition in Consumer Psychology ─ How Perception and Emotion Guide Action

In Context and Cognition in Consumer Research, the leading scholar in the field of consumer behavior analysis, Gordon Foxall, summarizes a 30-year research journey to present the most thorough examination to date of the different paradigms within consumer psychology.

The main thrust of this research has been to establish the proper place of cognitive theories in the explanation of consumer choice, by building and testing to destruction a non-cognitive, behaviorist model of consumer behavior. The working assumption was that where this succeeded in predicting and explaining consumer behavior, there would be no need to posit cognitive causation, but where it failed it would be necessary to incorporate and evaluate cognitive constructs in the explanation and interpretation of consumer choice.

Foxall discusses the areas of consumer choice which are genuinely elaborated by the behaviorist model but then examines its shortcomings and the need for an intentional account of choice and decision-making, and the implications that holds for the explaining and interpreting consumer behavior. He explores both the role of cognitive science in consumer research and the nature of cognitive psychology itself. The book concludes by discussing the implications of an intentional approach for our understanding of such subjects as consumers’ attitudes and behavior, normal and addictive choices, innovative behaviors and brand choices.

Context and Cognition in Consumer Research supplies an overview of behavioral and cognitive perspectives on consumer psychology that will be essential reading for researchers and students in the field, whether from a psychology or business and marketing background.

Gordon Foxall is Distinguished Research Professor at Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University where he directs the Consumer Behaviour Analysis Research Group (CBAR) and Visiting Professor in Economic Psychology at the University of Durham. He holds PhDs in industrial economics and business (University of Birmingham) and in psychology (University of Strathclyde), and a higher doctorate (DSocSc), also from the University of Birmingham. He is the author of over 200 refereed papers and more than 20 books.

He has held visiting appointments at the Universities of Michigan and Oxford. A Fellow of the British Psychological Society (FBPsS) and of the British Academy of Management (FBAM), he is an Academician of the Academy of Social Science (AcSS). His research interests are in psychological theories of choice and their neuroeconomic underpinnings and in the explanation of consumer choice and the behaviour of the marketing firm.