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Motivation, Ability & Opportunity - What determines motivation?

13 important questions on Motivation, Ability & Opportunity - What determines motivation?

Our self-concept defines our mental view of who we are and is one of the four facets of determining motivation (next to personal relevance, risk perception and moderate inconsistency with values). Why is self-concept so significant?

Because consumers want to stay consistent with their self-concept. If anything threatens their self-concept, consumers might do things to feel less threatened. And if brands are very relevant to self-concepts, consumers can become emotionally attached to the brand and view the brand as an extension of themselves. This leads to high customer loyalty and strong motivation.

A need is an internal state of tension experienced as a discrepancy between the current state and an ideal or desired state. Consumers find things that bear on activated needs to be personally relevant. Needs can be categorized in 3 categories. Which are these?

Functional needs (eg safety, order, food, health, energy)
Symbolic needs (eg esteem, status, affiliation, purpose, belonging)
Hedonic (experiential) needs (eg sensory stimulation, relaxation, novelty, play)

The three different categories of needs (functional, symbolic, hedonic) have different implications for consumers and thus marketers. What are these?

1. A functional need motivates the search for offerings that solve consumption-related problems
2. A symbolic need relates to the meaning of our consumption behavior to ourselves and to others. That is, how we perceive ourselves, how we are perceived by others, how we relate to others and the esteem in which we are held by others.
3. A hedonic need relates to sensory pleasure.

The three different types of needs (functional, symbolic, hedonic) share four characteristics. What are these?

1. Needs can be internally or externally activated;
2. Need satisfaction is dynamic: needs are never permanently satisfied, satisfaction is only temporary. Daily life is a constant process of need fulfillment.
3. Need exists in hierarchy: depending on a consumers state of mind or being, some needs have higher priority than others, despite being activated simultaneously. Decisions to acquire, use and dispose of offerings can also be triggered by several needs at once.
4. Needs can conflict.

Goals are an important source of personal relevance and motivation. A goal is an outcome that we would like to achieve. Goals are more specific and concrete than needs. There are two different types of goals that marketers can distinguish between:

1. Promotion-focused: Consumers are motivated to act in ways to achieve positive outcomes. These goals focus on hopes, wants, and accomplishment
2. Prevention-focused: Consumers are motivated to act in ways that avoid negative outcomes. These goals focus on responsibilities, safety, and guarding against risks.

Marketing communication that is framed to be promotion- or prevention focused tends to work best on consumers that believe the world is changeable.

When consumers involve in goal planning, they usually multitask. Why do they do this, and what is the downside?

They do this to feel more in control over goal pursuit. The downside is that consumers anticipate greater difficulty in goal planning, thus lowering goal commitment.

People often have a lot of information about others who are pursuing a similar goal to theirs. When do they care the most about others, and when the least?

When people are in the middle part of pursuing a goal (vs. when they have just begun or are about to complete their goal), they tend to avoid seeing how well people in the same stage of goal pursuit are doing. The reason why is that they don’t want to be demotivated by seeing that people are doing better than they are.

The process of setting and pursuing goals is circular: How a person feels about achieving or not achieving a goal affects
what new goals are being set and why. This process affects the individual’s motivation to initiate or continue behaviors relevant to the goal that has been set, and so forth. What does succeeding a goal affect in consumers?

If they succeed in achieving a recurring goal, they will increase their effort to reach the same goal in the future - if the goal remains challenging.

Goals affect motivation and this affects effort. What happens if a consumer fails to achieve a goal?

Consumers will be less motivated, therefore, they will perform more poorly in relation to the goal.

Consumers use self-control to regulate their feelings,
thoughts, and behavior in line with their long-term goals. Self-control conflicts arise when we face decisions about actions related to goals that are in conflict. To what phenomenon can this lead?

Ego-depletion. This is the outcome of decision-making effort that results in mental resources being exhausted and impairs the ability to control self.

Consumers not only experience emotions based on how well they have done in goal pursuit, they do things to regulate their emotions or moods. What are the different emotion regulation techniques consumers use?

Before the event:

Antecedent/stimulus focused

Situation selection (not getting in an uncomfortable situation in the first place)
Situation modification

During the event:

Attentional deployment
Cognitive reappraisal
Suppression (generally not effective)

After the event:

Cognitive distancing (looking back as though it were in the distant past)
Rumination (thinking about how bad it was after it happened --> not effective)

Understanding consumers’ self-concept, needs, goals, self-control, and emotion regulation processes is important to marketing strategies and tactics. What are some marketing implications of this psychological knowledge?

Using marketing to enhance consumers' motivation to process communications by making the information as personally relevant as possible.
Developing goods and services that helps consumers achieve their goals.

By this; marketers can keep in mind that it's more efficient to target consumers with promotion-focused goals, because prevention-focused consumers tend to preserve the status quo by staying with the option they know.

Developing offerings that help consumers resolve for instance approach-avoidance conflicts (when 2 needs are in conflict with each other)

Perceived risk is the extent to which the consumer anticipates negative consequences of an action. There are 2 components to this: 1. Certainty that the outcomes will happen and 2. How severe these outcomes will be. When perceived risk is high, consumers are more motivated to carefully process marketing communications. In what 8 situations does perceived risk tend to be higher?

When the offering is new;
When the offering has a high price;
When the offering is technologically complex;
When brands differ fairly substantially in quality;
When the consumer has little confidence or experience;
When the opinions of others are important;
When little information is available about the offering;
When important goals or needs of consumers are at stake.

The question on the page originate from the summary of the following study material:

Consumer Behavior | 9780357721292 | Wayne D Hoyer, et al

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Motivation, Ability & Opportunity - What determines motivation?

13 important questions on Motivation, Ability & Opportunity - What determines motivation?

Our self-concept defines our mental view of who we are and is one of the four facets of determining motivation (next to personal relevance, risk perception and moderate inconsistency with values). Why is self-concept so significant?

A need is an internal state of tension experienced as a discrepancy between the current state and an ideal or desired state. Consumers find things that bear on activated needs to be personally relevant. Needs can be categorized in 3 categories. Which are these?

The three different categories of needs (functional, symbolic, hedonic) have different implications for consumers and thus marketers. What are these?

The three different types of needs (functional, symbolic, hedonic) share four characteristics. What are these?

Goals are an important source of personal relevance and motivation. A goal is an outcome that we would like to achieve. Goals are more specific and concrete than needs. There are two different types of goals that marketers can distinguish between:

When consumers involve in goal planning, they usually multitask. Why do they do this, and what is the downside?

People often have a lot of information about others who are pursuing a similar goal to theirs. When do they care the most about others, and when the least?

Goals affect motivation and this affects effort. What happens if a consumer fails to achieve a goal?

Consumers use self-control to regulate their feelings,thoughts, and behavior in line with their long-term goals. Self-control conflicts arise when we face decisions about actions related to goals that are in conflict. To what phenomenon can this lead?

Consumers not only experience emotions based on how well they have done in goal pursuit, they do things to regulate their emotions or moods. What are the different emotion regulation techniques consumers use?

Understanding consumers’ self-concept, needs, goals, self-control, and emotion regulation processes is important to marketing strategies and tactics. What are some marketing implications of this psychological knowledge?

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Consumers use self-control to regulate their feelings,
thoughts, and behavior in line with their long-term goals. Self-control conflicts arise when we face decisions about actions related to goals that are in conflict. To what phenomenon can this lead?