Preference of Relevant Others and Individual Choice Models

Abstract

Despite a growing number of studies involving husband-wife decision making (Davis, 1970; Ferber, 1973; Ferber and Lee, 1974; Davis and Rigaux, 1974 and Munsinger, Weber and Hansen, 1974 to mention just a few), a recent review of literature on decision making within household (Davis, 1975) concludes that the view of consumers as individual decision makers is still very much alive. This lopsided focus on individual, which is clearly evident in most applied consumer research studies can be result of a belief that individual is appropriate unit of analysis. This may be case if one assumes that individual makes his purchase and consumption decisions independent of influence of others or alternatively that his decisions reflect his perceptions of preference of others and their relative importance to his decision. This latter approach is implicit in most of consumer behavior studies which tend to focus on housewife as representative agent of household. Alternatively, one may recognize that unit of analysis should be household or any combination of members within it, but given conceptual and methodological problems involved in moving from individual to multi-person unit of analysis (not to mention extra costs involved in collecting such data), researcher is willing to settle for analysis of consumer behavior at individual level. Since purchase and consumption behavior of individuals is rarely done independently of influence of others, it is desirable to change unit of analysis in consumer research from individual to (those members of family and individuals involved in purchase decision).1 Having identified members of buying unit, ideally, one would like to examine dynamics of purchase and consumption decision processes among relevant members of buying center. Given, however, complexity and cost of such an undertaking2, a somewhat less ambitious approach would be to examine explicitly influence of relevant others on purchase decision of a decision maker within buying center. The importance of influence of relevant others on an individual purchase behavior has long been recognized in consumer behavior and marketing literature. Coulson (1966), for example, stated: other members of family exert considerable influence on housewife in making brand decisions. Similarly, organizational buying behavior literature has recognized fact that most organizational purchase decisions are influenced by various members of buying center-, and that purchasing agents attempt to take into consideration preference of members of buying center (Wind, 1967 and Webster and Wind, 1972). Examination of influence of relevant others on a decision maker's buying decisions cannot explain dynamics of interaction among members of buying center, but if measured in a rigorous way may provide answers to questions such as: