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INTRODUCTION
The Bettman model is a step away from the grand comprehensive model building represented by the Howard-Sheth and Engel-Blackwell models. It attempts to model a smaller range of consumer behaviour consumer information processing. The model represents how consumer obtains and uses information ?
The Bettman model has seven basic components :
* Processing capacity
* Motivation
* Attention an perceptual coding
* Information acquisition & evaluation
* Memory
* Decision process
* Consumption & learning processes.
Processing Capacity: The processing capacity component of the Bettman Model states that individual s have only a limited capacity for processing information. Thus, in making choices, consumers are likely to find complex computations an extensive information processing particularly difficult or burdensome. To deal with these demands, consumers are likely to select choice strategies or rules of thumb that make product selection an easier and less taxing process.
The process capacity component influences the other major components of the model. This has important implications for the kinds and scope of choic strategies consumers are likely to employ.
Motivation : Since consumer choice is conceived as being purposeful (i.e., designed to achieve one or more goals), motivation is a central component of the Bettman Model. It influences both the direction and the intensity of consumer choice and stimulates the consumer to seek the information required to evaluate altgernatives and make a choice (e.g., a purchase).
Motivation provides momentum by means of hierarchy of goals mechanism and scanner and interrupt mechanism. The hierarchy of goals mechanism is a dynamic force that take the form of as series of intermediate sub-goals that lead to a desired end-state i.e. a choice. This mechanism is consistent with the notion of limited capacity; it suggests that as a consumer gains experience in a particular choice area, he will no longer have ot employ an elaborate hierarchy of goals to arrive at a decision. Instead acquired experiences eventually provide the consumer with the basic for employing less demanding decision rules. Thus, the goal hierarchy mechanism channels the consumer's efforts in making a choice. Because consumer's scanner and interrupt mechanisms are linked to all components of the Bettman Model they are discussed after we have considered the other components.
Attention & Perceptual Coding : The attention and...