A importância relativa da emoção e da razão no processo de tomada de decisão do consumidor

Abstract

The consumer decision-making models evolved essentially from a perspective rationally based to emotions integration in the decision process. The Homo Economicus, that makes objective choices and that finds the necessary information about each alternative, has given up the place to the thinking man that is able to process cognitively the collected environment informations. Finally this thinking man has given up the place to the feeling man that is able to integrate the emotions in the decision process. Nevertheless, the emotions integration in the consumer decision-making process has not been pacific topic for the researchers. The followers of the traditional paradigm defend that the cognition precedes the emotion, being the latter consequence of the former. The defenders of the emotion¿s primacy claim that the first decision of the consumer is emotional, justifying subsequently his decision rationally. Other researchers advocate the existence of two independent decision processes: a rational and an emotional. This thesis argues for the complementarity of emotion and reason in consumer decision process. It is further demonstrated that the rational or emotional preponderance of the consumer purchase decision is related to the interaction between the relative importance of emotion and reason at the level of environmental stimuli (products/services), the degree of involvement (emotional and reasoning intensity) of the products and services and the consumer purchase trend (rational or emotional preponderance). The presented studies have shown that the independent variables: relative importance of emotions and reason in terms of products and services, measured by the ratio E/R and the degree of involvement of the same products and services, measured by the ratio (E+R)/2, have a major effect on the rational or emotional preponderance and intensity of the purchase decision. The independent variable: consumer purchasing trend, although contributing to the strengthening of the rational or emotional component in the purchasing decision, is not sufficient to determine the rational or emotional preponderance of buying decision, in both high and low involvement products. Disponibles en el texto completo de la Tesis resúmenes en español y portugués.