Disciplines Related to Consumer Behavior

Consumer behavior, compared to other fields of studies, is quite young and dynamic, as most of the knowledge about it emerged from disciplines such as economics, psychology, social psychology, sociology, anthropology, and neuroscience (Demirdijan & Senguder, 2004). Each of these disciplines helps us understand the many aspects of consumer behavior from a macro perspective that focuses on understanding the broader social, cultural, and structural influences to a micro perspective that focuses on individual’s internal processes, cognition, and emotions.

Consumer behavior can be viewed as the foundation for marketing, and the social sciences disciplines can serve as the foundation for consumer behavior (Deighton, 2007).

Understanding consumer behavior: post-modernism (interpretivism) and modernism

When consumer behavior research was developed, it relied heavily on disciplines that focused on the micro perspectives such as microeconomics, behavioral economics, and psychology. Researchers primarily adopted the modernism approach of inquiry that emphasizes rationality, objectivity, and the search of universal principles that can be generalized to different context. This is also the approach that most physicists and chemists adopted (those rocket sciences!). This approach assumes there is a single truth as the cause of consumption phenomenon that helps practitioners predict the outcomes.

An example of this research inquiry using the modernism approach is as follows: when more than X number of options are presented to consumers, they are less likely to purchase. The possible “cause” in question is the number of options, and the possible outcome is whether the consumer purchases or not.

Researching consumer behavior using the modernism approach often involves quantitative research methods for collecting and analyzing numeric data to understand the relationships of variables and establish models to predict behaviors through surveys, experiments, and numeric meta-data.

In the mid-20th century, a new research inquiry approach emerged: post-modernism (also known as interpretivism) that focuses on understanding and interpreting social phenomena from the perspective of the individuals involved .

Post-modernism emphasizes the subjective meanings, interpretations, and experiences of individuals and seeks to uncover the social and cultural contexts that shape their behaviors and actions. Therefore, the assumption of reality involves multiple truths .

Researching consumer behavior using a post-modernism approach often involves qualitative research methods that focus on gathering rich, in-depth, and contextually nuanced data to explore the complexities of behavior, experiences, and social interactions while using a lens for sociology and anthropology.