Table of contents:
- Consumer behavior
- Consumer education and behavior
- Vicarious learning
- The role of consumers
- The role of society in consumption
- Conclusions
By Jairo Augusto Sánchez González. February 22, 2018
The vicarious learning or social points out that not only learn by experience but you learn from experience of others, either for information or modeling, ie by observing what happens to others or the information received about the fact. Of course, the role model must be desirable or attractive to the individual to the point that they want to imitate him, resemble him. In this Online Psychology article we are going to offer you a definition of vicarious learning with examples so that you better understand what it refers to.
You may also be interested in: Vicarious violence: definition, examples, types, characteristics, cases and data Index- Consumer behavior
- Consumer education and behavior
- Vicarious learning
- The role of consumers
- The role of society in consumption
- Conclusions
Consumer behavior
For conduct of the consumer those "activities of the individual - oriented acquisition and use of goods and / or services" (Providencia sf) means such actions are determined by endless, psychological, environmental, social factors among others. In particular, advertising and marketing look for how and what are these factors that motivate the consumer to buy a product and continue buying it after trying it for the first time. In particular, they observe the cultural, social, subcultural, family factors to guide the strategies of attracting customers to consume their products or services, in this sense, advertising creates attractive and desirable social models that attract consumers to their stores.
It is interesting to question how consumers make their decisions at the time of purchase, since the classical economists' idea that these decisions are rational and conscious is a bit far from reality. Emotions and preconceptions and irrational ideas play a large role in making decisions when choosing (Swartz 2010). For this reason it is possible that marketers and advertisers use strategies that reach that emotional world of the individual.
Consumer behavior is strongly rooted in their social and family environment, which can lead to thinking that modeling, vicarious or social learning is the appropriate framework to understand such behavior, or at least to create marketing strategies that seduce the individual to buy a certain product.
Consumer education and behavior
In the field of education, it has been said that it should be taught by example, since children learn, initially and later, with the imitation of their parents, teachers, classmates and the social group with which they live. That is what vicarious, social or modeling learning is about, in the ability that humans, and also animals, have to learn behaviors by observing their peers to do something, “they refer to the behavioral, cognitive and affective changes produced in a subject, derived from observing one or more models ”(Schunk, 1997, cited by Cabrera, 2010, p. 1).
It should be noted from this type of learning that the acquisition of a new behavior can occur immediately without the need for a gradual learning process (Cabrera, 2010, p. 1) and without the presence of an obvious reinforcement (Ruiz Ahmed, 2010, p. 2) as occurs in classical or operant conditioning.
Bandura was the North American psychologist who developed the theory of vicarious learning by observing that there is a cognitive process behind the observation and the decision to imitate the behaviors of other people. In order to develop social learning, the following phases must be met (Ruiz Ahmed, 2010, p. 4):
Pay attention to the model. It is necessary that the model meets the requirements of being attractive and influential in the subject, meeting certain similarities among other characteristics to catch the learner's attention.
You must have the ability to retain and remember the behavior of the model to be able to imitate it later.
Then it is passed to the reproduction of the behavior, to its imitation, for this the apprentice must have the ability to do it, for example, perhaps a person who sees an acrobat perform his exercises cannot imitate him because he lacks the ability, however an acrobat can improve his skills by watching his teachers perform their exercises, even if he is just watching a video or visualizing it in his imagination.
Of course, for this to be possible, it is necessary that the person is motivated to carry out the action they intend to imitate.
Vicarious learning
For the psychologist Cabrera (2010), there are 14 previous assumptions about vicarious learning, reaching the conclusion that:
- Any subject, regardless of age, can learn by observation, from another (or with greater intensity from others), if the circumstances of the model or models are similar to their own.
- For this, it is only necessary that there is a communication channel and have the intellectual and motor skills to carry out said behavior.
- This learning is immediate and can be unconscious (p. 6)
- In such a way that under these circumstances, it can be said that thanks to vicarious learning the conditions to understand how the market can reach the consumer are given, since it is the possibility of creating ideal and desirable consumer models so that they want and learn to consume what is offered to them.
One of the marketing premises says that “a satisfied consumer is our best advertisement” (Sahui Maldonado, 2008, p. 72), not only because it provides information to other buyers about the product, but it also becomes a model for other buyers. Although there are many variables that interact in a consumer's decision, the present work focuses on the role played by the advertising model in reflecting the taste of society that allows the technological market to penetrate the product with the consumer by giving it an image that reflects the tastes and needs of the buyer.
The role of consumers
The role that consumers assume in the chain of trade for a product should also be highlighted, as indicated by Kotler when pointing out the 5 possible roles of the consumer:
- Initiator: is the first person who recommends or has the idea of consuming the product or service.
- Influencer: is a person whose opinions or advice have some weight in making the final decision.
- Decision maker: is the person who ultimately determines the consumer decision.
- Buyer: is the person who makes the purchase.
- User: is the person (or people) that consumes or uses the product or service (cited by Sahui Maldonado, 2008, p. 66)
In this sense, it is seen how the role of the consumer is of vital importance to induce a purchase as a satisfied customer and, to that extent, more and more “voice to voice” marketing is imposed by having it as a satisfied customer that influences as a model that reflects your willingness to buy a certain product and influences others to do so.
And it is that in marketing you must take into account what are the social factors that influence the consumer, which are basically three groups: the primary, secondary and the reference group. The first is the family group and friends, the second is the institutions and groups that are close to the individual, such as political groups, the school, among others. The third are the social groups to which the person wishes to belong, where the social leaders, politicians, athletes and others who have influence in the whole of society are located thanks to the support of the media that highlight them (Providencia, sfp 4).
The role of society in consumption
The role of society when consuming and deciding what items to buy to satisfy needs is vital to the market, as they set trends and tastes and, to that extent, create desirable models that give the impulse to be followed. Especially if one takes into account that the communication channels between the buyer and his model do not necessarily have to interact with each other, that is, and, as Cabrera (2010) points out, it is an unconscious process where both the model and the apprentice do not know that there is a relationship of modeling or social learning, they are just there. And it is precisely this possibility of the model replicating itself in society that advertising takes to create an image that sells by modeling.
That is why advertising must be eye-catching, catchy and generate comments from the public. It is to enter the first phase of vicarious learning, that they pay attention to your advertisement and it becomes a social event that is replicated in the consumer. Of course, not all the recipients of the ad will turn to buying the product, but its existence has been made known in the market, covering an important point in marketing, that of providing information about a product and that it supplies a need, that is to say that there is "a difference between its real state and a desired state" (Sahui Maldonado, 2008, p. 68), therefore there will be a possibility that the person will buy the product.
The similarities between commercial strategies and vicarious learning are thus evident , in the sense that it presents a model to follow according to the models presented by society.
Conclusions
It can be seen that there is great similarity between marketing strategies and vicarious learning in both the phases of this and in the previous assumptions, that is, expectations as the way in which vicarious learning occurs and is intended to influence the consumer It can go through the same phases of catching the attention of the learner or consumer, entering their mind as an image or information to be remembered later, finding a reason to later reproduce the desired behavior, buying and enjoying the product.
As social learning is given immediately, unconsciously and without the need for a process of practice and knowledge development, as there is no need to be face-to-face and to monitor the learner, it is ideal to induce a behavior desired by the markets. It is only necessary to create a desirable model and close to the social groups that it is intended to reach.
This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
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