Consumer Shaviour: A Multidisciplinary Approach To Consumer Behavior

Understanding consumer buying behaviour is a fundamental concept in the marketing of goods and services. As it is constantly evolving, creating challenges for practitioners in the field on international marketing and consumer behaviour (Josiannen and Harzing 2008), it is imperative for owners, manufactures, as well as service providers to understand why consumers select one product over another. Similarly, it provides them with a competitive advantage over its competitors in several areas (Kotler and Keller 2011).

The decision-making process begins in the mind of the consumers. As such, what consumers buy, when, where, why and how much depends on a number of factors such as perception, culture, social interaction, personal and psychological

The government even has an impact on consumer food and family consumption decision.

2.2 Multidisciplinary Approach to consumer behaviour for food.
The understanding of consumer behaviour for food should be done by integrating various disciplines inclusive of economic, behaviourist, descriptive (Meulenberg 1974), and cognitive perspective. Human beings are very intricate and complex beings and are influenced by internal and external elements, as such having a multidisciplinary approach are important (Wisdom Jobs 2016). This paper will review three of these approaches.

2.2.1 Economic Perspective
From an economic stand point, consumer’s behaviour is explained through the theory of choice (Snyder 2012). This theory describes the consumer’s preferences (Consumer Preference Theory) which determine how individuals feel about things and their reaction to it. Casher-Cardo (2013) defined consumer preferences as the subjective (individual) tastes, as measured by utility, of various bundles of goods. These bundles of goods are ranked given the level of utility the consumer receives (Casher-Cardo 2012). Preferences are separate and apart from income and prices as such the ability to buy goods is not determined by consumer’s likes or dislikes. One can have a preference for local chicken over

there is a perception that individuals are information processors, recognizing the effect of environmental and social experiences in the processing of information” (Dudovskiy 2016). The external structures mainly provide information to consumers. The information is divided into two: reinforcing stimulus cues and discriminatiive stimulus cues. The discriminative stimulus cues show up in reinforcement situations in which they declare the reinforcement opportunity, however, it is not required for reinforcement to occur. The cognitive approach helps to understand the mental processes and foundations which intercede between the stimulus and responses (Dudovskiy 2016). Modern Cognitive approach pinpointed a range of integral factors to the intrapersonal processes. These are perception, memory, learning, emotion, thinking and motivation (Bray