Consumer Behavior Essay Example

There are many social and psychological factors that may persuade a consumer to accept or not accept a treatment/medication. Two of the social factors that may persuade a consumer are marital status/family and social class. Everybody belongs to a group that has some influence over them; these groups are called reference groups. In a reference group, you are influenced by other people’s needs/wants and their feelings towards products and companies. A reference group is usually the people around you such as your family members, your parents or your husband/wife if you have one. In a paper by the University of Applied Science, they go over more factors that affect consumer behavior in one section going over social factors they also mention reference groups but they say “the consumers who have created brand perceptions when they were young can carry out these same brand selections in the adult life without even recognizing that their family influenced these selections.” This means that family can influence you when you are young even your opinions on medication/treatment a great example of this is in a show called one day at a time in season 3 episode 9 called anxiety the main character Penelope has anxiety attacks but doesn’t tell her kids about it because she doesn’t want them to think anything is wrong like when she told her mom and her mom was upset and thought she was on drugs. 

Another thing to consider is that when you get married and join with someone else who was also influenced by their family you may find a compromise or one person can be more influential than the other and the other partner may change what they believe. When you are married you also have to think about the well being of your partner for example if you got sick and needed treatment but the treatment was expensive or had a lot of risks you would talk with your partner and make your decision based on what they say whereas if you are single you may make the decision on your own or with other family members. Social class is also a big influence over consumer behavior and whether or not someone would accept treatment/medication. If you are in a low social class and you don’t make a lot of money then you may not even consider medications or treatments that are outside of your budget However, if you are in a higher social class you may be more influenced by what your friends may think or say about certain doctors medications or treatments.

 Psychological factors are also really important when determining consumer behavior three of the psychological factors that play a big part in this are personal beliefs, treatment side-effects, and motivation. On the website QuickBooks in the article understanding consumer behavior, they lay out the 4 psychological factors that influence a consumers behavior one of them being motivation they say “motivation speaks to the internal needs of the consumer” This means that whatever is driving them to search out treatment is what is motivating them and is what is going to get them to accept the treatment if it fits that internal need, For example, growing up I had acne and everyone made fun of me for it so I went to a dermatologist and accepted treatment because internally I didn’t want to be made fun of anymore and the doctor knew that and that’s what was driving me whereas if no one made fun of me I probably wouldn’t even be bothered by acne and wouldn’t have sought out the dermatologist in the first place. 

The second psychological factor to consider is side-effects if a treatment has a lot of side-effects it is usually harder to sell but if those side-effects are small inconveniences to a person with a larger issue they may accept those in place of what they are going through another example I have is I have chronic back pain from an injury that I got when I was about ten I have been to a lot of doctors and tried a lot of different medication to help with the pain what I finally found that would help was getting a shot in my back along with medication and between the 2 there are a lot of side-effects such as nausea or getting tired things like that but none of the medication/treatment that I get has the side-effect that I might get worse so I was willing to trade things like high energy and possibly feeling sick for no more pain as long as there was no possibility of me getting worse. There is always a trade-off that you are possibly making and you have to decide what is worth it to you. 

The last psychological factor that I want to talk about is personal beliefs. Like I had mentioned before, your family passes down a lot of their beliefs, some that may influence you unknowingly and some like religious beliefs that you may willingly continue after you grow up. The one that I could think of that directly affects if you would accept treatment is if you were religious and your religion didn’t accept treatment or medication like the Amish, Jehovah’s Witnesses, or Christian scientists. This doesn’t mean you will reject all forms of treatment or medication but if you were talking to someone in these groups that put certain limitations on themselves you may not mention certain forms of treatment. 

When you are going to market a new medication/treatment and you have all of these social and psychological factors to consider it can be hard to find a large group of individuals to market to you can’t just market what the product is used for because you might not get as many sells that way instead what you should do is market to the physicians/doctors that would be prescribing the medication. Doctors know their patients well and have a direct line of communication with them so it is easier for them to know what social and psychological factors each person has and it is easier for them to find the right medication/treatment that fits that specific person. When you market to doctors they don’t have or can’t have those factors holding them back they took an oath to protect and care for their patience so it doesn’t matter what they believe it matters more what the product does and if it helps so it is by far more productive and easier to market to the professionals and let them do the selling for you. 

References

When parents call god instead of the doctor, Deena Guzder, Thursday, Feb 05, 2009

http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1877352,00.html#:~:text=Kara%20Neumann%2C%20of%20Weston%2C%20Wisconsin,a%20treatable%20form%20of%20diabetes. 

Understanding consumer behavior the four factors, Team 

https://quickbooks.intuit.com/ca/resources/marketing/four-factors-consumer-behaviormarketing/ 

One day at a time season 3 episode 9 

Factors affecting consumers buying decision in the selection of a coffee brand, Tanja Lautiainen, 2015 university of applied sciences 

Psychological and Social Factors influencing Patients' Treatment Selection for Localised Prostate Cancer, Robles et al.

https://www.intechopen.com/books/advances-in-prostate-cancer/psychological-and-social-factors-influencing-patients-treatment-selection-for-localised-prostate-can