The Behaviour of Consumers’ Attitudes

Abstract

To refer to the tendency or inclination to behave consistently in some particular way as an ‘attitude’ or as corresponding to an ‘attitude’ is to use the term metaphorically. ‘Attitude’ implied originally the literal leaning of a building or bodily posture and has only comparatively recently been used to describe behaviour, opinions or their underlying patterns of thought. Figurative uses of words are seldom as rigorously circumscribed as their literal applications and there is a range of definitions of attitude in psychology and marketing. There is some agreement that the term refers to ‘a learned predisposition to respond in a consistently favourable or unfavourable manner with respect to a given object’ but, as Fishbein and Ajzen demonstrate, even this is a highly ambiguous statement and permits a variety of methodologies and explanations of behaviour.¹