We are born with an automatic mechanism that memorizes our emotional reaction whenever we face a new experience. These emotional reactions, positive or negative, are stored in our memory. When we face a similar situation in the future, those stored memories will be expressed as a “hunch” to guide our decisions. For example, if a child is bitten by a dog, the next time he sees a dog he will “intuitively” know how it feels from a representation of the feelings stored in his memory. Intuition is how one learns to approach or avoid new situations and interactions based on the emotional memory of past events without having to consciously process them again.
Published in Chapter:
If You Want to Trigger an Emotional Purchase, Don't Make Your Customers Think: Understanding Customer Decision Making
Liraz Margalit (IDC Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, Israel)
Copyright: © 2020
|Pages: 17
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-3115-0.ch010
Abstract
The classic economic theory describes consumers as rational economic actors that select an alternative only after considering all the relevant information. However, while the logical process is certainly a key factor in considered purchases such as insurance or financial products, it is actually detrimental to the retail-consumer industry, where emotional decision making or the impulse purchase plays a central role. Although we like to think of ourselves as rational creatures, absorbing information, weighing it carefully, and making thoughtful decisions, many of our most crucial choices are made by what we call hunches, gut feelings and a somewhat automatic reaction that is beyond or beneath consciousness. We like to refer to this feeling as intuition (“I have a very good feeling about this house”), but the reality is that this “intuition” is an established part of emotion-based learning. This chapter deals with the significant role of emotions in everyday purchase decisions.