| Abstract: | The behavioural perspective model of consumer choice (bpm) proposes three structural components of consumer situations from which consumers' verbal responses to consumption environments can be predicted. These are utilitarian reinforcement, informational reinforcement and behaviour setting scope. It is argued that pleasure, arousal and dominance, presented by Mehrabian and Russell as environmentally determined affective reactions, are respectively feasible verbal responses to these structural components. Consumers (N = 561) completed Mehrabian and Russell's measures of these affective reactions and of approach-avoidance for one of four ranges of verbally expressed consumption situations derived from the model. The results indicate that, for these theoretically grounded ranges of consumer situations, approach-avoidance is satisfactorily explained by pleasure, arousal and dominance. Further, mean differences in these affective variables between situations which, the bpm argues, show distinct patterns of reinforcement and behaviour setting scope are successfully predicted. |
