Cognição social e tomada de decisão no comportamento de consumo

Abstract

Studying consumer behavior is returning to a field of investigation that belongs to psychology, since the act of buying involves cognitive and behavioral factors. The present work has the general objective of identifying possible contributions of studies on social cognition and decision-making in the context of consumption behavior. As a specific objective, to describe consumer behavior from the perspective of psychology studies; characterize the area of social cognition and the main concepts from the perspective of North American social psychology and present the stages of the decision-making process from the perspective of cognitive psychology, as well as related aspects. One of the objectives of studies on consumer behavior is to research the interaction between consumer and product before and after purchase. Among the cognitive processes involved in the emission of this behavior are the formation of schemes and attributions, the stages of decision-making and the hypothesis of somatic markers. As a source of research, it was decided to analyze three commercials of television media through an exploratory qualitative research. A content analysis was carried out, using the mixed categorization model and data interpretation based on the pairing technique between the artifact and the concepts. As a result and discussions, at first, the analysis of the plot of each of the advertising films individually, as well as the message that each one of these seeks to convey. From this analysis, it was possible to recognize that the concepts of social cognition and decision-making biases can be easily identified in some scenes, raising important reflections on the way we interpret, encode and store information and, from there, what way we relate to specific brands and products throughout life. It was even discussed how much the culture of Christmas and its attributes significantly influence the act of consumption, making this time of the year responsible for most of the market movement in relation to the other months of the year. In most cultures, the act of giving gifts at Christmas is a very encouraged practice, as it is related to the offering of the wise men on the occasion of the birth of Jesus, as the story goes, and to the figure of Santa Claus. [resumo fornecido pelo autor]