Consumer Decision Making-Fact or Fiction?

A synthesis of research on consumers prepurchase behavior suggests that a substantial proportion of purchases does not involve decision making, not even on the first purchase. The heavy emphasis in current research on deci-sion making may discourage investigation of other important kinds of con-sumer behavior. T he most pervasive and influential assumption in consumer behavior research is that purchases are preceded by a decision process. Writers who have suggested models of this process have used varying terminology, but all seem to agree that: I. Two or more alternative actions exist and, therefore, choice must occur. 2. Evaluative criteria facilitate the forecasting of each al-ternatives consequences for the consumers goals or objectives. 3. The chosen alternative is determined by a decision rule or evaluative procedure. 4. Information sought from external sources and/or re-trieved from memory is processed in the application of the decision rule or evaluation procedure. Virtually every text on consumer behavior includes a verbal or flow chart model of consumer decision pro-cesses. Engel, Blackwell, and Kollat (1978) base an elaborate stage model on five steps (problem recogni-tion, search, alternative evaluation, choice, and out-comes) suggested 70 years ago by John Dewey. How-ards (1977) refinement of the concept of routinized response behavior, advanced in Howard and Sheth (1969, p. 9), assumes that even simplified, habitual be-havior reflects the earlier application of choice criteria to alternative brands. When situational constraints block the repetition of an earlier choice, a reduced-form evaluation process follows, in which dichotomized *Richard w. Olshavsky is Associate Professor and Donald H.