Consumer Psychology - Science topic

Self-extension is a concept in consumer behavior that refers to the extension of one's self-concept onto products or brands. It suggests that individuals tend to choose products or brands that reflect their identity or self-concept.

Self-extension is measurable in research using a variety of methods. One common approach is to use self-report measures, such as surveys or questionnaires, to assess the degree to which individuals associate themselves with particular products or brands. For example, researchers may ask participants to rate how much they agree with statements like "I see myself as someone who uses [Brand X]" or "Using [Product Y] is an important part of who I am."

Another approach is to use experimental methods to manipulate the degree to which a product or brand is associated with the self, and then observe the effects on consumer behavior. For example, researchers may manipulate the degree to which a product is personalized or customized to the individual, and then assess whether this increases the likelihood of purchase or positive evaluations.

In terms of stability, self-extension can be considered relatively stable over time in some cases. For individuals who have strong and stable self-concepts, their self-extensions are likely to be consistent over time. However, for individuals who have more fluid or malleable self-concepts, their self-extensions may be more variable over time.

However, while self-extension is a complex and multifaceted construct, it is measurable in research using various methods and can be relatively stable in some contexts.

Yifei Guo

Can find some on this link- https://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/handle/10603/401959

Consumer Animosity is defined by Klein et al. (1998) as remnants of antipathy (anger) related to previous or ongoing political, military, economic, or diplomatic events that will affect consumers' purchase behaviour.

Thanks

Hello Wissal Walkas,

Thanks for your interesting question. You may add below articles to your literature review so that you have a broad range of references for a well informed synthesis of the variables you are investigating for your thesis.

Article by Vainikka (2015)

Article by Szymkowiak et al. (2020)

Article by Bentall et al. (2021)

In this case, I totally agree with the theory, psychological processes are about those mental stages that allow the person to become aware of himself and his environment, refer to the behavioral manifestation and allow the adaptation of behavior to situations and demands of the environment in which you find yourself at all times, while mental processes are forms through which our mind stores, elaborates the information provided by our senses, so that they can be used at the present time or in the future.

Ying Zhu Thanks for your sharing. The work by Westfall, Judd and Kenny (2015) is rather informative and relevant to my question. Thanks!

Hi,

Try searching in ARA Psycinfo hor articles in psychology or APA Psycnet

Dear Mr. Alauddin,

I suggest you the following paper: https://periodicos.uninove.br/index.php?journal=remark&page=article&op=view&path%5B%5D=12035&path%5B%5D=5671

It was writed by three researchers that are reference in experimental research in Brazil. Their studies are published in many top-tier journals such as Journal of Business Research, Journal of Advertising and Psychology & Marketing.

It is also used as a base reference to teach experimental research in Marketing to undergraduates at my University.

Best wishes,

Leonardo Humes

You can use only that subscale but you must justify that specific theoretical concept instead of the general variable.

Different systems have common properties that do not depend on their nature. These are system-wide properties. And each system has its own specifics related to the subject area. I have been researching both system-wide properties and specific features of various systems using intelligent technologies

У разных систем есть общие свойства, не зависящие от их природы. Это общесистемные свойства. И у каждой системы есть своя специфика, связанная предметной областью. Я занимался исследованием как общесистемных свойств, так и специфических особенностей различных систем с применением интеллектуальных технологий

http://lc.kubagro.ru/aidos/Work_on_emergence.htm

http://lc.kubagro.ru/

You could use a qualitative or quantitiave analysis.The qualitative analysis would help you ask people if they believe is recycling etc.In case many of them say they don't,they will list some factors for the same for example trust,profit,false adevrtising of companies etc.Now when you make a model of these factors from what you have got qualitatively can test the same quantitatively.Some such papers are there in my research papers .Pls see

I need scale for perceived brand hedonism in marketing. Can anybody help me to find a scale of it?

I am glad you find the chapters interesting!

George

Hi, Professor Aradhana Krishna's book sensory marketing has a lot of similar research. Infact there is a whole section devoted to decisions affected by olfaction.

Additionally, check out Tanuka Ghoshal and Rishtee Batra's paper on how eating spicy food has shown to induce aggressive beahvior.

This should help you out

Thank you all for your comments/insights. I think I've now find what I was looking for!

CHECK THIS !!

Dear researcher,

Although the two answering scales  (degrees of agreement & degrees of satisfaction) are ordinals with 7 ranks, using the same answering scale for the three questions enables  summating  the answers of these questions  to represent the measured variable.

Yes. No doubt about it. It has changed the consumption pattern of urban as well as rural people. It has impacted on the standard of living of the people. The adverse impact is on the grocery consumption and food habits.

Start by making a list of all items that you would need for the week. At the end of the week make a list of all items you have purchased. Separate them into three categories.

1. The needed items on your previous list

2. Emergency purchases

3. Other items purchased

Replicate this for a period of at least two months. At the end of the period, total the number of items under each category, divide each figure by the total number of items purchased (in all the 3 categories), and divide by 100. Graph the results on a pie chart.The percentage of the category "other Items purchased" would be the percentage of your impulsive buying. 

It depends on the product to use both purchase intention and purchase behavior for example solar powered cars we cannot study purchase behavior because the product is not yet used by many consumers. Whereas for diesel cars can study both purchase behavior and purchase intention. Further it can be assumed that positive purchase intention is equivalent to positive purchase behavior. 

They are not synonyms, because each has nuances of meaning.  But I think that propensity and willingness are included in the somewhat broader terms "beliefs and attitudes."

Hi, Ville:

Perhaps this can be explained via a recent research with ethical claims and labelling study.

Hoek,  Roling, & Holdsworth (2013) study argued that although consumers' growing interest in ethical consumption has been well-documented, their understanding of specific claims, and the link between their stated concerns and behaviour, has not. Using a framework from systematic-heuristic and behaviour modification theory, this study explored consumers' understanding of varied ethical claims and a specific eco-label, and then estimated the effect these stimuli had on their choice behaviors.

In-depth interviews revealed a strong interest in environmental and social attributes but considerable scepticism about specific claims. However, a choice modelling experiment found ethical attributes nevertheless influenced respondents' choices. Two distinct clusters whose views and choice behaviors differed markedly existed: one was primarily price-driven and the other more responsive to specific claims. Discrepancies between the qualitative and quantitative studies appear attributable to differences in information processing; many consumers respond strongly to heuristics, even though they believe themselves sceptical of the claims these communicate. The findings raise important policy questions about the scientific basis of many ethical claims, since consumers were strongly influenced by these, despite their views to the contrary!

Hope this helps!

Thanks, Nadeem

As I recall, anchoring quantitative scales to qualitative anchoring points is always a good idea. What is the qualitative anchor for a "1"? What is a qualitative anchor for a "10"?, etc. A "1" without a qualitative anchor or a "10" without a qualitative anchor requires a big leap in faith that the scale satisfies "face validity"--not to mention the more challenging "construct validity." It might be helpful to review the American Psychological Association's definitions in this regard. My sense is that a lot of consumer satisfaction scales are not properly used in inferential statistical analyses.  Analysts often do not report the characteristics of the measures they use. Are we talking about nominal, ordinal, interval, or ratio scales? See: http://graphpad.com/support/faqid/1089/ I typically ignore as unreliable reports that do not make known these important distinctions. But then, again, I'm "old school."

Hi Azhar!

I was recently working on a paper about why fashion businesses do (or don't) adopt particular eco-innovations, using the theories Everett Rogers puts forward in the work you mentioned. I haven't looked at it in-depth but I wondered whether you could find some specific scales related to the innovation-decision process (rather than the innovation-diffusion process). I'm sure you've already looked at his work a lot but I found this five-stage process, and what encourages/discourages consumers to adopt an innovation through the decision-making process, very useful.

Apologies if that's not adding anything new but hope it's a helpful perspective!

Elly

The following papers may be helpful to your topic: 

Mathematical Psychology if adopted to this research case that could generate some data from consumer neurophysiological decisions in some experimental or data collection means correlating to the consumer action/activity there by the generated data then could be processed using different physical/statistical methods to extract underlying pattern hence forecasting techniques could be adopted to find potential/likely judgement from consumer. Such decisions in aggregation present in cloud server helps better forecasting when a new consumer data sets arrives. It could help online the marketing guy thru information on their mobile devices about consumers mood/decision from the data processed in a could based algorithm.

A novel approach could be developed based on this theme. We have a researcher in our center working on psychological experiments and from the data we collaborate to process data & develop model to find information. We are open for collaboration if such experiment could be established so that we analyze the collected data for model development.

Regards,

Dr. Mayukha Pal

Thanks.

I am not sure of any specific scale, but there are adaptations used specifically for luxury consumption, which are types of conspicuous consumption. You may want to consider this Luxury consumption immersion scaled developed in 1995 and with details below

European Advances in Consumer Research Volume 2, 1995      Pages 69-77

LUXURY POSSESSIONS AND PRACTICES: AN EMPIRICAL SCALE

Bernard Dubois, Groupe HEC

Gilles Laurent, Groupe HEC

You may also consider Understanding Luxury Disposition

Miah Lee, Eunju Ko, Seulgi Lee, and Kyulim Kim Yonsei University

Also there are free of charge websites that offer IAT creation templates, e.g., "freeIAT" - I believe that cognilab is now charging a fee.

Roger

There is an easy experimental design in 

William R. Pasewark Mark E. Riley, It’s a Matter of Principle: The Roleof Personal Values in Investment Decisions, Journal of Business Ethics (2010) 93:237–253

It is for SRI but might be adaptable to your research questions. 

Bests

Anna

The Chaudhuri et al. paper reference is as follows:

Conspicuous consumption orientation: Conceptualisation, scale development and validation

H Roy Chaudhuri, S Mazumdar, A Ghoshal

Journal of Consumer Behaviour 10 (4), 216-224

The scale seems somewhat culturally specific, would be interesting to explore / adapt to different societal settings..

I d really dont have experience in this subject, but see these

Joris,

Unless you are standing over the user with a gun, they are.

One of the best way for the diffusion of this innovation is to have a platform to sell those products without any intermediates in between. This is a live example executed in my city by a person.

Dear Tarika,

good day,

kindly find the attached file regarding one of my researches which include brand trust as determinants of brand equity . it may help you,

best regards,

Dr. Alhaddad

In general, the herding can be defined as the phenomenon of individuals deciding to follow others and imitating group behaviours rather than deciding independently and atomistically on the basis of their own, private information.Herd behavior describes how individuals in a group can act collectively without centralized direction.  few important techniques for assessing herding behaviour  in trading  may helpfull through these papers like: 

file:///C:/Users/Administrator/Desktop/dp2010-11.pdf

thanks 

Dear Azhar, consumers will probably always consider some technical specifications when purchasing a vehicle, because these specifications may play a role in the performance of the vehicle.  Consumers probably do not only purchase vehicles based on considerations such as a brand name. Consumers, however, may differ in various aspects, for instance their involvement in the purchase and how knowledgeable they are about particular technical specifications. It also depends on what purpose the vehicle is purchased for.  I embed the link to a brief Google Scholar search that relates to your question. Good luck! ツ

My book "Economic Aspects of Omnipotence" could help you understanding better the fetishism of commodity and culture.

Best regards.

Hello.

I believe (1) brand quality,  (2) good packaging and (3) positioning are very important. In fact, the brand quality is everything, but then if that quality is concealed through poor packaging and presentation, the product stands a little chance of succeeding in the market.

Best wishes,

Pauline.

Hello Dr. Horchak, thank you so much for your help! I looked at the references you have given and do think they'll all add up to my knowledge. Grateful!

Hello,

Please follow the link attached

Regards, W.

Hi, Sabine. Fascinating question! I also feel this happens (consumer behaviour of adults getting influenced shaped during their childhood) and can suggest some work that offers evidence towards this phenomenon. In her article, Ji (2002) quotes Guest (1964), who found evidence—albeit in an article published some time back—that finds evidence that children’s relationships with brands can get carried over to one’s adulthood. I guess that you might find evidence in support of your argument in literature that has quoted these articles.

Good luck with your work!

References:

Ji, M. F. (2002). Children’s relationships with brands: “True love” or “one-night” stand? Psychology and Marketing, 19(4), 369–387. http://doi.org/10.1002/mar.10015

Guest, L (1964). Brand loyalty revisited: A twenty-year report. Journal of Applied Psychology, 48(2), 93-97. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0046667

Check out this link

This explains the theory of control charts in a very elegant and simple manner.

The following link tells you how to draw UCL & LCL using Microsoft Excel

Minitab is a popular tool to do statistical analysis.

You can download a trial version free

But after the trial period you will have to pay for it and it may be expensive.

Hope this helps

I consider these papers very important for the topic.

Goog luck

Noted with many thanks.

Dear Mahmud, please see the embedded link. A few of these references can even be  accessed on ResearchGate. Good luck!

Attitude is most commonly defined as a Behavioural Tendency. Thus if there is a difference between attitudes, (measured obtrusively), and Behaviour, (measured unobtrusively), then it only confirms that the obtrusive measurement of attitudes is not externally valid.

Attitudes are most validly measured be observing behaviour (unobtrusively) and then inferring from the behaviours, what the attitudes must have been to produce such behaviours. 

A number of factors are relevant in this regard.Particular insurance packages, simplicity of procedure and various security related issues are very much relevant.

Dear Joseph, the previous posts seemed to already address your query. I enclose a link to some data visualization tools (in general) that I found valuable. It may be of value to some other ResearchGate members as well.

Dear Rodica

Thanks a lot for this link!

Céline

one way anova is a difference test. this test only determines if there is any difference between groups (global vs. local). In order to detect which one is more preferred, you may use frequency analysis, I think. However, it is not a hypothesis analysis. If you want to apply hypothesis test, you need to add another independent or dependent variable to your model.

What is quality? is a complex issue, but examining this complexity is immensely valuable for practical marketing - see my The Economics of Quality, Grades and Brands http://www.bowbrick.org.uk/Quality/peter_bowbrick_on_quality.htm.

'Appraisal' I think of as being what a functionary, a bureaucrat in government or in a big company does. They impose their prejudices of what people ought to want onto the market, in product design or market grades. This can seriously damage markets - see my Peter Bowbrick, ‘From Economic Research to Policy in 32 Years’, Eurochoices (2012) EuroChoices 11(3) p 44. on how such regulations cost consumers £10 billion a year on fruit and vegetables, and how and why the bureaucrats fought tooth and nail to prevent reform.

An appraisal system uses what we call 'inspector quality' - using objective charactistics not subjective attributes, and using easily measured characteristics rather than important ones. 'Inspector Quality' frequently has no overlap with what consumers want, but it is easy to measure, and keeps inspectors in a job. (An important concept in quality control, TQM etc).

Rather than generalize, try pinning down what exactly 'appraisal' is used to mean in your particular industry. You can then do a rigorous and useful examination. It is possible that once there have been rigorous and useful examinations of different industries you  will be able to generalize (i.e. in several years time). I suspect that the term is so elastic, used in so many different ways, that no generalization is possible. And that, like most such generalizations, it is not useful in practice.

Thanks a lot Béatrice!

Dear Vishal,

This is quite an interesting field you are researching in.  I would start by identifying the variables that trigger the change in purchasing behaviour, like in-store promotions, discounts, or location related to similar products (pricing, features...).   And then collect data on some form of Likert scale (do define the scales clearly).  An event time line might be useful to determine how the different factors effected the decision making process.  Then make use of the statistical tools mentioned by Mr. Kundu.  

Then to make it more interesting you can divide the group also into male and female consumer purchase attitude distortion.

Which product gives the consumer the highest perception of bang for consumer's buck?

Regards,

Cornelius   

I thought I had replied, but somehow it didn't get through ...

1) It is a descriptive measure of variance explained - it describes variation accounted for in the sample. This relates to Patricia's points. I'm not sure this is is an indication of bias per se, because descriptive measures can be unbiased - it is just inappropriate to interpret them as estimates of population parameters. Other descriptive measures include R^2.

2) It is a standardised effect size metric. This means that the effect size is scaled in terms of standard deviations or variances. Typically one uses the sample estimate of the SD or variance and this is (in my view) deeply problematic because all sorts of factors influence the SD or variance that don't influence the magnitude of the effect. Generally I prefer unstandardised measures of effect size for this reason. These factors include the design of the study, the reliability of the measures and range restriction.

3) Partial eta squared is particularly bad because of the way it handles other factors or covariates in the design (including random factors such as the subjects effect in a repeated measures design). This tends to result in bigger effect size estimates than classical eta-squared (which is calculated as SSeffect / SStotal). Partial eta-squared is SSeffect / (SSeffect + SSerror). The denominator is only the same if there are no other effects or error terms in the analysis.

If you do use eta-squared don't interpret it as a population statistic, be aware of limitations (reliability, range restriction etc.) and calculate what is known as generalised eta-squared (Oleynik & Algina, 2003).

Generalised eta-squared attempts to equate the calculation of eta-squared as if each effect were from an independent measures design. I have simplified formulae for generalised eta-squared in my book.

Thanks for replying Wendy,

My understanding is:

Direct would be

Eating diabetic foods is:

Bad   1    2   3   4   5    Good

Indirect would have 2 components

Diabetic foods are (behavioural belief)

Unhealthy  1   2   3   4   5   Healthy

Eating healthy foods is...

Not important  1   2   3   4    5  Important (outcome evaluation)

-----------------------------------

How do we test indirect measures for internal consistency?

Can cronbach's alpha for direct measures only, or can they be used for indirect measures?

Hi, Shannon:

Perhaps it all boils down to 'brand management'---source stimuli and psychological evaluation---reference to conditioning...why we like or disliked brands and can our perceptions be changed!

Case in point: A recent research study (Nguyen, Choudhury, & Melewar, 2015) argued that---Likeability plays an important role for firms that rely on their brands. However, few studies examine factors influencing customers’ perceptions of likeable firm brands. Adapting a Private Brand model, the current study proposes a model of brand likeability that integrates four key variables measuring customer characteristics, namely price consciousness, perceived quality, perceived risk and familiarity.

Using an online survey to collect data, the study employs partial least square-based structural equation modelling for hypothesis testing. Findings reveal that when customers are more familiar with the well-liked brand, they have more confidence in evaluating the quality, reducing perceived risk and price consciousness. In addition, the study highlights an important antecedent to brand likeability perceptions: brand familiarity. Marketers are encouraged to manage brand likeability more systematically to improve customer–brand relationships, brand reputation and differentiate firms’ brand personality.

Not managing likeability creates disliked brands, resulting in customer dissatisfaction and negative word of mouth!

Hope this helps!

Nadeem

try attached papers. it may help u. all the best

Dear Aakash, please see the embedded link. It would probably be advisable to repeat the search and  limit it to recent publications, for instance, since 2011.

Fogg et al. (2009) asks: What is “persuasion”? As one might predict, scholars do not agree on the precise definition and states that "persuasion is a non-coercive attempt to change attitudes or behaviors".

The difference between motivation and persuasion can be seen when Fogg writes about the macro level where one finds products designed for an overall persuasive outcome opposed to microsuasion that can be found in computing products. These products could be word-processing programs or spreadsheets; they do not necessarily have a persuasive outcome as the overall goal of the product. However, they will incorporate smaller elements of influence to achieve other goals.

I agree with previous answer and see that Fogg in captology have to reduce persuasion into functionality due to how computers operates. E.g. in Fogg Behavior Model (FBM) three principal factors: motivation, ability, and triggers are what the designer of a persuasive system can use to reach a targeted behavior (Fogg, 2009). One example how this could be applied can be seen when designing persuasive systems for sustainability (see Mustaquim and Nyström 2014). Thus motivation is a crucial factor when building systems for persuasion.

Fogg, B.J. (2009). A Behavior Model for Persuasive Design. In Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Persuasive Technology (Persuasive'09). ACM, New York.

Fogg, B. J., Cuellar, G., and Danielson, D. (2009). Motivating, influencing, and persuading users: An introduction to captology. In Sears, A. and Jacko, J.A. (Eds.) Human-Computer Interaction Fundamentals, 109-122. CRC Press.

Mustaquim, M. and Nyström, T. (2014). Designing Persuasive Systems For Sustainability – A Cognitive Dissonance Model. In Proceedings of the 22nd European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS) 2014. AIS Electronic Library.

Kuldeep, good point about creating judgements for competitive products...

Thank you very much for your contribute. My study is on a very inicial stage! But you gave me a good way to look at the problem.

I will be looking to regional labels and regional certified products in Portugal. Is the U.S. consumer much different? Probably not.

What i empirically find, is that the consumer pays attention to label certification but, when it comes to buying purchase it shifts to price.

Once again, thank you Nadeem 

Hello. I'm into consumer psychology. To date I have written a book alongside 2 other co authors on Consumer Behaviour and university manuals relating to Consumer Behaviour. Had also conducted quite a number of quantitative based research on the said mater.  Given the opportunity, i would like to contribute towards your current book initiatives. Thanks.

Propaganda in PR involves using mostly false rhetoric to lure an audience into believing the principles and ideas of the propagandist while publicity focuses on providing information on a particular product or subject to those who need it.

A publicist carries out demographic and psycho-graphic research and analysis to identify the needs of the public and then fashions his/her message to suite these needs. A propagandist uses existing phenomenon  and rhetoric that appeals to the emotions of the public  or group as a tool to create change in attitude and ideologies.

The message of the propagandist is provocative in nature while the message of a publicist is informative and persuasive in nature.

As the other respondents pointed out, it is possible to use neuromarketing to study risk perception. The question is if those methods are accepted as scientific methods, because I know for certain some top universities disregard this types of research.

You may find the following articles useful:

1. Marylyn Carrigan, Ahmad Attalla, (2001) "The myth of the ethical consumer – do ethics matter in purchase behaviour?", Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 18 Iss: 7, pp.560 - 578.

2. Shaw, D., Grehan, E., Shiu, E., Hassan, L. and Thomson, J. (2005), An exploration of values in ethical consumer decision making. Journal of Consumer Behaviour, 4 (3), pp.185–200.

3. Newholm, T. and Shaw, D. (2007) Studying the ethical consumer: A review of research. Journal of Consumer Behaviour, Vol 6(5), pp. 253-270.

Thank you Nadeem! There are certainly some points that fit my current work! 

Hi Cheng-Hung Lo,

I'll second Alexandros '  suggestion.  Your case seems to be a text book case  for discrete choice modeling (DCM).  In DCM you can define your product based on as many attributes as you want, including  price, packaging etc and then derived the model based on the respondent's choice. The model is based on Random Utility Model and estimated as Limited Dependent variable Regression Model, in which the dependent variable is the choice and  modeled as (typically) Multinominal Logit. There are many literature available , a good book to start is  "Quantitative Models in Marketing Research" by Franses and Paap (Cambridge book).  In regard to your concern about  "the real cost of money" , DCM may have a good answer for that since it can be done through a "Revealed preference" in which the choice is observed in a real-life context (e.g. store-observation, scan data or pre-purchase interception survey) . There are some complexity in doing this, most importantly in defining the choice set but there are ways to solve that problems.  The method is quite widely used in Transportation (choice of transport mode), tourism and also marketing (product choice or store choice).  I hope it helps and Good Luck !

Dear Bahar:

Ethics has always been an enticing topic for many! Over the years, ethical research on consumption has focused mainly on the obligations, principles and values guiding consumers' actions and reasons for action. In doing so, it has concerned itself mostly with such bounded contexts as voluntary simplifiers, anti-consumption movements or so-called 'ethical consumers,' thereby fostering an artificial opposition between ethical and non-ethical consumption.

Perhaps as part of your current you can also examine whether consumers consciously indulge in ‘ethical’ and ‘unethical’ behaviour often (Gregory-Smith, Smith, & Winklhofer, 2013) within short time frames, and that they often compensate for unethical choices by making ethical choices later on!

In a recent research study Garcia-Ruiz,  & Rodriguez-Lluesma (2014) proposed virtue ethics as a more apt conceptual framework for the ethical analysis of consumption because it takes into account the developmental dynamic triggered by engagement in consumption practices. The authors build on MacIntyre's goods-virtues-practices-institutions framework and Beabout's concept of a domain-relative practice and argued that when engaging in consumption activities, agents may pursue goods internal to practices, further their individual life narratives and contribute to the good of their communities, thus developing virtues that perfect themselves both as consumers and as ethical agents!

Hope this helps!

Nadeem

Nadeem:

While unconscious, we rest, our brain recuperates or occupies itself with making up dreams. I am not sure that during unconscious state there is any decision making related to conscious problems.

How about a simpler common-sense explanation that once you (your body and brain) have rested and recuperated well, you are more likely to make better decisions!

As for the science in the publication you cited, I shouldn't comment on specifics without reading it.

Regards, 

It depends on the objectives of your research.  If you are studying the price-response function you should probably have a lot of price levels in your design.  But if you are studying something else, and price is a covariate, then you only need enough to ensure that the choice tasks are realistic and to avoid validity threats from naive designs.  Also, in my view there is nothing to stop you treating each price point as a categorical variable, it is quite legitimate and even common the measure several price points separately and calculate separate part worths for each level of your price attribute. You might expect a monotonically reducing utility as price increases (you could test this), but bear in mind that economic theory is based only on the distribution of reservation prices leading to a smooth demand curve.  Reality is a little different, as there are psychological aspects that disrupt this demand curve, such as reference price and odd-pricing.  So the price-demand curve might not be as smooth as your friend expects. 

Finally, you might find the IBM SPSS conjoint manual helpful. http://www.cc.uoa.gr/fileadmin/cc.uoa.gr/uploads/files/manuals/SPSS22/IBM_SPSS_Conjoint.pdf

Hi, Mohit:

Great topic to explore. The goal is to discourage cognitive dissonance! From a relationship marketing perspective, when brands and retailers make their ties with their customers stronger and encourage trust, they can discourage cognitive dissonance in post-purchase stage and thereby encourage customer satisfaction and behavioural and attitudinal loyalty!

Please take a look at my research study on this topic---you may find it useful for your current research:

Hope this helps!

Nadeem

Hi, Manfred:

Among others, most likely i believe word of mouth (as a variable/construct behavior!) perhaps has a very plausible connection (or the closest/strongest link) to customer satisfaction! Please take a look at the following recent research study:

In this study (Eisingerich, Auh, &  Merlo, 2014)  evidence has shown that satisfied customers do not necessarily buy more of a company’s products and services, thus spurring researchers to look for a missing link between customer satisfaction and purchase behavior!

The authors argued that the Word of mouth (WOM) has been advocated as the elusive missing link and as a key indicator of customer-firm relationship strength. Yet, WOM is only one type of customer voluntary performance (CVP). In this study, a second type of CVP, namely customer participation (i.e., customers’ willingness to provide the firm with constructive feedback and suggestions), is argued to be crucial to ensure that a satisfied customer repurchases.

The authors developed and tested a model that predicts that satisfied customers repurchase when they become productive resources through two spontaneous and cooperative customer behaviors: WOM and participation. The empirical findings support the predictions, thus complementing and extending previous research.

Finally the authors suggests that while WOM has been heralded as an important factor in firm growth, another factor that is at least equally if not more important to future sales is---customer participation!

Hope this helps!

Nadeem

Probably the best solution is to read the whole article on it. I cite one part of one text, which elucidate the topic a little...

Richard P. Bagozzi, Hans Baumgartner and Youjae YiSource, State versus Action Orientation and the Theory of Reasoned Action: An Application to Coupon Usage, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 18, No. 4 (Mar., 1992), pp. 505-518

p. 508:

(…) A person's degree of state versus action orientation may also influence whether attitudes will have direct effects on behavior (i.e., effects not mediated by intentions). Action orientation reflects readiness to act, whereas state orientation indicates inertia to remain in a state of inaction. Because an action-oriented person is characterized by an inherent readiness to act, s/he might be moved to act, at least partly, on the basis of a favourable attitude alone, especially when the behavior of interest is not too effortful or involving (and therefore not requiring that mental effort be devoted to decision making and intention formation) or when the attitude is especially strong (such as for intensely emotion-laden attitudes or compelling conative urges; see, e.g., Bagozzi 1991). In such cases, an attitude can stimulate action directly without activating an intention. On the other hand, a state-oriented person is not easily moved to act, and a positive attitude toward a behavior, in itself, might not be sufficient to stimulate action. In such cases, volitional processes may be required for the performance of behaviour.