RUSSELL W. BELK*

Circumstances, contexts, or situations are often cited but rarely examinedas explanations for unpredicted behaviors. This article reports an explorationof the amounts and patterns of variance in selected purchase decisions asa function of consumption and purchase contexts. Results for the two product

categories studied reveal sizable situational effects.

An Exploratory Assessment of SituationalEffects in Buyer Behavior

INTRODUCTIONThe proviso that "it depends upon the situation"

is a general acknowledgement of the expected conso-nance of behavior and the settings in which it takesplace. The consumer making this qualification mayexpect both purchase and consumption situations toexert an influence on his decision making. While hemay anticipate or select certain situational charac-teristics prior to purchase, many situations arise atthe time of purchase which could not be anticipatedor predicted in advance.

Marketers have long recognized the potential influ-ence of buying situations, but in researching the buyersuch factors have either been treated as an unfortunatesource of noise or they have been investigated asisolated cases which preclude assessment of the fullimpact of all but a few extreme situations. Withinthe past ten years a call for research which explicitlyconsiders consumption and purchase situations hasbeen sounded in marketing studies of personality [9],attitudes [18], brand preference [22],perception [13],cognition [15]. and market segmentation [11]. Theargument underlying these mandates Is a compellingone: investigations of buyer behavior which ignoresituational effects are likely to result in good predic-tions only when the characteristics of buyers or choicealternatives are intense enough to be influential acrossall relevant situations. Despite the apparent strengthof this argument, there are several substantial obstaclesto the development of situation-specific predictionsof consumer behavior:

*Russell W. Belk is Assisiant Professor of Marketing. TempleUtiiversity,

1. "Situation" and "relevant situation" are concepts ofenormous breadth and vagueness.

2. Systematic investigations to determine the salient com-ponents of purchase and consumption situations havenot been undertaken,

3. The strategic implications of a knowledge of situationshave not been entirely evident.

4. Methods for assessing the importance and nature ofsituational effects have not been realized.

This article is primarily concerned with the problemof methodology, but necessarily considers the firstthree problems as well. A conceptual definition ofsituation is first developed to refine the scope ofinquiry. Within the framework of this definition,behavioral differential inventories are suggested asa viable approach to the study of situational effectsin buyer behavior. Buyer choice among alternativesis examined across varied descriptions of consumptionand purchase contexts in two product categories forwhich inventories were developed. Then structuraland pattern analyses of situational effects are utilizedto demonstrate applications of the approach.

A General Definition of SituationWhen the consumer prefaces a prediction of his

behavior with the statement that "it depends uponthe situation," he may mean anything from whetherone brand on the grocer's shelves has a three centspecial to whether the nation's economy will improve.Consumer researchers' use of the term "situation"may be more precise, but it is seldom more consistent[10, 14, 16, 17, 21, 23, 24]. This study adopts a generalview of situation as something outside the basictendencies and characteristics of the individual, butbeyond the characteristics of the stimulus object to

156

Journal of Marketing ResearchVol. XI (May 1974), 156-63

AN EXPLORATORY ASSESSMENT OF SITUATIONAL EFFECTS IN BUYER BEHAVIOR 157

be acted upon. Characteristics of the individual includeany traits or response patterns that a person may bepresumed to possess for a reasonable period of timebefore and after a particular instance of observation.This would include any of the factors which Thorndike[26] has called lasting and general characteristics ofthe individual, such as personality, general skills, andintellect. As a source of decision influence, thesecharacteristics are attributable to the individual andare therefore not considered to be a part of situation.Characteristics of the stimulus object refer, in buyerbehavior, to attributes of a particular product or brandto which the consumer may respond. These charac-teristics are relatively constant and need not be con-strued as a part of situation either.

With these exclusions, situation may then be definedas all those factors particular to a time and placeof observation which do not follow from a knowledgeof personal (intra-individual) and stimulus (choicealternative) attributes, and which have a demonstrableand systematic effect on current behavior. It shouldbe noted that this definition describes situation in termsof observable aggregate effects rather than in termsof similarities in individual perceptions of situations.This is an important distinction which allows theexternal specification of situations in research. It isalso important to note that this definition does notinclude a host of broad environmental factors whichare not specific to a time or place of observation.These environmental influences include variables suchas fashions, product innovation, general interest rates,degree of product acceptance or adoption, level ofword-of-mouth activity, and cultural or group valuesand norms. What remains is a more manageablenumber of choice-specific factors which may be ob-jectively defined and are partially controllable.

METHOD

The Behavioral Differential InventoryIn order to deal with situations found in buyer

behavior, the technique chosen in this application isa modification of the behavioral differential approachdeveloped by Triandis [27]. The behavioral differen-tial is a questionnaire on which respondents indicatethe likelihood that they would make each of a numberof responses to a stimulus configuration. While Trian-dis used persons as the stimulus configurations, theapproach has been adapted by others [1,8, 22] toutilize descriptions of situations as the stimuli. Thefollowing example, abridged from one inventory em-ployed in this study, shows the general format ofthe instrument:

CIRCUMSTANCES: You are at the store lo pick upsome things for a picnic you are planning wilti friendsand are trying to decide what kind of snack to buy.

Place an "X" in the appropriate position on each ofthe following scales to indicate how likely you would

be to choose each snack in these circumstances,1. POTATO CHIPS

Extremely / / / / / / Not at alllikely 1 2 3 4 5 Hkely

2. POPCORN

Extremely / / / / / / Not at alllikely 1 2 3 4 5 likely

3. COOKIES

Extremely / / / / / / Not at alllikely 1 2 3 4 5 likely

10. CRACKERS

Extremely / / / / / / Not at alllikely 1 2 3 4 5 likely

The same choices and scales are presented undervaried descriptions of situation to all subjects. Theresult is a treatments (situations) by treatments (prod-ucts) by subjects experimental design which allowsestimations of each effect and their two-way interac-tions [2, 31].

Wicker [28, 29, 30] has conducted research suggest-ing that responses to such an instrument involvinghypothetical situations are "consistently better pre-dictors of actual behaviors than are traditional mea-sures of attitude" [30, p. 269]. In efforts to measurethe importance of situational variance in behavior,studies using behavioral differential inventories havebeen carried out with respect to anxiety responses[4, 6, 8], hostility responses [7], leisure activitypreferences [1], and drink consumption preferences[22]. Although results differ by application, thesestudies have consistently found small contributionsto variance from the main effects of both subjectsand situations, with the majority of variance accountedfor by the choice alternative and interaction terms.This suggests that research employing only individualdifferences or only situations as independent variablesmay expect only marginal predictive success, and thata fuller simultaneous approach to studying behaviormay be most fruitful.

Instrument ConstructionInventories of product alternatives and situations

were sought for consumer product categories in whichsituational effects were neither blatant nor impossibleto imagine. The two categories selected are snacksand meats. Instrument construction began with datacollected from 50 housewives and 50 students whowere asked to list all situations that came to mindwhen they thought of buying, consuming, and servinga product from each of several food product categories.These situations were categorized and summary de-scriptions, along with lists of representative foodproducts, were tested with additional groups for famil-iarity and usage. The most common situations and

158 JOURNAL OF MARKETING RESEARCH, MAY 1974

products were then chosen for inclusion in Inventoriescontaining approximately 100 stimulus-response pairs.

Procedure

Subjects were 100 adults selected from 5 business,social, and church groups in Minneapolis. Minnesota.Inasmuch as variance attributable to individual dif-ferences was to be compared with other sources ofvariance, subject homogeneity was not sought beyondage limits of 18 to 60 years of age. Materials filledout by all subjects included the snack product invento-ry consisting of 10 situations and 10 products, themeat product inventory consisting of 9 situations andII products, and items designed to measure productusage, situation familiarity, and selected demographicand personality characteristics. Subjects met in groupsof 20 for initial briefing sessions and were allowed2 days to complete and return questionnaires.

ANALYSIS AND RESULTS

Sources of Behavioral VarianceThe general model employed for assessing the rela-

tive importance of consumer choice influences is athree-way mixed effects analysis of variance model,where persons are considered a random factor withsituations and products taken to be fixed effects.Unlike typical applications of analysis of variance inwhich the end result is F-ratios or contrasts to assessthe significance of effects, the intent in this applicationwas to construct estimates of the relative contributionof sources in the model to variance in the dependentmeasure. The technique for estimating these relativecontributions is derived from expected mean squareformulas specified by the model employed [3. 12].The expected mean squares and solutions for estimatesof components are shown in Table I for a three-waymixed effects model with one observation per cell.

Table 1VARIANCE COMPONENTS IN MIXED EFFECTS MODEL

THREE-WAY ANALYSIS OF VARIANCE

Expected mean squareEstimate of

variance component

nm »=

= MS,

where: a = random component variance (P random; S and Rfixed), 6 = fixed component variance. P = persons, S = situations,R = responses (products), e = error, n ^ number of persons,k = number of situations, m = number of products, r = residual.

In the absence of repeated measures, no independentestimate of tj-p̂ ^ is available. In order to estimatecomponent contributions to variance, it is necessaryto assume that either error variance or the three-wayinteraction term is not present [5, 25]. Repeatedmeasures on a separate group of 100 subjects for thesnack product inventory showed a residual contribu-tion of 36% with the three-way interaction term ac-counting for less than 4% of the variance. Based uponthis observation, results are presented under the as-sumption of no three-way interaction.

The results in Table 2 confirm the dominance ofinteractions over primary source effects in contribu-tions to variance. For snack products, the personsby product interaction is the most important compo-nent. This is interpreted to mean that individualreaction to alternative products is the major determi-nant of product preferences. And since the main effectof products accounts for less than 9% of the variance,it appears that individual reactions to the snacks findlittle agreement among different consumers. The effectcommonly implied when referring to situationai influ-ence is reflected in the products by situations interac-tion term. This is the second most important effectin the snack product results, and demonstrates thatchoice among snack products is dependent upon theconsumption and purchase situations examined.

In the case of the meat product inventory, thissituational effect is the most important determinantof choice, and contributes approximately one quarterof the total variance in preferences. The productsterm shows almost double the influence found withsnack products, suggesting greater consumer agree-ment as to which meat products are most desirable.The individual meat preferences reflected in the per-sons by products interaction drops to a poor third,yielding less than a 10% contribution to variance. Asa whole, the meat product inventory shows a largerole for situational effects on product preferences,a smaller role for the general attractiveness of eachmeat, and a small but still important role for individualdifferences in response preferences.

Patterns of VarianceLevin [19. 20] has demonstrated the particular

applicability of multimode factor analysis to the be-havioral differential inventory in his analysis of theAnxiety Inventory of Endler et al. [8]. In the currentapplication, persons, situations, and products may bethought of as the separate modes for which responseswere obtained. Three-mode factor analysis of this datahas the unique advantage of simultaneously extractingfactors in each of these modes and then deriving theinterrelationships across modes by means of a "core"matrix. The three-mode factor analytic model allowsdecomposition of data from the behavioral differentialin the manner shown in the figure. Each two-dimen-sional matrix on the right side of the equation may

AN EXPLORATORY ASSESSMENT OF SITUATIONAL EFFECTS IN BUYER BEHAVIOR 159

T a b l e 2

RELATIVE CONTRIBUTIONS TO VARIANCE IN PRODUCT PREFERENCES

Source

PersonsSituationsProductsProducts X situationsPersons x situationsPersons x productsResidual

(Error + P x S x R)Total

Degrees offreedom

9999

SI891891

8019

9999

Snack products

Mean square

15,4()31.19

22«.8742,66

1,9()6,891.16

Percentcontribution'-'

5.43%1.12%8.63%

15.82%2.79%

21.82%44.37%

I(K).O %

Degrees offreedom

998

1080

792990

7920

9899

Meat products

Mean square

13.16154.01362.4771,21

1.833.320.98

Percentcontribution"

4,58%5.19%

14.99%26,20%2.90%9.73%

36,41%

100.0 %'Mixed effects model (subjects random) assuming residual composed entirely of error variance.

be interpreted as a traditional factor loading matrix,with the three-dimensional core matrix thought of asfactor scores for idealized persons on pairs of factorsrepresenting the combination of a type of productin a type of situation. That is, by examining the scoresin the core matrix it is possible to render an interpreta-tion of the types of products preferred by certaintypes of buyers in the various types of situations.

For large numbers of subjects and variables, anexact solution to Ihe model quickly exceeds computerstorage capacity, in the following results the techniqueused is an approximation employed by Levin [20].First, because of possible differences in anchoragesacross subjects on the dependent scales, item scoresare standardized by subtraction of the mean for eachsituation-product combination and division by thestandard deviation for that item pair. Then a correlationmatrix is constructed by "stringing-out" each situationand product combination. For an inventory with 10situations and 10 products, this is a matrix of theorder 100. Additional matrices are then developed forthe average situation intercorrelations and the averageproduct intercorrelations. All three correlation matri-ces are then separately factor analyzed, and nonsig-nificant factors are deleted from each resulting factorloading matrix. Next the factor loading matrix derived

SCHEMATIC DIAGRAM OF THE THREE-MODE FACTOR

ANALYTICAL

RAW DATA MATRIX

F E R E D K

FACTORKATBIX

FACTORMATRIX

from the strung-out correlations is rearranged as athree-dimensional matrix of situations by products byfactors. While the format is similar, this is not yetthe core matrix. It is instead an intermediate approxi-mation which may be regarded as the loadings ofidealized subjects on each product-situation pair. Thefactor loading vectors for situations and products arethen used as linear operators on this matrix to computethe core matrix. The detailed procedures used to derivethis inner core of the equation and to perform rotationsis described by Levin [19].

Snack Product InventoryBased upon the size and amount of decrease in

latent roots, three snack product factors were retainedwith the loadings shown in Table 3. Although label-ing is tenuous, illustrative factor names will providegreater interpretability in the core matrix and bettersuggest applications of three-mode analysis. The firstproduct factor is comprised of products which seembest described as filling or substantial. The secondfactor, on the other hand, seems to represent productswhich are light and salty. Finally, the third factor

"Adapted from Levin [19, p. 12].''Assuming three factors per mode.

1,• >

3,4.5.6,7,8,9.

10,

TableSNACK PRODUCT

FACTOR LOADINGS .

Product

Potato chipsPopcornCookiesFresh fruitSandwichesPastriesIce creamCheeseAssorted nutsCrackers

3INVENTORY

FOR PRODUCTS

Factor

(Varimax rotation)I

.17

.04,13,15.36"

.03

.03

.54"

.34"

.59^

[1

. 5 1 "

.52^'- . 0 1

- , 4 6 -,03

- . 1 1

- . 2 8- , 2 4

,20- , 0 3

111

.06

.02

.65^'

.14,18-63-'-05

- . 1 0

,02.10

'Salient loadings used in interpretation.

160 JOURNAL OF MARKETING RESEARCH, MAY 1974

Table 4SNACK PRODUCT INVENTORY

FACTOR LOADINGS FOR SITUATIONS

Factor

Situation(Varimax rotation)

I II 111 IV

1. You are shopping for a snack thatyou or your family can eat whilewalching televison in the eve-nings. -,16 .05 ,30" - .58 '

2. You are planning a party for afew close friends and are wonder-ing what to have around to snackon.

3. Snacks at your house have be-come a little dull lately and youare wondering what you mightpick up that would be better,

4. You are going on a long auto-mobile trip and are thinking thatyou should bring along somesnack to eat on the way.

5. You suddenly realize that youhave invited a couple of friendsover for ihe evening and you havenothing for them to snack on.

6. You are at ihe grocery store whenyou get an urge for a between mealsnack. -,08 .22 .63" -.03

7. You are at the supermarket andnotice the many available snackproducts: you wonder if youshould pick something up in casefriends drop by. ,39^ ,22 ,32"-.01

8. You are thinking about what typeof snack to buy to keep aroundthe house this weekend. ,41'' ,25 -.02 - .25

9. You are at the store to pick upsome things for a picnic you areplanning with friends and are try-ing to decide what kind of snackto buy, .12 ,49" ,15 -.06

10, You are ihinking about a snackto have with lunch at noon. -.03 ,68" .06 .12

,18 -.03 -.07 - , 7 r

.24 - . 1 4 ,57" - . 0 9

.18 .48" -.21 -.25

.79" - . 0 2 .07 ,05

''Salient loadings used in interpretation.

is clearly a sweetness dimension, with high positiveloadings for cookies and pastries.

Four situation factors derived for the snack productsare shown in the factor loading matrix in Table 4.The first factor represents stimuli which may becharacterized as informal serving situations. Theseare situations in which the snack is to be made availableto visitors with no great flourish or emphasis. Thesecond factor is labeled nutritive, since the highpositive loadings occur on situations in which the snackis intended to sustain the individual either as partof a meal or as an intentional meal substitute. Thethird factor may best be described as situations wheresnack consumption is impulsive or unplanned. In thistype of situation, snacks are purchased either to haveon hand (as in situations 1.3. and 7). or to be consumedat the point of purchase (as in situation 6). The fourth

factor appears somewhat similar to the third, but dealswith unplanned purchase situations rather than un-planned consumption situations. The high negativeloadings for occasions being shopped for or plannedfor in situations 1 and 2 support this interpretation,but this factor is not as clear as the first three.

The final core matrix, adjusted to reflect rotations,is shown in Table 5. Since the person factor matrixis not derived by the method employed, labeling ofperson factors proceeds directly from the factor scoresin the core matrix rather than from comparisons offactor loadings to individual characteristics. The TypeI person seems to prefer to serve and eat substantialsnacks such as sandwiches, cheese, and nuts. Forunplanned purchases he shies away from all snacksbut the light and salty type, and especially avoidsthe substantial snacks he normally prefers. The TypeII consumer shows a tendency to serve light and saltysnacks, but to avoid them in all other types ofsituations. He shows only a slight tendency to prefermore substantial snacks for personal consumption.The third type of individual strongly prefers sweetsnacks for nourishment and on impulse, and displaysan avoidance of these snacks in other situations.Although labeling is again tenuous, a Type I individualmight be called a "heavy snacker." Type II an"entertainer." and Type HI a "sweet tooth."

Meat Product InventorySince the meat product inventory was applied to

the same subject group as the snack product inventory.a comparison of factors and three-mode relationshipsis possible for the two foods. The situation factorloadings for this inventory are shown in Table 6.Despite the use of situations similar to those of the

Table 5SNACK PRODUCT INVENTORY

CORE MATRIX (VARIMAX ROTATIONS)

Person and productfactors

Person type 1Substantial snacksLight/salty snacksSweet snacks

Person type IISubsiantial snacksLight/salty snacksSweet snacks

Person type 111Substantial snacksLight/salty snacksSweet snacks

Informalser\'ing

Situation factors

Nutritivesituations situations

1.19-.22

.26

.28

.97-.17

.08

.08-.82

2.19-.22

.27

,25-1,71-.36

-.46.04

1.64

Impulsiveconsumption

situations

1.51-,26

.19

.41-1.37- 0 3

- .14.07

1.83

Un-plannedpurchasesituations

- .87.37

-.09

-.20-1.17

,05

.19

.11

.73

AN EXPLORATORY ASSESSMENT OF SITUATIONAL EFFECTS IN BUYER BEHAVIOR 161

Table 6MEAT PRODUCT INVENTORY FACTOR LOADINGS FOR

SITUATIONS

Factors

Situations(Varimax rotation)

1 II 111 IV

1. You are planning a party for afew friends and are wonderingwhal to serve at dinner,

2. You are at home on a weekdayevening wondering what would begood for dinner,

3. You are ai the store to pick upsome meal for a picnic and aretrying to decide what to buy.

4. You are about to order dinner ata fairly nice restaurant where youhave gone with friends.

5- About 9:00 o'clock in the eveningyou get hungry, even though youhad dinner a few hours earlier,

6, After inviting some guests fordinner tonight you realize thatIhere is nolhing thawed to servethem: so you run to the supermar-ket to pick up some meat,

7. You thought you would stop bya fast food take-oul restaurant tohave a quick meal,

8. No one around the house has beenvery pleased with dinners latelyand you are discussing whal youmight all try for dinner this week-end,

9, You are at the supermarket infront of the meal counter and arewondering what to buy in casefriends or relatives drop by thisweekend.

,05 .63" ,01 -.13

,09

.04

.64" -,08 .04

.07 .96" -.03

,04 .13

,64"-,01 .10 .29

.62 • II -.03 -.11

.55" ,08 ,01 -,16

,42" .06 ,14 -.69=

,05 .62" ,25 .08

"Salient loadings used in interpretation.

snack product inventory, the four types of situationsderived for meats have no counterparts in the snackproduct situation factors. The first factor for meatsloads highly on five stimulus sentences which seembest described as "impromptu situations." These areoccasions where there has been no long preparationfor meals and the choice of meats must be a nearlyinstantaneous decision. The second factor is perhapsbest described as "dinners at home." The salientloadings for this factor all concern choices of meatsfor evening meals served in the respondent's home.The third factor has only one loading above .30. butbased on this and other high loadings it appears todescribe "weekend situations." The final situationfactor derived for meats is termed "relaxed situa-tions." and involves occasions in which there is littlehurry in selecting, preparing, or consuming the meatsinvolved. None of these factors suggests a sharedset of relevant purchase and consumption situationsbetween snacks and meats for this group of subjects.

The product factors obtained from the meat inven-

tory appear in Table 7. The three significant factorsretained also show no correspondence to the snackproduct factors. The first factor is interpreted as"fancy cuts." and is distinguished less by its salientpositive loadings (steak) than by its salient negativeloadings {e.g.. bologna, luncheon meat, and hamburgerdish). The second product factor for meats has highpositive loadings not only for steak but also for beefroast, pork chops, fish, and chicken. This factor islabeled "main course meats." The third factor hassalient loadings only for hot dogs and hamburgersand, for lack of a better term, retains these titles.

For meats, three idealized person factors wereretained. Combining these factors with those of thefirst two modes yields the core matrix shown in Table8. The first person factor in this matrix depicts aconsumer who generally prefers hot dogs and ham-burgers in impromptu decisions and relaxed consump-tion situations. For impromptu decision situationsthere is a lesser tendency for him also to prefer maincourse meats. The Type II individual tends to preferhot dogs and hamburgers only for impromptu decisionsituations and prefers main course meals on relaxedoccasions. Both types of meats are avoided by thisperson for dinners at home and on weekends. Thethird type of person depicted prefers fancy cuts ofmeat in impromptu decision situations but selects hotdogs and hamburgers for dinners at home. The firsttype of consumer might be thought of as convenience-oriented in his choice of meats. The second idealizedperson seems to satisfice with convenient meats inhurried decisions, but prefers the more substantialfull course meats when the situation is relaxed. Thethird type likes steak in a quick decision situation,but generally prefers less expensive meats for dinnersat home.

DISCUSSIONThe most significant finding of this study concerns

the amount of situational influence apparent in con-Table 7

MEAT PRODUCT INVENTORY FACTOR LOADINGS FOR

PRODUCTS

1.2.3.4.5.6.7.8,9,

10.II .

ProductsHot dogsSteakChickenHamburgersHamburger dIsh/casseroleBolognaFishPork chopsBeef roastLuncheon meatBacon

Factors

(Varimax rotation)1

-.34".35"

-.14-,23-.5r- .72- .12- .05

.03- , 6 2 "- .42^

11

-.15.39".44.01.04

-.05.52".60".61"

-.25.15

III

.61"

.24-.05

,71".28.20.02

-.03-.07

.19

.06

"Salient loadings used in interpretation.

162 JOURNAL OF MARKETING RESEARCH, MAY ]974

Table 8MEAT PRODUCT INVENTORY CORE MATRIX

(VARIMAX ROTATIONS)

Person and productfactors

Person type 1Fancy cutsMain course meatsHot dogs/hamburgers

Person type IIFancy cutsMain course meatsHot dogs/hamburgers

Person type IIIFancy cutsMain course meatsHot dogs/hamburgers

Impromp-tu

situations

-2.831.452.08

- ,38,13.97

.46- .38- .08

Situation factors

Dinnersat home

.41- .06- .36

- .06-1.93

- .78

-1.25-.411.05

Weekendsituations

.46-1,12

- ,26

.34- .76- .73

- .45.07.34

Relaxedsituations

-1.48,07

1.13

.22

.74- ,33

- .36.18

- .19

sumer food preferences. The fact that situational maineffects and interactions provided nearly half of theexplained variance in meat and snack preferencesstrongly suggests that consumer research has muchto gain by the explicit recognition of purchase andconsumption situations. Theoretical problems con-cerning the relationships of attitudes, personality, andbrand loyalty to consumer behavior seem especiallylikely to benefit from situational research. Subsequentstudies in these areas may gain some insights fromthe methodology employed here, but will also needlo seek more detailed operational definitions of situa-tions and more elaborate plans for specifying andsampling situations and response alternatives.

The behavioral differential inventory seems botha useful and a concise approach to studying situationalinfluence. The ultimate test of the appropriatenessof this format, as opposed to simple response prefer-ences, involves field tests to substantiate that thedifferences obtained reflect real differences in buyerbehavior patterns. From initial item retest reliabilitiesand product usage correlations obtained by the author,such a conclusion seems promising. Tentative com-parisons also indicate that the results of the inventoriesare fairly robust across subject groups and inventorysizes. Moreover, the analyses of variances and factoranalyses of these inventories suggest important effectswhich could not otherwise have been recognized.

Although the dependent measure employed in thisstudy is within-situation product preferences, the be-havioral differential approach is capable of enrichingother dependent measures which are currently as-sessed without consideration of situation. A broaderinvestigation of sources of buyer behavioral variancemight include additional aspects of the decision, pur-

chase, and consumption processes, such as informa-tion seeking, decision postponement, and risk trans-ference. A more detailed study of product preferenceswithin situations might substitute preferences amongbrand attributes as the dependent measure. Studiesconcerning the attitudes of marketers toward socialissues in business or attitudes of consumers towardecological issues and products might also benefit fromthe behavioral differential approach using as a depen-dent measure the endorsement of attitudinal state-ments in particular situations.

From the viewpoint of the marketing manager,speculation that consumers may position some prod-ucts vis-a-vis situations is enticing. While the marketermay have little direct control over the aspects ofsituation considered here, he is in a position to utilizea knowledge of situational effects in several ways.It would be of initial importance just to learn whichproducts and persons are susceptible to situationalinfluence. Subsequent examination could suggest mar-ket segmentation by situational or combined individualand situational variables, and marketing strategiesmight then be keyed to certain aspects of purchaseand consumption situations. Products might be de-signed for the segments thus defined. Advertisingmight provide consumption suggestions using relevantappeals, while point-of'-purchase displays and packag-ing might help to create an appropriate mood. Promo-tional tie-ins or product line expansion might evenallow building a group of related offerings to servicethe situationally-defined market segment.

In terms of immediate implications, it is primarilyhoped this study demonstrates that the unknown realmof situational effects is penetrable. It is also felt thatthis research has made some progress toward estab-lishing a standard conception of situation and hasprovided some insight into the nature of situationaleffects. In order to understand more fully consumerbehavior, it now seems feasible as well as necessaryto consider more explicitly the situations in whichthis behavior occurs.

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AN EXPLORATORY ASSESSMENT OF SITUATIONAL EFFECTS IN BUYER BEHAVIOR 163

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