Important terms in Consumer Behaviour 

1. Absolute Threshold: The lowest level at which an individual can experience a sensation.

2. Acculturation: The learning of a new or foreign (other country’s) culture.

3. Actual Self-Image: The image that an individual possess as a certain kind of person with

certain characteristic traits, habits, behavior etc.

4. Advertising Wearout: Overexposure to repetitive advertising that causes individuals to

become satiated and their attention and retention to decline.

5. Advetorials: Print ads which are laid out to resemble editorial material making it

difficult for the readers to distinguish between the two.

6. Affective Component: It is a part of tri-component attitude model which reflect the

consumer’s emotion or feeling with regard to an object or a person or an idea.

7. Affinity Group Marketing: A type of cause-related marketing targeted to members of a

specific group.

8. Affluent Consumers: The consumers with household incomes which provide them with

a disproportionate large share of all discretionary income.

9. AIOs: These are the psychographic variables that focus on Activities, Interests, and

Opinions often referred to as Lifestyle.

10. Arousal of Motives: The motives which are often aroused on the basis of physiological,

emotional, cognitive or environmental factors.

11. Attitude: It is the learned predisposition to behave in a favourable or unfavourable with

regard to a particular thing.

12. Beliefs: These are the mental or verbal statements that reflect an individual’s knowledge

and assessment about certain things.

13. Benefit Segmentation: A basis of segmentation which is based on the kinds of benefits

that consumers seek for in a product or service.

14. Brand Equity: The value associated with a brand.

15. Brand Loyalty: Consistent preference and/or purchase of the same brand.

16. Brand Personification: Specific “personality-type” traits or attributes ascribed by

consumers for different brands.

17. Cause-related Marketing: A form of corporate promotion in which companies try to

motivate socially-aware consumers to buy their products by promising to contribute a

portion of the sale to a specific cause.

18. Cognitive Component: A part of the tri-component attitude model which represents the

knowledge, perception, and beliefs that a consumer has with respect to an idea or an

object.

19. Cognitive Dissonance: The dissonance or discomfort that consumers experience as a

result of conflicting information.

20. Compliant Individual: The individual who moves towards others and want to be loved,

wanted, and appreciated by others.

21. Conative Component: A part of the tri-component attitude model which reflects a

consumer’s likelihood or tendency to behave in a particular way with regard to an

attitude-object. 

22. Concentrated Marketing: It is targeting a product or service to a single market segment

with a unique marketing mix.

23. Conditioned Learning: It results when a stimulus which elicits a known response that

serves to produce the same response by itself.

24. Consumer Behaviour: The type of behavior which consumers display in searching for

purchasing, using, evaluating, and disposing of products or services.

25. Consumer Ethnocentrism: A consumer’s predisposition to accept or reject foreign-

made products.

26. Consumer Learning: The process by which consumers acquire the purchase and

consumption knowledge and experience they apply to future related behavour.

27. Consumer Profile: Socio-economic/Demographic/Psychographic profile of actual or

proposed consumers for a specific product or service.

28. Counter segmentation: It is a segmentation strategy in which a company combines two

or more segments into a single segment to be targeted with an individually tailored

product or promotion campaign.

29. Cross-Cultural Consumer Analysis: Research to determine the extent to which

consumers of two or more nations are similar in respect to specific consumption

behavior.

30. Cues: Stimuli that give direction to consumer motives.

31. Culture: The sum total of learned beliefs, values, and customs which serve to regulate

the consumer behaviour.

32. Demographic Segmentation: The division of a total market into smaller subgroups on

the basis of such characteristics such as age, gender, marital status, education, occupation

and income.

33. Detached Personality: An individual who moves away from others.

34. Differentiated Marketing: Targeting a product or service to two or more segments,

using a specifically tailor-made product, promotion appeal, price etc.

35. Diffusion Process: The process by which the acceptance of an innovation is spread by

communication to members of a social system over a period of time.

36. Ego: The part of personality that serves as the individual’s conscious control.  It

functions as an internal monitor that balances the impulsive demands of the id and the

socio-cultural constraints of the superego.

37. Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM): A theory which suggests that an individual’s

level of involvement during message processing is a critical factor in determining which

route to persuasion is likely to be effective.

38. Evoked Set: The specific brands a consumer considers in making a purchase choice in a

particular product category.

39. Family Life Cycle: Classification of family units into significant groupings like

Bachelorhood, Honeymooners, Parenthood, Postparenthood, and Dissolution.

40. Geographic Segmentation: It is dividing the market based on geographical territories.

41. Green Marketing: Marketing activity that involves environmental claims.

42. Halo Effect: A situation in which the perception of a person on a multitude of

dimensions is based on the evaluation of just one or few dimensions.

43. Ideal Self-Image: It is how individuals like to perceive themselves.

44. Inert Set: Brands that a consumer is indifferent towards because they are perceived as

having no particular advantage.

45. Infomercial: These are thirty minute commercials that appear to the average viewer as

documentatires and thus command more attentive viewing than obvious commercials

would receive.

46. Instrumental Conditioning: A behavioural theory of learning based on a trial-and-error

process, with habits formed as the result of positive experiences resulting from certain

responses or bahaviours.

47. Just Noticeable Difference: It is the minimal difference which can be detected between

two stimuli.

48. Market Segmentation: Dividing the heterogeneous market into homogeneous clusters.

49. Motivation: The force which drives an individual for an action.

50. Opinion Leader: A person who informally gives product information and advice to

others.

51. Perception: It is the process by which an individual selects, organizes and interprets

stimuli into meaningful and coherent picture of the world.

52. Positivism: A consumer behaviour approach that regards consumer behaviour discipline

as an applied marketing science.  It’s main focus is on consumer decision making.

53. Post-purchase Dissonance: The cognitive dissonance which occurs after a consumer has

made a purchase commitment. 

54. Reference Group: A person or group which serves as a point of comparison for an

individual in the formation of either general or specific values, attitudes, or behaviour.

55. Social Marketing: The use of marketing concepts and techniques to win adoption of

socially beneficial ideas.

56. Social Self-Image: It is how individuals feel others see them.

57. Stimulus: Any unit of input to any of the senses.

58. Superego: The part of personality that reflects society’s moral and ethical codes of

conduct.

59. Use-related Segmentation: Popular and effective form of segmentation that categorizes

consumers in terms of product, service, or brand image characteristics such as usage rate,

awareness and degree of brand loyalty.

60. Use-situation Segmentation: It is segmentation which is based on the idea that the

occasion or situation often determines what consumers will purchase or consume.

61. Word-of-Mouth Communication: It is informal conversations concerning products or

services.

2 mark and 5 mark questions

1. Define the term ‘International Business’.2. Define the term ‘international marketing’.3. Define the term ‘foreign trade’.4. How does international trade different from domestic trade.5. State the importance of international business.6. What is the raison d’etre of international trade?7. What is the economic basis of international trade?8. What is balance of trade?9. What is balance of payment?10. What is devaluation?11. State the objectives of devaluation.12. What is quantitative restriction?13. What are quotas?14. What is exchange control?  15. How do the functions of International Monetary Fund different from that of World Bank?16. How do Free Trade Zones help international trade?17. Write a note on Export Credit Guarantee Corporation (ECGC).18. Write a note on product packaging and presentation for export markets.19. Differentiate cost oriented export pricing from market oriented export pricing.20. Differentiate f.o.b., c. & f. and c.i.f. in price quotations used in export trade.21. List the merits of direct exporting.22. Why and how does advertising for foreign markets differ from that of domestic market?23. What is international marketing research?24. State the importance of marketing research for international business25. What is letter of credit?26. Differentiate revocable letter of credit from irrevocable letter of credit.27. What are State Trading Corporations (STCs.)?

 10 mark, 12 mark and 15 mark questions

28. Discuss the important determinants of international marketing policies?29. State the impact of Political, Economical, Social and Technological factors affecting the

international marketing.30. Discuss the factors to be considered by an exporter before entering international market.31. Describe the problems associated with international trade.32. Describe the advantages that a firm derive while entering international business.33. Why international trade takes place?  What are the gains from international trade?34. Discuss the recent trends prevailing in global trade.35. Describe the impact of foreign trade on the economic development of a country.  36. The net effect of both export expansion or import substitution is the same.  Do you

agree?  Which one would you recommend for your country?  Elucidate.37. Differentiate balance of trade from balance of payment.  Also indicate how balance of

payments analysis can be useful to the international marketer.

38. Which one do you prefer – devaluation or quantitative restrictions as a corrective measure for balance of payment?  Elucidate.

39. List and explain the objectives of quantitative restrictions.40. Describe the measures which can be adopted for achieving exchange control.41. Describe the functions of IMF.42. Describe the functions of IBRD.43. Describe the composition of India’s foreign trade.44. Describe the direction of India’s foreign trade.45. List the major items of India’s imports and exports.  What have been the recent changes

in this respect?46. Describe the various functions of Export Promotion Councils.47. Describe the important export promotion organizations established in India and also

describe their major functions.48. Discuss the salient features of India’s recent foreign trade policy.49. Describe briefly the various measures taken by Government of India to help Indian

exporters in increasing their exports.50. Examine the direct export subsidies available for exporters in India.51. Discuss the factors to be considered before selecting a particular market for export

marketing.52. Discuss the factors to be considered while designing a product for the international

market.53. Describe the basis for export pricing.54. Discuss the functions performed by export houses in India.55. Explain the factors to be considered by an exporter while selecting an agent for a foreign

country.56. Describe the factors to be considered by an exporter in designing channel of distribution

for export trade.57. Discuss the merits and demerits of indirect exporting.58. What do you understand by international marketing logistics?  What principal elements

would you take into consideration for its management?59. Discuss the role of international trade fairs in international marketing.60. Describe the role of international marketing research in export trade.61. How are India’s exporters financed?  State the role of ECGC in export financing.62. Discuss the different types of letters of credit.63. Describe the documents that letters of credit need to accompany.64. Discuss the different types of risks associated with foreign trade.65. Critically evaluate the role of State Trading Corporations (STCs) in India.66. Describe the various stages involved in processing an export trade.67. Describe the procedure involved in export trade.