michael kirk-smith
Dr Kirk-Smith qualified in physics and molecular biology at Kings College London, and completed a doctorate on human pheromones at the University of Birmingham. This research was extended during a research fellowship at the University of Warwick, where he was a founder member of the Warwick Olfactory Research Group. After working in biomedical biotechnology at Cambridge Life Sciences, he set up and ran the psychological research program at Unilever Research, being initially approached to investigate the physiological and psychological effects of odour. He was then a Reader at the University of Ulster and is also a Chartered Health Psychologist. He has been a research advisor to clinicians, academic researchers and complementary medicine organisations for many years with a main research interest in the placebo/olfactory effects and the evaluation of complementary medicine and associated design issues. He can be contacted at mkirksmith@gmail.com
Supervisors: Professor DA Booth, University of Birmingham
Supervisors: Professor DA Booth, University of Birmingham
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Many FMCG products (fast moving consumer goods) tend to be used within routine and mundane behaviours. Knowledge of the sequences of steps involved may be held like a "Script" in memory. The purpose of the method is to gain an insight into how consumers structure the whole of a task rather than just the part relating to the use of products. Product opportunities may be identified through the use of the method.
promotional material and c) the use of tokens and consumer commitment. The latter intervention is based on powerful
social psychological compliance techniques. It is hypothesised that compliance methods will be more (cost) effective than traditional advertising/exhortational methods in altering habitual purchase behaviour in supermarkets.
The use of such experimental methods to understand and alter the purchasing behaviour of the mass population is unique. It both complements and greatly extends conventional descriptive questionnaire-based market research. The study is made technically possible through the bar-coding of products and managerially possible through the cooperation of a supermarket chain and the NHS.
The findings should be generally applicable to other product areas and supermarkets since the socio-economic mix of target population is representative of the UK.
the schema, e.g., eating. When certain textual cues are encountered (e.g., "Menu") then the whole causal chain of the schema is activated in memory, and hence may be more readily accessed. It is this aspect upon which many of the experimental methods of Script theory are
based, e.g., decision and reading times. These may used to test the installing and alteration of product-related schemata and their structures. Script theory presents an experimentally based and cognitive approach to understanding and altering consumers' knowledge, understanding and views about a product and related tasks. This is considerably different from the normative atheoretical or post-hoc theoretical approaches currently used in current market research. The approach also differs from current market research in that Script methods gain access to the mental contents of product-related schemata which are not consciously available to the consumer.
Examining the cognitive factors involved in acquiring product-related schemata should help in both product development and advertising. Finally, by proceeding from a well-articulated and experimentally-based theory it is possible that planned interventions in, and more accurate
predictions about, consumer behaviour may be made.
relevance to the following areas:
1. The emotional response we are concerned with transferring is an evaluation or liking, and to our products. Recent psychological research suggests that evaluation or "liking" is an immediate rather than a considered response, especially for low- involvement products, and that classical conditioning may be a major element in determining preference under such conditions.
2. Other qualities can be transferred through classical conditioning, e.g., attitudes. Classical conditioning thus provides a framework to understand and manipulate the processes underlying connotation.
This report sets out the principles underlying classical conditioning, and how they may be applied in both advertising and in use contexts.
products, whether in the supermarket, watching TV or in the bathroom and kitchen, have a routine or habitual character. Psychological research suggests that conventional consumer questionnaire methods, based on self- report, are unlikely to determine how such habitual
behaviour is controlled by environmental or technical factors.
The behaviourist approach emphasises the direct experimental determination of how these factors, e.g., product attributes and effects, control routine chains of responses. It is therefore likely to be appropriate. Examples of the behaviourist approach are given to illustrate its concepts, as currently applied in psychology and in potential applications to consumer research. Finally, the conflict between behaviourism and the cognitive approach, another major branch of psychology, is discussed with reference to the brain systems for habits and memory.
Many FMCG products (fast moving consumer goods) tend to be used within routine and mundane behaviours. Knowledge of the sequences of steps involved may be held like a "Script" in memory. The purpose of the method is to gain an insight into how consumers structure the whole of a task rather than just the part relating to the use of products. Product opportunities may be identified through the use of the method.
promotional material and c) the use of tokens and consumer commitment. The latter intervention is based on powerful
social psychological compliance techniques. It is hypothesised that compliance methods will be more (cost) effective than traditional advertising/exhortational methods in altering habitual purchase behaviour in supermarkets.
The use of such experimental methods to understand and alter the purchasing behaviour of the mass population is unique. It both complements and greatly extends conventional descriptive questionnaire-based market research. The study is made technically possible through the bar-coding of products and managerially possible through the cooperation of a supermarket chain and the NHS.
The findings should be generally applicable to other product areas and supermarkets since the socio-economic mix of target population is representative of the UK.
the schema, e.g., eating. When certain textual cues are encountered (e.g., "Menu") then the whole causal chain of the schema is activated in memory, and hence may be more readily accessed. It is this aspect upon which many of the experimental methods of Script theory are
based, e.g., decision and reading times. These may used to test the installing and alteration of product-related schemata and their structures. Script theory presents an experimentally based and cognitive approach to understanding and altering consumers' knowledge, understanding and views about a product and related tasks. This is considerably different from the normative atheoretical or post-hoc theoretical approaches currently used in current market research. The approach also differs from current market research in that Script methods gain access to the mental contents of product-related schemata which are not consciously available to the consumer.
Examining the cognitive factors involved in acquiring product-related schemata should help in both product development and advertising. Finally, by proceeding from a well-articulated and experimentally-based theory it is possible that planned interventions in, and more accurate
predictions about, consumer behaviour may be made.
relevance to the following areas:
1. The emotional response we are concerned with transferring is an evaluation or liking, and to our products. Recent psychological research suggests that evaluation or "liking" is an immediate rather than a considered response, especially for low- involvement products, and that classical conditioning may be a major element in determining preference under such conditions.
2. Other qualities can be transferred through classical conditioning, e.g., attitudes. Classical conditioning thus provides a framework to understand and manipulate the processes underlying connotation.
This report sets out the principles underlying classical conditioning, and how they may be applied in both advertising and in use contexts.
products, whether in the supermarket, watching TV or in the bathroom and kitchen, have a routine or habitual character. Psychological research suggests that conventional consumer questionnaire methods, based on self- report, are unlikely to determine how such habitual
behaviour is controlled by environmental or technical factors.
The behaviourist approach emphasises the direct experimental determination of how these factors, e.g., product attributes and effects, control routine chains of responses. It is therefore likely to be appropriate. Examples of the behaviourist approach are given to illustrate its concepts, as currently applied in psychology and in potential applications to consumer research. Finally, the conflict between behaviourism and the cognitive approach, another major branch of psychology, is discussed with reference to the brain systems for habits and memory.