The psychological environment: environmental influences on consumers

Psychology A2 · Consumer Psychology. The idea in plain words, the rules to remember, the mistake to avoid and a worked example, written and checked by Mega Lecture.

Test this topic free All Psychology A2 topics

The idea

Wayfinding is how people work out where they are and follow a route to where they want to go. In a mall it depends on the building (simple layout, landmarks, visibility) and on aids such as signs and 'you are here' maps. A good map shows the viewer's position and is turned to match the direction the viewer is facing.

Shopper movement can be recorded with CCTV tracking. Gil et al. (2009) followed shoppers through a supermarket on camera and interviewed them at the exit. They described four types of trip and five spatial behaviour patterns.

CCTV gives objective data on real behaviour, but it shows where people go, not why.

Rules to remember

Dogu and Erkip (2000): questionnaire to shoppers in a mall in Ankara, Turkey; most found their way fairly easily, but signs were judged not sufficient and many had not noticed the 'you are here' maps.
Short trip: in, a few items, out. Round trip: up one side of the store and back by another.
Central trip: along the main aisle with side visits into aisles. Wave trip: zigzag along the aisles to the far end.
Specialist: long time on a few products. Native: a regular who goes to the aisles they know.
Tourist: stays near the entrance. Explorer: longest trip, covers nearly all the store. Raider: fast, goes straight to chosen items.
Grouping shoppers into types is nomothetic and can be reductionist.
Inter-rater reliability = two observers classify the same paths in the same way.

Common mistake

Confusing the four trip types (short, round, central, wave), which describe the route, with the five spatial behaviour patterns (specialist, native, tourist, explorer, raider), which describe the shopper.

Worked example

CCTV shows a shopper who walks slowly through almost every aisle, some of them twice, and spends longer in the store than nearly anyone else. Which spatial behaviour pattern is this, and what can CCTV not tell the researcher?

Covering almost all the store with the longest trip matches the explorer.
A raider would be fast and direct; a tourist would stay near the entrance.
CCTV records the path only, so the reason (for example, being new to the store) is unknown.
An exit interview or questionnaire would be needed to find the reason.

Answer: Explorer. CCTV shows where the shopper went, but not why.

Ask about this

Type what you are stuck on. The helper finds the explanation, worked examples and the notes to read, free and instant.

Keep going

← The physical environment: retail atmospherics The psychological environment: menu design psychology →Take a Psychology A2 test