Purchase Intentions as a Function of the Functional, Emotional, Social, and Situational Mappings of Products

148 p.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1984.The purpose of this study was to demonstrate the feasibility of extending the general form of multidimensional scaling (MDS) to assess specific components. In the past, researchers have collected perceptual data using a general format allowing the subject to decide what was meant by similarity. When the researcher had a specific theory to test, multi-attribute statements were used for the measurement of the components. The use of multiattribute statements are, however, not without shortcomings.Many of the problems with multiattribute modeling are avoided when using MDS. In particular, the problems associated with choosing attributes, the meaning of attributes, and the weighting of attributes are problems completely devoid of MDS. This is not to suggest that MDS is without its own limitations. Instead, this study clearly demonstrates the feasibility of using MDS for purposes similar to those of multiattribute modeling of separate domains. With this now, researchers have an alternative way of assessing their theories and the validity of them.The theory assessed in this dissertation was Sheth's {1975} model of individual choice behavior. It is based on the premise that products exist and are purchased because they satisfy certain needs and fulfill certain functions. The different needs used in this study were the situational, social, functional, and emotional needs and the product class was automobiles.When analyzing the relationships between purchase intentions and their determinants, an interesting finding was that not only are each of the four components essential to the understanding of consumers' intentions, but each one independently is most important for specific automobile types. While one need may be most important to a particular automobile, most cars exist because they satisfy two or more needs and, in general, prediction of purchase intentions requires the assessment of all four components. This conclusion was brought out at both the individual and group level of analysis. Another finding was the significant relationships found between demographic groups and the types of individual differences in the spatial configuration that were identified. Within each of the four components, significant relationships were developed between different demographic groups and different types of individual differences.U of I OnlyRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETD