IndexSummaryIntroductionCultureSocial InfluencePersonal FactorConclusionReferencesExecutive SummaryConsumer behavior is the study of how individual customers, groups, or organizations select, purchase, and use goods and services to satisfy their needs and wants. It refers to the action of consumers in the market and the underlying psychological processes that decide the purchasing behavior and ultimately the purchasing power of the consumer. By understanding these purchasing processes, marketers are able to understand what drives consumers to purchase a particular product or service and to be able to ascertain the products that are in demand in the market, including ways to market the product, to achieve the final goal which is profit. .Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get Original EssayIn this report, some factors are mentioned along with what influences consumer purchasing behavior and how it affects and its importance.IntroductionThe key psychological processes that are important in consumer decision making are intention or otherwise the motivation, biogenic needs and psychogenic need of a being. These psychological needs come into play in consumer behavior as well as a person's culture, social factors, and personal factors. When all factors come into play, marketers are able to understand consumer behavior in greater depth, as in Lewin's General Model of Behavior, where purchasing behavior influences are classified as B= f ( P,E), meaning that a person's behavior is caused by the interactions of personal influences and environmental forces in which drives needs and motivations.CultureCulture plays a role in influencing a person's behavior through its manifestations which are values, heroes, rituals and symbols (Hofstede,1997). Each cultural group has different cultural manifestations. Such as values, where Rokeach (1968) cited that “a value as a central and enduring belief that guides actions and judgments through specific situations and beyond immediate goals to more definitive end states of existence”, which implies that a culture acts as a guide on which a person's actions are based. McCracken (1988) refers to “cultural principles” as ideas about what actions to plan and implement because people's behavior is rooted in these cultural principles. McCracken described cultural categories such as time, space, nature, and person that help an individual make meaning of the world. In a study conducted by Gregory and Munch (1997) investigating the effectiveness of advertisements in relation to individualistic or collectivistic dimensions, it was concluded that advertisements that show norms and roles similar to a person's cultural values ​​are often more effective than advertisements that do not depict images that resemble the person's values. Another cultural aspect is based on individualism and collectivism cultures. Triandis (1995) defined collectivism as a social pattern in which individuals see themselves as a collective whole, while individualism as a social pattern consisting of individuals motivated by their own preferences and needs in which they see themselves as an independent being . The social patterns of these different cultures influence a person's perception which is one of the key psychological processes in consumer behavior. According to Han and Shavitt (1994), advertisements that emphasized individualistic beliefs were found to be moreeffective in America because America has a more individualistic culture while in Korea collectivistic advertisements were more sought after. It is important to understand how different cultures influence the marketability of a product since cultures are invented in such a way that these values ​​are integrated from childhood and shared by a fairly large group. Subcultures are generally made up of geographic distributions, gender, religion, age, and race. Religion plays a role, for example, in wedding events in a Christian culture, women wear a white dress as in Muslim culture, women wear green on important occasions. A person in their sixties would not wear clothes similar to those of people in their twenties. These subcultures constitute an individual's culture. All in all, for a product to be marketable across different cultures, it is important for a company to adapt to different cultures by building different business models and keeping an open mind in the process. A widely known example of a multinational company that understands the value of different cultures is McDonald's. It is found that McDonald's in various parts of the world have different menus for customers and most of them are based on local cultures, for example Durian McFlurry was introduced in the Malaysian market while McVeggie is often served in India. Social influence Social factors play an important leading role in purchasing behavior processes. This includes membership in both formal and informal groups other than the family, referred to as the reference group. Regarding reference groups that influence a person's purchasing decision, it is when they are informed about a certain product that interferes with one of the psychological processes which is memory. A target group often mentions a certain product over and over again that would affect a person's memory as studies have shown that with repetition, a short-term memory would convert into a long-term memory. A person would likely associate a product with a certain brand since they have a memory and perception that will influence a consumer's decision-making processes. The Asch phenomenon was derived from findings conducted in 1951 in which Solomon Asch conducted an experiment to determine the causal relational social pressure on conformity. It was concluded that people would conform under social pressure where this allowed marketers to use this idea to their advantage when introducing a product. By having only a few people give a good recommendation about a product, marketers are able to manipulate a consumer's psychological processes as they are more likely to follow the opinion of their peers. Leibenstein (1950) called the effect that influences lower consumers the final brand extension, the brand wagon effect in which the main goal is to improve the self-concept. People tend to desire prestige brands as a symbolic representation of a membership group in which they can be distinguished from the non-prestige reference group. The influence of the media also affects consumer behavior as recent research has shown that consumers learn affluent lifestyles and try to imitate by consuming similar products (Dittmar 1994) where television has built a social reality in which the products used are very often associated with the affluent lifestyle displayed on television. Ultimately, individuals will make decisions and purchase products that will help them achieve their ideal self-image. Studies have shown that the reward circuits in our brain are activated in a situation where a