Abstract
In his paper, Foxall displays exemplary academic honesty in discussing limitations of the theoretical model that he has developed, despite its wide adoption in several areas of consumer behavior research. The exclusive adherence of the model to an extensional language, according to its author, hinders an adequate account of behavior continuity, a personal level of explanation of behavior and a delimitation of behavioral interpretation. In order to overcome such limitations, the author proposes the implementation of intentional idiom in the model, by distinguishing between informative and symbolic reinforcement. Symbolic consequences would be derived from what the individual thinks, believes, desires, or feels to be the case and are described in intentional language, involving social conventions and status conferring rules. These proposals will probably instigate developments in the field, at least in three directions: the inclusion of other dispositional concepts in the model, in addition to intentional expressions; the adoption of dispositional concepts in describing individuals' learning histories; and the improvement of the theoretical notion of self-reinforcement, which seems central to the proposed concept of symbolic reinforcement.
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