Consumer behaviour analysis and ascription of intentionality to the explanation of consumer choice

Abstract

This paper is a commentary on “Intentionality, symbol and situation in the interpretation of consumer choice” by Professor Gordon Foxall. Foxall has led a fruitful research discipline of consumer behaviour analysis that has delineated the uses of extensional environmental contingencies and intentional ascriptions for consumer description, prediction and control. One important exploration in this direction has been to detect the limits of mainstream behaviour analysis (or radical behaviourism) when it comes to complex behaviours that are under the influences of many endogenic contingencies in the market place. Dealing with this, Foxall has created intentional behaviourism described in his paper. Intentional behaviourism is a critical interpretative device that warns against naive extrapolation from the animal laboratory or closed settings and gives the researchers several conceptual layers in dealing with the complexities of consumer choice ranging from the extensional to the intentional.