Explain the application of social psychology to consumer behaviour.

 The Social Psychology of Consumer Behavior brings together the most promising and theoretically fruitful research developments by internationally renowned scholars, whose work is at the cutting edge of research. 

Experts from both fields – social psychology and consumer behavior – provide an informed, up-to-date overview, from an original integrative perspective.

The aim of this volume is two-fold On the one hand, the application of social psychology to consumer behavior is meant to broaden the horizon of social psychologists.

On the other hand, students and researchers of consumer behavior will be offered an advanced account of relevant theories tailored to their interests.

While the range of topics is rather broad – including the construal of judgments and decisions, affective and cognitive feelings, social and media influences, and goals and self-regulation each chapter is focused on one specific theoretical or methodological perspective and thereby gives a comprehensive and penetrative account of the relevant issues and the respective research.

The volume provides an invaluable resource to students, researchers, and instructors in social psychology, consumer psychology, consumer behavior, and marketing.

The application of social psychology is now gaining momentum in the contemporary world.

Many of the modern social psychologists are currently working in hospitals, government offices, business organizations and other semi-academic and non-academic institutions to assess, control and predict human behaviour under different settings and solve social problems.

In view of the applied bias attached to social psychology today Rodin (1985) has defined social psychology as the utilization of social psychological principles and research methods in real world settings in the attempt to solve social problems.

Social psychology has in a major way concentrated its attention on the following areas.

Role of social psychology in legal system, Health psychology, Psychology in work setting i.e., organizational behavior, Consumer behaviour, Solution of social problems, Social psychology in education, Social psychology in crime and delinquency, Social psychology in community and national affairs, Social psychology in military etc.

The behaviour of the individual in advertising, product information, packaging, brand names and all other factors involved in marketing products and services come under applied social psychology. 

Consumer psychology is that field which deals with the factors affecting consumer behaviour (Betlman, 1986).

All these discussions lead one to conclude that application of social psychology to organizational and consumer behaviour is of crucial importance in every aspect of one’s life.

It would really be difficult to conceive any human behaviour where the findings of social psychology would be inapplicable and irrelevant.

The science of social psychology as an applied science contributes a lot indealing with the problems of national and international tension, communal and social prejudice, discrimination, and conflicts relating to socio-economic status in uncovering the relevant causes of these problems in specific situations.

The concrete details of various problems of social psychology are to be known for applying social psychology to the concrete situation.

For all these work, careful research on applied social psychology is essential.

The various problems of social psychology change from time to time and form culture to culture and even to some extent in the same culture depending upon the parental and neighbourhood and inter personal problems influence various social problems which are also studied by applied social psychologists.

However, it is reasonable to hold that the findings of social psychological research with certain exceptions can bewidely generalizable and potentially useful to all human beings of the society provided they have an applied bias. 

Only formulating theories and principles on social psychology is not enough.

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