Wayne State business school researcher shows consumers' brains make purchase decisions before they realize it.
Wayne State University School of Business Administration researcher, William Jones, senior lecturer in the School of Business Administration, just completed the first neuromarketing study looking at consumer brain activity and math anxiety during purchase decisions. The researchers used Event Related Potentials (ERPs) as measured by electroencephalograms (EEG) scans of online purchase decisions of study participants. Jones was the lead researcher on a team that included Terry L. Childers, of Iowa State University, and Yang Jiang of the University of Kentucky.
“Math anxiety exerts its effects beyond the classroom and in situations like shopping at a pre-conscious level, particularly in high math anxiety women,” said Jones. “Women are more sensitive to pricing than men– at least neurally. Taking into account effects of gender, evidence suggests women are more sensitive and aware of prices than men. Perhaps not surprisingly, men rely on a limited set of details whereas females are comprehensive processors that consider a broader variety of information cues, both apparent and subtle when making decisions.”
This study, while seemingly confirming the belief in shopping differences between men and women further incorporates the role math anxiety plays in purchasing decisions, and it’s now supported by biologically recorded data.
According to the study, when a shopper is presented with a good and a price, brain activity shows consumers decide to purchase or not purchase the product before they consciously realize it, within 200 milliseconds. In those with math anxiety, which affects women in greater numbers than men, they seek additional confidence in their decisions.
“High math anxiety females only buy if they have a sense of confidence - or fluency and use external confirmations, like ‘percentage off’, indicators for these purchases. What happens is perceptual, and conceptual processes interact with anxiety and gender to modulate brain responses during shopping. Fluency refers to processing ease. Basically, if the consumer can easily figure out the final cost, then there is confidence in their decision,” said Jones.
Jones’ study was designed to examine what differences, if any, would be present among individuals who differ in their ability to fluently consider prices presented to them. His team recorded EEGs to study whether brain responses to price differentiate buys from non-buys. Those with high math anxiety were compared to those with low math anxiety. Those with high math anxiety had reduced processing fluency. High math anxiety makes consumers more susceptible to incorporating feeling-related information into their choices.
His group’s results indicated that math anxiety, promotion format, and gender combine to influence consumer purchase decisions. Compared to other techniques, ERP quickly picks up on non-conscious decision making processes. ERP is a measured brain response that is the direct result of a thought or perception and provides an electrophysical response to an internal or external stimulus.
The group studied included 39 business students, with an average age of 21 years, and was pre-screened for math anxiety using the Abbreviated Math Anxiety Scale. Participants made purchase decisions while engaged in a computer-simulated shopping task to allow for neuro-tracking of responses.
The complete study, which will soon be published in the academic journal, Biological Psychology, can be downloaded here.
