Neuroscience and Consumer Behavior: Where to Now?

Frontiers in Psychology

article

Michela Balconi¹  Martina Sansone¹ 

[1] International Research Center for Cognitive Applied Neuroscience, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart;Research Unit in Affective and Social Neuroscience, Department of Psychology, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart

关键词: consumer neuroscience;    brain;    neuroeconomics;    autonomic measures;    EEG;    fNIRS;    neuroscientific tools;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2021.705850

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

Over the past 20 years, the interest in consumer neuroscience (CN) has grown exponentially. Ina period of economic stagnation, it is little wonder that the possibility to uncover and capitalizeon the understanding of the neural mechanisms responsible for purchase behavior has attractedthe interest of many corporations (Blakeslee, 2004; Plassmann et al., 2012). When the combinationof economic theories and neuroscience gave rise to the transdisciplinary field of Neuroeconomics,soon after, a sub-area of interest emerged related to economic behaviors. CN, indeed, aims to takeadvantage of the study of neural correlates underlying decision-making to understand which factorsguide the consumer’s journey up to making a purchase decision.However, the appeal of applying neuroscience to the field of consumer research has resultedsometimes in pressures to commercialize neuroscientific methods, as well as in over-statementsand inappropriate claims on behalf of companies, which did not receive any support from scientificevidence (Lindstrom, 2008; Stanton et al., 2017). For this reason, and for methodological issues thatwill be discussed below, CN has long struggled to ascertain its credibility, facing alternate periodsof euphoria and distrust toward neuroscience-based findings (Ariely and Berns, 2010). Hence, afew decades after its onset, CN is still considered to be a promising discipline in need of a strongertheoretical and methodological implant.

【 授权许可】

CC BY