Consumer Behaviour Quotes

...the higher the expectations about unselected alternatives, the lower the level of satisfaction with the chosen good.

The kinds of purchases surveyed in the news generally sit well beyond necessity. In acquiring them, what we are after is rarely solely or even chiefly just material satisfaction; we are also guided by a deeper, often unconscious desire for some form of psychological transformation. We don't only want to own things; we want to be changed through our ownership of them. Once we examine consumer behaviour with sufficient attention and generosity, it becomes clear that we aren't indelibly materialistic at all. What makes our age distinctive is our ambition to try to accomplish a variety of complex psychological goals via the acquisition of material goods.

We have gone sick by following a path of untrammelled rationalism, male dominance, attention to the visible surface of things, practicality, bottom-line-ism. We have gone very, very sick. And the body politic, like any body, when it feels itself to be sick, it begins to produce antibodies, or strategies for overcoming the condition of dis-ease. And the 20th century is an enormous effort at self-healing. Phenomena as diverse as surrealism, body piercing, psychedelic drug use, sexual permissiveness, jazz, experimental dance, rave culture, tattooing, the list is endless. What do all these things have in common? They represent various styles of rejection of linear values. The society is trying to cure itself by an archaic revival, by a reversion to archaic values. So when I see people manifesting sexual ambiguity, or scarifying themselves, or showing a lot of flesh, or dancing to syncopated music, or getting loaded, or violating ordinary canons of sexual behaviour, I applaud all of this; because it's an impulse to return to what is felt by the body -- what is authentic, what is archaic -- and when you tease apart these archaic impulses, at the very centre of all these impulses is the desire to return to a world of magical empowerment of feeling. And at the centre of that impulse is the shaman: stoned, intoxicated on plants, speaking with the spirit helpers, dancing in the moonlight, and vivifying and invoking a world of conscious, living mystery. That's what the world is. The world is not an unsolved problem for scientists or sociologists. The world is a living mystery: our birth, our death, our being in the moment -- these are mysteries. They are doorways opening on to unimaginable vistas of self-exploration, empowerment and hope for the human enterprise. And our culture has killed that, taken it away from us, made us consumers of shoddy products and shoddier ideals. We have to get away from that; and the way to get away from it is by a return to the authentic experience of the body -- and that means sexually empowering ourselves, and it means getting loaded, exploring the mind as a tool for personal and social transformation. The hour is late; the clock is ticking; we will be judged very harshly if we fumble the ball. We are the inheritors of millions and millions of years of successfully lived lives and successful adaptations to changing conditions in the natural world. Now the challenge passes to us, the living, that the yet-to-be-born may have a place to put their feet and a sky to walk under; and that's what the psychedelic experience is about, is caring for, empowering, and building a future that honours the past, honours the planet and honours the power of the human imagination. There is nothing as powerful, as capable of transforming itself and the planet, as the human imagination. Let's not sell it straight. Let's not whore ourselves to nitwit ideologies. Let's not give our control over to the least among us. Rather, you know, claim your place in the sun and go forward into the light. The tools are there; the path is known; you simply have to turn your back on a culture that has gone sterile and dead, and get with the programme of a living world and a re-empowerment of the imagination. Thank you very, very much.

He felt that he had unwittingly stuck his hand into The Great Wasps' Nest of Life. As an image it stank. As a cameo of reality, he felt it was serviceable. He had stuck his hand through some rotted flashing in high summer and that hand and his whole arm had been consumed in holy, righteous fire, destroying conscious thought, making the concept of civilized behaviour obsolete. Could you be expected to behave as a thinking human being when your hand was being impaled on red-hot darning needles? Could you be expected to live in the love of your nearest and dearest when the brown, furious cloud rose out of the hole in the fabric of things (the fabric you thought was so innocent) and arrowed straight at you? Could you be held responsible for your own actions as you ran crazily about on the sloping roof seventy feet above he ground, not knowing where you were going, not remembering that your panicky, stumbling feet could lead you crashing and blundering right over the rain gutter and down to your death on the concrete seventy feet below? Jack didn't think you could. When you unwittingly stuck your hand into the wasps' nest, you hadn't made a covenant with the devil to give up your civilized self with its trappings of love and respect and honour. It just happened to you. Passively, with no say, you ceased to be a creature of the mind and became a creature of the nerve endings; from college-educated man to wailing ape in five seconds.

Most parents think that food regulators wouldn’t permit additives if they were harmful. But regulators don’t require food additives to be tested for their effects on children’s behaviour or learning ability; don’t require food additives to be tested on children at all; don’t monitor effects after they have been approved; see effects as only ‘minor’ problems; and say that people who are affected by food additives can choose to avoid them by reading labels – even though a lot of food is not labelled and there is no requirement to tell consumers what’s in it.

As Pierre Bourdieu signalled as long as two decades ago, coercion has by and large been replaced by stimulation, the once obligatory patterns of conduct by seduction, the policing of behaviour by PR and advertising, and normative regulation by the arousal of new needs and desires.

As for Baron Buttlär, well...he had a wonderful blond moustache. Whenever he came to Berlin he consumed a great deal of champagne and pursued love affairs. A moustache like that made such behaviour practically obligatory, and it also made fine, upstanding fathers and husbands anxious.

The more screen-time you consume on your device, the more revenue can the big tech make. So, your health, your wellbeing, your sanity and serenity are nowhere closer to their priorities. That's why, your health is in your hands, your serenity is in your hands, your sanity is in your hands.

At the time he worked for a start-up that developed 'behavioural software', which had something to do with feelings and consumer responsiveness. Nathan told me he only had to make people feel things: making them buy things came later in the process. At some point the company had been bought out by Google, and not they all made hilarious salaries and worked in a building with expensive hand dryers in the bathroom.

If Max Weber was right and the ethical principle of the producing life was (and always needed to be, if the aim was a producing life) the delay of gratification, then the ethical guideline of the consuming life (if the ethic of such a life can be presented in the form of a code of prescribed behaviour) has to be to avoid staying satisfied. For a kind of society which proclaims customer satisfaction to be its sole motive and paramount purpose, a satisfied consumer is neither motive nor purpose — but the most terrifying menace.

When that happens, when you make 'eye contact', it kills you. It kills you and it kills anybody who thinks like you. Physical distance doesn't matter, it's about mental proximity. Anybody with the same ideas, anybody in the same head space. It kills your collaborators, your whole research team. It kills your parents; it kills your children. You become absent humans, human-shaped shells surrounding holes in reality. And when it's done, your project is a hole in the ground, and nobody knows what SCP-3125 is anymore. It is a black hole in antimemetic science, consuming unwary researchers and yielding no information, only detectable through indirect observation. A true description of what SCP-3125 is, or even an allusion to what it is, constitutes a containment breach and a lethal indirect cognitohazard. Do you see? It's a defense mechanism. This information-swallowing behaviour is just the outer layer, the poison coating. It protects the entity from discovery while it infests our reality. And as years pass, the manifestations will continue, growing denser and knitting together… until the whole world is drowning in them, and everybody will be screaming 'Why did nobody realise what was happening?' And nobody will answer, because everybody who realised was killed, by this system… Do you see it, Marion? See it now.

Presentism, neglect of the future (along with forgetfulness and contempt for the past) is the paradoxical characteristic of a society and elites who have nothing but the words progress, innovation, modernity on their lips in every domain, including the economic. As soon as one is no longer ‘in love’ as depicted in television shows, as soon as sexual desire fades, one separates from one’s current partner. Marrying for superficial reasons, one separates for superficial reasons. Moreover, this compulsive and immature sort of behaviour is found not only in relationships but also in eroticism and sex in general, always under the sign of speed, immediacy, and instant gratification. Conjugal love and even sex are no longer savoured but consumed or indeed devoured, as if by fire. Despite a form of pseudo-maturity demanded in all domains, especially sexual, and an ideology of liberation, Westerners since the 1960s (the baby boom generation to which I belong) have had difficulty proceeding to the psychological stage of adulthood, that of building for the long-term. This is true even in fields very different to those of sex and relationships, and include those of politics and economics. It is the generalised reign of immaturity and improvidence. Marriage is then conceived as a sort of game, and it ends as soon as one blows the final whistle. Unrestrained enjoyment, the slogan of May ‘68,[27] inspired by a cheap, boorish hedonism, has actually passed into our mores.

The immorality of those families whose children are burnt alive on motor ways. They have money heaped on them by social welfare institutions and they go and spend it on consumer goods, which the right-thinking regard as sordid. But they have never had to see their kids die before they could buy a car and, hence, have never felt the need to send them off for inexpensive holidays on those coaches which, as if by chance, always have fatal accidents. The immorality of those who eat their children in hard cash merely corre sponds to the immorality of the social institution which recompenses their death. Everything in this vicious circle is abject: chance, which kills the poorest children, social charity which turns their deaths into a source of income, the parents who benefit from it to enjoy a short spell of wealth and decent society which stigma tizes them, for rumour does not condemn them at all for their indiscreet behaviour but for not handling the money rationally by putting it in the bank, for example, but instead spending it unscrupulously, thus verifying that they were indeed the victims of a divine justice. The whole of the social is there in its logical abjection. It is the poor who die and it is they who deserved to. It is this mediocre truth, this mediocre fatality which we know as 'the social'. Which amounts to saying that it only exists for its victims. Wretched in its essence, it only affects the wretched. It is itself a disinherited concept and it can only serve to render destitution complete. Nietzsche is right: the social is a concept, a value made by slaves for their own use, beneath the scornful gaze of their masters who have never believed in it. This can be clearly seen in all the so-called social reforms which inescapably turn against the intended beneficiaries. The reforms strike those whom they should save. This is not a perverse effect. Nature herself conforms to this willingly and catastrophes have a preference for the poor. Has a catastrophe ever been seen which directly strikes the rich - apart perhaps from the burial of Pompeii and the sinking of the Titanic ?

The difference between passion and addiction is that between a divine spark and a flame that incinerates. Passion is divine fire: it enlivens and makes holy; it gives light and yields inspiration. Passion is generous because it’s not ego-driven; addiction is self-centred. Passion gives and enriches; addiction is a thief. Passion is a source of truth and enlightenment; addictive behaviours lead you into darkness. You’re more alive when you are passionate, and you triumph whether or not you attain your goal. But an addiction requires a specific outcome that feeds the ego; without that outcome, the ego feels empty and deprived. A consuming passion that you are helpless to resist, no matter what the consequences, is an addiction. You may even devote your entire life to a passion, but if it’s truly a passion and not an addiction, you’ll do so with freedom, joy and a full assertion of your truest self and values. In addiction, there’s no joy, freedom or assertion. The addict lurks shame-faced in the shadowy corners of her own existence. I glimpse shame in the eyes of my addicted patients in the Downtown Eastside and, in their shame, I see mirrored my own. Addiction is passion’s dark simulacrum and, to the naïve observer, its perfect mimic. It resembles passion in its urgency and in the promise of fulfillment, but its gifts are illusory. It’s a black hole. The more you offer it, the more it demands. Unlike passion, its alchemy does not create new elements from old. It only degrades what it touches and turns it into something less, something cheaper. Am I happier after one of my self-indulgent sprees? Like a miser, in my mind I recount and catalogue my recent purchases — a furtive Scrooge, hunched over and rubbing his hands together with acquisitive glee, his heart growing ever colder. In the wake of a buying binge, I am not a satisfied man. Addiction is centrifugal. It sucks energy from you, creating a vacuum of inertia. A passion energizes you and enriches your relationships. It empowers you and gives strength to others. Passion creates; addiction consumes — first the self and then the others within its orbit.

Apple is well connected to its fan and professional user base and it does use research to generate insights into customer behaviour. Interestingly though, this seems not to be about asking people to suggest what they want, but rather to explore people’s whole lives (not just what they do as consumers at the point of purchase) and from there to make the imaginative leap to innovation.

Misconduct, or non-conforming behaviour, as it is sometimes called, can be tackled in many ways such as counseling, warning, etc. In extreme cases such as, criminal breach of trust, theft, fraud, etc. the employer is also at liberty to initiate action against the employee, if the misconduct of the latter falls within the purview of the penal provisions of the law of the land. However such proceedings generally conducted by the State agencies, are time consuming and call for a high degree of proof. In addition to the above option, the employer also has an option to deal with the erring employee within the terms of employment. In such an eventuality, the employee may be awarded any penalty which may vary from the communication of displeasure, to the severance of the employer-employee relationship i.e. dismissal from service. Disciplinary authorities play a vital role in this context. Efficiency of the disciplinary authorities is an essential pre-requisite for the effective functioning of the reward and punishment function, more specifically the latter half of it.3. There was a time when the employer was virtually free to hire and fire the employees. Over a period of time, this common law notion has gone. Today an employer can inflict punishment on an employee only after following some statutory provisions depending upon the nature of the organisation.Briefly, the various statutory provisions which govern the actions of different types of organisation are as under: (a) Government: Part XIV of the Constitution relates to the terms of employment in respect of persons appointed in connection with the affairs of the State. Any action against the employees of the Union Government and the State Governments should conform to these Constitutional provisions, which confer certain protections on the 1

client empowerment has come, and it’s here to stay. Courtesy of sharing and instantaneousness, the consumers’ behaviour is changing much faster than the marketers’ reflexes. Hence the pressing need for brands to stay attuned with consumers.

The biggest problem with mobile payments to date has been that consumers can’t use it as reliably as their existing wallet,” LoopPay’s Graylin explained. “If you can only use it at 220,000 locations out of 10-plus million in the United States, you’re going to still have to rely on that piece of plastic so you’re not really changing consumer behaviour yet.

In basic microeconomics textbooks, even when welfare gets attention, it is in the domain of efficient outcomes. Redistribution through taxes is first introduced as a big ‘no go’ domain with concepts of deadweight loss. However, inefficiency out of market behaviour and market outcomes is plainly ignored and overlooked. Approximately, $600 million daily is needed to feed every extremely poor person, yet about $2.75 billion value of food is wasted every day, according to Food and Agriculture Organization. Consequently, 9 million people die every year from hunger while one-third of all food is wasted. This gross inefficiency in economic resources is not captured or discussed. According to Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, globally, per capita food supply increased from about 2,200 kcal per day in the early 1960s to more than 2,903 kcal per day by 2014. But under capitalism, the market allocates goods including even food to only those who can pay its price. It does not make a difference whether the willingness to pay is less than the price due to ‘preference’ or due to ‘poverty’. Yet, mainstream economics claims consumer sovereignty.

behaviour is a function of unconscious processes that occurs completely beyond the conscious awareness of the consumer

I believe that human preferences came to be what they are in those millions of years in which our ancestors (whether or not they can be classified as human) lived in hunting bands and were those preferences which, in such conditions, were conducive to survival. It may be, therefore, that ultimately the work of sociobiologists (and their critics) will enable us to construct a picture of human nature in such detail that we can derive the set of preferences with which economists start. And if this result is achieved, it will enable us to refine our analysis of consumer demand and of other kinds of behaviour in the economic sphere.

…American men actually engage most in hunting and fishing. The desire of men in wealthy societies to re-create the food-gathering conditions of very primitive people appears to be an appropriate comment on the power of the hunting drives discussed earlier. Not only is hunting expensive in many places – think of the European on safari in Africa – but it is also time-consuming, potentially dangerous, and frequently involves considerable personal discomfort. Men do it because it is ‘fun’. So they say, and so one must conclude from their persistent rendition of the old pattern. What is relevant from our point of view is that hunting, and frequently fishing, are group activities. A man will choose his co-hunters very carefully. Not only does the relative intimacy of the hunt demand some congeniality, but there is also danger in hunting with inept or irresponsible persons. It is a serious matter, and even class barriers which normally operate quite rigidly may be happily breached for the period of the hunt. Some research on hunters in British Columbia suggests the near-piety which accompanies the hunt; hunting is a singular and important activity. One particular group of males takes along bottles of costly Crown Royal whisky for the hunt; they drink only superior whisky on this poignant re-creation of an ancient manly skill. But when their wives join them for New Year's celebrations, they drink an ordinary whisky: the purely formal and social occasion does not, it seems, merit the symbolic tribute of outstanding whisky. Gambling is another behaviour which, like hunting and sport, provides an opportunity in countless cultures for the weaving of and participation in the web of male affiliation. Not the gambling of the London casino, where glamorous women serve drinks, or the complex hope, greed, fate-tempting ritual, and action of the shiny American palaces in Nevada, and not the hidden gambling run by racketeers. Rather, the card games in homes or small clubs, where men gather to play for manageable stakes on a friendly basis; perhaps – like Jiggs and his Maggie – to avoid their women, perhaps to seek some money, perhaps to buy the pleasant passage of time. But also to be with their friends and talk, and define, by the game, the confines of their intimate male society. Obviously females play too, both on their own and in mixed company. But there are differences which warrant investigation, in the same way that the drinking of men in groups appears to differ from heterosexual or all-female drinking; the separation of all-male bars and mixed ones is still maintained in many places despite the powerful cultural pressures against such flagrant sexual apartheid. Even in the Bowery, where disaffiliated outcast males live in ways only now becoming understood, it has been noted that, ‘There are strong indications that the heavy drinkers are more integrated and more sociable than the light. The analytical problem lies in determining whether socialization causes drinking or drinking results in sociability when there is no disapproval.’ In the gentleman's club in London, the informally segregated working man's pub in Yorkshire, the all-male taverns of Montreal, the palm-wine huts of west Africa, perhaps can be observed the enactment of a way of establishing maleness and maintaining bonds which is given an excuse and possibly facilitated by alcohol. Certainly, for what they are worth in revealing the nature of popular conception of the social role of drinking, advertisements stress the manly appeal of alcohol – particularly whisky – though it is also clear that there are ongoing changes in the socio-sexual implications of drinking. But perhaps it is hasty to regard the process of change as a process of female emancipation which will culminate in similarity of behaviour, status, and ideals of males and females. The changes are still too recent to warrant this. Also, they have been achieved under sufficiently self-conscious pressure...

Climate change is slow, but a cumulative process. Individual human lifespan is only an infinitesimally small fraction of the life of environmental resources and ecosystem services. Hence, the self- centric and this-worldly view of life is incompatible with the concerns of sustainability and socially responsible behaviour. Rather, the dogmatic commitment to self-centric worldview results in the inevitable proliferation of pollution as a right and product to be bought and sold in the market economy. It is ironic, but inevitable to see measures such as ‘statistical value of life’. On the action and policy front in capitalistic democracies, voter ignorance as well as the public-good nature of any results of political activity tends to create a situation in which maximizing an individual’s private surplus through rent seeking can be at the expense of a lower economic surplus for all consumers and producers.

Understanding consumer attitudes and behaviour in a category is an asset of the manufacturer and a source of power in the battle for mindspace, provided they haven’t cost-saved in that area to fund more retailer discounts. Or,

Tactical activities that influence consumers at the behavioural level are important for developing mindspace. Promotions

But for this, we need a new development model. We have designed an economic system that sees no value in any human or natural resource unless it is exploited. A river is unproductive until its catchment is appropriated by some industry or its waters are captured by a dam. An open field and its natural bounty are useless until they are fenced. A community of people have no value unless their life is commercialised, their needs are turned into consumer goods, and their aspirations are driven by competition. In this approach, development equals manipulation. By contrast, we need to understand development as something totally different: development is care. It is through a caring relationship with our natural wealth that we can create value, not through its destruction. It is thanks to a cooperative human-to-human interaction that we can achieve the ultimate objective of development, that is, wellbeing. In this new economy, people will be productive by performing activities that enhance the quality of life of their peers and the natural ecosystems in which they live. If not for moral reasons, they should do so for genuine self-interest: there is nothing more rewarding than creating wellbeing for oneself and society. This is the real utility, the real consumer surplus, not the shortsighted and self-defeating behaviour promoted by the growth ideology. The wellbeing economy is a vision for all countries. There are cultural traces of such a vision in the southern African notion of ‘ubuntu’, which literally means ‘I am because you are’, reminding us that there is no prosperity in isolation and that everything is connected. In Indonesia we find the notion of ‘gotong royong’, a conception of development founded on collaboration and consensus, or the vision of ‘sufficiency economy’ in Thailand, Bhutan and most of Buddhist Asia, which indicates the need for balance, like the Swedish term ‘lagom’, which means ‘just the right amount’. Native Alaskans refer to ‘Nuka’ as the interconnectedness of humans to their ecosystems, while in South America, there has been much debate about the concept of ‘buen vivir’, that is, living well in harmony with others and with nature.

continue polluting while trying to offset the damage through some face-saving corporate philanthropy exercises. We would be fools to assume that we can simply pay our way out of this mess. Nature cannot be bailed out, as if it were a financial market. We need to stop breaking things in the first place. But for this, we need a new development model. We have designed an economic system that sees no value in any human or natural resource unless it is exploited. A river is unproductive until its catchment is appropriated by some industry or its waters are captured by a dam. An open field and its natural bounty are useless until they are fenced. A community of people have no value unless their life is commercialised, their needs are turned into consumer goods, and their aspirations are driven by competition. In this approach, development equals manipulation. By contrast, we need to understand development as something totally different: development is care. It is through a caring relationship with our natural wealth that we can create value, not through its destruction. It is thanks to a cooperative human-to-human interaction that we can achieve the ultimate objective of development, that is, wellbeing. In this new economy, people will be productive by performing activities that enhance the quality of life of their peers and the natural ecosystems in which they live. If not for moral reasons, they should do so for genuine self-interest: there is nothing more rewarding than creating wellbeing for oneself and society. This is the real utility, the real consumer surplus, not the shortsighted and self-defeating behaviour promoted by the growth ideology. The wellbeing economy is a vision for all countries. There are cultural traces of such a vision in the southern African notion of ‘ubuntu’, which literally means ‘I am because you are’, reminding us that there is no prosperity in isolation and that everything is connected. In Indonesia we find the notion of ‘gotong royong’, a conception of development founded on collaboration and consensus, or the vision of ‘sufficiency economy’ in Thailand, Bhutan and most of Buddhist Asia, which indicates the need for balance, like the Swedish term ‘lagom’, which means ‘just the right amount’. Native Alaskans refer to ‘Nuka’ as the interconnectedness of humans to their ecosystems, while in South America, there has been much debate about the concept of ‘buen vivir’, that is, living well in harmony with others and with nature. The most industrialised nations, which we often describe in dubious terms like ‘wealthy’ or ‘developed’, are at a crossroads. The mess they have created is fast outpacing any other gain, even in terms of education and life expectancy. Their economic growth has come at a huge cost for the rest of the world and the planet as a whole. Not only should they commit to realising a wellbeing economy out of self-interest, but also as a moral obligation to the billions of people who had to suffer wars, environmental destruction and other calamities so that a few, mostly white human beings could go on

To let their light shine, not to force on them their interpretations of God's designs, is the duty of Christians towards their fellows. If you who set yourselves to explain the theory of Christianity, had set yourselves instead to do the will of the Master, the one object for which the Gospel was preached to you, how different would now be the condition of that portion of the world with which you come into contact! Had you given yourselves to the understanding of his word that you might do it, and not to the quarrying from it of material wherewith to buttress your systems, in many a heart by this time would the name of the Lord be loved where now it remains unknown. The word of life would then by you have been held out indeed. Men, undeterred by your explanations of Christianity, for you would not be forcing them on their acceptance, and attracted by your behaviour, would be saying to each other, as Moses said to himself when he saw the bush that burned with fire and was not consumed, 'I will now turn aside and see this great sight!' they would be drawing nigh to behold how these Christians loved one another, and how just and fair they were to every one that had to do with them! to note that their goods were the best, their weight surest, their prices most reasonable, their word most certain! that in their families was neither jealousy nor emulation! that mammon was not there worshipped! that in their homes selfishness was neither the hidden nor the openly ruling principle; that their children were as diligently taught to share, as some are to save, or to lay out only upon self—their mothers more anxious lest a child should hoard than lest he should squander; that in no house of theirs was religion one thing, and the daily life another; that the ecclesiastic did not think first of his church, nor the peer of his privileges.

The difference between passion and addiction is that between a divine spark and a flame that incinerates. [..] Passion is divine fire: it enlivens and makes holy; it gives light and yields inspiration. Passion is generous because it’s not ego-driven; addiction is self-centred. Passion gives and enriches; addiction is a thief. Passion is a source of truth and enlightenment; addictive behaviours lead you into darkness. You’re more alive when you are passionate, and you triumph whether or not you attain your goal. But an addiction requires a specific outcome that feeds the ego; without that outcome, the ego feels empty and deprived. A consuming passion that you are helpless to resist, no matter what the consequences, is an addiction.

A ubiquitous problem faced by our patients is that they feel they are too heavy. This leads to attempts to diet which, associated with over-exercising, may lead to major weight loss and anorexia nervosa. Any degree of food restriction may trigger the body’s natural mechanisms, which counter the reduction in nutrition. These include thinking about food and feeling hungry, and the thoughts can become pervasive and last all day, sometimes even entering dreams. These responses are perfectly natural and act as important survival mechanisms which lead a hungry person to go in search of food. The more extreme the restriction, the more pronounced are the food preoccupations. If weight does go down, it is possible that the preoccupations and urges to eat may be even worse. Imagine someone in this state who eats a sweet treat. The food preoccupations become focused on the treat and expand into an insatiable urge to eat, which grows until satisfied. The degree of restriction and probably the degree of being underweight seem to determine the amount of food consumed and before long the patient is in the grip of an eating binge. Initially the satisfaction of the urge to eat can be pleasurable, but after a time, as more and more food is consumed, the patients become increasingly regretful and guilty, and these thoughts usually predominate in the aftermath. There then arises an urgent need to get rid of the food and reverse or at least mitigate the nutritional impact of the binge, and the patient may go to the toilet and put her fingers down her throat in order to induce vomiting. Huge relief accompanied by regret and guilt at the behaviour often accompanies this. The whole process of restriction, bingeing and vomiting with alternating need, satisfaction guilt and relief can become habitual and, some say, addictive.

people’s toes. Yellows can be amusing, creative, and elevate the mood regardless of who they’re with. However, when they are given unlimited space, they will consume all the oxygen in the room, they won’t allow anyone into a conversation, and their stories will reflect reality less and less. The friendly Greens are easy to hang out with because they are so pleasant and genuinely care for others. Unfortunately, they can be too wishy-washy and unclear. Anyone who never takes a stand eventually becomes difficult to handle. You don’t know where they really stand, and indecision kills the energy in other people. The analytical Blues are calm, levelheaded, and think before they speak. Their ability to keep a cool head is undoubtedly an enviable quality for all who aren’t capable of doing that. However, Blues’ critical thinking can easily turn to suspicion and questioning those around them. Everything can become suspect and sinister.

Where new technologies suddenly make a behavior easier, new possibilities are born

With both Pinterest and Instagram, tiny teams generated huge value - not by cracking hard technical challenges, but by solving common interaction problems

There are plenty of young people who are appalled by the behaviour of the older generation, rightly, and are dedicated to trying to stop this madness before it consumes us all. Well, that’s the hope for the future.

The belief that its anonymity makes it valuable is what drives consumer faith in it, despite it being impractical as a daily currency, unprotected by governments, too volatile to be used for saving and having no universally accepted intrinsic value like gold. It is this herd behaviour that started the newest and biggest gold rush, featuring crypto geeks, gamblers and ordinary working people with fears of missing out.

The Industrial Revolution that led to mass production and the division of labour brought separation between the manufacturer and the customer. Over time as companies grew and grew, so did the rift with the customer. Tying executive compensation to share price has shifted the leadership’s attention away from the customer and towards the stock market, a contributing factor to the current malaise. Social media is starting to empower the consumer, providing a largely unregulated, democratic means to hold businesses to account for disappointing or dishonest behaviour. Personalisation and customisation are becoming the norm, raising customer expectations. The profusion of new digital touchpoints – smart-phones, kiosks, websites – has created headaches for

Religions formulated laws and were formed for some reasons. In Islam the "Sharia" is law to maintain or reach the "Maqasid" or the "Purpose". Same goes for Christian canon law, Jewish halakha, Hindu law and others. These laws were to establish ethics and moral code of conducts among humans. The reason for LAW was not to be followed as a ritual but make a safe environment for the people governed by it. Learning without a goal can only enable the pursuit of pleasure. Having a goal can conform economic behaviour to the economic natural law and hence the decree of economics. Ethics should also have a goal. For example, the power of knowledge can have a positive or negative effect; its use must be guided by general ethics to pursue virtuousness. Moreover, a totally free market cannot be effectively managed by individual morality. This is because one person rarely has the ability and motivation to know whether he or she has over-consumed resources and reduced environmental sustainability Unfortunately now the people governed believe that they have to protect the law instead of law protecting them. No one is being educated about why the by laws but the emphasis is only on must follow. The religious guides, preachers or leaders don't have logical or social answers and the means of getting the laws enforced are EMOTIONAL or threatening by Wrath of GOD. They seIl the religions as hot cakes and there is a price tag for their figs of imaginations. They create the stories according to audience likes and dislikes. Once I asked one of these preachers about bribes given out to get some tender is justified. He responded if one is equally competitive it’s OK to take favors. So these are the leaders and in this run we have lost the "LAKSHYA" or "MAQASID" of formulation of the laws. Religious leaders have stopped talking about PURPOSE but have converted it to mare rituals. During these rituals people get carried away by mass hysteria of large gatherings. They don't understand anything about why they are doing these things but have certain trigger points or words by orator where they raise in praises similar to a people shouting at points scored in Foot Ball match. But there this Adrenalin blast is connected to divinity. It is definitely not divine if the gathering has a tinge of negative nurturing against any other community or person because God created the nature and Nature's laws don't discriminate while providing for life for every being and that is what DIVINITY is. The nature doesn't take any benefit from us but yes someone definitely takes mileage out of the emotions of these lesser mortals. It might be political or financial or whatever. Lets go back to the reason and find out WHY the Law and not the RITUALs. DON't KILL THE LOGIC

This is the thinking behind Amazon’s anticipatory shopping patent.43 Instead of customers making their own decisions, Amazon decides for them, sending what they want before they know they want it. It is, as one commentator noticed, one more step towards cutting out human agency altogether.44 Pervasive monitoring devices – smartphones, wearables, voice-enabled speakers and smart meters – allow companies to track and manage consumer behaviour. The Harvard business scholar Shoshana Zuboff quotes an unnamed chief data scientist who explains: ‘The goal of everything we do is to change people’s actual behavior at scale . . . we can capture their behaviours and identify good and bad [ones]. Then we develop “treatments” or “data pellets” that select good behaviours.’45 MIT’s Alex Pentland seems more interested in enhancing machines than human understanding. He celebrates the opportunity to deploy sensors and data in order to increase efficiency

However, when it comes to unrestricted access to super-stimulating versions of natural rewards, such as junk food,[170] the answer is no,[171] although certainly not every consumer gets hooked. The reason that highly stimulating versions of food and sexual arousal can hook us – even if we’re not otherwise susceptible to addiction – is that our reward circuitry evolved to drive us toward food and sex, not drugs or alcohol. Today’s high fat[172]/sugar foods[173] have hooked far more people into destructive patterns of behaviour than have illegal drugs. 70% of American adults are overweight, 37.7% obese.

To avoid the cognitive dissonance of not liing something that others seem to take so much pleasure in, we slowly change our perception of the thing we once did not enjoy.

The more users invest time and effort into a product or service, the more they value it. In fact, there is ample evidence to suggest that our labor leads to love

Pursuing a task to completion can influence people to continue all sorts of behaviors. Surprisingly, we even pursue these rewards when we don't outwardly appear to enjoy them.

The reward of the self are fueled by "intrinsic motivation" as highlighted by the work of Edward Deci and Richard Ryan. Their self-determination theory espouses that people desire, among other things, to gain a sense of competency. Adding an element of mystery to this goal makes the pursuit all the more enticing.

It's not enough to be just a consumer, you gotta be a conscious consumer, otherwise there is no difference between a consumer and a slave.

The internet was supposed to democratise the spread of information and make companies more open by elevating the independent voice of consumers, but the world of surgery is just one example of how easily that can be corrupted by warped incentive models

In our modern democracy, shamelessness can be positively advantageous. Politicians who aren’t hindered by shame are free to do things others wouldn’t dare. Would you call yourself your country’s most brilliant thinker, or boast about your sexual prowess? Could you get caught in a lie and then tell another without missing a beat? Most people would be consumed by shame – just as most people leave that last cookie on the plate. But the shameless couldn’t care less. And their audacious behaviour pays dividends in our modern mediacracies, because the news spotlights the abnormal and the absurd. In this type of world, it’s not the friendliest and most empathic leaders who rise to the top, but their opposites. In this world, it’s survival of the shameless.

There are a number of significant implications of this particular bit of research. The first is that what people tell us about their attitude to the environment and what consumer choices they will actually make may, on occasion, be a valuable resource for researchers, but on other occasions people may tell us one thing while their unconscious gestural movement may tell quite a different (and more accurate) story. Therefore, it may be wrong, in research on green issues, to focus exclusively on what people say. Explicitly people may want to save the planet, explicitly people may want to appear green, explicitly (and almost certainly) people may want to appear considerate and nice, but implicitly they may care a good deal less. And given that it is these implicit attitudes that direct and control much of our spontaneous and non-reflective behaviour in supermarkets and elsewhere, these are the attitudes that we have to pursue and understand and change.

Evidence for climate change has been available for some time, so why has this 'urgent global response' (in Stern's words) not occurred? The IPCC (2015) have argued that we could limit the effects of climate change by changing our individual and collective behaviour. We could fly less, eat less meat, use public transport, cycle or walk, recycle, choose more low carbon products, have shorter showers, waste less food or reduce home energy use. There has been some significant change but nothing like the 'global response' required to ameliorate the further deleterious effects of climate change. We are reminded here of a somewhat depressing statistic reported by a leading multinational, Unilever, in their 'sustainable Living Plan.' In 2013, they outlined how they were going to halve the greenhouse gas impact of their products across the life cycle by 2020. To achieve this goal, they reduced greenhouse gas emissions from their manufacturing chain. They opted for more environmentally friendly sourcing of raw materials, doubled their use of renewable energy and produced concentrated liquids and powders. They reduced greenhouse gas emissions from transport and greenhouse gas emissions from refrigeration. They also restricted employee travel. The result of all these initiatives was that their 'greenhouse gas footprint impact per consumer... increased by around 5% since 2010.' They concluded, 'We have made good progress in those areas under our control but ... the big challenges are those areas not under direct control like... consumer behaviour ' (2013:16; emphasis added). It seems that consumers are not 'getting the message.' They are not opting for the low carbon alternatives in the way envisaged; they are not changing the length of their showers (to reduce energy and water consumption); they are not breaking their high-carbon habits. The question is why?

The retailer is interested in the consumers’ behaviour in each of the two or three hundred categories it offers, but owing to a lack of critical mass in each category, the retailer does not have the budget or the personnel to discover the information. However, for a manufacturer, concentrating on a small set of categories, it is worthwhile. The manufacturer can relate in-store data with the information collected from consumer research: how consumers choose in this category, which consumers choose what, which brands compete most closely with each other and which command the greatest brand loyalty. Since

Category captains are recognised by retailers as having the greatest knowledge of consumer behaviour and mechanics in a category, and usually will have the most comprehensive range. Retailers believe that stocking this manufacturer’s range, backed with their understanding of positioning, merchandising, shelf allocation etc., should optimise sales. This

Retailers have four advantages over manufacturers when it comes to influencing consumers: the cost-effectiveness of their branding model, direct contact with shoppers, control of ‘point of purchase’ marketing variables and access to data on buying behaviour. Together, these make a potent mix.

No matter how large and enlightened retailers become, they remain generalists, and there are things that are difficult for them to do as well as a manufacturer. In particular, retailers cannot: Always get the quality they want. Advertise specific functions of a brand. Create a strong, emotional brand image. Give a sense of wide choice. Invest in deep understanding of consumer behaviour in all product fields that they operate. The more these factors are important in a product field, the less retailers are able to win mindspace from manufacturer brands. Conversely, in categories where these factors play a small or no role, such as eggs, milk, butter, flour etc., manufacturers have been unable to halt the retail juggernaut.

... cartoons still feature predominantly male lead characters, and there have been a number of studies into the effects of this on children. ... female characters are under-represented in cartoons, and they are typically lower status. Researchers found that ... children who noticed gender-stereotypic behaviours in cartoon characters reported more traditional job expectations for themselves and for others. This ... indicates that children can recognise gender stereotypes in the products they consume, but lack the capacity to question and critically evaluate them.

Another example of the certainty principle is that we value things we already own particularly highly. Nothing is more certain than holding something in our hands. Consumers who were given a coffee mug demanded twice as much to give it up as other consumers were willing to pay for it. Behavioural economists refer to this bias as the ‘endowment effect’.

In the social dilemma of the tragic commons, popularised by Garrett Hardin (1968),[51] a group of famers has access to a common grassed area upon which to sustain their individually owned herds of sheep. Each farmer, being rational, wishes to keep as many sheep as possible on the commons in order to make more money – the sheep being a mechanism for converting common property (grass) into individual wealth. However, if the grass is consumed faster than the rate at which it grows (because the number of sheep is unsustainable) the farmers are collectively disadvantaged. The dilemma is that a farmer who adds extra sheep to the commons receives all of the profit, while the cost of doing so is distributed to the group. Each farmer, therefore, has an individual incentive to increase their use of the land even though doing so reduces the productivity of the land, and affects them all adversely. The selfish, though rational, short-term individual preferences of the farmers undermine their longer-term individual interests. Furthermore, the agential behaviour of the farmers creates structural barriers to collective reform because once one farmer overuses the common resource without being punished the action becomes legitimised. The rational behaviour of individuals can thus create collective irrationality. Solving this collective-action problem is typically understood to require either the conversion of the common resource into privately owned property (the exploitation of which is, therefore, regulated by the private owners because they have incentives to maintain its productivity), or through the creation of a public authority that is capable of regulating the amount of the common resource available to an individual.[52] But there is also another option: that the farmers lobby wealthy landowners from the neighbouring village to give them more land and more grass and thus prevent an outbreak of violence between the famers that may affect those beyond the borders of the commons.

Japanese students come from an advanced, sophisticated society, have a unique cultural identity and require a range of products and services to meet their education needs.

Japanese students judge a school by its appearance, what it looks like inside and out. They want up to date computers that can read, write and accept Japanese characters. They want the same level of technology they use and have in Japan.

Japanese students when compared to other countries students clearly stand out as highly desirable long-term students. Their high level of literacy, visa access, motivation to study, scholastic ability, and value as alumni make them a sort after student market in Asia

Japanese people like New Zealand, the quality of education, the beautiful natural surroundings, the value for money and the perceived high safety aspect. These unique characteristics attract tourists, working holidaymakers and students alike.

Japanese consumers require and expect a lot of detailed information when making a purchase decision.

...we rely on perceptual information to process ideas about things that are alive. THe idea of a leopard, for instance, will bring up the concept of spots. But thinking about a non-living thing like a toaster tends to activate functional information - probably toasting...This functional framework may be making us see the world as something to use and consume rather than to take joy in or be part of