Unsustainable Consumption Behavior And Factors That Influence It In An Essay.

Current Patterns of Consumption

Question:

Discuss about the Domestic Violence and Consumption.

Current patterns of consumption are unsustainable. Consumption greats a strain on natural resources which cause increment in waste production. This consumption includes food, transport, tourism and leisure hence increasing our demand on them consumes the   treasured resources available. This promotes deviations in consumption patterns.

Material Complexity; it involves consuming more products and services than the one someone can afford hence seeking products that are resource inefficient, endurable and with increased ecological impact. This unsustainable behavior leads change in lifestyle and consumer struggle to meet their needs.

Human scale; most consumer tend to stretch and live beyond their social class, income and cultural setting which make this factor to be unsustainable to consumer in a way that it forces them to acquire extra resources to meet their increasing demand for products and services.

Non Self-determination; through an increased reliance on large commercial businesses and large public sector organization, which make them unable to meet their needs and this influence what they want.

Non ecological awareness; when it comes to conservation of resource and reduction of waste, the consumers  lack proper information on this issue due to inadequate public awareness. Most of them will waste resources which could have been reused in one way or the other hence destroying the environment.

Personal growth; most consumers depend on commercial or market to offer them consumption experiences instead of self-development of personal ability and experience in satisfaction. This unsustainable involves change in lifestyle and consumption style due to changes in income of different consumers. 

Food and drink consumption choices; consumption level should be conducive to health but most people tend to  consume a lot of meat products instead of originally and locally produced products which increase their demand and force them to live beyond their social and income class.

Housing consumption choices; purchasing homes or creating homes with high level of insulation and energy efficiency which involve high usage energy hence high energy wastage instead of purchasing a home constructed using sustainable material and energy conservative which will avoid wastage of resources

Travel behavior; consumers should use the mean which is affordably and cheaply available instead of using the most expensive such as driving   personal car which create unassailable in consumer behavior. Use of alternative transport such as public means or cycling for leisure, this will conserve environment and resource.

Consumer behavior; Is the study of individual, group or organization and the way they select, get and get products and services to satisfy their needs and the final effect on consumer and the society at large? The main factors that influence this consumer behavior include cultural factor, social factors, personal factors and psychological factors.

Cultural factors; culture plays a crucial part when it comes to needs and consumption behavior of particular individual. An individual is influenced with his family, friends and the society surrounding them. Also subcultures social classes and cultural trends will influence the behaviors of an individual, subcultures are the people who shares and live in same lifestyle such as religions, age groups, ethnics and gender. Social classes on the other side involves people with different ranks tend to live within their class .lastly cultural trends are mostly ways followed according to their celebrity and social pressure.

Material Complexity

Social factors; this refers to a group of people who belong to a social group or membership; this group will tend to influence a person to live within the expectation of other members. This comprises of workmate, residence, leisure and hobbies. Family is the most influential factor; the environment shapes the person by developing attitudes. Social roles and status also has a positive influence on consumer behavior of an individual. The role played by a person in society or family and their status will define them.

Personal factors; age of the person will influence their consumption behaviors. Individuals at youth stage and the old stage do not purchase and demand same products and services, this factor includes lifestyle, purchasing power and self-concept. Lifestyle of a person comprises of interest, activities and opinions . It will influence the behavior and purchasing choice. Purchasing power also will affect the behavior and purchasing decisions of an individual with accordance with the level of income. Lastly self-concept is the characters of each individual which results in consistence behaviors.

Psychological factors; motivation determines the purchasing behavior of an individual; it is the inner feelings that press a person to demand a certain commodity to satisfy the need such as perception, beliefs and attitude. Perception is the way an individual interprets information on a given situation and make a decision. Belief and attitudes also influence the buying behavior in a way that an individual is able to develop a behavior against a certain class of commodities.

The above factors are the main influence of consumer behavior and leads to the unsustainable consumption behaviors in the market as discussed in the question one above on the domestic violence. I decided to discuss the specifically since they outline the reason why unsustainability is experiences in the society as people struggle to live within their lifestyle and social class.

The consumers have to understand the factors in order to live within their social classes, lifestyle, and income level and consider their cultural environment. Understanding the factors, they will have solved the problem of unsustainability consumption in the market.

Howard and Sheth proposed that Psychological factors such as attitude determine the purchasing behavior of an individual; it is the inner feelings that press a person to demand a certain commodity to satisfy the need such as perception, beliefs and attitude. Perception is the way an individual interprets information on a given situation and make a decision. Belief and attitudes also influence the theory of buyer behavior (Loudon et al. 1993). Beyond the theory it further observed that clear integration of psychological, social and market influences on consumers. Howard and Sheth further admit and provide for different kind of decisions (Loudon and Bitta 1993) this critique seem to ignorer most of the Howard and Sheth proposed variables. Most studies attempted to empirically test the theory have failed to examine some of the development identified (Farley and Ring 1970, Hunt and Pappas 1972) Neman also on his evaluation model questioned the linear models of consumer behavior.

Human Scale

Theory of Buyer Behavior, the theory was developed by Howard and Sheth (Howard and Seth 1969). It provides integration of various factors such as psychological, social and market influence on consumer decision.( Foxall 1990 P.10).      

Consumer Decision Model; was originally developed by Engel, Kollat and Blackwell in 1968 and has similar components as that of theory of buyer behavior but it differs in its structure presentation. It discusses the environmental and individual influence. Environmental influence includes class, culture, family, situation and personal influence. Individual on other side comprises of motivation, consumer resources and knowledge, personal values, attitude and lifestyle (Blackwell, Miniard et al.2001). The model is suitable in explaining situations in solving extended and limited problems by amending the various stages engaged ( Loudon and Della Bitta 1993) 

Prescriptive Cognitive Model; was established in 1960 by market researches and mainly focused on attitude and beliefs (Ahtola 1975). The model was further developed in reasoned action. It is a combination of consumer attitude and norms of consumer purchasing (Solomon Bossy et al 2006)

The Theory of Trying; the model gives an alternative approach. The approach model assesses trying to act. This involves attitudes and expectation of success or failure are used as variables which influences consumer behavior ( Bagozzi and Warshaw 1990 ). The theory is mostly used in health related situations.

Discuss and compare relevant traditions of ethical thinking. This theory does not try to find out    definite choices about being good or evil

Traditional ethical thinking is categorized into three main ways but in this question is going to majorly discus two main once that is the normative and meta-ethics. Normative ethics is mostly concerned with values and standards which are used to determine if something is good on the other hand, meta-ethics addresses the nature of doing the right thing.

Normative ethics

Norm in this context refers to the standard of analyzing the outcome of ones judgments. It is in many cases used to show how a number of people would behave in when faced with a common issue. When used in this context the norm is not evaluative but an observation of a decision without judgment. In most cases the use of normative as a term is avoided especially in areas where there is evaluation of decisions making but use in areas where there is a description of a positive outcome.

Meta-ethics

This is a branch of ethics which try to find the nature of ethical judgments and approaches to different situations. It deals with questions such as how to tell if something is good or bad and generally tries to describe what goodness means. A number of theorists says that a metaphysical way of morality is important in coming up with the best ways of handling a problem. Richard Garner argues that there are three forms of meta-ethical questions, what does moral means, its nature and how it can be supported? This theory does not try to find out definite choices about being good or evil.

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