Results stemming from experimental investigations, for instance, have shown that more participants said that they would make a trip to another store when they could get a discount of 33% than when the discount was equal to 4%, despite the fact that in both conditions they would save the same amount of money ($5) (cf. Tversky & Kahneman, 1981; Kahneman & Tversky, 1984). This inconsistency in their decisions may be explained, according to the authors (cf. Kahneman & Tversky, 1979), when one considers that financial transactions might be framed at different levels, namely, minimal, topical, or comprehensive. The minimal frame would consider only the absolute amount of money gained or lost, whereas a topical frame would be more inclusive, comparing, for example, the current price with the last price paid for the same product. A comprehensive frame would be even more inclusive and would consider, for instance, one’s monthly budget. In the case of the above mentioned results, participants would have been influenced by the percentage off the price, which would be a topical frame, rather than by the absolute amount of money saved, a minimal frame. Findings such as these led Kahneman and Tversky (1984) to conclude that sale prices are framed according to the percentage off rather than in terms of absolute amount of money saved.
However, this conclusion has not been completely supported by subsequent research. Darke and Freedman (1993, Experiment 1), using a laboratory simulation, found that when the percentage to be saved by visiting another store was low (1% or 5%), the absolute amount of money ($5 or $25) to be saved influenced participants’ decision to extend price search. When the percentage of the base price to be saved varied more widely (5–25%), both variables influenced participants’ decisions (Darke & Freedman, 1993, Experiment 2). Another experiment corroborated and extended such results by showing that the percentage of discount influenced participants decision of ending price search for a product with low base price ($100) but not for a product with high base price ($300) (Darke, Freedman, & Chaiken, 1995). The authors explained these results by proposing a heuristic–systematic model of price search, which distinguishes between systematic and heuristic processing of information. Systematic processing would involve the examination of a large amount of information and would tend to be relatively effortful, whereas heuristic processing would involve simple decision rules and would require less effort. In the case of price search, a systematic processing would consist of visiting a large number of stores or examining a large number of brands in an attempt to find the best possible price. This type of search would occur when the consumer is highly motivated, as when a large amount of money can be saved (e.g., high base price, around $300). When the amount of money to be gained is small (e.g., because the base price is low), consumers would use the percentage discount of a sale price as a heuristic cue to decide to continue or stop searching. These different ways of cognitively processing information would, according to the authors, explain the results from their experiments and some apparently inconsistent results found in the literature (i.e., Blair & Landon, 1981; Della Bitta, Monroe, & McGinnis, 1981; Urbany, Bearden, & Weilbaker, 1988).
Taken together, results from the above-cited experiments suggest that both percentage off the initial price and the amount of money that can be saved may influence consumer price search, depending upon the product base price and the size of the discount. Other investigations using data from surveys have also suggested the influence of product base price, or price variation, upon the behavior of searching for Christmas gifts (Laroche, Saad, Browne, Cleveland, & Kim, 2000) and price search in the retail grocery market (Urbany, Kalapurakal, & Dickson, 1996).
All the investigations cited above illustrate the kind of theoretical explanation that has prevailed in the field for quite some time. In 1990, Foxall in his critique of the cognitive paradigm identified this tendency where he asserts that “the most widely-accepted and influential models of consumer behaviour derive from cognitive psychology which is rapidly assuming the status of a dominant, though not exclusive, paradigm for psychological research in general” (p. 8). Consumer choice, according to such models, is interpreted as a problem-solving activity, determined by rational and intellectual processing of information. Upon being presented with information concerning products, brands, prices and such like, consumers analyze, classify and interpret such information, transforming it, through more processing, into attitudes and intentions that ultimately produce choices and actual purchases (cf. Foxall, 1990, Foxall, 1997 and Foxall, 1998).
This type of explanation has not been exempt from theoretical, conceptual and empirical criticism. Theoretically, one of the major critics of such theories was Skinner, 1953, Skinner, 1969, Skinner, 1977 and Skinner, 1985, who described them as incomplete, for they do not explain the presumed inner causes of behavior, fictional, for they are re-descriptions concealed as explanations, and unnecessary, for they could be replaced by much simpler environment-based theories (cf. Foxall, 1990). In the context of consumer behavior theory, such models have not emphasized the possible and probable effects of situational variables about which there is little systematic information (Foxall, 1997 and Foxall, 1998). Empirically, several assumptions of cognitive theories have not been supported by data from consumer behavior, since, as Foxall (1990) points out, consumers do not seem to be as rational, motivated and information-seeking as predicted by cognitive models. Moreover, a growing body of research has demonstrated that the prediction level of cognitive models of attitude is increased when they include situational variables, such as context specificity and previous behavior (cf. Foxall, 1997; Foxall, 2002b; Davies, Foxall, & Pallister, 2002).
Independently of such criticisms, however, the present proposal can be justified as an attempt to extend the scope of consumer research beyond the prevailing cognitive paradigm. According to a relativistic perspective, the presentation of an antithetical theoretical position may, by itself, be salutary to the growth of the field (cf. Foxall, 1990, Foxall, 1998 and Foxall, 2002a; Foxall & Greenley, 1998). Based upon these assumptions, the present work presents an operant analysis of consumer search behavior and an empirical investigation of the effects of base price on the duration of search behavior in a supermarket.