1

Decision Making Assignment

Ali Emmott
MRK 345
Course reference # 05134
Consumer Behavior
Fall 2012-2013
December 10, 2012
I certify that I am the author of this assignment. Any assistance I
received in its preparation is fully acknowledged and disclosed
within this document. I certify that I have not received help from
any unauthorized persons.
I have cited any and all sources, both print and electronic, from
which I have used data, ideas, or words, either quoted or paraphrased.
My cited sources are indicated within this document using APA
citation style. I also certify that this assignment was prepared by
me especially for the course as listed above.

Decision Made
A recent decision that I made last Sunday was purchasing an
orange sweater. There were several different factors that lead me to
making my decision. The price of the sweater was the first factor
considering I am broke college student, the price was in my range
limit. The most influential factor I believe is the relationship I have with
the store Forever21 that definitely went into purchasing the sweater.
The store happens to one of my favorite stores that I like to shop in.
The color of the sweater being one of my favorite colors and a color I
dont already own in a sweater. The comfort and style of the sweater
also were factors when deciding.
Description of Decision Making Process:
A)

The decision making process I used when determining to make

the purchase were the noncompensatory decision rules.

Noncompensatory decision rules do not allow consumers to balance
positive evaluations of a brand on one attribute against a negative
evaluation on some other attribute. Three noncompensatory rules are
considered briefly the conjunctive rule, the disjunctive rule and the
lexicography rule.
Conjunctive decision rule, the consumer establishes a separate,
minimally acceptable level as a cutoff point for each attribute. If or
when any particular brand or model falls below the cutoff point of any
one attribute the option is eliminated from further consideration. The

3
conjunctive rule is particularly useful in quickly reducing the number of
alternatives to be considered. I will talk more about this rule later on
when it comes to making final decision.
Disjunctive rule, is the mirror image of the conjunctive rule. In
applying this decision rule the consumer establishes a separate,
minimally acceptable cutoff level for each attribute (which may be
higher than the one normally establishes for a conjunctive rule). In this
care if an option meets or exceeds the cutoff established for any one
attribute it is accepted. This decision rule may occur when the
consumer may accept the first satisfactory alternative as the final
choice or apply another decision rule that is perhaps more suitable.
Lexicographic decision rule, the consumer first ranks the attributes in
terms of perceived relevance or importance. The consumer then
compares the various alternatives in terms of the single attribute that
is considered most important. If one-option scores sufficiently high on
this top ranked attribute it is selected and the process ends.
Along with the lexicographic decision are three basic consumer
orientations, in my case I am a consumer that is economy minded
because I buy the least expensive. As a frequent shopper that makes
purchases that items possess a specific shopping strategy for saving
money. The consumer segment and the specific shipping rules that
these segments employ are

4
1.Practical loyalists: Those who look for ways to save on the
brands and products they would buy anyway.
2.Bottom-line price shoppers: Those who buy the lowest-priced
item with little or no regard for brand.
3.Opportunistic Switchers: Those who use coupons or sales to
decide among brands and products that fall within their evoked set
4.Deal hunters: Those who look for the best bargain and are not
brand loyal.
I would consider myself to be a deal hunter shopper, because I am not
brand loyal when buying casual clothing. Being a deal hunter shopper
when shopping for the sweater I purchased I used the lexicographic
decision rule. Without making note of it I ranked the attributes of all
four sweaters I was deciding between.
The factors that I used in order of importance to make the
decision were, price, material, long sleeved, sturdy, and color. I wanted
to purchase a product under twenty dollars which was most important
to me, then I the product material had to be sweater-like and warm,
next the article of clothing had to have long sleeves and finally the
color had to satisfy me.
B) Heuristic(s) Used:
Heuristics refers to a framework in which satisfactory decisions
are made quickly and with simplicity. Made up of two rules Non-

5
compensatory rule and the compensatory rule. In my decision making
process I used the non-compensatory rules in deciding.

Price
Materia
l
Long
Sleeve
s
Durabl
e
Color

Sweater
1

Sweater
2

Sweater
3

Sweater
4

Y
N

Y
Y

Y
Y

Sweater four

was eliminated first from my options because looking over my first

factor price, it ranked an N indicating that the price was not in my
range limit.
Sweater one was eliminated next when ranked with an N for material,
indicating it was not fit the kind of material I was looking for. Followed
by sweater three elminated when ranked N for durable, meaning that
the sweater was not going to last long or have much value. Therefore
this why sweater two I choose to purchase because it fulfilled all of my
factors when listed in oeder of importance to me.

Benefit(s) of Heuristic(s) Used

I choose to use the lexicographic rule to decide because as an
indecisive shopper this rule makes it easiest for me to eliminate

6
options and decide by which ranks all of my desired factors. Listing the
factors by importance helps eliminate options faster as well I felt like.
There are a few advantages in my situation using this rule, the is once
one of the attributes was not fit for the sweater I eliminated it
completely and could not go back and go in-between sweaters when it
came time to make my purchase. This helped me narrow down to just
one sweater.

CHECKLIST (You must fill out this checklist and submit it with your
paper as
the last pages)
_____ As the focus of this paper I selected a decision that I recently made or am
currently
making.
_____ The decision made/being made is identified.
_____ The heuristic or decision rule I used/am using is identified.
_____ A chart is included that specifically depicts the details of the decision
alternatives as
well as decision making process.
_____ The decision making process depicted in the chart is explained.
_____ An explanation is given about why I think I chose to use that/those
decision rule(s)
over the other heuristics available.
_____ The advantage(s) to using that/those particular decision rule(s) over the
other
possible decision rules was/were identified.
_____ I used the required subtitles (indicated in the assignments instructions).

_____ Paper is no longer than 2 pages, not including the cover page and the
decision rule
chart page(s).
Cover page included with the following information.
_____ my name
_____ the course number (MKT 345)
_____ the course reference number (05134)
_____ the course name (Consumer Behavior)
_____ the semester (Fall 2012)
_____ the assignment name
_____ the date of submission
_____ the statement of academic integrity (copied from the
Communications
Guidelines document)
_____ all of the above information is located in the center of the cover
page
_____ Pages are numbered on the bottom center, excluding the cover page.

_____ All text is double-spaced, with the exception of long quotes (that are to be
single
spaced and indented with no quotation marks) and charts.
_____ This paper is prepared in MS Word as either a doc or docx file.
_____ Font size is 12 point.
_____ Script style font is not used.
_____ Font color is black, with the exceptions of the cover page, exhibits, charts,
graphs, pictures, and URLs.
_____ I named the electronic file as My Name Decision Making Assignment.

8
_____ I titled the subject in the Deliver Here area as My Name Decision
Making
Assignment.
Select one of these two:
_____ If I used left justified paragraphs I doubled the double spacing
between
paragraphs.
_____ I indented the first line of each new paragraph.