On the hierarchy of choice: An applied neuroscience perspective on the AIDA model

Abstract

Application and significance of neuroscience and its related techniques to comprehend and analyse consumer behaviour and psychology have recently attracted the interest of researchers and practitioners. In doing so, models of consumer choice and communication effects that were originally conceived during a non-neuroscience psychology era should now be challenged with the recent and plentiful advances that neurobiology has made in reshaping our understanding of the human mind and decision-making processes. This study aims at providing an update of exactly these updates, and to use this novel understanding to challenge a dominating category of consumer choice and communication effects, going under the headings such as “response hierarchy models”. By using examples of these models, we will demonstrate that even the basic assumptions in these models need to be reconsidered, and that the overall tenants of the models are equally problematic. Based on our overall understanding and an in-depth analysis of the modern neurobiological basis of decision-making in humans, it can be concluded that AIDA model is not applicable and substantially problematic. Therefore, it can be asserted that a reframing of the model needs to encompass both conscious and unconscious streams of action. Consequently, the model shall consider massively parallel systems, where A, I, D and A have two parallel systems, a conscious and an unconscious. The conscious system must only occur for certain level of unconscious process, whereas unconscious processes can occur without the necessity of consciousness. The reframed model suggested in this study can be the interest of both scholars and practitioners.

Keywords

• response hierarchy model
• consumer psychology
• neuromarketing
• neurobiology
• marketing communication
• consumer neuroscience
• framing effects, attention, emotion, decision-making