Oakton Community College Changing Consumer Behavior to Healthy Living Paper Throughout the term you will be learning a number of concepts, theories, and te

Oakton Community College Changing Consumer Behavior to Healthy Living Paper Throughout the term you will be learning a number of concepts, theories, and techniques that can be used to change a consumer’s behavior. You will devise a plan to use these concepts, theories, and techniques on yourself to change your own behavior. In your paper you will explain how those ideas will be used and demonstrate understanding, beyond memorization, by applying it to your unique situation/behavior. If you can’t change yourself, how do you expect to change anyone else? Aim for 20 concepts used in some way.

Your topic, and a brief description of what you want to change about yourself, is due any time after April 1st but before April 14th. Your goal should be a part of this.

An example: My topic is going to be obesity. I want to lose 20 pounds by the end of the term and 60 pounds in the next 6 months. My plan will attempt to show the ways I will change my behaviors in regards to diet and exercise.

The paper this person would then submit is about changing specific behaviors—not about diet, nutrition, and exercise. See the “Audience and Voice” section of Module 1a for a better understanding.

Throughout the term as we discuss Consumer Behavior you should note how various concepts can be applied to your paper—how can they be used to change a consumer’s behavior. Not all concepts will apply to all papers, but you should be able to find something of value each week.

An example: I recently lost a significant amount of weight and plan on losing a significant amount more. A technique I’ve used (and continue to use) is related to both social presentation and stigma. By constantly talking to people around me about this process, I have driven my commitment to lose weight so as not to fail in front of them—after all, no one wants to be a failure.

By telling everyone what I was doing I am spending a form of Social Capital. This ‘talking about the process’ (and acknowledging how much I talk about the process) has had the benefit of bringing my (supportive) friends in on my side in the struggle. They know what I am doing and why. Three friends are already following in my footsteps citing my example as the reason why. This adds another layer of motivation because I don’t want to let them down.

In my paper I would talk about concepts related to social presentation, motivation, stigma, and social capital. I would explain the role each concept plays in my plan/process.

Write a little bit each week and it will be done before you know it.

This can continue through and include our final Module (Innovation and Adoption)—though you may finish earlier. By that time you should have a nice collection of pieces applying various concepts from Consumer Behavior to your topic. Some modules will matter more than others depending on your topic so don’t get frustrated if you don’t find a lot of material every module

Putting it all together: Organize and edit your writing into a coherent paper. If you look in the TOOLS menu of MSWord you will see ‘Word Count’. The word count doesn’t include citations if you use any outside sources (a good paper will use outside sources).

Your paper should include some kind of section headings to point out content to me and facilitate reading it. Terms that you want to emphasize should be either or highlighted.

Key words from the course need to be included in the paper. If you could highlight the words in yellow, and use whatever influences you when it comes to consumer behavior in the paper that would be perfect. Some key words you can use to help right the paper are listed below:

Materialism

Consumer Satisfaction

Market Regulation

Safety

Choice

Motives

attitudes

values

lifestyles

impulsive

attractive

love risk

persuasion

consistency

consensus

scarcity

Freudian system trait theory

involvement

transcendence

Maslow’s Hieracrchy of needs

Problem Recognition

Also attached is a document with the topic I chose to talk about in the paper. My topic is to change my health. I gave some reasons already but the rest you can just fill in with whatever you want.