Which of the following is the best example of an internal stimulus that will create need recognition?

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Posted by: Lucid Content Team

The consumer decision-making process can seem mysterious, but all consumers go through basic steps when making a purchase to determine what products and services will best fit their needs. 

Think about your own thought process when buying something—especially when it’s something big, like a car. You consider what you need, research, and compare your options before making the decision to buy. Afterward, you often wonder if you made the right call. 

If you work in sales or marketing, make more of an impact by putting yourself in the customer’s shoes and reviewing the steps in the consumer decision-making process.

Steps in the consumer decision process

Generally speaking, the consumer decision-making process involves five basic steps.

The first step of the consumer decision-making process is recognizing the need for a service or product. Need recognition, whether prompted internally or externally, results in the same response: a want. Once consumers recognize a want, they need to gather information to understand how they can fulfill that want, which leads to step two.

But how can you influence consumers at this stage? Since internal stimulus comes from within and includes basic impulses like hunger or a change in lifestyle, focus your sales and marketing efforts on external stimulus. 

Develop a comprehensive brand campaign to build brand awareness and recognition––you want consumers to know you and trust you. Most importantly, you want them to feel like they have a problem only you can solve.

Example: Winter is coming. This particular customer has several light jackets, but she’ll need a heavy-duty winter coat if she’s going to survive the snow and lower temperatures.

2. Information search

When researching their options, consumers again rely on internal and external factors, as well as past interactions with a product or brand, both positive and negative. In the information stage, they may browse through options at a physical location or consult online resources, such as Google or customer reviews.

Your job as a brand is to give the potential customer access to the information they want, with the hopes that they decide to purchase your product or service. Create a funnel and plan out the types of content that people will need. Present yourself as a trustworthy source of knowledge and information. 

Another important strategy is word of mouth—since consumers trust each other more than they do businesses, make sure to include consumer-generated content, like customer reviews or video testimonials, on your website.

Example: The customer searches “women’s winter coats” on Google to see what options are out there. When she sees someone with a cute coat, she asks them where they bought it and what they think of that brand.

3. Alternatives evaluation

At this point in the consumer decision-making process, prospective buyers have developed criteria for what they want in a product. Now they weigh their prospective choices against comparable alternatives.

Alternatives may present themselves in the form of lower prices, additional product benefits, product availability, or something as personal as color or style options. Your marketing material should be geared towards convincing consumers that your product is superior to other alternatives. Be ready to overcome objections—e.g., in sales calls, know your competitors so you can answer questions and compare benefits.

Example: The customer compares a few brands that she likes. She knows that she wants a brightly colored coat that will complement the rest of her wardrobe, and though she would rather spend less money, she also wants to find a coat made from sustainable materials.

4. Purchase decision

This is the moment the consumer has been waiting for: the purchase. Once they have gathered all the facts, including feedback from previous customers, consumers should arrive at a logical conclusion on the product or service to purchase.

If you’ve done your job correctly, the consumer will recognize that your product is the best option and decide to purchase it.

Example: The customer finds a pink winter coat that’s on sale for 20% off. After confirming that the brand uses sustainable materials and asking friends for their feedback, she orders the coat online.

5. Post-purchase evaluation

This part of the consumer decision-making process involves reflection from both the consumer and the seller. As a seller, you should try to gauge the following:

• Did the purchase meet the need the consumer identified?
• Is the customer happy with the purchase?
• How can you continue to engage with this customer?

Remember, it’s your job to ensure your customer continues to have a positive experience with your product. Post-purchase engagement could include follow-up emails, discount coupons, and newsletters to entice the customer to make an additional purchase. You want to gain life-long customers, and in an age where anyone can leave an online review, it’s more important than ever to keep customers happy.

Tools to better understand your customer

Putting yourself in the customer’s shoes can help you steer consumers towards your product. Here are some tools to help you analyze their decision-making process and refine your brand marketing and sales tactics.

Customer journey map

A customer journey map visualizes a hypothetical customer’s actions. Use it to empathize with your customers as they go through a specific process or try to complete a purchase. Map out the actions the customer is likely to take.

Learn how to make a customer journey map to understand the decision-making process for your product/service.

Empathy maps help teams understand the customer’s mindset when dealing with a product or service. They can be used for personas or specific customer types. Empathy mapping is often most helpful at the beginning of a new project. Collaborate as a team to quickly get inside the heads of your customers during every step of product development, testing, and release.

Learn how empathy maps work so you can understand your customers better and make customer-oriented decisions.

Based on user research or past user interactions, user persona cards construct fictional or composite personas that break down and organize your data into distinctive types of users. Build a more human picture of your users and understand your user base better by creating user personas for the various types of users for your product or service.

Understanding the consumer decision-making process is key if you want to attract more customers and get them to make that crucial purchase. Use this process and the tools above to tune in to consumers and genuinely understand how to reach them.

Stimulus n., plural: stimuli [ˈstɪmjʊləs]

Definition: That incites a biological or physiological response

We can detect hot or cold environments using our sense of temperature. When the temperature is too hot, sweating (perspiration) starts in our bodies. Similarly in a cold environment, the small hairs stand on our body. This phenomenon is known as piloerection. In response, we try to cool ourselves in summer and then in winter we wear extra clothes to keep ourselves warm. So how do bodies of humans and other species detect and respond to change in the temperature of the environment? You must have observed that many plants shed leaves during winter. What is causing this change? How do plants know this change? Similarly, snakes, hares, squirrels, and other animals flee as soon as they feel someone around them. What causes them to flee? The answer to all of these questions lies in understanding the term “stimulus” or its plural “stimuli”.

What is a stimulus? In biology, we can define stimulus as the “detectable change (physical or chemical) in the environment of an organism that results in some functional activity”. For example, sunlight acts as a stimulus for plants that helps them grow or move towards it. Another example of stimulus is high temperatures that activate (stimulate) the perspiration system in our bodies as a result of which our bodies cool down.

What do stimuli mean? What are the examples of stimuli? The meaning of stimulus can also be as the act of nature or environment on an organism that activates (stimulates) it or a part of it to react in some way. It is a common observation that after rain the frogs come out jumping. Thus, rain acts as a stimulus for them.

The word stimulus (or its plural stimuli) is often used by human behavior researchers. In terms of psychology, stimuli are those actions, acts, or procedures that evoke a reaction from the human mind. The stimuli may be visual, audio, physical, or a mix of them. One example of using stimuli is in the treatment of achluophobia (fear of the dark). After the treatment, the subject (human) is exposed to dark. The darkness is the stimulus of achluophobia. The bodily responses of the patient are measured to study the reaction and curing stage of the patient.

The organisms can detect the changes using their sensory organs. The sensory organs can detect external changes (such as temperature, light, sound, etc.) or internal changes (loss of energy results in hunger). The sensory system signals the changes to the mind which elicit a response. The response can be in the form of physical activity (move, run, change shape, etc.) or internal response (perspiration). Moreover, the stimulus can be detected by an organism only if it is higher than an absolute threshold.

Biology definition:
Stimulus is an object, event, or factor capable of inciting a physiological response. Any of the five senses will respond to a particular stimulus. Based on the stimuli applied to the sensory organs, there are two kinds of stimuli: (1) homologous stimulus and (2) heterologous stimulus. Etymology: Latin stimulus (“goad, prick”).

Science of Stimulus & Response

Following is the mechanism of stimulus recognition in animals:

• Stimulus: A detectable change happens in the environment
• Receptors: The receptor convert environmental stimuli into electrical nerve signals
• Neurons: The nerve signals are transferred to the central nervous system via neurons
• Effectors: Effectors produce a response as a result of the stimulus. Effectors are muscles or glands

Three types of neurons are involved in the stimulus-response pathway

• Sensory Neurons: They transmit signals from receptors to the central nervous system
• Relay Neurons: They transmit signals within the central nervous system as part of the decision-making process
• Motor Neuron: Motor neurons carry information from the central nervous system to effectors (muscles or glands) to initiate a response.

What does the central nervous system use to determine the strength of a stimulus?

The strength of the stimulus defines whether a nerve fiber will fire. The stimulus will affect only if a certain threshold is reached. Below that threshold, the neurons will not transmit any data to the brain.

Types of Stimuli

There are two main types of stimulus –the external stimulus and the internal stimulus. The response to any type of stimulus is either learned or instinctual in nature. For example, a deer will flee as a response after seeing a predator whereas a human response can be different, such as hiding, or driving the car away, or firing a bullet. All of these responses are learned responses while the response of deer was instinctive.

External stimulus

The external stimulus includes touch and pain, vision, smell, taste, sound, and balance (equilibrium). These sensory stimuli are activated by external changes.

• Pain and touch: Pain is the stimulus that can cause a major response from the body. Pain can also change the behavior of the organism. In response to pain, if the mind decides that a response must be given, a signal will be sent to muscles that will behave accordingly. Pain stimulus is sensed by the pain receptors known as nociceptors. Touch is another stimulus that can cause the organism to change its behavior. For example, the sensitive plant (also known as touch-me-not) responds to touch stimuli and closes its leaves.
• Vision: Vision stimuli are sensed by a special type of neuron known as photoreceptor cells. The organisms analyze the condition of the environment or space around them using vision. Visual stimuli can lead an animal towards its prey. On the other side, visual stimuli in prey will direct it to flee for its survival. In humans, visual stimuli help us control almost everything — from crossing the road to flying an airplane.
• Taste: Taste is also an external stimulus because it comes from touching an external thing (food) with the tongue. The cells on taste buds are known as gustatory cells. They are responsible to create a sense of taste. This sense of taste stimulates the mouth to produce different digestive enzymes. Thus taste is a stimulus for the production of saliva and digestive enzymes.
• Smell: Smell is the stimulus for a number of organisms that either drives them towards the food or away if it’s rotten or poisonous. Goats, sheep, and animals of similar breeds usually smell their food before eating. They will ignore the plants even before tasting them due to smell. In humans, the smell of good food definitely stimulates the saliva glands. Similarly, the smell of a poisonous gas such as ammonia stimulates the body to move away from the area. The smell is sensed by olfactory organs located inside the nose. The volatile molecules touch the olfactory organs to stimulate the sense of smell.
• Sound: Sound is a stimulus for a large number of organisms. Sound helps recognize the presence of other animals or objects. Bats, for example, send sound waves periodically to locate the obstructions that may come during their flight. The sound of buffalo, cow, goat, deer, or other animals are the stimulus for predators, such as lions and tigers. Similarly, when an eagle is flying around, the hen will produce a sound that acts as an alarm for her chicks. The chicks will run towards the hen and will hide under her feathers. The sound of a hen in this case is a stimulus for chicks. Human beings are also affected by sound. The sound of a piano or other music can stimulate a good mood. Similarly, the sound of a bullet fire can stimulate fear in the body.
• Balance: Animals need balance to walk and move from one place to another. The force of gravity is constantly pulling down and can result in a fall if the animal is not balanced. For four-leg animals, balance is less complex as compared to two-legged. The orientation of an animal is an external factor and acts as a stimulus. The signals from the cochlea convey to the brain information about orientation. This information is, then, processed by the brain, and signals are sent to muscles to keep the balance.

READ: The Human Physiology – Sensory Systems

Internal stimulus

As the name implies, the internal stimulus comes from within the organism. For example one of the internal stimuli is hunger which is the sign of low energy in the body. It stimulates us to eat something to regain the needed energy.

• Blood Pressure: Blood pressure is an internal stimulus of mammals that is measured by receptors in arteries. When blood pressure is too high, the arteries will stretch and receptors will send the signal to the brain. The brain will lower the heart rate. If the receptor is not sending any signal it means the blood pressure is low. The brain will increase the heart rate to keep the blood pressure normal. All this happens without any sensible signs. However, if blood pressure is too high, humans feel pain in the back of the head.
• Homeostasis: Homeostasis is the internal physical and chemical balance of independent conditions that a body of mammal maintains for living. Example of homeostasis is blood levels, nutrient levels, temperature, etc. The stimulus for homeostasis is a change in internal conditions which is measured by the variety of receptors.

Read: Homeostasis – Definition and Examples

Stimulus Examples

The three examples of stimulus are explained here, i.e. stimulus in plants, animals, and humans.

Stimulus in plants

The major requirements of a plant are water and sunlight. The plant responds to many types of external stimuli such as light, gravity, weather, and touch. The response of a plant is either positive (grow towards the stimulus) or negative (grow away from the stimulus). For example, phototropism is the plant’s response to stimulus, i.e. sunlight. A plant hormone “auxin” keeps the plant’s direction towards the sun by activating the growth in a particular part of a stem.

Similarly, gravitropism in plants responds to the stimulus, i.e. gravity. Ideally, the plant should remain in an upright position to gain the required nourishment. If a plant falls, the auxin levels in the lower part of the stem will increase stimulating cell elongation causing the stem to bend towards the sky.

Stimulus in animals

An example of stimulus in animals is the sight of another animal (especially predators) where they respond by fleeing away or fighting. In animals, most of the responses as a result of stimulus are of instinctual nature. An ostrich can run at a speed of 70km/h when stimulated by some danger. Dogs can be trained to respond to certain words such as sit, stand, eat, etc. The voice of the human acts as a stimulus for the dog and it responds accordingly.

Humans are supreme in terms of mental capabilities and thus respond to several stimuli apart from basic ones such as taste, smell, temperature, sound, etc. The stimulus in humans can be a sight of a picturesque scene or the smell of food. Human behavior itself is a stimulus for another human. A kind and soft behavior will have a positive impact on others.

Try to answer the quiz below to check what you have learned so far about stimuli.

• Bioninja. (2020). Stimulus Response. Retrieved February 18, 2021, from https://ib.bioninja.com.au/standard-level/topic-6-human-physiology/65-neurons-and-synapses/stimulus-response.html
• Byjus. (2020). plant stimulus. Retrieved February 18, 2021, from https://byjus.com/biology/tropic-movements-in-plants/)

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