Consumer Behavior: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow Judith Lynne Zaichkowsky A s the new decade creeps in and the new century approaches, a time has come to reflect upon and predict the consumer's behavior in the marketplace. Many things have changed since the end of mass marketing and the beginning of market segmentation. Under mass marketing, Henry Ford gave the consumer the Ford in any color as long as it was black. After World War II, marketers switched from making products they wanted to making products the consumer wanted. Finding out what the con- sumer wants to purchase and why is what con- sumer behavior is all about. Our theoretical models (see Figure 1) of how consumers make purchase decisions have evolved from the economic paradigm of the 1940s, through the irrational consumer of the 1950s and 1960s, to the information processor of the 1970s, up to the 1980s cognitive miser. To- morrow's consumers will undoubtedly have a distinctive theoretical decision model that will grow out of the future decision mak- ing environment. It is the purpose of this article to outline that future. But first, let us take a brief look at how the study of consumer behavior has evolved since its inception. The individual-oriented consumer behavior of the past will change to a more collective style in the 1990s. THE ECONOMIC PARADIGM T he 1940s view of the consumer in the marketplace was rooted in economic theory. Most scholars of economics prob- ably still hold to the theory of Economic Man. In Figure 1 History of Approaches to Consumer Decision Making Decade Type of Decision Maker Exemplar 1940s Economic man • Fitting of demand equations to products (statistical analyses of past data) (Telser 1962) 1950s Irrational consumer • Hidden meaning of goods (Haire 1950) • Use of projective techniques (Dichter 1964) 1960s Transition from irrational consumer to problem soiver • Hierarchy of effects model (cognitions to attitudes to behavior) (Palda 1966) 1970s Problem solver • Prepurchase information seeking (Newman and Staelin 1972) • Labeling of products (Asam and Bucklin 1973) 1980s Cognitive miser • The cost of thinking (Shugan 1980) • Low involvement decisions (Hoyer 1984) 1990s Collective decision maker • See Figure 2 Consumer Behavior: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow 51