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Operant learning comes under the Behaviourist Perspective, which is associated with John Watson (1913). Operant learning is the process by which a behaviour becomes associated with its consequences (Kosslyn, 2007). The term consumer behaviour is the behaviour that consumers display in searching for, purchasing, evaluating, and disposing of products and services that they expect will satisfy their needs (Schiffman, 2008). B.F. Skinner (1904-1990) fully developed the concept of operant conditioning and how this could explain much of our daily behaviour. Operant conditioning involves an association between a stimulus, the response to the stimulus (a behaviour), and its consequence. In many marketing situations, the behaviour is an action, such as the purchase of a product or shopping at a particular store, and the consequence is a reward in the form of some sort of sales promotion (e.g. a premium discount) that then increases the likelihood that the consumer will repeat the original behaviour. A positive experience with a product (e.g. satisfaction) can also be seen as a reinforcer, as shown in figure 1. In classical conditioning, the association is between a neutral stimulus (something with no meaning to a consumer e.g. an unfamiliar or low-involvement product) and its association with a meaningful object, and through this association consumers can learn to respond to the neutral object in the same way that they respond to the meaningful object. In marketing, the meaningful conditioned stimulus is something that will cause a predictable and positive response in consumers. For example, with the use of an unconditioned stimulus (e.g. humour) with a neutral stimulus (e.g. a product) through repeated pairing (usually adverti... ... middle of paper ... ...g in South Africa: Cases and Concepts” 3rd Edition. Pretoria. Strickler, J. 2006. What Really Motivates People?. [e-book] http://iptde.boisestate.edu/FileDepository.nsf/bf25ab0f47ba5dd785256499006b15a4/a5e37417e7845b368725777300421b1a/$FILE/Strickler.pdf [Accessed: 5 Feb 2014]. Themarketingguywhodrivessales.com. 2014. Marketing Communications (Marcoms) or Promotional Mix. [online] Available at: http://www.themarketingguywhodrivessales.com/crashcourse/promix.htm [Accessed: 5 Feb 2014]. Thorndike, E. L. (1913). Educational psychology: Vol. 1. The original nature of man. New York: Teacher's College Press. Walker, James T. The Psychology of Learning. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1996. Waston, J. B. (1913). Psychology as the behaviorist views it. Psychological Bulletin, 20, 158-177 Weiten, W. 2014. Psychology. Belmont Calif.: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.