The Sociological Approach to Consumer Life Style: Self-Report Measures of Consumer Behavior.

This relates to problem of temporal and situational factors in consumer behavior. Your task is to devise and compose a two-day record of how you spend time. Compose a recording form on which you can note all discrete activities that you engage in, including: beginning and ending times, name of activity, location, and whether conducted alone or with others. Initially, you might decide on your activity categories as (school, job, transportation, exercise, cooking, cleaning, personal care, TV, social media, video games, etc.). Decide what additional information to collect (e.g., feelings while engaged in an activity, alone or not, self-instigated or not).

Before you begin this 2-day time diary, write down your predictions: What percentage of your time will be spent with others, what percentage engaged in academic study, etc. Gather activity data for 2 days, then analyze and summarize your results. Categorize each activity as to type. Note the percentage of time given to each category.

Finally, discuss how analysis of the use of time your time can be used by marketers to identify and develop new goods and services. You should critique the diary method and suggest alternative ways to learn how consumer behavior is distributed in time and place. Compose a summary report of your work.