ABSTRACT
Over a half-century ago, Alderson (1957) argued that consumer behavior is best understood as problem-solving behavior. His functionalist approach was fundamentally concerned with the goals toward which consumers strive and the processes through which they seek to attain these goals. Unfortunately, attention to the nature and role of consumer goals waned afterward, due in large part to the information-processing revolution that swept both psychology (see, e.g., Sorrentino and Higgins 1986) and consumer research (e.g. Alba and Hutchinson 1987).
