ABSTRACT
This chapter overviews the book to provide a focus for succeeding chapters. The Continuum of Consumer Choice is defined by a sequence of styles of consumer activity ranging from the routine to the extreme. The explanation of this spectrum of consumption, especially insofar as it requires intentional (cognitive and perceptual) explanation, is the subject of this book. The intentional behaviorist research strategy aims to accomplish this through the application of two versions of the Behavioral Perspective Model (BPM), first exploiting the extensional model fully before turning to the intentional model to provide an account of those aspects of behavior which are not amenable to a behaviorist portrayal. The subsequent synthesis of these models is problematic in view of the incommensurability of the paradigms to which they belong. A third version of the BPM, the neurophysiological model, is proposed as a potential source of critique, evaluation, and integration.
