Psychological and social motivations to the purchase of technological goods: fuzzy mathematical models of interpretation

The paper is based on an empirical research on the behavior of customers who decide on the purchase of mobile phones or smart phone in retail outlets in the provinces of Pescara and Chieti. The phones are divided into classes depending on the type of performance and psychological and social aspects satisfied by those typologies. The results of empirical research are compared with some possible theoretical models. The aims of the research are multiple: one is to get to the elaboration of formal models that simulate the procedures of choice, the other is to grasp the impact of the social environment and personality of the customer in the process of assessing the utilities and the aggregation criteria. In particular, the assessments do not lead, in general, pure numbers, it appears more appropriate to use fuzzy numbers. Moreover, the aggregations are generally not purely additive, but they follow rules represented, at least in many respects, with fuzzy operations.