EXPRESS: The Myth of the Average Consumer: Toward a Neuropluralist Understanding of Consumer Behavior

Abstract

This paper challenges a foundational assumption in marketing and public policy: that consumers process stimuli in broadly similar, stable, and predictable ways. We argue that the expectation of “average” neurological functioning introduces systematic error into marketplace design, privileging some and stigmatizing others. We advance instead a neuropluralist perspective in which neurological variation is continuous, context-dependent, and population-wide, rather than confined to clinically-defined groups. To operationalize this shift, we first introduce STAR (Sense, Think, Affect, and Relate), an organizing framework that structures disparate research streams about neurological processing into four dimensions covering how consumers sense, think, feel, and relate. STAR can be used to identify how assumptions about neurological processing norms become embedded in market systems, producing system–consumer misalignment. We then propose Neuropluralist Design (NPD), a design orientation that incorporates variation ex ante rather than addressing it through ex post accommodations. Together, STAR and NPD form a paired detect–design framework that reframes marketplace failure from individual deficiency to a person–environment fit issue. Our framework redirects marketing and policy toward systems that support multiple valid neurological pathways of participation, advancing a more accurate, equitable, and inclusive foundation for market design.