We introduce an extension of the discrete choice model to account for need activation and cognitive selectivity in choice processes. To do so, we capture these factors in terms of their influence on an individual’s mental representation of reality which allows the individual to determine the impacts of choice alternatives on activated needs. We argue that needs tend to vary depending on situational factors and, in particular, the emotional and physical state of an individual. By explicitly representing activated needs, the model is able to represent this source of within-individual variance in choice behaviour as well as capture the influence of situational factors such as media exposure and social environments on choice behaviour. We show how both cognitive selectivity and choice of an alternative can be modelled in an integrated RUM framework. We further show how the integrated model can be parameterized and estimated by loglikelihood methods based on observations of both the mental representations and choice outcomes. A test of the estimation method on synthetic data shows that all the model’s main parameters can be identified.