Personality of Consumer: Nature, Theories and Life Style Concept

Read this article to learn about the nature, theories, personal values and life style concept of

personality of a consumer.

Nature of Personality:

Personality has many meanings. In consumer studies, personality is defined as consistent responses to environmental

stimuli or we can also say patterns of behaviour that are consistent and enduring. An individual’s personality helps

marketers to describe consumer segments as it provides for orderly and coherently related experiences and behaviour.

Personality characteristics may be a basis for product positioning. For example, one segment of the market may die

because they want to stick to the group norms and therefore uses diet product. In contest another segment is on diet

because of internal need.

Therefore, company’s positioning strategies will be different for both. For the first segment, they will portray group

approval as a result of product use, whereas positioning for the second segment would portray individual achievement.

Personality Theories:

Marketers have used three personality theories to describe consumers:

(1) Psychoanalytic theory or Freud’s theory –

(2) Sociopsychological theory.

(3) Trait theory.

(1) Freud’s Theory:

This theory was given by Sigmund Freud. Freud’s psychoanalytical theory stresses the unconscious nature of personality

as a result of childhood conflicts. According to this theory, the human personality system consists of the id, ego, and

superego and conflicts are derived from these three components.

id:

The id is the source of psychic energy and seeks immediate gratification for biological and instinctual needs like hunger,

sex, and self preservation. In other words, id is conceptualized as a warehouse of primitive and impulsive drives for

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which individual seeks immediate satisfaction without concern for the specific means of satisfaction. The id operates on

one principle, directing behaviour to achieve pleasure and to avoid pain. The id is entirely unconscious with no objective

reality.

Superego:

Superego is the individual’s internal expression of society’s moral and ethical codes of conduct. This means superego is

the leash on the id and works against its impulses. It does not manage the id but restrains it by punishing unacceptable

behaviour through the creation of guilt. It’s role is to see that individual satisfies needs in a socially acceptable fashion.

So, superego is a kind of ‘brake’ that inhibits the impulsive forces of the id.

Ego:

The ego is the individual’s self-concept and is the manifestation of objective reality as it develops after interaction with

the external world. Ego is the individuals conscious control and it functions as an internal monitor that attempts to

balance the impulsive demands of the id and the socio-cultural constraints of the super ego.

According to this theory, ego manages the conflicting demands of the id and superego. When the child manages these

conflicts (sp. sexual conflicts) then this determinies the adult personality. But if conflicts are not resolved in childhood

then this will result in defence mechanisms and will influence later behaviour. Defence mechanisms are the strategies

that the ego uses to reduce tensions.

Motivational Research:

Researchers who apply Freud’s theory to marketing believe that id and superego operate to create unconscious

motives for purchasing certain products. Although consumers are primarily unaware of their true reasons for

buying what they buy. Focus of the marketers is on developing means to incomes these unconscious motives and

applying psychoanalytical theory to marketing is known as motivational research.

In motivational research, researchers try to uncover the deep – seated purchasing motives through indirect methods i.e.,

by researching small number of consumers. For marketing studies, depth interviews and projective techniques have

been used frequently.

Criticisms of Motivational Research:

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Motivational research has been criticized for its lack of empiricism. Some also asks, whether advertising could or should

influence deep – seated motives. The psychoanalytical approach may not be empirical, but motivational researchers

were the first to argue that consumers are complex, devious, difficult to understand and driven by mighty forces of

which they are unaware.

(2) Socio – Psychological Theory:

According to this theory, the individual and society are interlinked. This theory disagrees with Freud’s contention that

personality is primarily instinctual and sexual in nature. It is also known as the Neo – Freudian Personality Theory,

researchers believe that social relationships are fundamental to the formation and development of

personality.

Alfred Adler was the foremost proponent of this social orientation. He emphasized that individual’s strive for superiority

in a social context. This he called as style of life. He also emphasized on the individual’s efforts to overcome feelings of

inferiority (i.e., they strive for superiority)

Harry Stack Sullivan, stressed that people continuously attempt to establish significant and rewarding

relationships with others. He was more interested with the individual’s efforts to reduce tensions such as anxiety.

Karen Horney was another social theorist. She believed that personality is developed as an individual learns to cope with

basic anxieties that stems up from parent – child relationships.

She proposed that individuals can be classified into three personality groups:

(a) Compliant:

Those individuals who move toward others. They desire to be loved, wanted and appreciated.

(b) Aggressive:

Those individuals who move against others. They desire to excel and win admiration.

(c) Detached:

Those individuals who move away from others. They desire independence, self – sufficiency and freedom from

obligations.

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A personality test based on ‘Horney’s work’ was developed by cohen to explain purchase behaviour. Test name was

compliance – aggressiveness – detachment (CAD) scale. He measured CAD using a 35 – item inventory, Cohen found

that compliant types used more mouthwash, toilet soaps etc., aggressive types used more cologne and after – shave

lotion, branded shirts, Old Spice deodorant etc. and detached type drank more tea and less beer.

These findings suggest advertising the use of mouthwash or toilet soap as a means of social approval, advertising

colognes and after – shaves as a means of social conquest and advertising tea in a nonsocial context.

This scale is important as it is constructed for marketing applications and have a theoretical base in personality theory.

(3) Trait Theory:

Trait theory has been used most widely for measuring personality because it is a quantitative approach. This theory

states that an individual’s personality is composed of definite pre-dispositional attributes called traits. A trait

can be defined as any distinguishable, relatively enduring way in which one individual differs from

another. For example sociability relaxed style, amount of internal control.

Trait theorists construct personality inventories and ask respondents to respond to many items by agreeing or

disagreeing with certain statements or expressing likes or dislikes for certain situations or types of people. These items

then are statistically analysed and reduced to a few personality dimensions. This method is not like psychoanalytic and

social theories and also do not determine personality traits.

Single – trait personality tests which measure just one trait, such as self confidence are increasingly being developed

specifically for use in consumer behaviour studies. These personality tests can be designed according to the need to

measure traits such as consumer innovativeness, consumer susceptibility to interpersonal influence (like SUSCEP helps

in knowing how consumers respond to social influence), consumer materialism (means try to assess degree of

consumer’s attachment to “world” possessions), and consumer ethnocentrism (like CETSCALE – identifies consumer’s

likelihood to accept or reject foreign – made products).

Researchers have learned that it is generally more realistic to expect personality to be clinked to how consumers make

their choices and also to the purchase or consumption of a broad product category either than a specified brand.

How to Predict Buyer Behaviour?

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This is a very pertinent question for marketers and it has been the objective of most personality research. Psychologists

and other behavioural scientists have theorized that personality characteristics should predict brand or store preference

and other types of buyers activity.

We can classify them into two major categories:

(a) Consumer innovativeness and their susceptibility to interpersonal influence.

(b) Cognitive personality factors and interrelated consumption and possession traits.

(a) Consumer Innovativeness and Their Susceptibility to Interpersonal Influence:

There are various personality traits that have helped in differentiating between consumer innovator and non innovators.

Consumer innovativeness means how receptive consumers are to new products / services so that both consumers and

marketers can be benefited from the right innovation. For measuring their researchers have designed certain

instruments because personality – trait measure provide insights into the nature of consumer’s willingness to innovate.

For eg – statements like:

i. In my group, I am the last to buy a new_________ when it comes in the market.

ii. I know the names of_______ before other people do.

Above type of statements are used while measuring consumer innovativeness on a 5 – point “agreement” scale.

Dogmatic persons are those who display rigidity towards the unfamiliar and toward information that is contrary to their

own established beliefs. Consumers who are low in dogmatism are more likely to prefer innovative products to

established alternatives. In contrast, highly dogmatic consumers are more likely to choose established rather than

innovative product alternatives.

Social character is a personality trait that ranges on a continuum from inner – directedness to other – directedness.

Inner directed people seem to prefer ads that stress product features and personal benefits (i.e., uses their own values &

standards in evaluating products), while other directed people seem to prefer ads that feature social acceptance. This

means both can be attracted but with different promotional messages but other – directed can be more easily

influenced.

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Variety – novelty seeking are of many types: exploratory purchase behaviour (brand switchers for experiencing new and

better alternative), vicarious exploration (where the consumer stores about new information and then day dreams about

the option) and use innovativeness i.e., where the consumer uses and already adopted product in a new or novel way.

Hence this indicates that the consumer innovator differs from the non innovator in terms of personality traits and

knowledge of these differences should help marketer select target segment and design promotional strategies.

Consumer researchers are also interested in knowing the traits of the consumers who are likely to be responsive to the

influence of others. They have developed a 12-item scale (called “SUSCEP”) designed to measure consumers

susceptibility of interpersonal influence. According to this theory, there are three types of interpersonal influence

i. Information influence – the tendency to accept information from others as evidence about reality.

ii. Value – expressive influence – the consumers desire to enhance their standing with others by being similar to them.

iii. Utilitarian influence – the consumers confirm with the wishes of others in order to obtain a reward or avoid

punishment.

Testing of the SUSCEP scale shows that individuals who scored higher on susceptibility to interpersonal influence were

less confident than consumers who scored lower on susceptibility to interpersonal influence. The SUSCEP measure is

useful in examining how social influence operates to encourage and discourage the acceptance of new products and

services.

(b) Congitive Personality Factors and Interrelated Consumption and Possession Traits:

Researchers are very much interested in knowing how cognitive personality factors influence various aspects of

consumer behaviour. There are two types of cognitive personality traits.

– Visualizers Vs Verbalizers – Visualizers are those consumers who prefer visual information and products that stress

the visual whereas verbalizers are those who prefer written or verbal information and products. Some advertisers stress

strong visuals to attract visualizers (1), others feature a detailed description or explanation to attract verbalizers.

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– Need for Cognition (NC) Need for cognition measures a persons craving for or enjoyment of thinking. It is seen

through research that consumers who are high in NC are more likely to see that part of an ad first that is rich in product

– related information and are unresponsive to the contractual or peripheral aspects of the ad, such as the model or the

situation in which the product is used etc. Consumers law NC are more attracted to the background or peripheral cues in

the ad. Such as the well – known model or a famous celebrity. Such insights provide advertisers with valuable guidelines

for creating advertising messages.

Consumers are interested in several interrelated consumption and possession traits that rang from consumer

materialism, to fixated consumption behaviour, to consumer compulsive behaviour. Consumer materialism is a

personality trait that distinguishes between individuals who regard possessions as important for their identities and

lives and those for whom possessions are secondary.

Materialistic people believe in showing – off, are self centred and selfish. Fixated consumption behaviour is between

being materialistic and being compulsive with respect to buying or possessing objects in a fixated manner with regard to

consuming or possessing. This kind of behaviour is also in accordance with normal and socially acceptable behaviour.

They possess following characteristics like love, deep interest in a particular object, do not keep their objects or purchase

of interest a secret rather display them openly. Compulsive consumption behaviour is abnormal type of behaviour. These

types of consumers have an addiction and are out of control, eg. are drug addiction, alcoholic etc.

The failure of personality measures to predict consumer behaviour has given rise to new approaches. First, is to study

the personality of brands rather than of people. Second is to develop broader more behavioural concepts that are likely

to be better targets for market segmentation i.e. lifestyles.

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Brand Personality:

Consumers tend to assign various descriptive “personality – like” traits or characteristics to different brands in a wide

variety of product categories. This is one of the most effective use of the concept of personality in marketing

applications. Consumers have consistent patterns that guide their decisions to all brands or consumption situations.

Brand Personality is a portion of the brand’s overall image, understood perhaps by many consumers but more attractive

to some consumers than to others. We can define brand personality as the communication goals related to the attributes

inherent in a product as well as the profile of the perceptions received by consumers about specific brands.

Brands basically have three dimensions:

(1) Physical attributes – such as color, price, ingredients, and so forth.

(2) Functional attributes – this means how the brand is functioning or we can say the consequences of using a brand.

(3) Brands characterization – this means brands personality as perceived by consumers. Brands may be characterized as

modern or old – fashioned, or lively or exotic, just the same way as people are characterized.

The brand or product personalities can further be understood by focusing on the emotional responses that are evoked

among consumers. This means consumers buy products but want more than the functional or tangible attributes

provided by the product. Along with functional attributes they want good experience, good emotional response from

using the product. These are also called as “hedonic” benefits.

Consumers not only ascribe personality traits to products or services, they also tend to associate personality factors with

specific colors. For example, yellow is associated with “novelty” and black means “sophistication. Therefore, brands

wishing to create a sophisticated personal or a premium image use labelling or packaging that is primarily black.

In some cases, various products or even brands are associated with a specific color with personality – like connotations.

For instance, Coco- cola is associated with red, which connotes excitement. Mc Donalds logo is of yellow and red.

Personal Values i.e. Self Concept or Self Images:

Why do some people make their consumption decisions differently than others. Personality can be one reason and

another can be personal values. Personal values answer the question, “Is this product for me”? These are particularly

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important in the need-recognition stage of consumer decision making. Values are also used by consumers while

evaluating brands as “Is this brand for me?

Values are basically “ends” people seek in their lives. Marketing often provides the “means” to reach these ends. Rokeach

has defined values as an enduring belief that a specific mode of conduct or end-state of existence is personally or socially

preferable to an opposite or converse mode of conduct or end state of existence. Values are relatively stable but not

completely static beliefs about what a person should do. Values are concerned with the goals and the ways of behaving to

obtain goals.

Self Concept theory says that individuals have a concept of self based on who they are that means actual self. And also

the concept of who they think they would like to be that is the ideal self. Consumers are asked to describe how they see

themselves or how they would like to see themselves on attributes like –

happy

serious

dependable

practical

sensitive

aggressive

energetic

self-controlled

successful.

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Self-Concept means the desire to attain self – consistency and the desire to enhance one’s self – esteem. Attaining self

consistency means that individuals will act in accordance with their concept of actual self. According to the marketer

actual self means consumers purchases are influenced by the image they have of themselves.

They buy products which they perceive as similar to their self- concept. For example – beer, cigarettes, soap, toothpaste,

car, clothes etc. all are purchased keeping in mind his/her self concept. Ideal self s concept is related to one’s self –

esteem.

According to the marketer, a person who is dissatisfied with oneself will try and purchase products that could enhance

their self esteem. For example, a woman who would like to be confident, efficient, modern may buy a different type of

perfume or shop at different stores than a woman who would like to be more warm and attractive.

It is not always like this that our self image influences the products we choose but also the products we choose frequently

influences our self – image. The products purchased with symbolic (badge) value say something about us and also what

we feel about ourselves. Extended self in simple terms means, we are what we wear, and we are what we use, this is also

known as symbolic interactionism.

This means it emphasizes the interaction between individuals and the symbols in their environment. This shows that

consumers buy products for their symbolic value in enhancing their self concept. For example, products like Rolex

watches. Omega watches, Sony CD system, Nike, Reebok shoes, BMW, Hyundai Accent etc., all have symbolic value.

Advertises have understood the symbolic role of products in influencing self-image, therefore, they are using this

concept successfully in their ads. Life style Concept

Life Style Concept:

Lifestyle can be defined as patterns in which people live and spend time and money. It is one of the most popular

concepts in marketing for understanding consumer behaviour and is more comprehensive and more useful than either

personality or values. Marketers try to relate the product to lifestyle, often through advertising, to the everyday

experiences of the target market.

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Life style can also be defined as a mode of living that is identified by how people spend their time (activities), what they

consider important in their environment (interests) and what they think of themselves and the world around them

(opinions).

This means lifestyles reflect a person’s activities, interests and opinions (AIO’s). People use constructs such as lifestyles

to construe the events happening around them and to interpret, conceptualize and predict events as well as to reconcile

their values with events.

Values are enduring but lifestyles change more rapidly. Some of the advertisers for making the ad effective, track trends

in lifestyles of key target markets and reflect those lifestyles in their ads.

Psychographic is the quantitative technique used to measure lifestyles and can be used with the large samples needed for

definition of market segments. It is a term often used interchangeably with AIO measures that can be explained in the

following manner –

An activity is a manifest action such as viewing a medium, shopping in a store, or telling a neighbour about a new

service. Although these acts are observable but the reasons for the act cannot be measured directly. An interest in some

object, event or topic is the degree of excitement that accompanies both special and continuing attention to it.

An opinion is a verbal or written “explanation” that a person gives in response to stimulus situations in which some

“question” is raised. It is used to describe beliefs about the intentions of other people, expectations of future events and

appraisals of the rewarding or punishing consequences of alternative courses of action.

How AIO Statements are Framed?

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Depending upon the situations, the statements can be general or specified. They are measured on a likert scales that is

people are asked whether they strongly agree, disagree or strongly disagree. In specific statements the focus is on the

product and that identify benefits of the product. Researchers usually use the mixture of general and specific statements.

AIO’s help in segmenting the market –

Marketers use psychographic studies to define segments and to develop an in – depth understanding of market

segments. Marketers now avoid the definition of the segments through AIO’s in favour of using AIO’s to better

understand segments that have been defined with more traditional variables.

AIO statements can be analyzed by cross-tabulating each statement on the basis of variables believed important for

market segmentation strategies such as gender, age, education, income and so forth. Factor analysis can also be used,

through mathematical technique for examining the inter-correlation between statements in an attempt to determine

common or underlying factors that explain observed variation.

Article shared by : Diksha Kashyap

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