CHAPTER

FIVE
Personality and
Consumer Behavior

Dr. Vimi Jham 1

 Learning Objectives

1. To Understand How Personality Reflects

Consumers’ Inner Differences.
2. To Understand How Freudian, Neo-Freudian, and
Trait Theories Each Explain the Influence of
Personality on Consumers’ Attitudes and
Behavior.
3. To Understand How Personality Reflects
Consumers’ Responses to Product and Marketing
Messages.
Dr. Vimi Jham Chapter Five Slide 2
 Learning Objectives (continued)

4. To Understand How Marketers Seek to Create

Brand Personalities-Like Traits.
5. To Understand How the Products and
Services That Consumers Use Enhance Their
Self-Images.
6. To Understand How Consumers Can Create
Online Identities Reflecting a Particular Set of
Personality Traits.

Dr. Vimi Jham Chapter Five Slide 3

What Is the Personality Trait Characterizing the
Consumers to Whom This Ad Appeals?

Dr. Vimi Jham Chapter Five Slide 4

Enthusiastic or Extremely
Involved Collectors

Dr. Vimi Jham Chapter Five Slide 5

 Personality and
The Nature of Personality
• The inner psychological characteristics that
both determine and reflect how a person
responds to his or her environment
• The Nature of Personality:
– Personality reflects individual differences
– Personality is consistent and enduring
– Personality can change

Dr. Vimi Jham Chapter Five Slide 6

 Discussion Questions

• How would
you describe
your
personality?
• How does it
influence
products
that you
purchase?

Dr. Vimi Jham Chapter Five Slide 7

 Theories of Personality

• Freudian theory
– Unconscious needs or drives are at the heart of
human motivation
• Neo-Freudian personality theory
– Social relationships are fundamental to the
formation and development of personality
• Trait theory
– Quantitative approach to personality as a set of
psychological traits

Dr. Vimi Jham Chapter Five Slide 8

 Freudian Theory
• Id
– Warehouse of primitive or
instinctual needs for which
individual seeks immediate
satisfaction
• Superego
– Individual’s internal
expression of society’s
moral and ethical codes of
conduct
• Ego
– Individual’s conscious control
that balances the demands of
the id and superego

Dr. Vimi Jham Chapter Five Slide 9

 Snack Foods and Personality Traits
Table 5.1 (excerpt)
Snack Personality Traits
Foods
Potato Ambitious, successful, high achiever, impatient with less
chips than the best.
Tortilla Perfectionist, high expectations, punctual, conservative,
chips responsible.
Pretzels Lively, easily bored with same old routine, flirtatious,
intuitive, may over commit to projects.
Snack Rational, logical, contemplative, shy, prefers time alone.
crackers
Cheese Conscientious, principled, proper, fair, may appear rigid
curls but has great integrity, plans ahead, loves order.

Dr. Vimi Jham Chapter Five Slide 10

How Does This Marketing Message
Apply the Notion of the Id?

Dr. Vimi Jham Chapter Five Slide 11

 It Captures Some of the Mystery and The
Excitement Associated With the “Forces” of
Primitive Drives.

Dr. Vimi Jham Chapter Five Slide 12

 Neo-Freudian Personality Theory
• Social relationships are fundamental to personality
• Alfred Adler:
– Style of life
– Feelings of inferiority
• Harry Stack Sullivan
– We establish relationships with others to reduce tensions
• Karen Horney’s three personality groups
– Compliant: move toward others
– Aggressive: move against others
– Detached: move away from others

Dr. Vimi Jham Chapter Five Slide 13

Why Is Appealing to an Aggressive Consumer a
Logical Position for This Product?

Dr. Vimi Jham Chapter Five Slide 14

 Because its Consumer Seeks
to Excel and Achieve Recognition

Dr. Vimi Jham Chapter Five Slide 15

 Trait Theory

• Focus on measurement of personality in terms

of traits
• Trait - any distinguishing, relatively enduring
way in which one individual differs from
another
• Personality is linked to broad product
categories and NOT specific brands

Dr. Vimi Jham Chapter Five Slide 16

 Soup and Soup Lover’s Traits
Table 5.2 (excerpt)
• Chicken Noodle Soup Lovers
– Watch a lot of TV
– Are family oriented
– Have a great sense of humor
– Are outgoing and loyal
– Like daytime talk shows
– Most likely to go to church
• Tomato Soup Lovers
– Passionate about reading
– Love pets
– Like meeting people for coffee
– Aren’t usually the life of the
party
Dr. Vimi Jham
• Vegetable/Minestrone Soup
Lovers
– Enjoy the outdoors
– Usually game for trying new
things
– Spend more money than any
other group dining in fancy
restaurants
– Likely to be physically fit
– Gardening is often a favorite
hobby
Chapter Five Slide 17
Personality and Understanding
Consumer Behavior

Dr. Vimi Jham Chapter Five Slide 18

How Does This Ad Target the Inner-
Directed Outdoors Person?

Dr. Vimi Jham Chapter Five Slide 19

A Sole Person is Experiencing the Joys
and Adventure of the Wilderness

Dr. Vimi Jham Chapter Five Slide 20

 Consumer Innovativeness

• Willingness to innovate
• Further broken down for hi-tech products
– Global innovativeness
– Domain-specific innovativeness
– Innovative behavior

Dr. Vimi Jham Chapter Five Slide 21

 Consumer Motivation Scales
Table 5.3 (excerpt)
A “GENERAL” CONSUMER INNOVATIVENESS SCALE
1. I would rather stick to a brand I usually buy than try
something I am not very sure of.
2. When I go to a restaurant, I feel it is safer to order dishes I am
familiar with.
A DOMAIN-SPECIFIC CONSUMER INNOVATIVENESS SCALE
1. Compared to my friends, I own few rock albums.
2. In general, I am the last in my circle of friends to know the
titles of the latest rock albums.

Dr. Vimi Jham Chapter Five Slide 22

 Dogmatism

• A personality trait that reflects the degree of

rigidity a person displays toward the
unfamiliar and toward information that is
contrary to his or her own established beliefs

Dr. Vimi Jham Chapter Five Slide 23

 Personality and Understanding
Consumer Behavior
• Ranges on a continuum for inner-directedness
to other-directedness
• Inner-directedness
– rely on own values when evaluating products
– Innovators
• Other-directedness
– look to others
– less likely to be innovators

Dr. Vimi Jham Chapter Five Slide 24

 Need for Uniqueness

• Consumers who avoid conforming to

expectations or standards of others

Dr. Vimi Jham Chapter Five Slide 25

 Optimum Stimulation Level

• A personality trait that measures the level or

amount of novelty or complexity that
individuals seek in their personal experiences
• High OSL consumers tend to accept risky and
novel products more readily than low OSL
consumers.

Dr. Vimi Jham Chapter Five Slide 26

 Sensation Seeking

• The need for varied, novel, and complex

sensations and experience. And the willingness to
take social and physical risks for the sensations.

Dr. Vimi Jham Chapter Five Slide 27

 Variety-Novelty Seeking

• Measures a consumer’s degree of variety

seeking
• Examples include:
– Exploratory Purchase Behavior
– Use Innovativeness
– Vicarious Exploration

Dr. Vimi Jham Chapter Five Slide 28

 Cognitive Personality Factors

• Need for cognition (NFC)

– A person’s craving for enjoyment of thinking
– Individual with high NFC more likely to respond to
ads rich in product information
.

Dr. Vimi Jham Chapter Five Slide 29

 Cognitive Personality Factors

• Visualizers
• Verbalizers

Dr. Vimi Jham Chapter Five Slide 30

Why Is This Ad Particularly Appealing
to Visualizers?

Dr. Vimi Jham Chapter Five Slide 31

The Ad Stresses Strong
Visual Dimensions

Dr. Vimi Jham Chapter Five Slide 32

Why Is This Ad Particularly
Appealing to Verbalizers?

Dr. Vimi Jham Chapter Five Slide 33

It Features a Detailed Description

Dr. Vimi Jham Chapter Five Slide 34

From Consumer Materialism to
Compulsive Consumption

Dr. Vimi Jham Chapter Five Slide 35

 From Consumer Materialism to
Compulsive Consumption
• Fixated consumption behavior
– Consumers fixated on certain products or categories
of products
– Characteristics
• Passionate interest in a product category
• Willingness to go to great lengths to secure objects
• Dedication of time and money to collecting
• Compulsive consumption behavior
– “Addicted” or “out-of-control” consumers: Oniomania

Dr. Vimi Jham Chapter Five Slide 36

 Consumer Ethnocentrism and
Cosmopolitanism
• Ethnocentric consumers feel it is wrong to
purchase foreign-made products because of the
impact on the economy
• They can be targeted by stressing nationalistic
themes
• A cosmopolitan orientation would consider the
word to be their marketplace and would be
attracted to products from other cultures and
countries.

Dr. Vimi Jham Chapter Five Slide 37

 Brand Personality

• Personality-like traits associated with brands

• Examples
– Purdue and freshness
– Nike and athlete
– BMW is performance driven
• Brand personality which is strong and favorable will
strengthen a brand but not necessarily demand a
price premium

Dr. Vimi Jham Chapter Five Slide 38

 Discussion Questions

• Pick three of your favorite food brands.

• Describe their personality. Do they have a
gender? What personality traits do they
have?

Dr. Vimi Jham Chapter Five Slide 39

 Product Anthropomorphism and
Brand Personification
• Product Anthropomorphism
– Attributing human characteristics to objects
– Tony the Tiger and Mr. Peanut

Dr. Vimi Jham Chapter Five Slide 40

A Brand Personality Framework
Figure 5.12

Dr. Vimi Jham Chapter Five Slide 41

 Product Personality Issues

• Gender
– Some products perceived as masculine (coffee and
toothpaste) while others as feminine (bath soap and
shampoo)
• Geography
– Actual locations, like Philadelphia cream cheese and
Arizona iced tea
– Fictitious names also used, such as Hidden Valley and
Bear Creek
• Color
– Color combinations in packaging and products
denotes personality
Dr. Vimi Jham Chapter Five Slide 42
 Self and Self-Image

• Consumers have a
variety of enduring
images of themselves
• These images are
associated with
personality in that
individuals’
consumption relates
to self-image

Dr. Vimi Jham Chapter Five Slide 43

 One or Multiple Selves

• A single consumer will act differently in

different situations or with different people
• We have a variety of social roles
• Marketers can target products to a particular
“self”

Dr. Vimi Jham Chapter Five Slide 44

 Makeup of the Self-Image

• Contains traits, skills, habits, possessions,

relationships, and way of behavior
• Developed through background, experience,
and interaction with others
• Consumers select products congruent with this
image

Dr. Vimi Jham Chapter Five Slide 45

 Which Consumer
Self-Image Does This Ad Target, and Why?

Dr. Vimi Jham Chapter Five Slide 46

 Actual self-image because it tells middle-age women
who like their hair long to continue doing so.

Dr. Vimi Jham Chapter Five Slide 47

Different Self-Images

Dr. Vimi Jham Chapter Five Slide 48

 Extended Self

• Possessions can extend self in a number of

ways:
– Actually
– Symbolically
– Conferring status or rank
– Bestowing feelings of immortality
– Endowing with magical powers

Dr. Vimi Jham Chapter Five Slide 49

 Altering the Self-Image

• Consumers use self-altering products to

express individualism by:
– Creating new self
– Maintaining the existing self
– Extending the self
– Conforming

Dr. Vimi Jham Chapter Five Slide 50

 Virtual Personality

• You can be anyone…

– Gender swapping chat rooms
– Age differences
– Mild-mannered to aggressive

Dr. Vimi Jham Chapter Five Slide 51