Personality and

Consumer Behavior
Part 2
Portraying
the Forces
of the Id
 A Representation of the Interrelationships
among the Id, Ego, and Superego

Gratification ID
ID EGO
EGO
System
System11 System
System33

SUPEREGO
SUPEREGO
System
System22
 Karen Horney’s CAD Theory
• Using the context of child-parent
relationships, individuals can be classified
into:
– Compliant individuals
– Aggressive individuals
– Detached individuals
 One who desires to
Compliant be loved, wanted,
Personality and appreciated by
others.
 One who moves
against others (e.g.,
Aggressive competes with
Personality others, desires to
excel and win
admiration).
 One who moves
away from others
(e.g., who desires
Detached
independence, self-
Personality
sufficiency, and
freedom from
obligations).
Ad Applying
Horney’s
Detached
Personality
 Trait Theory
• Personality theory with a focus on psychological
characteristics
• Trait - any distinguishing, relatively enduring way
in which one individual differs from another
• Personality is linked to how consumers make their
choices or to consumption of a broad product
category - not a specific brand
Consumer Innovativeness and Related
Personality Traits
• Marketers must learn all they can about consumer
innovators—those who are open to new ideas and
likely to try new products, services, or practices
• Those innovators are often crucial to the success
of new products
• Personality traits have proved useful in
differentiating between consumer innovators and
non-innovators
 Personality Traits & Consumer
Innovativeness
• Innovativeness • Optimum stimulation
• Dogmatism level
• Social Character • Sensation seeking
• Need for uniqueness • Variety-novelty
seeking
 The degree to which
consumers are
receptive to new
products, new
Consumer services or new
Innovativeness practices.
“Willingness to
innovate”
Need for novelty
and uniqueness
 Consumer Innovativeness
• Global innovativeness – a personal trait independent of
any context; one that represents the “very nature” of
consumers’ innovativeness irrespective of domain
• Domain-specific innovativeness – a more narrowly
defined activity within a specific domain or product
category
• Innovative behavior – a pattern of actions or responses
that indicate early acceptance of change and adoption of
innovations, the actual purchase of the new product
 The degree of rigidity a
person displays toward
the unfamiliar and
Dogmatism toward information
that is contrary to his
or her own established
beliefs.
 Dogmatism
• Consumers low in dogmatism (open-
minded) are more likely to prefer innovative
products to established or traditional
alternatives
• Highly dogmatic (closed minded)
consumers tend to be more receptive to ads
for new products or services that contain an
appeal from an authoritative figure
 Ad
Encouraging
New Product
Acceptance
 Social Character
Inner-Directed Other-Directed
• Consumers who tend • Consumers who tend
to rely on their own to look to others for
inner values direction
• More likely to be • Less likely to be
innovators innovators
• Tend to prefer ads that • Tend to prefer ads that
stress product features feature social
and benefits acceptance
 Consumers who avoid
Need for conformity to
Uniqueness expectations or
standards of others.
 The level of novelty
that individuals seek in
their personal
Optimum
experiences.
Stimulation
High OSL consumers
Levels
accept risky and novel
(OSL)
products more readily
than low OSL
consumers.
 Optimum Stimulation Level
• Some people prefer a simple, uncluttered, and
calm existence, although others seem to prefer an
environment crammed with novel, complex, and
unusual experiences.
• Persons with high optimum stimulation levels
(OSLs) are willing to take risks, to try new
products, to be innovative, to seek purchase-
related information, and to accept new retail
facilities
 OSL scores
• OSL scores also seem to reflect a person’s desired
level of lifestyle stimulation
– Consumers whose actual lifestyles are equivalent to
their OSL scores appear to be quite satisfied.
– Those whose lifestyles are under-stimulated are likely
to be bored.
– Those whose lifestyles are over-stimulated are likely to
seek rest or relief.
 A personality trait
characterized by the need
for varied, novel, and
Sensation complex sensations and
Seeking experience, and the
(SS) willingness to take
physical and social risks
for the sake of such
experience.
 A personality trait
similar to OSL, which
measures a consumer’s
degree to variety seeking
Variety-
Novelty
There is greater variety-
Seeking
seeking behavior when
the consumer is
experiencing arousal
lows
 Variety Novelty Seekers
• Exploratory purchase behavior (e.g., switching
brands to experience new and possibly better
alternatives)
• Vicarious exploration (e.g., where the consumer
secures information about a new or different
alternative and then contemplates or even
daydreams about the option)
• Use innovativeness (e.g., where the consumer uses
an already adopted product in a new or novel way)
 Cognitive Personality Factors
• Need for cognition
– A person’s craving for enjoyment of thinking
• Visualizers versus verbalizers
– A person’s preference for information
presented visually or verbally
 Need for Cognition (NC)
• Consumers high in NC are more likely to
respond to ads rich in product-related
information
• Need for cognition seems to play a role in
an individual’s use of the Internet
• Consumers low in NC are more likely to be
attracted to background or peripheral
aspects of an ad
 Visualizers v/s Verbalizers
• Visualizers prefer visual information and
products that stress the visual
• Verbalizers prefer written or verbal
information and products that stress the
verbal
 Ad
Targeting
Visualizers
Ad Targeting
Verbalizers
 From Consumer Materialism to
Compulsive Consumption
• Consumer materialism
– The extent to which a person is considered
“materialistic”
• Fixated consumption behavior
– Consumers fixated on certain products or
categories of products
• Compulsive consumption behavior
– “Addicted” or “out-of-control” consumers
 Materialistic People
• Materialism is a trait of people who feel their
possessions are essential to their identity
• Value acquiring and showing-off possessions
• Are particularly self-centered and selfish
• Seek lifestyles full of possessions
• Have many possessions that do not lead to greater
happiness
• During consumption dreaming, a consumer
dreams about material objects and experiences
 Fixated Consumption Behavior
• Consumers have
– a deep interest in a particular object or product
category
– a willingness to go to considerable lengths to
secure items in the category of interest
– the dedication of a considerable amount of
discretionary time and money to searching out
the product
• Examples: collectors, hobbyists
 Compulsive buyers
have an addiction; in
some respects, they
Compulsive are out of control
Consumption and their actions
Behavior may have damaging
consequences to
them and to those
around them.
 Consumer Ethnocentrism
• Ethnocentric consumers feel it is wrong to
purchase foreign-made products
• They can be targeted by stressing nationalistic
themes
• Consumer ethnocentrism scale—CETSCALE
results identify consumers with a predisposition to
reject or accept foreign-made product
• Consumers’ product attitude is more strongly
influenced by country-of-origin perceptions
 Cosmopolitanism
• The consumer trait of cosmopolitanism is
opposite of an ethnocentric view
• Consumers with a cosmopolitan orientation
consider the world to his or her marketplace
and are attracted to products, experiences,
and places from other cultures
Virtual Personality
• The Internet is redefining
human identity, creating an
“online self” often a
different personality
• You can be anyone…
– Gender swapping
– Age differences
– Mild-mannered to aggressive
• Virtual personalities may
result in different purchase
behavior