Personal aspirations

and brand
engagement in self-
concept
PERSONALITY AND INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES
W. R A Z M U S E T A L ( 2 0 1 7 )
Goal Content Theory
Given this background, we argue that the intrinsic and extrinsic life goal constructs underpinned by
GCT can be fruitfully used to explore many interesting marketing issues, such as whether consumers'
intrinsic and extrinsic life goals enhance or undermine consumer preference for luxury and green
products.

Other constructs include whether the intrinsic or extrinsic goal(s) is/are prominent with regard to
purchase intention for religious and non-religious consumers or whether the intrinsic or extrinsic life
goal(s) is/are promising with regard to brand attachment/preference in an individualistic or
collectivistic culture (Gilal et al., 2018d, 2018f; Paul, 2018).
Goal Content Theory
The theory suggest that there are two types of life goals i.e. intrinsic and, extrinsic.

GCT suggests that people tend to pursue intrinsic goals because of the internal satisfaction, pleasure, or
personal meaning derived from their attainment, whereas individuals who chase extrinsic life goals tend
to be more concerned about how they are perceived by others (Kasser & Ryan, 1996).

GCT relates goal contents, also referred to as aspirations or values, to well-being.

That is, intrinsic values/aspirations emerge from the basic psychological needs of autonomy, competence,
and relatedness and, in turn, the pursuit and attainment of intrinsic values works to satisfy these needs.

In contrast, extrinsic aspirations are geared toward obtaining external validation and proof of self-worth.
Intrinsic vs Extrinsic
Intrinsic goals include: (1) self-acceptance (the sense of competence and autonomy); (2) affiliation
(satisfactory relationships with close others); (3) community feeling (the desire to act for global good),
and (4) physical fitness (the lack of health problems).

Extrinsic goals are: (5) financial success (possessing material goods); (6) social recognition (being
famous and admired), and (7) appealing appearence
Overview
There are many constructs that describe the relationship between the self and brands.

Previous constructs described the relationships between individual brand and the self.

BESC is a global tendency to include important brands as part of one's self-concept. According to this
conception, product brands may provide consumers with certain self-schemata – structures of
selfknowledge – and individuals may differ in terms of the tendency to build such brand-related
schemata.

What is the role of these two types of aspirations in the case of brand engagement in self-concept?
Hypothesis
H1. There is a positive and direct relationship between extrinsic aspirations and BESC. Financial
success (H1a), social recognition (H1b), and appealing appearance (H1c) are positively and directly
related to BESC.

H2. There is a negative and direct relationship between intrinsic aspirations and BESC.
Method
Taking into account the postulated associations of extrinsic and intrinsic aspirations with BESC, we
tested the proposed theoretical model using structural equation modeling (IBM Amos 21.0). T

The validation of the structural and measurement models was performed by means of discriminant and
convergent validity tests, after which we checked the common method bias, tested the two hypotheses,
and answered the research question.
Participants

Quota sampling procedure (Poland)

N= 480 individuals, including 239 women, aged 18–76 (M = 36.55, SD = 12.99).

(63.4%) came from cities of over 300,000 inhabitants;

13% came from villages;

(23.1%) were from smaller towns.

1 to 7 points Likert Scale was used.

Descriptive Statistics & Pearson
Correlation
 Hypothesis testing
Finally, we tested the fit of the structural model.

All fit indexes were acceptable, χ2 = 1263.394, df = 577, p b 0.001; RMSEA = 0.051 [0.048–0.055];
CFI = 0.931; SRMR = 0.074.

The relationship between extrinsic aspirations and BESC was positive (β = 0.36, p b 0.001),
confirming H1. This means that respondents who pursued extrinsic goals were mostly involved in
BESC. Intrinsic aspirations were negatively related to BESC (β = −0.14, p b 0.05). H2 was thereby
confirmed.

Both types of consumers' personal aspirations are related to BESC. The results are shown in Fig. 1.
Results
The model testing the relations between three extrinsic aspirations and BESC showed that the tendency
to include important brands as part of self-concept is associated strongly with aspiration for appealing
appearance.

Three instrisic aspirations and BESC showed that the tendency to include important brands as part of
self-concept is associated strongly with aspiration of self acceptance.