CB: Session 9 : Personality

Personality is defined as those inner psychological characteristics that both determine and reflect how a person responds to his or her environment. The emphasis in this definition is on inner characteristics—those specific qualities, attributes, traits, factors, and mannerisms that distinguish one individual from other individuals. The identification of specific personality characteristics associated with consumer behavior has proven to be highly useful in the development of a firm’s market segmentation strategies.

Personality Reflects Individual Differences

An individual’s personality is a unique combination of factors; no two individuals are exactly alike. Personality is a useful concept because it enables us to categorize consumers into different groups on the basis of a single trait or a few traits.

Personality is Consistent and Enduring

Marketers learn which personality characteristics influence specific consumer responses and attempt to appeal to relevant traits inherent in their target group of consumers. Even though an individual’s personality may be consistent, consumption behavior often varies considerably because of psychological, sociocultural, situational and environmental factors that affect behavior. Personality is only one of a combination of factors that influence how a consumer behaves.

Personality Can Change

An individual’s personality may be altered by major life events, such as the birth of a child, the death of a loved one, a divorce, or a major career change. An individual’s personality also changes as part of a gradual maturing process. Personality stereotypes may also change over time. There is a prediction, for example, that a personality convergence is occurring between men and women. The reason for this shift is that women have been moving into occupations that have been dominated by men and have increasingly been associated with masculine personality attributes.

Freudian Theory of Personality

Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory of personality is one of the cornerstones of modern psychology. This theory was built on the premise that unconscious needs or drives, especially biological and sexual drives, are at the heart of human motivation and personality.

Freud proposed that the human personality consists of three interacting systems: the id, the superego, and the ego. 

The Id

The Id is the “warehouse” of primitive and impulsive drives, such as: thirst, hunger, and sex, for which the individual seeks immediate satisfaction without concern for the specific means of that satisfaction. 

The Super Ego

Superego is the individual’s internal expression of society’s moral and ethical codes of conduct. The superego’s role is to see that the individual satisfies needs in a socially acceptable fashion. The superego is a kind of “brake” that restrains or inhibits the impulsive forces of the id. 

The Ego

Ego is the individual’s conscious control, which functions as an internal monitor that attempts to balance the impulsive demands of the id and the sociocultural constraints of the superego. 

According to Sigmund Freud’s theory, human drives are largely unconscious, and that consumers are primarily unaware of their true reasons for buying what they buy. These researchers focus on consumer purchases and/or consumption situations, treating them as an extension of the consumer’s personality.

Neo-Freudian Theories of Personality

Sigmund Freud’s faced a strong criticism from his colleagues who disagreed with his contention that personality is primarily instinctual and sexual in nature. They argued that social relations are fundamental to personality development. Individual's actions are driven by its social and status needs. Some of these works are classified as Neo-Freudian Theories of Personality.

Alfred Alder Theory of Personality

Alfred Adler viewed human beings as seeking to attain various rational goals, which he called style of life. This theory emphasize on the individual’s efforts to overcome feelings of inferiority. Therefore product promotions are majorly aiming at confidence boosting appeals. 

Harry Stack Theory of Personality

Harry Stack Sullivan stressed that people continuously attempt to establish significant and rewarding relationships with others, placing emphasis on efforts to reduce tensions. Therefore products are selected to win admiration of others.

Karen Horney Theory of Personality

Karen Horney focused on the impact of child-parent relationships, especially the individual’s desire to conquer feelings of anxiety. She proposed three personality groups: compliant, aggressive, and detached.

Compliant individuals are those who move toward others—they desire to be loved, wanted, and appreciated. 

Aggressive individuals move against others—they desire to excel and win admiration.

Detached individuals move away from others—they desire independence, self-sufficiency, and freedom from obligations.

A personality test based on Horney’s theory (the CAD) has been developed and tested.  It reveals a number of tentative relationships between scores and product and brand usage patterns.

It is likely that many marketers have used some of these neo-Freudian theories intuitively. They focus on different personality types for their products with an aim to target specific segments.

Trait Theory of Personality

Trait theory is a significant departure from the earlier qualitative measures that are typical of Freudian and neo-Freudian theory. It is primarily quantitative or empirical, focusing on the measurement of personality in terms of specific psychological characteristics called traits.

What is a Trait? A trait is defined as any distinguishing, relatively enduring way in which one individual differs from another.

Selected single-trait personality tests increasingly are being developed specifically for use in consumer behaviour studies. The purpose is to identify distinct market segments.

Types of Traits

1. Self Confidence

How confident people are of their actions. People high in self-confidence are first adopters of new products. They do not show high brand or store loyalty. For such people marketers need to maintain brand fluidity.

This trait is also linked to the concept called as Consumer Innovativeness. It is measure of personality traits provide important insights into the nature and boundaries of a consumer’s “willingness to innovate.” Consumer innovativeness has been linked to the need for stimulation, novelty seeking, and the need for uniqueness. Previous studies treated innovativeness as a single trait. 

Research indicates a positive relationship between innovative use of the Internet and buying online. Consumer innovativeness can be an important consideration when firms consider brand extensions.

Individuals low in self-confidence relies on others for their decisions. Appeals like doctor tested, approved by a known institution, works well for such people.

2.  Self-Conscious

Individuals are very highly sensitive about the image they communicate to others. For such individuals marketers offer products that can reduce their social anxiety. Cosmetics, clothing, perfumes, are the targeted to such individuals

3. Self Esteem

Individuals high on self-esteem feel positive about themselves. They prefer products that attract their attention in contrast to people who prefer more generic products.

4. Self-Monitoring

People with high self-monitoring are ready to adapt changes. They can easily switch choices based on situations on the basis of the impression they want to create. They are also known as Visualizers as they prefer visual information and products that stress the visual. Marketers target such individuals with celebrity endorsement and image advertising. Low self-monitors are conscious of inner feelings, attitudes and beliefs. They are required to be targeted using quality and rational appeal. They are known as Verbalizers as they are consumers who prefer written or verbal information and products that stress the verbal. This distinction helps marketers know whether to stress visual or written elements in their ads.

 A recent research effort found that there are two distinctly different types of visualizers.

a) Object visualizers encode and process images as a single perceptual unit.

b) Spatial visualizers process images piece by piece.

5. Dogmatism

Consumer Dogmatism is a personality trait that measures the degree of rigidity an individual displays toward the unfamiliar and toward information that is contrary to their established beliefs. A person who is highly dogmatic approaches the unfamiliar defensively and with considerable discomfort and uncertainty.

A person who is low dogmatic will readily considers the unfamiliar or opposing beliefs. Consumers low in dogmatism (open-minded) are more likely to prefer innovative products to established ones and tend to be more receptive to messages that stress factual differences, product benefits, and other forms of product-usage information. Consumers high in dogmatism (closed-minded) are more likely to choose established product innovations and tend to be more receptive to ads for new products or services that contain an appeal from an authoritative figure.

 6. Social Comparison

Social Comparison is a personality trait that ranges on a continuum from inner-directed to other-directed. Inner-directed consumers tend to rely on their own “inner” values or standards in evaluating new products and are likely to be consumer innovators. They also prefer ads stressing product features and personal benefits. Other-directed consumers tend to look to others for direction and are not innovators. They prefer ads that feature social environment and social acceptance.

7. Need for Cognition

Need for cognition (NFC) is the measurement of a person’s craving for or enjoyment of thinking. Consumers who are high in NFC are more likely to be responsive to the part of an advertisement that is rich in product-related information of description. They are also more responsive to cool colors. Consumers who are relatively low in NC are more likely to be attracted to the background or peripheral aspects of an ad. They spend more time on print content and have much stronger brand recall. Need for cognition seems to play a role in an individual’s use of the Internet.

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 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 understimulated are likely to be bored. Those whose lifestyles are overstimulated are likely to seek rest or relief. 

This suggests that the relationship between consumers’ lifestyles and their OSLs is likely to influence their choices of products or services and how they manage and spend their time.

8. State Vs Action Oriented

Action oriented are more prone to advertising as they can easily change their thoughts into actions.

State Approach to Personality

This is individual response to particular situation. How individuals react to changing situations and degree to which they are influenced by others. 

Reference; Consumer Behaviour by Schiffman, Kaunk and Kumar and Consumer Behaviour by Soloman