CONSUMER BEHAVIOR

WEEK 6
CONSUMER PERSONALITY
BY
DR. WANJIKU KINYANJUI
Learning Objectives
1. To Recognize 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
Behaviour.
3. To Appreciate how Personality Reflects Consumers’ Responses to
Product and Marketing Messages.
4. To Fathom how Marketers Seek to Create Brand Personalities-Like
Traits.

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Personality Defined
• The inner psychological characteristics that both determine and
reflect how a person responds to his or her environment.
• The inner characteristics are those specific qualities, attributes, traits,
factors and mannerisms that distinguish one individual from other
individuals.

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The Nature of Personality
• The Nature of Personality:
• Personality reflects individual differences
• Personality is consistent and enduring
• Personality can change
• Personality reflects individual difference-Due to the different
individual characteristics, no two individuals are alike, however many
individuals may be similar in terms of a single personality
characteristic but not in terms of others. Personality is a useful
concept because it enables us to categorize consumers into different
groups on the basis of one or even several traits. If each person were
different in terms of all personality traits it would be impossible to
group consumers into segments.
• Personality is consistent and enduring-a sibling who comments that
her sister has always cared a great deal about her clothes from the
time she was little is supporting that personality has both consistency
and endurance. Both qualities are essential if marketers are to explain
or predict consumer behavior in terms of personality. Marketers
cannot change personalities to conform to their products but they can
attempt to appeal to the traits.
• Personality can change- an individual’s personality may be altered by
major life events such as marriage, birth of a child, change of
job/profession. An individual’s personality changes not only in
response to an abrupt event but also as part of a gradual maturing
process. There is also evidence that personality stereotypes may
change over time e.g women’s personality has seemed to become
more masculine due to changing roles of women today. Traditionally
women would stay home and take care of children but today this
occupation has changed.
Personality Traits
• The human brain is divided into the left and right hemisphere.
• The left hemisphere specializes in logical, analytical, sequential
processes while the right hemisphere does the intuitive, emotional,
visual thinking.
• This is further subdivided into the cerebral and limbic centers
Source: (“Acadia University - Ranked One of the Top Undergraduate Universities in Nova Scotia,” 2022 )
Source: (“Acadia University - Ranked One of the Top Undergraduate Universities in Nova Scotia,” 2022)
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
Freudian Theory
• Id
• Warehouse of primitive or instinctual needs for
which individual seeks immediate satisfaction.
• Such as hunger, thirst, and sex which are driven
by pleasure principle and immediate
gratification
• Superego
• Individual’s internal expression of society’s
moral and ethical codes of conduct
• Drives the individual to fulfill their needs in a
socially acceptable way
• Ego
• Individual’s conscious control that balances the Schiffman,Kanuk & Wisenblit (2019)
demands of the id and superego.
• An internal monitor that balances the needs of
the id and the superego.
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• basic physiological needs such as hunger, thirst, and sex which are
driven by pleasure principle and immediate gratification. The
superego Finally, the ego is the internal monitor that balances the
needs of the id and the superego.
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. A compliant individual desires to be loved, wanted
and appreciated.
• Aggressive: move against others. Aggressive individuals desires to excel and win
admirations.
• Detached: move away from others. A detached person desires independence, self
reliance and freedom from obligation
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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.
• Tests can be done to measure single traits in consumers such as how
receptive they are to new experiences (innovativeness), their
attachment to possessions (materialism), and their likelihood to
accept or reject foreign-made products (ethnocentrism).

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1. Consumer Innovativeness and Personality Traits

Consumer Social
Dogmatism
innovativeness character

Optimum
Need for Sensation
stimulation
uniqueness seeking
level

Variety-
novelty
seeking

Schiffman,Kanuk & Wisenblit (2019)

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Consumer Innovativeness
• Consumer innovativeness is the tendency to try new products

• Companies consider consumer innovativeness to be very important when introducing

new products or brand extensions.

• For hi-tech products, innovativeness can be at two types:

– Global /General innovativeness (overall consumer innovative level of willingness to
buy new and different products or brands at any category).
– Domain-specific innovativeness (when consumer deals with particular product
category such as computers, cameras, fashion, or watches).
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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.

• A person who is highly dogmatic will rarely consider the unfamiliar and
tend to be very close minded.

• Marketers have realized this type of customer appreciates advertising

appeals with celebrities and other experts.
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Need for Uniqueness
• Consumers who avoid conforming to expectations or standards of
others, either in appearance or possessions.

• You may be able to identify friends with greater need for uniqueness.
You can see it in their clothes and hairstyles.

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Optimum Stimulation Level
• A personality trait that measures the level or amount of
novelty(newness) 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.
• High OSL consumers are important to marketers of new products.

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Sensation Seeking
• Sensation-seeking traits tie to the need to take risks to
fulfill the sensations of experiences which are different
and extreme

• The need for varied, novel, and complex sensations and

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

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Variety-Novelty Seeking
• Measures a consumer’s degree to seek variety

Types of variety seekers include:

• Exploratory Purchase Behavior - consumers who often switch brands to
experience new products.
• Use Innovativeness -consumers who display variety by using innovative
products.
• Vicarious Exploration- these do not involve actual purchase of the product,
but as a result of watching, listening to, or reading about it.

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Social Character
Social character is of great interest to marketers because it
differentiates the type of advertising that influences these customers.
• Inner-directed people prefer ads that stress product features.
• Other-directed individuals gravitate to ads that show approving social
environment rather than product information – they want to look to
others to understand how to act or be accepted, and the ads give an
example of this
2. Consumers Cognitive Personality Factors
• Need for cognition
The level of a consumer’s need for cognition affects how they are likely
to respond to certain types of advertisements.
Those who are high in need for cognition tend to respond to ads that
supply product information as opposed to those who are low in need
for cognition who tend to be attracted to the background of the ad,
attractive models, and cartoon characters.

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• Visualizers
Prefer visual images or messages as source of information and products
• Verbalizers
Prefer written or verbal information eg a question is asked then a
detailed description or explanation is provided as answer to attract
verbalizers

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3. Consumer Materialism

• Consumer materialism, is a personality-like trait that describes how

essential a person finds possessions compared to their identities and
their lives
Materialism Traits

Acquire and show Self centered and

off possessions selfish

Materialistic
People

Do not get greater

Seek lifestyle full of
personal satisfaction
possessions
from possessions
Schiffman & Wisenblit (2019) 27
Consumption & Possession Traits
• 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/products
• Dedicate time and money to find products
• Compulsive consumption behavior
• These people suffer from a shopping addiction called Oniomania
• “Addicted” and “out-of-control” when making purchases

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4. 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 world to be their
marketplace and would be attracted to products from other cultures
and countries.
For some products, the country-of-origin can be very important when
marketing the product, but in other situations it must be downplayed.

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Conclusion
• Consumers’ images of themselves is very closely tied to personality and
consumption behavior.
• People tend to purchase products that enhance their self-concept and relate to
their own personalities.
• It is likely that the new virtual personality may result in selected forms of purchase
behavior. This may in turn offer marketers targeting various “online selves”
Online, you can be anyone…
– Gender swapping
– Age differences
– Different marital status
– Mild-mannered to aggressive
– Introvert to extrovert
References
• Acadia University - Ranked one of the top undergraduate universities in
Nova Scotia. (2022, October 20). Retrieved October 19, 2022, from
https://www2.acadiau.ca/search.html
• Lin , H.H, & Wu,P.(2006) “The Effect of Variety on Consumer Preferences:
The Role of Need for Cognition and Recommended Alternatives,” Social
Behavior & Personality, 34 (7)
• Pascale Q, Simone P, Sally R H, Foula K, Del H. (2014), Consumer
Behaviour: Implications for Marketing Strategy, (7th Ed.), Australia:
McGraw-Hill Irwin.
• Schiffman, L.G and Kanuk, L (2010) Consumer Behaviour, 10th Ed. Pearson
Education Publishers, New Jersey
• Schiffman L.G ,Kanuk, L & Wisenblit J.L (2019) Consumer Behavior, 12th
ed, Pearson, New York