Chapter 6 Review - Dr. Budden PDF

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Chapter 6 Review – Personality, Lifestyles, and the Self-concept Define personality and understand how various approaches to studying personality can be applied to consumer behavior. Personality can be defined as the totality of thoughts, emotions, intentions, and behaviors that people exhibit consistently as they adapt to their environment. There are several different ways to study the human personality. Freud’s psychoanalytic approach received considerable attention in the early days of consumer research. Trait theory, wherein researchers examine specific traits that relate to consumption, has also received much research attention. With this approach, consumer researchers have focused on both single- and multiple-trait perspectives. The five-factor model is a popular multiple-trait model. The personology approach combines both motivational theory and personality. Discuss major traits that have been examined in consumer research. Value consciousness refers to the tendency of consumers to be highly focused on receiving value in their purchase. Materialism refers to the extent to which material goods have importance in a consumer’s life. Consumers who are relatively materialistic view possessions as a means to achieve happiness and as symbols of success. Innovativeness refers to the degree to which an individual is open to new ideas and tends to be relatively early in adopting new products, services, or experiences. Innovativeness has been shown to relate to a number of consumer behaviors, including new product adoption, novelty seeking, information seeking, and online shopping. Need for cognition refers to the degree to which consumers enjoy engaging in effortful cognitive information processing. Consumers who have a high degree of need for cognition think carefully about products, problems, and advertisements. Competiveness refers to the extent to which consumers strive to be better than others. Self-monitoring represents the tendency for consumers to observe and control behaviors in ways that agree with social cues and influence. Understand why lifestyles, psychographics, and demographics are important to the study of consumer behavior. Given that lifestyle concepts give marketers much valuable information about consumers, lifestyle studies have been popular with consumer researchers for many years. Purchase patterns are often influenced heavily by consumer lifestyles, and for this reason marketers often target consumers based on lifestyles. Psychographics, the quantitative investigation of consumer lifestyles, is well suited to help marketers in this process. Both VALS and PRIZM represent important psychographic techniques. The great advantage of lifestyles and psychographic is the ability to capture information in a specific, relevant consumer context. Demographics are observable, statistical aspects of populations, including such factors as age, gender, or income. This concept is different from lifestyles and psychographics. Demographic variables can be used to help locate and understand lifestyle segments. Comprehend the role of the self-concept in consumer behavior. The self-concept, defined as the totality of thoughts and feelings that an individual has about himself or herself, is another important topic in consumer behavior research. Consumers are motivated to act in accordance with their self-concepts, and for this reason, several product choices can be related to the selfconcept. A consumer can hold a number of different concepts about the self, including the actual self, the ideal self, the social self, the ideal self, the possible self, and the extended self.

Understand the concept of self-congruency and how it applies to consumer behavior issues. Self-congruency theory helps to explain why consumers are motivated to purchase products that match their self-concepts. Consumers often desire to buy products that match their own selfconcepts, and marketers segment markets based on the match between consumer self-concept and product attributes. When congruency becomes quite strong, consumers use brands to help promote consumer identities, and they may also form strong organizational identification for organizations or companies. Key Terms Individual difference variables Personality Aggregation approach Psychoanalytical approach to personality Id Pleasure principle Superego Ego Reality principle Motivational research era Trait approach to personality Trait Nomothetic perspective Idiograhic perspective Single-trait approach Multiple-trait approach Value consciousness Materialism Innovativeness Need for cognition Competitiveness Productivity orientation Five-factor model Hierarchical approaches to personality Brand personality Brand personality appeal Lifestyles Psychographics AIO statements VALS Geodemographic techniques PRIZM Demographics Self-concept Symbolic interactionism Semiotics Self-esteem

Body esteem Self-congruency theory...