Personality and Self-Concept

Question 1

Entity vs. incremental theory:

Answer 1

According to the Entity Theory, intelligence is a personal quality that is fixed and cannot be changed.
Entity Theorists:

• Believe that even if people can learn new things their intelligence stays the same.
• Will likely blame their intelligence and abilities for achievement failures.

According to the Incremental Theory, on the other hand, intelligence is not fixed and can be improved through enough effort.
Incremental Theorists:

• Will blame lack of effort and/or strategy use that are possible to mediate negative outcomes.
• Will likely act out and improve the situations with more effort.

Question 2

Nature of Personality:

Answer 2

• Personality reflects individual differences.
• Unique combination of inner characteristics: No two individuals are exactly alike.
• Personality allows marketers to divide people into different groups based on their traits.
• Personality is consistent and enduring BUT can change, as may be altered by major life events: Birth of a child, personal tragedies, etc.

Question 3

Neo-Freudian Theory (Karen Horney):

Answer 3

Social relationships are fundamental to formation of personality.

Three personality groups:

• Compliant Individuals: Those who move towards others, desire to be loved, wanted and appreciated.
• Aggressive Individuals: Those who move against others, desire to excel, win admiration.
• Detached Individuals: Those who move away from others, desire independence, self- reliance, freedom from obligation.

Question 4

Trait Theory of Personality

Answer 4

Departure from qualitative measures that typify the earlier theories: Quantitative in approach

• Measurement of personality in terms of specific psychological characteristics.
• Explains personality in terms of traits which are an individual’s characteristic ways of responding to the social and physical environment
• Examples are aggression, honesty, anxiety, independence, sociability…..

Question 5

The Big Five of Personality:

Answer 5

• Openness: Being curious, open to new experiences.
• Conscientiousness: Being organized and responsible.
• Extraversion: Being outgoing and displaying leadership roles.
• Agreeableness: Being friendly, kind and good-natured.
• Neuroticism: Being emotionally unstable, nervous and anxious

Question 6

Where do you live and does your postcode fit your personality?

Answer 6

Openness to experience

People living in the city center are more open to new experiences than those living in the suburbs.

Agreeableness

People living in the centre in areas such as Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea, Camden and Islington were less sympathetic, cooperative or considerate than those on the outskirts.

Question 7

Global Consumer Types - Euromonitor - I

Answer 7

Personality traits can be combined with values, preferences and behaviours to create consumer types.

Question 8

Global Consumer Types - Euromonitor

Answer 8

Question 9

Global Consumer Types – Attitudes to work and personal life

Answer 9

Question 10

Global Consumer Types – How to reach them?

Example 1

Answer 10

Question 11

Which personality trait do Olympic athletes score high upon?

Answer 11

Sensation-seeking personality: Remain calm in the face of danger

• Neurological evidence: cortisol is a hormone that makes us feel stressed
• But: when people with high sensation- seeking personalities have intense experiences, they don’t produce much cortisol.
• They also produce higher levels of “pleasure” chemicals like dopamine.
• Increased sensitivity to things that could be rewarding and decreased sensitivity to potential dangers.

Question 12

What do the emojis you use say about your personality?

Answer 12

Question 13

What about brand personality?

Answer 13

Brand personality is the set of traits people attribute to a brand as if it were a person.

Question 14

Trend: brands without personality – Brandless example

Why does this work?

Answer 14

• New online retailer for shoppers who hate Big Food brands
• Each item costs 3 dollars
• Products that are environmentally-friendly, and free of preservatives or other artificial ingredients
• Transparent, ethical, cost- conscious and digital: millennial values!

Question 15

What if Amazon’s Alexa had a completely different personality?

Answer 15

Question 16

Some specific consumer personality dimensions can be useful:

Answer 16

Innovativeness – Nature and boundaries of a consumer’s willingness to innovate.

Social Character - Inner-directedness to other-directedness.

Need for uniqueness: For people high in need for uniqueness, conformity to others’ standards either in appearance or in their possessions is to be avoided.

Question 17

Therefore, some traits are useful for understanding…

Answer 17

Consumer behaviour, but problems with overall ‘personality’.

Inconsistencies between:

• How we are and how we see ourselves;
• How we are and how we want to project ourselves;
• Leads to self-concept theory.

Question 18

What is Self-Concept?

Answer 18

• Self-related thoughts, feelings and beliefs that a person has in memory about himself or herself as an object.
• Self-concept develops over time. It has the purpose of protecting and enhancing our ego and is quite unique.

Generally, self-concept embodies the answer to “Who am I”?

Question 19

The Looking Glass Self:

Answer 19

Idea that a person’s self grows out of society’s interpersonal interactions and the perceptions of others. The term refers to people shaping their self-concepts based on their understanding of how others perceive them.

We gain clues about our own identity by “bouncing” signals off others and trying to guess what impression they have of us

• Active interpretation
• Not constant
• Manipulation efforts

Question 20

Self Concept Attributes:

Answer 20

The self-concept is a very complex structure.

We describe attributes of self- concept along such dimensions as:

• Content - Facial attractiveness vs. mental aptitude;
• Positivity - Self-esteem;
• Intensity and Stability over time;
• Accuracy - The degree to which one’s self-assessment corresponds to reality.

Question 21

Self Esteem:

Answer 21

Degree of positivity of a person’s self- concept

People with low self-esteem:

• Expect failure and try to avoid embarrassment

People with high self-esteem:

• Expect to be successful and will take risks; Enjoy being centre of attention

Ads can trigger social comparison – “The process of thinking about information about one or more other people in relation to the self” (Wood 1996, 521).

Question 22

Self Esteem and Social Comparison:

Answer 22

Female college students who were exposed to beautiful women in ads afterwards expressed lowered satisfaction with own appearance.

Exposure to idealized images of both physical attractiveness and financial success also had a negative effect on males’ self evaluations - Especially self-esteem.

Question 23

Self Esteem, Social Comparison and Retail:

Stephanie, a first-year MBA student, is shopping for a new suit to wear to her internship interviews. She finds a suit she likes and decides to try it on.

As she approaches the dressing room, she sees another customer standing in front of a three-way mirror wearing the same suit she has in her hands. The customer is beautiful and looks stunning in the suit. Stephanie tries on the suit, is not satisfied with how it looks on her, and decides to keep looking at another store.

Would Stephanie’s evaluations of the suit have been different had she not seen the other customer wearing it?

What factors might influence this social comparison process?

Answer 23

When are low body esteem consumers most likely to engage in negative social comparisons?

• Two pieces of social information needed for negative comparisons in retail environment:
  
  • (1) An attractive social referent;
  • (2) The consumer must also be actively consuming the product (Aligned consumption behaviour)
• More likely to rate the product negatively when it is worn by another consumer versus a salesperson (Aligned identity).

Question 24

Multiple Selves:

Answer 24

There is no one actual self: People often have many selves and roles that are situation-dependent.

• Marketers pitch products to facilitate active role identities.
• To be successful, efforts must ensure the appropriate role identity is active before pitching the product—timing is everything!

Question 25

Dimensions of Self:

Answer 25

Self-Concept is multi-dimensional:

Actual Self

• Realistic appraisal of qualities we have and don’t have.

Ideal Self

• Person’s conception of how they would like to be.

Social Self

• How one feels others see them.

Ideal social self

• How one would like others to see them.

Question 26

Types of Self-Congruence and Self-concept motives:

Answer 26

Self-congruence

• Actual self-image congruence
• Ideal self-image congruence
• Social self-image congruence
• Ideal social self-image congruence

Self-concept motives

• Self-consistency motive
• Self-esteem motive
• Social consistency motive
• Social approval motive

Self congruence occurs where there is a increased degree of consistency between the ideal self and the actual self

Question 27

Self Image Congruence – Are we what we buy?

Answer 27

• Self-image congruence models suggest that we choose products when their attributes match some aspects of the self.
• These models assume a process of cognitive matching between product attributes and the consumer’s self- image.
• Affects consumers’ product/brand preferences and purchase intentions

Should brands try and appeal to consumers’ actual or ideal self?

Question 28

Self Image congruence – Actual or Ideal Self?

Answer 28

• Study of 167 brands - Consumers more likely to form emotional connection with brand that validates who they are (actual self) than with one that promises them help to achieve an ideal self.
• An authentic relationship involves presenting one’s “genuine” self to someone else in a way that creates strong emotions and bonds based on intimacy and trust.
• Success of campaigns built on authenticity may be linked to appeal to ACTUAL self.

Question 29

Examples of brands who target consumers’ actual selves?

Answer 29

Question 30

Impression Management:

Answer 30

Process of impression management: Wework hard to ‘manage’ what others think of us.

In which contexts is impression management particularly relevant?

“Today’s social networking and dating sites are like impression management on steroids” Joseph B.Walther Professor of communication at Michigan State University

Leads to the digital self – Expresses our online identities - and digital identity management

Question 31

Three’s “Holiday Spam” campaign Objectives:

Answer 31

Ambition: Grow market share through consumer acquisition.

Difficult in this market due to inertia!

Use brand-led approach as opposed to price-led approach – Needed point of differentiation.

Developed strong understanding consumer base, their dissatisfaction and key ‘pain points’ – Roaming charges abroad, felt ripped off!

Question 32

Three’s “Holiday Spam” campaign phases:

Answer 32

Launched offer unmatched by any competitor - Allowed consumers to use phone abroad at no extra cost, solving common pain point.

Creative way of bringing this to life – Used social insight into way people use their phones – social bragging.

• Phase 1: Outbreak - #Holidaybraggie
• Phase 2: Apology
• Phase 3: Clean-Up. Do you have TSD?

Question 33

What Three’s campaign teaches us?

Answer 33

Start from business/ brand objective and associated target audience - Sociable enthusiasts as main target;

Be confident and bold (apology campaign) to start conversations;

Look at broader relevance of the campaign – What is the wider trend we are tapping into? Why will people care and connect with the campaign?…. Here: Social bragging and digital identity management.

Question 34

How does using Facebook impact perceptions of others’ lives?

I

Answer 34

May depend on involvement with Facebook!

• Those spending more time on FB/ week agreed more that others
  
  1. were happier and
  2. had better lives.
• Availability heuristic - Individuals can base judgment on examples that they can easily recall.
• Heavy FB users have more available examples - more vulnerable to distorted perception.

Question 35

How does using Facebook impact people’s perceptions of others’ lives?

II

Answer 35

• Those with more people they do not personally know as FB “friends” agreed more that others had better lives.
• Correspondence bias - Tendency to assume others’ actions reflect personality or stable personal disposition, rather than situational factors.
• More likely to happen with FB friends you do not know well: will assume they are constantly enjoying a good life.

For FB friends we know personally, past interactions help recognize external factors - it is the occasions that make friends

happy.

Question 36

How does using Facebook impact people’s perceptions of others’ lives? Self-Esteem

Answer 36

And… surprise surprise, recent research has found that people with low self-esteem more frequently post status updates about their current romantic partner!

Consistent with research showing that

• People with low self-esteem tend to be more chronically fearful of losing their romantic partner;
• People are more likely to post relationship-relevant information on Facebook on days when they feel insecure.

Question 37

Why may Instagram be even more depressing than Facebook?

Answer 37

• Focuses on photographs, likes, and comments: The aspects of FB that are most important in driving self-esteem effects.
• Exclusively image-driven.
• “A photo can very powerfully provoke immediate social comparison, and that can trigger feelings of inferiority. You don’t envy a news story.”*
• Less “conversation-driven” (someone posted a science article on Facebook), mainly “personal-driven” (as photos are mostly about one’s personal life).

Question 38

Online Dating and Impression Management

Answer 38

Balancing accuracy and desirability in self- presentation;

• Ideal Self - Profiles describing potential, future version of self (hiking, surfing…);
• ‘Lying’ justified by social norms of the environment;
• Foggy Mirror - Gap between self-perceptions and assessments made by others (woman states she is ‘average’ size, but seen by others as thin);
• Establishing credibility – Picture holding university diploma.

Question 39

Extended self defintion:

Answer 39

Those external objects that we consider a part of us comprise the extended self.

Many material objects ranging from personal possessions to pets help to form a consumer’s identity.

Question 40

Four levels of the extended self (Belk, 1988):

Answer 40

• Individual level: Personal possessions: Cars, jewelry, clothing…
• Family level: Residence and the furnishings in it.
• Community level: Neighborhood or town.
• Group level: Attachments to certain social groups regarded as a part of the self. A consumer may also feel that landmarks, monuments or sports teams are a part of the extended self.

Question 41

Are consumers spending more or less on clothing?

Answer 41

Question 42

What is the Quantified Self?

Answer 42

A collaboration of users and tool makers who share an interest in self knowledge through self-tracking (Wolf and Kelly, 2007).

Question 43

The Quantified Self

Answer 43

Next generation of wearable technology - One step closer to future of bionic, data- rich and in-body technologies.

Athos – Fitness clothes that measure muscle activity, heart rate and respiration in real time.

Encourages consumers to become “the ideal version” of themselves.

Transhumanist stance: Technology will take our species to the next evolutionary stage.

Question 44

The Quantified Self Evolution:

Answer 44

Fitness and activity trackers may soon be surpassed by biometric wristbands that can measure what is going on inside your body.

• Researchers at Echo Labs are currently working on a biometric band that can see through skin to scan your blood. Can measure your oxygen, CO2, hydration and blood pressure levels via optical signals.
• At Epicenter, a new hi-tech office in Sweden, employees are getting implanted with a tiny chip under their skin. Access to doors and photocopiers, paying in the café.
• The Designers Of Fitbit created a concept digital tattoo implanted under your skin- Project Underskin. They think they can actually build it.

Question 45

Study with 200 women who wore Fitbit tracker: Pros

Answer 45

Most embraced device as part of themselves - stopped treating it as external technology.

“Always on, always on me” - 89% of participants wearing it almost constantly.

• Active participant in construction of everyday life: 95% increased amount of weekly exercise.
• Change in eating habits to more healthy food, smaller portion sizes and fewer takeaways (76%).

Question 46

How did women relate to their Fitbit?

Answer 46

68%: Seen as ‘friend’ who helps them reach their targets.

For 99% reaching the daily targets creates feelings of happiness,

77%: Self-satisfaction

98%: Pride

98%: Motivation

Question 47

Study with 200 women who wore Fitbit tracker: Cons

Answer 47

BUT technology is both liberating and oppressive (idea first articulated by philosopher Lewis Mumford in the 1930s)!

When asked how they felt without their Fitbit, 43% felt that the activities they completed were wasted.

22% felt less motivated to exercise.

59% felt that their daily routines were controlled by Fitbit.

Almost 30% felt that Fitbit was an enemy and made them feel guilty.

Question 48

Quantified self – Negative Implications

Answer 48

People may be unable to reach the goals their personalized tracker sets them;

May feel pressure sharing results with peers on a social networking site;

May take self-monitoring too far and become obsessed with keeping track of daily habits and behaviours;

May be weary of further intrusion into their ever-increasingly less private lives;

May not have sufficient knowledge or understanding to analyse the data that they have been provided with.

Question 49

Summary of Personality and Self-Concept

Answer 49

• Personality is a person’s psychological make-up that engenders characteristic responses to the environment in which he or she lives.
• Some personality traits are useful for understanding consumer behaviour, but inconsistencies exist between personality traits and how we see/ want to project ourselves.
• Self-concept theory is concerned more with how individuals think of themselves than with how they actually are.
• Quantified Self trend!