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Unit 4: Consumer Personality

Introduction Notes

Motivations are forces that stimulate and direct you towards performing purposeful goal-oriented
behaviour and your personality guides your behaviour chosen to achieve specific goals in
different situations.
When marketers talk of personality, they refer to a dynamic concept describing the growth and
development of an individual's whole psychological system, which looks at some aggregate
whole that is greater than the sum of the parts.
The most frequently quoted definition of personality is that of Gordon W. Allport. According to
him, "Personality is the dynamic organisation within the individual of those psychological
systems that determine his unique adjustment to environment."
There seems to be much controversy regarding the exact nature of personality, the value of
studying such a vast area and the appropriate way to measure it.
In the context of application to marketing, three distinct properties of personality appear to be
of central importance:
1. Personality is used to account for differences between individuals rather than the similarity.
2. Personality is generally believed to be consistent and enduring over time and tends to
carry to a variety of situations.
3. Despite the fact that personality tends to be consistent and enduring, it may change due to
major life events such as marriage, birth, death in family, changes in economic circumstances
and the process of ageing.

4.1 Personality Theories

4.1.1 Psychoanalytic Theory

Freud’s psychoanalytic theory proposes that every individual’s personality is the result of
childhood conflicts. These conflicts are derived from three fundamental components of
personality: Id, Ego and Superego. According to the theory, the id (or libido) is the source of an
individual’s strong basic drives and urges such as hunger, sex, aggression and self-preservation .
The id operates on what is called the ‘pleasure principle’, that is, to seek immediate pleasure and
avoid pain. The id is entirely unconscious and not fully capable of dealing with objective reality.
Many of its impulses are not acceptable to the values of organised society. A newborn baby’s
behaviour, for example, is governed totally by the id.
The ego is the individual’s conscious control. It comes into being because of the limitations of
the id in dealing with the real world by developing individual’s capabilities of realistic thinking
and ability to deal suitably with her/his environment. Ego operates on what is called the
‘reality principle’. It is capable of postponing the gratification until that time when it will be
suitably and effectively directed at attaining the goals of the id in a socially acceptable manner.

Example: Rather than manifest the need for aggression in an antisocial manner, a consumer
can partially satisfy this need by purchasing a powerful motorcycle. The ego is the individual’s
self-concept.
The superego constitutes the moral part of an individual’s personality. It represents the ideal
rather than the real, defines what is right and good and it influences the individual to strive for
perfection. It operates in the unconscious and often represses certain behaviour that would
otherwise occur based on the id, which could disrupt the social system.

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