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Unit 4: Consumer Personality

The desire for both self-consistency and self-esteem could be conflicting. Consumers making Notes
purchases in accordance with their actual self may be attaining self-consistency but may be
falling short of enhancing their self-esteem. Consumers usually purchase products or services in
accordance with their actual self. However, if there is greater discrepancy between actual self
and ideal self, resulting in lower self-esteem, they are more likely to purchase products on what
they would like to be (ideal self) rather than what they are (actual self). Such consumers are more
likely to be influenced by appeals to their fantasy, such as a product use attracting opposite sex,
or products with macho image etc.

4.4.3 Consumption and Extended Self

Some products become significantly meaningful to us or are used to indicate some important
aspects of ourselves to others. The extended self (R W Belk) is different from actual self and
consists of the self plus possessions. He notes:
“People seek, express, confirm and ascertain a sense of being through what they have.”
(Russel W Belk, “Possessions and the Extended Self,”
Journal of Consumer Research 15 September 1988).

This means that we tend to define ourselves, in part, by our possessions and some possessions
become an integral part of our self-identity. S S Kleine and R E Kleine observe that we would be
somewhat different individuals if we lost our key possessions.
The concept of extended self recognises the interaction between individual and the symbols in
their environment, thereby meaning that consumers acquire products for their symbolic value
in enhancing their self-concept. This also means that consumers buy groups of products that
complement each other because of their symbolic association. According to Michael R Soloman
and Henry Assael:
“While the Rolex watch, Brooks Brothers suit, New Balance running shoes, Sony Walkman and BMW
automobile, on the surface, bear no relation to one another, many consumers would easily group these
disparate products together as a symbolic whole.”
(Michael R Soloman and Henry Assael, “ The Forest of the Trees?
A Gestalt Approach to Symbolic Communication”.)
Some products take on meaning and value as they are used over time. This allows them to get
associated with many memories. Some other products quickly become part of extended self
because they are central to one’s actual self or serve as an important symbol of one’s social self.
Examples include computers, hairstyles and tattooing etc.

E Sivdas and K A Macheilt have developed a scale only to measure degree
of product's incorporation into extended self. It is a seven point scale.

Task Collect a set of five recent advertisements that strive to link consumption of a
product to a specific personality trait.

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