PSYCHOLOGICAL INFLUENCES

ON CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR
MOTIVATION & PERSONALITY

PERSONALITY- Consists of the inner psychology

characteristics that both determine and reflect how
we think and act, which together form an individual’s
distinctive character.
MOTIVATION -Is the driving force that impels
Consumers often purchase products and brands
people to act. It represents the reasons one has for
because advertisers have given them personalities
acting or behaving in a particular way.
that differentiate them from competing offerings.
Brand personification is a form of anthropomorphism
which refers to attributing human characteristics to
something that is not human.
THE
MOTIVATION
PROCESS
+&-
Positive motivation is a response which includes enjoyment
and optimism about the tasks that you are involved in.
Positive motivation induces people to do work in the best
possible manner and to improve their performance. Under
this better facilities and rewards are provided for their
better performance. Such rewards and facilities may be
financial and non-financial.
Negative motivation aims at controlling the negative efforts
of the work and seeks to create a sense of fear for the
worker
Negative motivation involves undertaking tasks because
there will be undesirable outcomes.
Rational versus
Emotional Motives
Rationality implies that consumers select goals based on
totally objective criteria such as size, weight, price, or miles
per gallon. A conscious, logical reason for a purchase. A
motive that can be defended by reasoning or logical
argument

Emotional motives imply the selection of goals according

to personal or subjective criteria. A feeling experienced by a
customer through association with a product.
Need
Motivation drives consumers to buy and is triggered by psychological tensions caused by unfulfilled
needs.
The foundation of marketing is identifying and satisfying needs.

There are 2 types of human needs

1) Psychological needs-are learned from our parents, social environment and interaction with others.
2) Physiological needs- are innate and fulfilling them sustains biological existence. They include the
need for food, water, air, protection of the body from the outside environment; clothing, shelter and
sex.
Both types of needs affect our buying decisions.
Goals
Goals are the sought after results of motivated behaviour, and all human
behaviour is goal oriented. There are two types of goals; 1) Generic goals- are
outcomes that consumers seek in order to satisfy physiological and
psychological needs. 2) Product-specific goals are outcomes that consumers
seek by using a given product or service.
SELECTING GOALS
The motivation to select goals can either be positive or negative. We may feel
a driving force towards some objects or conditions or a driving force away
from some objects or conditions. Positive outcomes that we seek are called
approach objects; negative outcomes that we want to prevent are called
avoidance objects.
MASLOW’S HIERARCHY OF
NEEDS
The model proposes that people are motivated to fulfill basic
needs before moving on to meet higher level growth needs.

It is often displayed in a hierarchical pyramid with five

levels

four lower levels of all the pyramids are considered

physiological or deficiency needs, while the top level(s) are
considered growth needs.

Maslow’s believes that the lower level needs have to be

satisfied before higher needs can influence behavior.
PERSONALITY
Personality consists of the inner psychological characteristics that both determine and reflect how we
think and act. The emphasis is this definition is on inner characteristics-those specific qualities,
attributes, traits, factors and mannerisms that distinguish one individual from other individuals.
 The premise of this theory is that unconscious needs or drives, especially sexual and other
biological drives, are at the heart of human motivation and personality.

Frued proposed that human personality consists of thee interacting systems: the id, the
superego and the ego.

THEORIES: Id is the warehouse of primitive and impulsive drives-basic psychological needs such as
thirst, hunger and sex-for which the individual seeks immediate satisfaction without

Freudian concerns for the specific means of satisfaction.

theory Superego is the individual’s internal expression of society’s moral and ethical codes of
“proper” or “correct” conduct. The superego’s role is to see that individuals satisfy their
needs in a socially acceptable fashion.

Ego is the individual’s conscious control. It functions as an internal monitor that attempts
to balance that impulsive demands of the id and the socio- cultural constraints of the
superego
 Neo-Freudian theory maintain that, in addition to Freud’s
concepts, social relationships play crucial role in the
development of personality. Neo-Freudian believed that
social relationships are fundamental to the formation and
development of personality.
NEO-
FREUDIAN
PERSONALITY
THEORY
According to Karen Horney, Horney proposed that
individuals be classified into three personality groups.
Detached individual- are those
Complaint individual- are those Aggressive individual-are those
who move away from others and
who move toward other and wish who move against others and
seek independence, self reliance,
to be loved, wanted and desire to excel and win
self sufficiency and freedom from
appreciated. admiration.
obligations
TRAIT THEORY
Trait theory represents a departure from the qualitative,
nonempirical approaches of the Freudian and Neo-Freudian
movements. Trait theory focuses on empirical measures of
personality in terms of specific psychological characteristics,
called ‘traits’. Traits are persona; characteristics or features
that set one person apart from another.
Researchers have discovers that personality traits are linked
to consumers consumption of broad product categories
rather that specific rands.
 PERSONALITY TRAITS &
CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR
Innovativeness- is the degree of a consumer’s willingness to adopt new products and services
shortly after the products are introduced.

Dogmatism- is one’s degree of rigidity-the opposite of being open-minded-towards

information and opinion contradictory to one’s beliefs and views. A person who is slightly
dogmatic approaches the unfamiliar defensively and with uncertainty and discomfort. In
contrast a person who is less or not dogmatic readily considers unfamiliar or opposing beliefs.
Generally, consumers who are not dogmatic prefer innovative products rather than traditional
ones.

Social Character: Inner versus other-directedness. Inner-directed consumer rely on their own
inner values or standards in evaluating new products and are likely to be consumer
innovators. Conversely, other-directed consumers look to other for guidance as to what is
appropriate or inappropriate and are unlikely to be consumer innovator.

Need for uniqueness- is defined as an individual’s pursuit of differentness relative to others

that is achieved through the acquisition of consumer goods in order to enhance one’s personal
and social identity.
 OPTIMUM STIMULATION LEVEL: is the degree to which people like novel, complex and unusual experiences or
prefer a simple, uncluttered and calm existence. Research has found that consumers seeking high levels of optimum
stimulation are more willing to take risks, more likely to try new products and be innovative, and seek to maintain high
optimum stimulation levels while shopping.

 SENSATION SEEKING: one’s need for varied, novel and complex sensations and experiences and the willingness to
take risks for the sake of good experiences.

 VARIETY and NOVELTY SEEKING: Seeking variety is particularly relevant to technological products where many
models offer an abundance of functions while other provide only basic features.

 NEED for COGNITION: measure a person’s craving for or enjoyment of thinking. Consumers who are high in NFC
respond to ads that contain a lot of product-related information and descriptions, whereas consumers who are relatively
low in NFC are attracted to the background or peripheral aspects of an ad such as a well-known celebrity.

 VISUALIZERS VERSUS VERBALIZERS: Researchers found that some people prefer the written word as a way of
securing information, whereas others are influenced by images. Verbalizers prefer promotional messages containing a
lot of written, textual, verbal information. Visualizers are more receptive to pictorial images.

 CONSUMER MATERIALISM: gauges the extent to which an individual is preoccupied and showing off physical
possessions that are mostly non-essential and often conspicuous luxury good.

 FIXATED CONSUMPTION: In the context of Consumer behaviour, fixated consumption refers to collectors and
hobbyists tendency to accumulate items that are related to their interests and show off to friends and others with similar
interests.

 COMPULSIVE CONSUMPTION: Is addictive and out of control buying that often has damaging consequences for
both the compulsive shopper and those around him or her.

 CONSUMER ETHNOCENTRIC: Is the consumer’s willingness to buy or not buy foreign-made products. Highly
ethnocentric consumers feel that it is inappropriate or wrong to purchase foreign-made products, because of the
resulting economic impact on the domestic economy, whereas nonethnocentric or less ethnocentric consumers tend to
evaluate foreign-made products-ostensibly more objectively-for their extrinsic characteristics.
BRAND PERSONALITY
FRAMEWORK
Self and Self-image
It represents the way a person views herself or himself. Perceptions of self are often related to the
purchase of products or services, because consumers often select products that are consistent with their
self-images and enhance them.
CB researchers have identified four components of self-image:

-Actual self-image: is the way consumers see themselves

Ideal self-image: is how consumers would like to see themselves

Social self-image: is how consumers feel others see them

Ideal social self-image: is how consumers would like others to see them.
 Is the process by which individuals select, organize and
interpret stimuli into a meaningful and coherent picture
of the world. It can be described as “how we see the
world around us”.
Perception has strategy implications for marketers
because consumers make decisions based on what they
perceive rather than on the basis of objective reality. The
PERCEPTION lowest level at which an individual can perceive a
specific stimulus is that person’s absolute threshold. The
minimal difference that can be perceived between two
stimuli is called the differential threshold or just
noticeable difference (JND)
Perception is all about consumers subjective
understandings and not objective realities. Altering
subjective “wisdom” is difficult, or even impossible.