Week 05

Week 05

Consumer Behavior ยท Davood Wadi, PhD

Personality, Self-Concept, and Lifestyles

Consumers do not just buy products. They buy symbols that mirror who they are and who they hope to become.

A shopper in a plain coat, holding a shopping bag with the brand badge, stands in front of a tall standing mirror. In the glass stands who they hope to become: the same person, upright in a sharp camel jacket, holding the same bag.

What Is the Self-Concept?

Self-concept is the collection of beliefs a person holds about their own attributes and qualities.

It includes how we judge our own appearance, intellect, skills, and character.

A person stands with a hand on their chin, thinking about themselves. Their thought cloud holds four self-ratings: appearance, intellect, skills and character, each scored with filled dots out of five.APPEARANCEINTELLECTSKILLSCHARACTER

Self-esteem refers to the positivity of a person's self-concept.

  1. People with high self-esteem expect to succeed and take more risks when buying new products.

    A confident shopper has taken the unknown box marked new from a store shelf and holds it up; its empty place on the shelf is a faint pencil outline, and the familiar brand stays behind.NEW

  2. People with low self-esteem try to avoid failure and seek reassurance through safe, well-known brands.

    The same shelf: this shopper has taken the familiar box with the brand badge; its empty place is a faint pencil outline, and the unknown box marked new stays on the shelf.NEW

The Actual Self Versus the Ideal Self

The actual self is our realistic appraisal of the qualities we have right now.

The ideal self is our conception of who we would like to be.

  1. A gap between the actual self and the ideal self creates emotional tension.

    The shopper in a plain coat stands on low ground, labelled actual self. On a raised step, against a pale sky wash, stands the same person in a sharp camel jacket, labelled ideal self. They reach toward each other, and a coil spring stretched taut between their hands is labelled tension.TENSIONACTUAL SELFIDEAL SELF

  2. Consumers buy products to bridge this gap. This is called compensatory consumption.

    The same two selves on the same two levels. Product boxes with the brand badge are stacked into three steps that climb from the actual self's low ground to the ideal self's step, and the ideal self holds a shopping bag with the brand badge.ACTUAL SELFIDEAL SELF

  3. Fantasy appeals and aspirational advertising show consumers how a product brings them closer to their ideal self.

    The shopper in a plain coat, labelled actual self, looks up at a billboard. On the billboard, set on a pale sky wash, their ideal self in a sharp camel jacket holds a shopping bag with the brand badge; the brand badge also sits in the billboard's corner.ACTUAL SELF
Exercise ยท Which one is it?

Each case shows one side of the self-concept at work. Is it the actual self, the ideal self, compensatory consumption, or a fantasy appeal?

Asked to describe himself honestly for a dating profile, Leo writes: "average cook, a bit disorganized, loves bad movies."

Which concept does this case show?

The Extended Self: Possessions as Identity

We are what we own. External objects often become part of who we are.

The extended self includes possessions that people use to define their social identity.

  1. Individual level: personal items like jewelry, cars, and clothing define personal identity.

  2. Family level: a consumer's home and furnishings represent family identity and shared memories.

  3. Community level: neighborhoods and hometowns shape local identity.

  4. Group level: attachments to sports teams, subcultures, or social movements define group identity.

A person stands at the centre of four widening half-rings marked individual, family, community and group. The inner ring holds a jewelled ring and a shirt; the next a house and a sofa; the next a row of neighborhood houses and a town skyline; the outer ring a team pennant and a protest placard.INDIVIDUALFAMILYCOMMUNITYGROUP
Exercise ยท Which one is it?

Each possession below has become part of someone's identity. At which level of the extended self does it sit?

Kai bought a silver ring with a first paycheque and never takes it off.

Which concept does this case show?

Identity and Automation: The Tasks Consumers Keep

Many products and AI tools now promise to do tasks for the consumer, from cooking to writing.

Consumers do not always welcome this help.

When a task is central to a person's identity, the person wants to feel that the result is their own work.

Research shows that people who strongly identify with an activity, such as cooking, are less interested in products that automate the skills involved (Leung, Paolacci, & Puntoni, 2018).

A passionate home baker may reject a machine that makes bread automatically, while a busy parent may welcome it.

Two scenes. Left: a home baker holds up a loaf made by hand, a heart above, beside a bread machine drawn in pencil and crossed out. Right: a busy parent with a small child stands beside a teal bread machine with a loaf rising from it.

For the same reason, a consumer may let an AI agent handle routine purchases but keep the choices that express who they are.

Marketers of automated products can leave room for the consumer's own contribution, so the consumer still feels ownership of the result.

An arrow runs from a bread machine to a table, where the home baker leans in with both hands to shape the loaf. A teal wash lies behind the baker's hands and the loaf: the step left to the consumer.
Exercise ยท Sort into groups

Each consumer is offered a product or AI tool that does a task for them. Sort each one by whether the consumer is likely to welcome the help or resist it.

      Tap a card, then tap the group it belongs to.

      Personality Traits and Consumer Behavior

      Personality refers to a person's unique psychological makeup that consistently influences their responses to the environment.

      Trait theory views personality as a set of measurable characteristics.

      1. Innovativeness is the degree to which a person likes to try new things.

        A queue of four people waits at a stand stocked with boxes marked new. The person at the front of the line already holds a new box up to look at it.NEWNEW

      2. Materialism is the emphasis a person places on owning worldly goods for status.

        A person stands tall on top of a pile of branded purchase boxes, holding a shopping bag, next to a shiny car.

      3. Need for cognition is the degree to which a person enjoys thinking hard and reading detailed product descriptions.

        A person with a hand on their chin holds up a long folded product leaflet, dense with lines of small print, and reads it closely. The product box with the brand badge stands at the foot of the leaflet.

      4. Frugality is the tendency to prioritize careful spending and resourcefulness over wasteful buying.

        A person drops a coin into a piggy bank. Beside them, a shopping bag they did not buy is drawn in faint pencil and crossed out in ink.

      The Big Five Personality Dimensions

      Psychologists identify five fundamental dimensions of human personality called the Big Five.

      1. Openness to experience: curiosity, creativity, and interest in novelty.

        A person stands at an easel with a brush, painting a new picture of loose colour: a sky, a sun and a hill.

      2. Conscientiousness: organization, self-discipline, and reliability.

        A person holds up a clipboard checklist on which every item has a teal tick.

      3. Extraversion: sociability, energy, and talkativeness in social settings.

        A person in the middle of a group talks with one arm raised and a speech bubble above them, while four others stand round them listening.

      4. Agreeableness: friendliness, warmth, empathy, and cooperation with others.

        Two people face each other and carry one long box between them, with a heart above the box.

      5. Neuroticism: emotional instability, tendency to experience anxiety, and mood swings.

        A person hugs themselves anxiously under a dark storm cloud with rain and a lightning bolt.

      Marketers use these dimensions to tailor ad copy, visual tone, and brand messaging.

      The same product box with the brand badge in two posters. On the left, an arm-waving extravert reads a loud poster that says Join the party, splashed with ochre and confetti. On the right, a calm conscientious person reads an orderly poster that says Built to last, with neat ruled lines of detail.Join the party!EXTRAVERSIONBuilt to last.CONSCIENTIOUSNESS
      Exercise ยท Match up

      Match each Big Five dimension to the shopper who shows it most.

      Big Five dimension

      The shopper

      Tap a term, then the example it goes with.

      Brand Personality: Giving Life to Objects

      Brand personality is the set of human traits that consumers assign to a brand name.

      A consumer looks at a product box with the brand badge. In their thought cloud, the brand appears as a person in a dark jacket, wearing the same badge on their chest.

      1. Sincerity: brands seen as down-to-earth, honest, wholesome, and cheerful, like Hallmark or Campbell's.

        The brand as a person, wearing the brand badge: a warm, cheerful figure in a cosy camel cardigan, waving hello. Beside them stand a greeting card with a heart and a can of soup.

      2. Excitement: brands seen as daring, spirited, imaginative, and modern, like Apple or Red Bull.

        The brand as a person, wearing the brand badge: a spirited figure in a dark jacket and jeans, both arms flung up in excitement. Beside them stand a sleek smartphone and a can of energy drink marked with a lightning bolt.

      3. Competence: brands seen as reliable, intelligent, and successful, like Volvo or Google.

        The brand as a person, wearing the brand badge: a composed figure in a dark suit, carrying a briefcase. Beside them stand a laptop showing a search box and a solid family car.

      4. Sophistication: brands seen as upper-class, elegant, and charming, like Chanel or Rolex.

        The brand as a person, wearing the brand badge: an elegant figure in a long evening gown, hair in a bun, a hand on the hip. Beside them stand a perfume bottle and a fine wristwatch.

      5. Ruggedness: brands seen as outdoorsy, tough, and durable, like Jeep or Patagonia.

        The brand as a person, wearing the brand badge: a hiker in a padded jacket and cargo trousers, with a backpack. Beside them stand a small tent and a boxy four-by-four with a spare wheel.
      Exercise ยท Which one is it?

      Each brand below shows consumers a clear set of human traits. Which brand personality dimension is it?

      A family bakery prints "baked honestly, just like at home" on plain paper bags, with a smiling drawing of its founder.

      Which concept does this case show?

      Anthropomorphism and Brand Relationships

      Anthropomorphism occurs when people assign human qualities, faces, or intentions to non-human objects.

      A person looks at the front of a car. Its headlights read as eyes and its grille as a smile; the face they see, with brows, pupils and a smile, is inked over the car.

      Mascots like the Michelin Man or the M&M characters make abstract corporate products feel friendly.

      A round candy mascot with a face, arms, legs and white gloves, wearing the brand badge, waves cheerfully. A shopper waves back at it.

      When consumers view a brand as a human partner, brand loyalty turns into an emotional relationship.

      Left, labelled brand loyalty: a shopper holds up a loyalty card with five of six stamps, with three branded bags from repeat purchases at their feet. An arrow leads right, labelled emotional relationship: the same shopper holds hands with the brand as a person, who wears the brand badge, and a heart floats between them.BRAND LOYALTYEMOTIONAL RELATIONSHIP

      Brand love occurs when a consumer feels passion, commitment, and positive attachment toward a brand.

      When an anthropomorphized brand fails, consumers feel personal betrayal rather than simple dissatisfaction.

      Left, labelled simple dissatisfaction: a shopper shrugs mildly beside a plain, faceless product box with a crack in it. Right, labelled personal betrayal: the brand as a person, wearing the brand badge, holds out a cracked box, and the shopper facing it clutches their chest under a broken heart.SIMPLE DISSATISFACTIONPERSONAL BETRAYAL

      Psychographics and Lifestyles: Measuring AIOs

      Demographics tell us who buys. Psychographics tell us why they buy.

      Left, labelled demographics: a shopper with a shopping bag beside a data card reading age 34, income $58K, city Boston. Right, labelled psychographics: the same shopper with the same bag, thinking of a mountain and a heart, a love of the outdoors.AGE 34INCOME $58KCITY BOSTONDEMOGRAPHICSPSYCHOGRAPHICS

      Lifestyle defines a pattern of consumption that reflects a person's choices about how they spend time and money.

      Psychographics uses psychological, sociological, and anthropological factors to segment markets.

      1. Activities focus on work, hobbies, social events, vacations, and entertainment.

        A week planner page. Each entry is drawn: a briefcase for work, a guitar for a hobby, two glasses raised in a toast for a social event, a suitcase with a tag for a vacation, and a box of popcorn for entertainment.

      2. Interests focus on family, home, job, community, food, and fashion.

        Six magazines, two rows of three, titled family, home, job, community, food and fashion, each with a drawing on its cover: a heart, a house, a briefcase, a town skyline, a can of soup and a shirt.FAMILYHOMEJOBCOMMUNITYFOODFASHION

      3. Opinions focus on oneself, social issues, politics, business, and products.

        A survey card. Five topics, oneself, social issues, politics, business and products, each have a row of five circles from disagree to agree, with one circle marked teal in every row.DISAGREEAGREEONESELFSOCIAL ISSUESPOLITICSBUSINESSPRODUCTS
      Exercise ยท Sort into groups

      A lifestyle survey mixes all three kinds of AIO question. Sort each question into Activities, Interests, or Opinions.

            Tap a card, then tap the group it belongs to.

            The VALS Segmentation System

            The Values and Lifestyles system, or VALS, divides adults into eight consumer segments based on psychological traits and resources.

            The VALS map of eight consumer segments, each with a small figure. Innovators span the top, where resources are highest; survivors span the bottom, where they are lowest. Between them, three columns by primary motivation: ideals, with thinkers above believers; achievement, with achievers above strivers; and self-expression, with experiencers above makers. An arrow on the left runs from high resources to low resources.HIGH RESOURCESLOW RESOURCESINNOVATORSIDEALSACHIEVEMENTSELF-EXPRESSIONTHINKERSACHIEVERSEXPERIENCERSBELIEVERSSTRIVERSMAKERSSURVIVORS

            1. Innovators are successful, sophisticated people with high resources and abundant energy.

            2. Thinkers and Believers are motivated by ideals, knowledge, and principles.

            3. Achievers and Strivers are motivated by achievement, status, and recognition from peers.

            4. Experiencers and Makers are motivated by self-expression, physical activity, and adventure.

            5. Survivors have the fewest resources and focus on meeting basic needs rather than expressing lifestyle.

            Synthetic Consumers: AI as a Survey Respondent

            Psychographic research depends on asking consumers about their activities, interests, and opinions.

            Some researchers now ask large language models to answer surveys as if they were consumers with a given profile. These answers are called synthetic responses.

            Synthetic responses are fast and cheap. Early studies found that they can mirror some patterns in real consumer data, such as sensitivity to price (Brand, Israeli, & Ngwe, 2023).

            In the middle, a paper survey with rows of five answer boxes. On the left, three real consumers; on the right, three AI agent phones, each tagged with the age of the profile it answers as: 24, 41 and 67. Arrows run from both groups to the survey.REALSYNTHETICAGE24AGE41AGE67

            Synthetic responses also have limits. The same model can give a different answer each time it is asked the same question (Wadi & Fredette, 2025).

            The AI agent phone, asked would you buy it? 3 times, answers on a row of five boxes; its latest answer is box 3. Bars under the boxes count the answers so far: 0, 1, 1, 1, 0. The data are simulated.WOULD YOU BUY IT?ASKED 3 TIMESLATEST ANSWER01110ANSWERS SO FARSIMULATED

            Models can also show biases, such as anchoring on a number in the question (Wadi & Fredette, 2025) or favoring products from some countries over others (Wadi, Ghodrat, & Philp, 2026).

            A synthetic consumer has no lived experience of buying or using a product.

            Synthetic responses can help researchers design and pretest a survey. Decisions about real consumers still need data from real consumers.

            Knowledge Check

            A startup wants to know whether students would pay $15 a month for a meal-planning app. Which use of synthetic responses fits what the slide describes?

            Discussion: Your Extended Self

            Discussion: Name one possession you own that feels like part of your identity. If someone took it away, how would it change the way you see yourself? Does it reflect your actual self or your ideal self?

            Left: a person holds their guitar close. Right: the same person in the same pose with empty arms; the guitar that was taken away is only a faint pencil outline.