The Self and Personality
What are the five dimensions that form the structure of attributes while people are defining their self-concepts?
Content, direction, intensity, stability, and accuracy.
What is the scope of the self-concept?
The self-concept contains one's thoughts, feelings, beliefs of one's attributes and evaluations about those attributes.
What are the main differences between people with high self-esteem and those with low self-esteem?
While people with high self-esteem are oriented to be successful, take risks, and be the center of attention, people with low self-esteem have poorer perceptions about their own abilities in all areas of life, and try to avoid embarrassment, failure, and rejection by others.
What profile should a marketer aiming to attract high-self-esteem consumers use in product promotion?
The profile that marketers use to attract high self-esteem consumers should project an ideal person who is succesful in his/her own field and accepted by others.
What is the difference between the actual self in the private context and in the social context?
The actual self in the private context projects the realistic part of one's self (e.g., "I am hardworking"). The actual self in the social context includes one's evaluations about other's attributions to the self (e.g., "I think, people see me as hardworking").
How the gap between the actual self and the ideal self serve the marketing strategies?
Ideals are often expressed by imagination appeals in marketing communications (Solomon et al. 2013). As a result, when customers fantasize through such appeals, they place themselves in thrilling positions or attempt provocative roles, allowing them to encounter the self-esteem boost before having it in real life. For instance, using "before-after" images in a beauty product ad is expected to attract people whose actual and ideal selves are distant from each other.
How the potential conflicts between multiple selves can be solved by the marketers? Give an example.
Marketers can suggest products to relieve the relationship between the two selves and eliminate their conflicting situations. They can emphasize that they strengthen both selves in their advertising messages. For instance, to attract the attention of working mothers, they can use a message in ads such as, "This product will be ease to prepare your meals and you will be able to spend more time with your family"
What is the assumption of symbolic interactionism theory?
According to the symbolic interactionism theroy, people live in a symbolic environment. Situations, event, and objects make sense only if people interpret them.
What are the authoritative performances? Give some examples.
Authoritative performances are situations in which participants enrich their collective sense of identity and feel the community. Communities are lifestyle groups, affinity groups, and family. Rituals, family gatherings, ceremonies, and festivals illustrate these performances.
According to Belk's (1988) classification, what are the levels of extended-self?
According to Belk (1988), the extended-self has four levels: Individual level, family level, community level and group level.
What are the examples of products/objects that people possess on family level of the extended self?
One's house and household items like furniture.
To keep the congruency between the actual self-image and brand image, which construct motivates the person to buy the brand?
Self-consistency.
Buying the brand with social acceptance motivation provides congruency between which self-structure and brand image?
Social approval.
What are the three major characteristics of personality?
1. Personality makes people distinct from one another.
2. Personality is generally consistent and stable.
3. Personality may rarely change due to major changes in one’s life.
What is the relationship between id and superego?
According to Freud's psychoanalysis theory, id works as an impulsive mechanism of human psyche. It is related with biological instincts, such as hunger, thirst, and sex. The superego is the mechanism evaluating whether one's satisfaction methods of his/her needs is socially acceptable. The superego controls the id's impulsivity.
What strategy can marketers pursue in accordance with the trait of people's innovativeness?
Since innovative people have a strong desire to buy a new product, marketers may use market skimming pricing strategy in which they offer a high introductory price for the product.
What are the consumer characteristics of people with a high level of dogmatism?
Since people with high levels of dogmaticsm are closed-minded, they are more prone to be influenced by the authoritative figures or experts in his/her own field in the ads.
What are the differences between people with inner-directed personality traits and those with other-directed personality traits in terms of their advertisement preferences?
Advertisements that include details, characteristics, or advantages of the brand are most likely to appeal to inner-directed customers. Advertisements that feature social acceptance and emphasize social or group connections are preferred by other-directed customers.
If ethnocentrism is common in a market, then what strategy marketers can follow?
In the markets where ethnocentrism is high, marketers can use nationalistic figures, names, and audio-visual acts and objects to attract the potential customers.
What are the functions of brand personality on consumer behaviors?
Brand personality serves to establish an emotional bond with customers. As the similarity between brand's characteristics and the customer's personality traits increase, the probability to buy the brand also increases.
Are marketing theories valid for all cultural contexts? Why or why not?
No, a specific marketing strategy cannot be expected to have the same effect in different markets all over the world. The marketing theories should be considered depending on the cultural context. Their assumptions and categories should be specific to a culture or a society. Therefore, the theories should be adapted to the societies by considering cultural foundations and institutional fomrations of the targeted culture.