OUGD601 - Research - Consumer Psychology

Cathrine Jansson-Boyd (2010) - Consumer Psychology

• Research suggests that humans buy products for reasons other than their practical functions. 
• Often goods and services are brought because people believe that they somehow represent/reinforce who they are. 
• We judge others by their material possessions, meaning that consumption is now an important part in the creation and maintenance of identities. 
• Having a clear concept of who you are and how you fit into society is important in that it generates feelings of belongingness and well-being. 

Before making notes on each chapter I read through and then attempted to answer related questions to help better understand the content which I was reading..

(which can then be re-appropriated later on upon actually writing/structuring my essay)

In what ways can products/services relate to consumers identities?

Products act as an aid for people in deciding/knowing where they fit in; giving them this feeling of belongingness. The fact that we compare and categorise ourselves to others based on possessions shows how these products have meanings and can be used to represent different values and beliefs. 

They also often show an ideal lifestyle to the consumer, making them reflect and build their own 'ideal' body image (this can be seen as a negative factor).

How do consumers use products/services within social interaction?

Consumers use products to form an identity of how they wish to be perceived by others - in order for this to work they need to be able to imagine how they're being perceived to build on it. Allowing them to better identify with themselves, thus interact with others. 

Narcissists wish others to see them as special and superior' therefore by buying expensive products they feel and appear more desirable, so others will envy them. 

Consumers use products/services inline with their beliefs, to attract and interact with similar sort of people. The meaning of their products are built up from its marketing, which is then subsequently reinforced by their social environment.

The Social Comparison Theory 

.. states that the continuous comparison of ourselves to others is driven by a need to maintain and sometimes increase positive self-esteem.

- Downward Social Comparisons allow us to compare ourselves to those who do less well, and therefore we appear to do better. This is something of a default for humans. 

- Upward Social Comparisons often occur in situations in which we cannot choose who we compare ourselves with, and are often people who are deemed more desirable - this can have a harmful effect on our self-esteem. Within branding, celebrity endorsement can be used as an example of this. 

The boosting of self-esteem is used as a visual communication device in the Dove 'real beauty' campaign - it makes use of ordinary women to promote their products, therefore increasing the consumers self-esteem & making it more relatable for the everyday woman. Unlike other cosmetic and fashion brands who use photoshopped, unrealistic representations of the body - having negative effects on the everyday consumer, boosting this unrealistic image of how they think they should look to fit into society.

Other examples include: 

- Apple - associate personality types with their brand and their products

- Nespresso - upward comparisons to George Clooney (upward social c)

- Other perfume adverts relating to body image and the Ideal Self

Are there any ethical issues? 

Consumers can begin to look at themselves negatively changing their body drastically through cosmetic surgery in order to look a certain way, these unrealistic images that are shown through the mass media can lower people's self esteem make them feel horrible. Rosenthal and Jacobson self-fulfilling prophecy study shows 'assumptions about an individual will also change their behaviour in line with expectations'.

- In summary, Jansson-Boyd (2010) discuss how consumers buy into products/services to help build their personal identity and also the public identity - how they wish to be perceived by others. Brands use values and beliefs that consumers believe in to entice them to buy products that the consumer feels work inline with their personality and identity. Using stereotypes and categorisation means brands can appeal to a specific demographic, consumers use categorisation to establish how they want to be perceived, consumers can identity what they find appealing and unappealing which will intern put them into a specific category. 

Identity & Possessions

• Identity is the subjective concept of how an individual views themselves (Vignoles, Regalia, Manzi, Golledge & Scabini, 2006). 
• Knowing who you are allows more people to answer questions such as where they fit in and where they belong, something that is an essential part of being human (Lewis, 1990)
• Because our identities are subjective, the way in which we see ourselves is influenced by individual experiences, & groups in which we belong to (Sedikides & Brewer, 2001)

• A person can have more than one identity, the number an individual has depends on how many different social situations they frequently find themselves in. Generally people may play many different roles in life - e.g. during the daytime, they fit the role of a lawyer, while in the mornings and evenings the same person acts as a mother to three. Some roles are more integral to our identities than others, such as being a wife, student, or boss; while others might only dominate peoples lives in certain circumstances.
• What all the above roles have in common, primary or secondary roles, is that people can use different types of products to represent them (Goffman, 1959). 
• Consequently we consume in the hope of reinforcing or establishing the roles in which we find ourselves in / desire to be in.

• However the impact of who we are, upon the way in which we behave  is suggested to be largely unconscious (Bargh, McKenna & Fitzsimons, 2002) meaning that consumers may not be aware if their self-concept guides their consumption behaviour.

• The idea that people use their possessions to express who they are is not a new concept. Especially since the 70s, research has confirmed that possessions do play an important role in how people perceive themselves and others (Belk, ’88, 2008) - We are becoming more and more materialistic!
• William James wrote as early as 1890 about how people’s self is reflecting by their belongings. This demonstrates how for a long time people have made use of belongings to express who they are. 
• But the realisation that goods and services can be used to express individuality and group membership has been further underlined by the fact that the last hundred years have seen continuous increase in the amount of products that people can choose from. This, combined with constant, mass bombardment of advertising continuously encouraging people to be materialistic in a way that peoples self-worth becomes reduced to that of a consumer (Kanner & Gomes, ’95), this means identities are linked to their consumption.

• The formation of identities is complex and start early on in life and continue to develop throughout. 
• Human identities are continuously moulded and influenced by parents, siblings, friends, peers, school, society, as well as advertising ands other cultural influences.
• Once people have reached adulthood, they tend to incorporate their feelings, motivations, political beliefs, religious beliefs, physical outward appearance, group memberships, age and the material possessions they own to describe themselves (Dittmar, 1992). The incorporation of so many various characteristics to express who we are shows how our identities are multi-dimensional. 
• It is often overlooked that others have more than one identity - this is because humans have a ‘basic need to simplify and impose order on the world (Hogg & Abrams, ’88, p.78). If we ‘pigeonhole’ others, then we feel that we know where we stand in relation to what they represent and who they are. 
• Consequently humans (often subconsciously) consign others to groups (social categorisation) and compare themselves to others (social comparison) in an attempt to impose order on the world as well as distinguishing how people are similar/different to themselves. Both categorisation and comparison enable us to figure out who we are as individuals. 

Social Categorisation  

• Humans categorise the world around them in relation to themselves - so its easier to find similarities/differences to themselves
• The perception of others (people perception) is often affected by people’s material possessions
• .. whilst classification of objects (object perception) can be influenced by marketing & advertising (Dittmar, 2004a; Hebl & King, 2004)
• Through categorising individuals, others & yourself can become depersonalised - as we tend to focus on the groups they belong to and type of possessions they own, we view them as a representation of what the groups and possessions stand for rather than as individuals in their own right. Hence individuals are viewed as prototypes, meaning we can assign them stereotypical characteristics and treat them/behave accordingly
• BUT, is characterisation actually representative of what the person is really like? Research has repeatedly shown that brands and products can indeed be used to generate accurate opinions about what others are like. Even possible when you haven’t even met or seen the owner of the possessions…

Gosling, Ko, Morris & Thomas (2002) found that people could correctly judge another person’s personality just by having a brief look at their office and bedroom. Similarly, this was also found by Alpers & Gerdes (2006) when they asked participants to match cars with their owners and they were able to correctly pair the two - presumably such matchmaking skills are based upon the fact that people already have a clear stereotype of what kind of person would use a particular product (e.g. Belk, Mayer & Bahn, ’82) - so we can make use of those concepts to accurately categorise others?

Social Comparison

• An important source of understanding oneself is through comparisons with others.
• Social comparison is about how people learn about themselves by comparing similarities/differences to others
• The continuous comparison to others is driven by a need to maintain and sometimes increase positive self-esteem. Individual self-esteem is linked to feelings of belongingness, which is supported by being a member of groups. 
• “Just as clothing, accent, grooming and jewellery can distinguish an individual from others and express an individual sense of being, they can also indicate group identity and express belonging to a group” (Belk, 1988, p.208)
• This theory can easily be applied to how people compare themselves to the ideals generated by the consumer culture we live in. 
• From a consumer perspective, purchasing the right kind of products and services can make them feel like they belong - this is often driven by different types of marketing techniques by the brand. E.g. American Eagle Outfitters used the slogan ‘Live your life’ - this was meant to inform the consumers that those wearing their jeans were highly individual people who’s  lives are greatly unique - so if you wanted to fit that demographic, you needed some AE jeans!

• Downward Social Comparisons - generally people seek out those who appear to be doing less well (in one way or another), so when we compare ourselves to them we appear to be doing better ourselves (Wills, 1981) - aiming for the feeling of superiority and to increase your self-esteem
• Upward Social Comparison - when we compare ourselves to others who are viewed as more competent or desirable, e.g ‘ideal’ media images - this can have a harmful effect on our self esteem. As shown by the extensive explorations regarding how women rate their own physical attractiveness & the impact it has upon self-esteem (Martin & Gentry, ’97; Martin & Kennedy, ’93)

Symbolic meaning of products / interactionism

• The fact that we categorise and compare ourselves to others based on our possessions clearly show how material goods have meaning.
• Brands and products can be transformed into symbols and in turn become ways of communicating with others. 
• The meaning of the product mostly comes from the marketing and is then subsequently reinforced by the social environment.

• Symbolic Interactionism looks at how the self arises out of, and is continually modified by, human interaction. To interact effectively with others, people make use of symbols with a shared meaning. Most of the time, these symbols are constructed through continuous social activities (Mead, ’34). The social activities are then used by individuals to reconstruct and express who they are, as well as to decide what others are like. All of this happens subconsciously (Greenwald, ’80)
• (http://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences-and-law/sociology-and-social-reform/sociology-general-terms-and-concepts/symbolic) - the general understood consensus/meaning of a word/thing in society. 
• Another aspect, is that individuals must be capable of viewing themselves from the perspective of others.

• You learn gradually from a young age that material possessions mean certain things, this is done through direct and in-direct learning methods. 
• In-direct learning - such as observation of others may be through the media or immediate social surroundings. 
• Direct learning - through interaction with others and objects. 
• An example of in-direct learning through the mass media is that children repeatedly see on tv that those who have certain toys have more friends. Subsequently they will soon start to believe that to be popular, they need to own specific types of possessions.
• Children also learn early on how others respond to them in a certain way depending on the objects they own, such as clothes & toys. 

• Consumers choose products they think will make them appear more appealing, they also choose what NOT to buy. Opposite to our ‘ideal self’ is our ‘undesired self’. 
• People emphasise who they are through what they consume, as well as what they stay away from.

• Groups use consumption to signal to others how they somehow belong together: It is done through the use of certain brands, products and services to differentiate themselves from others by using them to demonstrate their commonality with the groups to which they belong to (Jenkins, 1996). But this must be recognised by non-group members in order for the collective group identity to become apparent - the products need to have that clear symbolic value. 

Brand identification

• There is no doubt that individuals make use of goods and services to ‘make sense’ of those around them, compare themselves to others, and to signal group membership.
• All 3 show a strong association between people and material possessions, however, none consider whether the number of people who use certain products can play a role in the popularity of its identification. Nor, if there are certain types of people who are more likely to engage and express than others. 

• Some consumers have a stronger relationship with their preferred brand than other users of a similar product category and this has been linked to the number of product users. In a study where Mac and PC users were compared, Apple was found to be much more likely to be part of a consumers self-concept (Brunel, Tietje & Greenwald, 2004)  
• The stronger self-connection to the product was explained by the fact that Macs are less commonly used and hence make the user think of themselves as part of a small closely knit community (Muniz & O’Guinn, 2001). 
• (Applied to that of Supreme? Being indie and alternate)
• Because of the smaller number of people who were using Mac v.s PC, it may be that it fosters ‘a strong social bond and deep-routed loyalty’. 

• There are those who are abit more likely to make consumer choices in line with how they wish to be perceived by others. One such category of people is those with narcissistic tendencies (Sedikides, Gregg, Cisek & Hart, 2007).
• The underlying idea is that narcissists wish others to see them as special and superior and consequently will purchase expensive products that are viewed by most as being highly desirable. Purchasing such products helps them feel good about themselves since others will admire and envy them because of their possessions - they want others to look up at them, so seek products/services with greater symbolic value.

Self-fulfilling prophecy. 

• People consume to reinforce who they are, but does genuinely alter someones identity?
• It is known that people assign attributes to others based upon what they wear, the kind of services they use and the possessions they own, consequently people can alter the way others perceive them by consuming the ‘right’ kind of products. By doing so, they can also change how people behave towards them, and then because they are treating a particular way they start to act accordingly - this is known as the self-fulfilling prophecy!
• (Most famous study by Rosenthal and Jacobsen in ’68) - carried out on school children 
• The study clearly showed that assumptions about an individual affect how we interact with them and after some time the individual will also change their behaviour in-line with the expectations.

(More points on negative aspects of consumption -  body image)

Self-discrepancy theory

• One there that offers a clear explanation as to why people become unhappy with their physical appearance is the self-discrepancy theory (Higgins, 1987). The theory proposes that people have 3-types of self-schema 

1. Actual self - the real you

2. Ideal self - the self we aspire to be

3. Ought self - the way we think we should be

• The ‘ideal self’ helps us to strive to be the best version of ourself (in your own opinion), whilst the ‘ought self’ prevents us from doing this that are not in-line with what we ‘should’ be like - e.g. the ‘ideal self’ may help you to strive to have a body like Brad Pitt, whilst the ‘ought self’ might help you to strive to not be really obese.
• It is important that there are no discrepancies between the ‘actual’ and ‘ideal’ self or the ‘actual’ and ‘ought’ self. If there are discrepancies, it can motivate a person to reduce the gap. However if they fail to do so, a discrepancy between the ‘actual’ and ‘ideal’ self it can lead to feelings of dissatisfaction and disappointment; whilst a discrepancy between the ‘actual’ and ‘ought’ self can lead to agitated types of emotions like anxiety or fear. 
• Those with high discrepancies are much more likely to suffer from low-self esteem (DIttmar, 2004b) and it has been suggested that they are also more likely to ‘engage in identity-seeking buying behaviour’ (DIttmar, 2008a, p.104)