Personality & Self Concept 31-11-08

Personality :

'A person's unique make-up, which consistently influences the way the person responds to his or her environment.' Solomon 2000

Within Kolter et al’s Factors Influencing behaviour, Personality and self-concept can be investigated to develop a deeper understanding of the buyer. Personality has many different definitions but they all combine to explain it is the way in which the character responds to the environment.

“Personality: Character, nature, temperament, make-up, persona, identity.”
The Concise Oxford Dictionary
“Those inner psychological characteristics that both determine and reflect how a person responds to his or her environment”
Schiffman & Kanuk (2004)

Eric Hollander’s research into personality shows four different aspects of the human personality. (KC Williams,1981 pg133)
The External Aspect: how the person interacts with other people. This can be anywhere towards anyone. Example: Neighbour to neighbour over the garden fence.
The Internal Aspect: a combination of their values & attitudes. This aspect can not always been seen but evolves as the person develops friendships.
The Dynamic Aspect: faced with a new situation how do they adjust to it. Example: Social adjustment.
The Consistent Aspect: their characteristic style. This is the part of a person personality that does not change as it is part of that individual.



Above is a clip from Only Fools and Horses. This shows great examples of all four of these aspects. The external aspect is the way in which Del Boy interacts with the women and Trigger. Two different interactions can been seen here with trigger, before the fall Del Boy is positive about going and speaking with the girls with Trigger but after he is very quickly spoken and blunt with Trigger as he wants to leave because of embarrassment. The internal aspect is more difficult to see during this clip but can be seen in the way Del Boy reacts to the fall. He wants to be seen as cool and manly so this fall has made him embarrassed then blaming Trigger for ‘cramping his style.’ The dynamic aspect is Del Boy falling through the bar. His easiest way to deal with this new situation is to escape. From previously watching Only Fools and Horses I can see the continuing characteristics of Del Boy, the Jack the Lad act with his briefcase of second-hand goods he tries to sell. This clip is very popular with the public as it is able to interact with each part of a different person’s personality.

Freud can be caused when pleasure seeking and social responsibility conflict, loud parties can cause problems for neighbours. An individuals personality consists of three different parts, ID, Ego and SuperEgo.
ID – Maximises pleasure – looking after yourself without caring about those around you. Selfish.
SuperEgo – Conscience - respecting those around you and their rules
Ego – the mediator
Each of these work together and collectively create an individuals personality.
Karen Horney (1945) developed a theory of personality, describing that an individuals personality is developed from a level of anxiety felt at being a dependant child.
Compliant – going towards others – affection/affiliation - likely to prefer brands
Aggressive – going against others – power/domination – old spice Masculine
Detached – turning away from others – isolation/indifference – tea but no brand loyalty
Each person can relate to a group, personally I find myself Compliant as I like brands as I find them secure.

Many different personality types use Facebook and other Social Networking Sites. These individuals can show there personalities though images, status, friends, groups and applications. Facebook is one of the most popular social networking sites as people of all ages all around the globe use it. Each individuals page shows there personality, photos show the individual themselves, status’ show how they are feeling, friends shows the people that influence them and groups and applications show the things in which they are interested in.

Self Concept:

'The beliefs a person holds about his or her own attributes and how he or she evaluates those qualities.'

Materials can be a way in which individuals express themselves as others see what they are publicly consuming. Newcomb defined self-concept as ‘the individual as perceived by that individual in a socially determined frame of reference.’ Self-concept does not necessarily reflect reality – an individual regarded by others as successful may see themselves as a failure. Self-concept can affect the way individuals react to those around him and the way they look at their and others lives.

William James (1980) argued that self-concept derives from social comparisons with others. These others can be peers, family members and idols (celebrities). Mead (1934) argues that self-concept is formed directly from social experiences- not just the reaction from others but also social and cultural values which we internalise. Due to the way in which media has evolved over the past decade due to Internet and the development of technology, images of the perfect person has cause many individuals to aspire to be like these. Many young teenagers as they are developing and finding who they are can easily be influenced causing the media to be discriminated when the development of anorexia and other body related problem begin to rise. I found this video in youtube about one girl whose sister had died because she did not feel beautiful, she did not see what everyone else did.


Self-Image – the kind of person we think we are – usually comprises social roles, body image and personality traits.
Ideal Self – the kind of person we would like to be which may be slightly or totally different from our self image. The larger the gap the lower the self esteem.
Self-Esteem - is the extent to which we like ourselves, whether we accept or approve of our self-image.
Within the life that I live I play many different roles from being an older sister, daughter, girlfriend, friend, student and flat mate. Each have made and influenced the way in which I look at myself and the way I act. They have affect the way that I look at my self as I have learnt to love the way that I am and not want to change it. Giving me the self esteem not to want to be something, or someone, that I truly am not.

Below shows one example of the way in which advertising is trying to get the public to see what individuals with low self-esteem see when they look in the mirror, this is an example of anorexia.


Props and products can be used to become part of an individual’s extended self, power dressing in the office. We make inferences about people based on their consumption patterns, thinking that we know an individual without actually knowing them. Symbolic self completion theory looks at the way in which individuals still define themselves using products to boost their image, e.g. Teenagers and cigarettes, young men and fast cars. Conspicuous products are those in which will been seen by others and they way the individual wants to been seen, these include cars, clothes, drinks. Functional products are more likely to be linked our actual self, these include magazines, milk, biscuits.

Individuals want to be accepted developing the way in which they see themselves and those around them.

This week I found a Hyundai advert which I found funny and shows the way in which appearance can deceiving.