Chapter 3: Consumer Motivation and Personality

Flashcards covering key definitions and theories from Chapter 3 of Consumer Behavior, 12th Edition, regarding consumer motivation, personality, and self-image.

Motivation

The driving force within individuals that impels them to act, involving internal psychological processes that drive purchasing decisions and brand engagement.

Intrinsic Motivation

A type of motivation where consumers are driven by internal rewards, such as personal enjoyment, curiosity, or self-expression.

Extrinsic Motivation

Motivation that stems from external rewards or incentives, such as discounts, rewards programs, or social recognition.

Biogenic Needs

Innate or primary physiological needs required for sustenance, including food, water, air, and protection.

Psychogenic Needs

Learned needs acquired from parents, social environments, and interactions with others, which have nonphysical origins.

Generic Goals

Outcomes that consumers seek in order to satisfy physiological and psychological needs.

Product-specific Goals

Outcomes that consumers seek by using a given product or service.

Approach Objects

Positive outcomes that people seek to achieve through their behavior.

Avoidance Objects

Negative outcomes that people want to prevent or avoid.

Frustration

The feeling that results from failure to achieve a goal.

Defense Mechanisms

Cognitive and behavioral ways to handle frustration, used to protect one's ego from feelings of inadequacy.

Rationalization

A defense mechanism involving inventing plausible reasons for being unable to attain goals, such as claiming there was not enough time to study.

Projection

A defense mechanism where an individual blames their own failures and inabilities on other objects or persons.

Henry Murray

A psychologist who prepared an extensive list of psychogenic needs in 1938, organized into five groups: ambition, materialistic, power, affection, and information.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

A five-tier hierarchy of human needs progressing from lower-level biogenic needs to higher-level psychogenic needs (Physiological, Safety, Social, Egoistic, and Self-actualization).

Self-actualization Need

An individual's desire to fulfill his or her potential to become everything he or she is capable of becoming.

Motivational Research

Qualitative studies, pioneered by Dr. Ernest Dichter, designed to uncover subconscious or hidden motivations in buying and consumption.

Anthropomorphism

Attributing human characteristics to something that is not human.

Projective Techniques

Qualitative tools like storytelling or sentence completion that require respondents to interpret ambiguous stimuli to reveal subconscious motives.

Personality

The unique and relatively stable patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that characterize an individual.

Freudian Theory

A theory by Sigmund Freud maintaining that unconscious needs or drives, especially biological and sexual ones, are at the heart of human motivation and personality.

Id

The component of personality in Freudian theory that seeks immediate pleasure and gratification.

Superego

The component of personality that represents moral values and societal rules.

Ego

The rational part of the personality that mediates between the desires of the id and the societal expectations of the superego.

Neo-Freudian Theories

Foundations expanded from Freud by thinkers like Karen Horney and Alfred Adler, emphasizing social relationships and culture rather than pure instinctual drives.

CAD Scale

A classification system proposed by Karen Horney that groups individuals into three personality types: compliant, aggressive, and detached.

Trait Theory

An approach to personality that focuses on measuring specific, observable characteristics such as innovativeness, materialism, and brand loyalty.

Dogmatism

A personality trait reflecting a person's degree of rigidity and receptiveness toward new ideas and information.

Optimum Stimulation Level (OSL)

The degree to which people like novel, complex, and unusual experiences compared to a simple and calm existence.

Brand Personification

The process of giving human characteristics, personality traits, or emotions to a brand to make it feel like a person consumers can relate to.

Actual Self-image

The way consumers currently see themselves.

Ideal Self-image

How consumers would like to see themselves.

Social Self-image

How consumers feel others see them.

Ideal Social Self-image

How consumers would like others to see them.

Extended Self

The concept that consumers' possessions can confirm or extend their self-image, functioning as identity markers.

Physical Vanity

An inflated view of one's physical appearance.

Achievement Vanity

An excessive concern with or inflated view of one's personal achievements.