Consumer Personality

Chapter 6 examines personality as a pattern of psychological characteristics that determine and reflect an individual’s responses to their environment. Personality theories reviewed include Freud’s psychoanalytic model of the id, ego, and superego, along with neo-Freudian perspectives such as Jung’s archetypes and Horney’s theory of neurotic needs. The chapter then introduces self-concept approaches that distinguish actual, ideal, social, and ideal social selves, and considers how these distinctions inform the understanding of brand personality. In its discussion of self-identification, it explains how individuals use brands and possessions to construct and signal identity, and how over-attachment can foster materialism and psychological vulnerability. Finally, the chapter presents self-observation – a mindful awareness of one’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors – as a pathway toward a more authentic self with an integrative, nonattached personality.