Setrotypical me!

Groups everyone belongs one but why do we as a human race seek to the need to be part of a group to fit in? Well to answer that question a good starting point would be evolution at the end of the day we descended from apes, sorry I am atheist and yes we descended from apes (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zohMSNpW91k&feature=related) anyway back to the point at hand, essentially we are animals and animals form groups for protection, safety and companionship as its written in there DNA to do so. Humans on the other hand have slightly deeper reason for forming a group similar personality's, style of clothes or even supporting the same football club, deeper reasons maybe than animals but still the reasons are not that complex as we all have a basic human instinct to hunger for a sense of belonging.

Abraham Maslows (1943) model as you can see in the picture on your right explains the theory of human motivation and if you take close look at the model you will gain some form of understanding as to why we form groups for instance friendship, a sense of belonging and respect of others.

When I take a look a look at modern society in its everyday form I see all different types of groups. Through my own life experiences I understand Maslows model the sense of belonging that the human nature craves for instance:

• Age 8 - 12 I was a skater (skateboarder) I wore baggy clothes listened to rock music and skated on anything that you could possibly skate on.
• Age 13- 18 I was what more commonly known as a chav. Not to extreme of wearing all Buberry but Nike, Addidas, Lacoste, academics, Reebok and yes occaisionally Burberry I was more going for a rude boy image like my friends rather than a stereotypical chav look.
• Age 18- 20 I stopped being a little rude boy and decided it was time to grow up have a bit more class about myself. By purchasing designer labels and getting most of my casual wear from Topman and River Island my current dress sense although I had this before university conforms to my group at university coincidence possibly but maybe we all became friends as are image portrayed that we are similar people.
  

To summarise why i showed you the changes of my group dynamics from the age of 8 to the present day, was that when I was 8-12 years of age the group I hung around with all got into skating and me being a young adolescent I didn't want not to be part of my group of friends so I conformed to what they were doing. Although I loved skating and the dress sense the sense of belonging was the motivation I needed to change my image. When I was 13-18 As my group at school were growing older we also started to have more attitude and began to think skating wasn't as cool as we once thought we were also influence by are older brothers and older peers who at the time wore tracksuits, Nike trainers, listened to Drum Bass and Hip Hop so we aspired to be like them this was a main influence in why our group image changed. My present day image was a choice I made myself not to want to be part of a group but a change I felt that I needed to portray a grow up image and start acting like an adult but I believe somewhere in my subconscious that it was also to belong to more grown up scene an adult group as so to speak. The interesting thing I find is parts of the groups you were in will always stick with you I still like rock music which was introduced to me when I was skating, I still like the rude boy clothes, I'm still heavily into my Drum and Bass. So although your image changes through the years your interests remain the same your current image just depends on the way you want people to perceive you almost like your clothes and style is your personality on the outside.

physco babble!

Personality and self concept. For marketing professionals getting into the mind of consumers and physcology in consumer behaviour is far from easy and there are working models and theory's behind why the personality and self concept of a consumers effects there brand choice and purchasing but no defined logic into why they purchase what they purchase due to humans being unique in the decisions they make marketers can only try use these models to determine consumer behaviour.

Kotlers buyers model gives a good insight into what makes up a certain buyer. To analysise the model precisely isn't easy but my insight into the model will give you and understanding of the model from aspiring Marketeer. The theory Kotler is establishing in this model is that every tiny individual aspect of our background, religious beliefs, class status eg. working class, upper class, personality, social groups and family groups essentially make up who we are as consumers. To help you understand this concept I am going to create a fictional character to put Kotlers what makes up a buyer theory into real life secanario. James is a outgoing 21 year old, he moved to England from Nigeria with his parents at the age of 5, James social class is working class his mum is a part time cleaner and his dad is a factory worker. James is currently studying at Bucks University doing a music production course and dreams of one day becoming a RnB music producer all James friends are into the same music and follow the same street fashion sense. James is looking to buy new clothes with his student loan. Due to James being into RnB decides he wants something street like an addidas tracksuit also it conforms to his friends dress sense, represents his social class and occupation as being a student he cant afford expensive designer clothes, James likes to stay in touch with his African roots so he wants something a tracksuit with bright colours to stand out this will also portray his bubbly personality. As you can see from this example its summaries Kotlers point you can see that details from Jame's life and the way he thinks makes up the purchase decision of what tracksuit he wants to buy James may not be aware hes even thinking things as they are part of his personality encrypted in his DNA which make up who he is as a person so these thoughts come naturally to him therefore he doesn't need to think about it because that who he is which determines James purchasing decisions. All these separate things make up James personality which ultimately makes up his decisions when it come to purchasing.

Personality

Personality the favourite quote I ever learnt on personality in my lectures which I felt best summarised the term was those inner phycological characteristics that both determine and reflect how a person responds to his or her environment Schiffman & Kanuk (2004). This is is great summary meaning that in separate or the same situations depending on a whoever we are we will act differently depending on our personality I guess finding your soul mate would be finding some who responds to situations the same as you in my case possibly seems to do ridiculous things like I do like laugh in a funeral now that's just not normal.

There is a scale called the big five scale of personality's you can see below you can be more of one than the other you don't necessarily only fall into a category you could be completely evenly balanced throughout the scale but each trait determines and makes up your personality.

• Extraversion (sometimes called Surgency). The broad dimension of Extraversion encompasses such more specific traits as talkative, energetic, and assertive.
• Agreeableness. Includes traits like sympathetic, kind, and affectionate.
• Conscientiousness. Includes traits like organized, thorough, and planful.
• Neuroticism (sometimes reversed and called Emotional Stability). Includes traits like tense, moody, and anxious.
• Openness to Experience (sometimes called Intellect or Intellect/Imagination). Includes traits like having wide interests, and being imaginative and insightful.

I took the big five personality test on www.similarminds.com to see where I lied on the scale and id like to share it with you.

Self concept

Self concept is how you as person perceive your self people may see for example as confident person but really I seek approval from other people to be confident doesn't actually come naturally to me. Self concept all in all isn't reality because how people perceive is most likely not how we perceive are selves you value your self through your own self concept.



Ideal self

People will go to extreme lengths to create their ideal self. People feel that purchasing products that can change you for example appearance or status will help you achieve your goals in life of how you want other people to perceive you as a person. This effects people on different levels depending how content and secure they are with their life and appearences but each person in there mind will fantise sometimes about how they wish to look to feel ultimatley satisfied. Many products and services appeal to consumers as they help for their fantasys to become reality and with todays technology people can look a them selves digitally enhanced to see what they could look like for instance if they had plastic surgery. To take a look at some cases Michael Jackson for example although he had plastic surgery because he was bullied by his father for his appearence he was originally a very good looking person but because of the torment he suffered although he was good looking and people perceived him as this he thought he was ugly went to drastic methods to change his appearence proving it doesnt matter how postive peoples perceptions are on you all that matters is your self concept.

This also links in closely with self esteem self esteem is how satified you are with your self image and seems to be apart of why people fantise about their ideal self. One way we as advertisers can use self esteem to our advantage is self-essteem advertising which attempts to change product attiudes by sitimulating positive feelings about the self. One stratergy is to challenge the consumer's self esteem and then show a linkage to a product that will provide a rememdy (Soloman,2006,p.209). I feel this form advertising is brilliant connecting with a person or people every person has self esteem issue weather they feel good about them selves or bad but every person is still trying to improve there self image no matter how good they feel about themselves so this is a great marketing tool to use whan advertising in my opinion.