Consumer Psychology Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words - 1

Consumer Psychology - Essay Example It determines for the consumer, how he sees himself. Personal self image is formed by the sense of identity, the feelings of self worth and self esteem (Blackwell, Miniard, and Engel, 2006). It can be explained as what qualities and attributes, one associate to his personality in order to define himself. This self-concept of an individual can be reflected through the choices he makes for himself. These choices are not just related to the decisions he made in his routinely life but this can be observed by every single gesture that he makes. Each action of an individual makes a specific statement about that person. While determining personal self-concept, the choices of products that one makes, also reveal much about a consumer and his needs. For example, a smoker, who has a personal self image about himself, to be a kind of a person who likes to be isolated, aloof, and lonely with nature or he associates himself to the cow-boyish image, he would rather prefer to have Malboro cigarettes. He would feel himself much related to Malboro’s brand and its advertisements. He would associate with that brand personality in a much better manner than any other consumer not having such attributes (Gehrt & Yan, 2004). Social self concept can be described as how consumers feel that others and society see them. This is how society interprets a person’s image and how society evaluates the choices of products and services made by an individual (De Mooij, 2011). For example if a husband chooses to gift his wife a Tiffany’s diamond ring on their anniversary publically in a party, then people would make an image about that husband, as him to be a very caring, loving and concerned husband. This is how consumer of a product would feel people think of himself. There is another concept that lies within the domains of social self concept is the ideal social self image, this concept is defined as an individual’s desire to