Concept Of Situational Self

C11CC_2016-2017: Contemporary Consumers

Consumers and Self-Identity Coursework

HW ID – H00261818

Murtuza Babat

30th Oct 2016

Words – 1337 (1027 + 310 references)

Introduction

The field of consumer behavior covers a lot of ground. It is the study of processes involved when individuals or group select, purchase, use or dispose products, services, ideas or experiences to satisfy needs and desires (Solomon, 2014). Consumer researchers have recognized that people consume in ways that are consistent with their sense of self. Consumers use possessions and brands to create their self-identities and communicate to others and themselves (Escalas et al., 2013).

The traditional view of a stable and monolithic self has been replaced

(Service – Gym) – The consumer here is into fitness and goes to the gym every day to look fit and healthy. He wants to become like a bodybuilder and have good abs and biceps. The ideal self is a person’s conception of how he would like to be whereas the actual self is the conception of how he actually is (Solomon, 2014). The consumer now does not have a perfect body (Actual self) but want to look like a muscular person in the future (Ideal self).

3- Self-Concept - Situational Self

Situational self-concept acknowledges that consumers have many self-concepts and that consumption of a brand may be highly congruent with the self-image in one situation and not at all congruent in another situation, because the self-images needed in the two situations are different from one another (Schenk and Holman, 1980)

E.g. (Product – Clothes) – The consumer uses different products and services depending on the situation and changes its behavior and personality accordingly. When the consumer goes to work, he dresses accordingly and behaves professionally, when he goes to college, he dresses semi-formal, when he is going to a religious function, he dresses in his traditional attire and when he goes to a party, he dresses casual etc.

Consumers have number of different self-images and consumption decisions vary according to the given situation and is not consistent in nature (Hogg and Michell, 1996)

4- Self-Concept – Social

(Product – Cars) – The consumer loves Cars especially sporty, muscular ones which describes the consumer’s personality as it shows the adventurous side of him and would love to own a Dodge Charger or a Nissan GTR as he feels these cars perfectly describe his personality as a sporty, tough person who loves cars and thrill

The degree of consistency between consumer’s self-concept and that of brand refers to self-congruity. Consumer behavior is determined in part, by cognitive matching between value-expressive attributes of product or brand and the consumer self-concept as shown in the above example of how the consumer loves Dodge Charger and Nissan GTR which describes a part of himself (Usakli and Baloglu, 2011).

Conclusion

This coursework helped us understand about consumer behavior and their consumption habits. Five different aspects such as of Self-Identity were explained using product/service examples which helped us understand how these aspects were integral in the understanding of consumption habits of the consumer.

Personality and self-identity play a central role in consumer behavior. Consumers use brands to communicate various aspects of themselves. We discussed about aspects of self, the extent to which these aspects are emphasized and primary function of self-concept in each approach (Szmigin, 2014)