Self Concept in Consumer Behaviour

With the changing business environment, the buying behaviour of

the consumer is also changing; it is therefore critical for the
businesses and marketers to understand the behaviour of the
consumer.

Onkvisit and Shaw (1987) cited in Heath & Scott (1998) describes
that self concept is a critical and important part of consumer
behaviour because many decisions by the consumers about
purchase are directly influenced by the image individuals have of
themselves
The self concept is a complex process of gaining self awareness.
We develop a concept of who we are through our interaction and
it is the sum total of a being's knowledge and understanding of his
or her self with others
Rosenberg (1989) has described self concept as the totality of
the individual's thoughts and feelings with reference to self as an
object' (Rosenberg, 1989:1). The author feels that most of the
time if he thinks of himself and then decides which product or
service would be better for him, gives him good results in terms of
building self image, saving time and money. However, sometime it
becomes difficult to analyse and understand himself, particularly,
when purchasing leisure products because these are strongly
influence by some age groups.

Furthermore, self concept is a broad topic and it is the collection

of attitudes that consumers hold towards themselves. Self-esteem
and self image are the main parts of self concept and these are
the values with which a person views him or herself and gives
insight into people that what they are like.
But marketers mainly focus on the self image because they think
that mostly consumers select products or brands that match their
images of themselves (Schiffman and Kanuk, 1997:136).
Solomon et al (2002) and Schiffman & Kanuk (2004) have
described different categories in order to understand the
consumer behaviour and self concept; some are Economics,
Sociology, Psychographic, Demographics, and Anthropology.

In addition, self concept is a multi-dimensional concept in

consumer behaviour literature and it is comprised of components
such as apparent self, ideal self, social self, perceived self and
finally actual self.
This means he or she should understand the qualities they
possess and then appraise themselves. In the author's view,
actual self is more important to understand the self concept
because people normally tend to find themselves in their ideal self
or social self and trying to follow those personalities that are not
present in them and finally create a gap between their actual self
and their ideal and it is observed that mostly marketers try to
focus on consumer ideal image. Self concept covers different
characteristics of persons in order to understand and to appraise
oneself and these characteristics are role identities',

'relationships', possessions', 'personal attributes' and fantasies'

(Schouten, 1991). However, consumers attribute their personality
characteristics with different brands or with different products and
it is known as brand personality( Schiffman & Kanuk). Many
consumers purchase products that have affiliation with different
celebrities, thus, their personalities do not match with their
particular characteristic. However, it is also important to
understand that the personalities of people change with the
passage of time.

Self concept is an extremely complex structure whereas self

esteem is one of the components of this composite structure.
People having a low level of self esteem feel that they can not
perform well and on the other hand, people with a high level of
self esteem expect to be successful and they are willing to take
high risks.
Self esteem level changes with the situation, product, and
environment of purchasing. One person for one product or service
can have a high level of self esteem and the same person for
another product or service can have a low level of self esteem.
There is another component of the self concept which is self
image and which describes that consumers have a number of
images of what they perceive themselves as. The image
consumer have of themselves forced them to purchase a product
which is better for their self image. However, Solomon suggest
that products should be chosen whenever their attributes match
with some aspects of the self .

Schiffman and Kanuk have described different four kinds of self

images which are actual self image', how consumers see
themselves,
ideal self image', how consumers will like to see themselves,
social self image', how consumers feel others see them,
ideal self image', consumers they wish to be.
Mostly people tend to search themselves and trace out the
characteristics in their ideal self or social self and try to follow
those characteristics that are not present in them and it creates a
gap between the actual self and ideal self which is known as
fantasy'.
Similarly there is another component of the self concept which is
Looking glass self'. It is the process of imagining the reactions of
the others towards us is known as taking the role of the other or
looking glass self. Consumers try to evaluate the perception of
other people towards themselves. Few people develop the idea
that a person can know himself or herself in a better way if he or
she observes others reactions about themselves because
normally people around ourselves can judge us better than we
can.
Life style is also important to understand the self concept because
it covers the consumption patterns of the consumers. Lifestyle
represents the way one has elected to spend time and money to
purchase products or services and it is more than the allocation of
optional income (Solomon, 2004:198). Lifestyle also includes the
way a person spends his life according to society patterns,
religion or cultural norms and demographic characteristics
(Davies & Fitchett) Solomon et al describe that sexual identity is

also significant a component of the self concept and mostly

consumers are influenced by the cultural expectations that how
their gender should act, dress, speak .
The lifestyle of a person is more influenced by the society, culture,
religion and personal attitude. And due to the difference in
cultures and different society patterns mostly marketers face
problem to market their products.
Anthropology is the study of culture and culture is a crucial
concept to understand the consumer behaviour and it is the
collective memory of the society that influences the every person
of the society (Solomon et al 2002:442).Culture affects the
purchasing behaviour of individual and group of individuals,
consumer way of deciding to buy a product and culture is
normally known as an external force that influences or makes an
impact on consumer.