Psychographics is defined as a qualitative methodology that is used to describe consumers on psychological attitudes. This method has been applied to the study of personality, values, opinions, attitudes, interest and lifestyles.
Psychographic studies of individuals can be valuable in the field of marketing in determining demographic and behavioural variables of individuals. It can also be used for individual profiling which can later be used for market segmentation and advertising.
Psychographics traits are used to determine different types of mindset that exist and drive consumer behaviour. Individual or consumer behaviour can be better understood when categorized into two critical concepts namely; motivation and resources. These together determine how individuals express themselves in the marketplace as consumers.
Motivation
Consumer attitudes under motivation are further divided into three areas namely ideals, achievement and self expression. When a consumer is motivated by ideals it is likely they will be guided by principles and knowledge. Those who are motivated by achievement will look for products or services that demonstrate their success. And those motivated by self-expression look for social or physical activities associated with the desired marketplace.
Resources
Consumer consumption of products or services do not only depend on ideals, achievements or self-expression but individual resources also determines consumer expressions whether they are being constrained by the resources or not. Having looked at these two distinctive areas, the studies that were done based on these were broadly biased. They failed to mention about the cultural or gender concepts that might also greatly influence the subject at hand.
To be continued…