Personality and self-concept....

In nowadays world internet is the most common source of information. I am sure that many of us had an occasion to fill in various personality test found in the internet. There are hundreds of such test and we should be aware of the fact that the most part of it is of little worth. During fridays lecture's we filled in two the most popular: Simpson personality and Myers Briggs test. According to first one I am quite similar in my behavior to Ned Flanders :), who is: warm hearted individual who highly value their relationships. Customer focused with the ability to bring out the best of people. but also might be self-sacrificing and may not pay enough attention to their own needs. Ned Flanders is a person whose personality may be described in four letters: ESFJ (extraversion, sensing, feeling judging).

After “ fun and games” we tried to understand the difference between personality and self-esteem. According to Solomon(1999):

Personality: a person’s unique make up, which consistently influences the way the person responds to his or her environment

Self-concept: the beliefs a person holds about his or her own attributes & how he or she evaluates those qualities

McCrae and Cost claimed that there are five scale of personality types:

Openness to experience - appreciation for art, emotion, adventure, unusual ideas, imagination, curiosity, and variety of experience.

Conscientiousness - a tendency to show self-discipline, act dutifully, and aim for achievement; planned rather than spontaneous behavior.

Extroversion - energy, positive emotions, surgency, and the tendency to seek stimulation and the company of others.

Agreeableness - a tendency to be compassionate and cooperative rather than suspicious and antagonistic towards others

Neuroticism - a tendency to experience unpleasant emotions easily, such as anger, anxiety, depression, or vulnerability; sometimes called emotional instability.

The Brand Personality Dimensions of Jennifer Aaker is a framework to describe and measure the 'personality" of a brand in five core dimensions, each divided into a set of facets.

It is an easy to understand model to describe the profile of a brand using an analogy with a human being.

The five core dimensions and their facets are:

• Sincerity (down-to-earth, honest, wholesome, cheerful)
• Excitement (daring, spirited, imaginative, up-to-date)
• Competence (reliable, intelligent, successful)
• Sophistication (upper class, charming)
• Ruggedness (outdoorsy, tough)

Each facet is in turn measured by a set of traits. The trait measures are taken using a five-point scale (1= not at all descriptive, 5=extremely descriptive) rating the extent to which each trait describes the specific brand of interest.

The traits belonging to each of the facets are:

• Down-to-earth (down-to-earth, family-oriented, small-town)
• Honest (honest, sincere, real)
• Wholesome (wholesome, original)
• Cheerful (cheerful, sentimental, friendly)
• Daring (daring, trendy, exciting)
• Spirited (spirited, cool, young)
• Imaginative (imaginative, unique)
• Up-to-date (up-to-date, independent, contemporary)
• Reliable (reliable, hard working, secure)
• Intelligent (intelligent, technical, corporate)
• Successful (successful, leader, confident)
• Upper class (upper class, glamorous, good looking)
• Charming (charming, feminine, smooth)
• Outdoorsy (outdoorsy, masculine, Western)
• Tough (tough, rugged)

What is more, people who create advertisements know that our way of understanding the advertisement depends on personality. More information about this topic can be found in those articles:

Personality and self-concept

Personality and brands