Personality

"The inner psychological characteristics of individuals that lead to consistent responses in their environment"

(Jobber, 2010)

Perception is involved in every aspect of human life and affects judgements, awareness and social effectiveness. People differ in how they perceive the world because of differences in interests, values and motives, aka personality (Myers-Briggs Foundation, n.d.). There are so many factors that influence a development of personality starting from culture and class, to family, beliefs and lifestyle. Each personality is unique however can be categorised into sub-groups using research based indicators. The most well known psychometric test was developed by Myers-Briggs, which has consequently helped others to develop similar methods of deducing personality types. After taking the test, each candidate is given a 'type' that will describe certain traits (click of the picture above to see different outcomes). A few tests are listed below if you fancy seeing your own result:

http://www.mypersonality.info/personality-types/

http://www.personality100.com/page/registration/userreg.xml

https://www.bbc.co.uk/labuk/experiments/personality/

The relevance of personality in marketing and consumer behaviour all comes down to branding. The effectiveness of a product with the targeted audience relies on whether the company has selected the most suitable consumer for it's goods. This is very relevant to brand personality as the consumers characterise the brand on how it is perceived (Jobber, 2010) and the more the consumer can identify with the product, the more likely it is that they will purchase it. J Aaker (1997) developed the "Big Five" which differentiated brands into product categories; Sincerity, Excitement, Competence, Sophistication and Ruggedness.The brands below carry very a distinctive personality and image:

Other research into personality shows different methods for categorising people, which even relies on body size like the work by William Sheldon in the 1940's (see Figure 1). More experimental work into personality relating to body size is from Ayurvedic medicine in India which is at least 5,000 years old (Neill, 2005). This research may not be the most accurate of determinants but it is interesting to see what early scientists thought created a personality.

Figure 1