Personality and self-concept

"The people and circumstances around me do not MAKE me what I am, they REVEAL who I am”. (Dr Laura Schlesinger)

Personality and self concept can affect people’s patterns of behaviour. Personality focuses on individuals’ traits, and people can express self-concept in the way they behave and their life style.

Personality comes from the Greek word "persona", meaning "mask"

The word “personality” derives from the Latin word „persona” which means „mask”. The study of personality can be understood as the study of „masks” that people wear. These are the personas that people project and display, but also include the inner parts of psychological experience which we collectively call our „self”. (Scheicher, 2000)

Personalities are displayed in many ways and include a wide range of psychological experience and manifestation. Personality is based on people’s behaviour, thoughts and feelings.

“Personality refers to our attempts to capture or summarize an individual’s essence. Personality is person-ality, the science of describing and understanding persons. Clearly, personality is a core area of study for psychology, if not the core. Together with intelligence, the topic of personality constitutes the most significant area of individual difference study.” (Neil, 2007)

Another definition offered by Carver and Scheier: „Personality is a dynamic organisation, inside the person, of psychophysical systems that create a person’s characteristic patterns of behaviour, thoughts, and feelings. (Scheicher, 2000)

People can check their own personality on: http://www.mypersonality.info/personality-types/

Personality is the totality of an individual's behavioural and emotional characteristics. To the personality belongs a person’s mood, opinions, attitudes, style, speaking, acting, perceiving and this is the part which makes each different.  Jung, classified people as introverts and extraverts.

No one is the same even identical twins have something different in their personality. Some people are shy and others are confident, some are reserved, some are outgoing, some are trusting, some are suspicious etc.

People can easily check how different they are from others by doing the exercise. They have to write about 10 different sentences which start from “I am” and compare this with the other people. (Schultz, 1994)

Adams suggested that we get a good idea of what personality is by listening to what we say when we use "I".  When you say I, you are, in effect, summing up everything about yourself - your likes and dislikes, fears and virtues, strengths and weaknesses.

The word I is what defined you as an individual, as a person separate from all others. (Schultz & Schultz, 1994, p.8)

A Brand personality:

Customers describe the brand personality in the trials organised by the company, for example:

    -  Volvo – representing safety / family orientation 

        -  Levi’s 501 jeans – dependable, rugged & American
    - BMW - performance drive
    - Novae – Mild and caring
    - Nike - the athlete in all of us. (Hoffmann, 2009)

A self concept is how people see themselves rather that how others see those people.

SELF-CONCEPT-“All the elements which make up a person's self. Self-concept represents how a person sees himself or herself and is thought to have three components: the ideal self (the person one would like to be); the public self (the image one believes others have of oneself); and the real self (the sum of those subjective thoughts, feelings, and needs that a person sees as being authentically theirs). Sometimes there is a conflict between the different components of self, resulting in anxiety. To maintain good mental health, the public and ideal self should be compatible with the real self.” (J.M., 1993)

The self-concept resists on three basics contents:

- the ideal self (the person you would like to be)
- the public self (the image you think other people have of you)
- the real self (what you really think about yourself).

Sometimes a conflict between the real self and the other components results in anxiety. For example in sport, this can be detrimental to performance and there are a number of psychological training methods to improve self-concept.

The self concept can refer to the past or to the future. To the future selves belong what people might become and what they would like to become, what they are afraid of or what they want to avoid in the future. The self concept corresponds to hopes, fears, standards, goals, and threats. (Scheicher, 2000)

People usually try to change from self concept the ideal concept. And individuals do everything to make themselves happier.

A person can make herself happier and it depends on the level of trust people have in themselves.

People can easily check which self-concept they have just by answering in 4 nice sentences

  to the question which are similar to these:

  How do you see yourself as a friend?

  How do you see yourself as a work colleague or neighbour?

  How do you see yourself as a partner, mother or wife etc., (J.M., 1993)

This is important because, the words you use to describe how you see yourself are most probably based on the feedback you have been receiving and/or just an image of how you would like to be perceived.
People can express their self-concept by buying products similar to their self-concept (Abhisek1511, n.d.)
In summary people can’t create their personality; it depends on the circumstances which happened in their lives and on the genes, but people can have an influence on their self-concept.

Ads and self-esteem

Advertisements have a big influence on people behaviour. The broadcasted advertisements image makes many people feeling better about their bodies or actions. Many people want to buy products presented in the ads to become a new member of the “ideal” world.

In the “old” world most people think like that: “We’re ugly, fat, our homes aren’t clean enough, we aren’t eating enough McDonald’s, we’re not spending enough time with our family......etc”

The advertisements business is to have low semi- esteemed. This will show other people that there are products which can help them with their personal problems.

Nowadays it is very easy to become part of this “ideal” group.  People just have to consume this ads tell you.

The main briefs of advertisements companies are to study customer needs, developing a desirable products, planning its promotion and reaching the selected target group. Too make these brief work ads commnpies use 4p’s (price, promotion, place, and product)

The advertsiemts due to shocking, funny or easy-to-relate-to-nature capture their targeted group.
 Ads nowadays build not only a brand image but also customers mind. If people buy the products they saw in the advertisements it make them feel better about whom they are.

The ads  above suggest that just the axe deodornt will give you enough confidenece to be in the middle of the girls.

Another commerical ads shows how the models try to pick up girls. All of them refuse.

"If guys like this can’t get girls because of their hair, what chance do you have?"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SybHYrFnjqc&feature=player_embedded

Companies develop successful campaigns and this increase their profit and in the same time they make the customer happy about this that they are.  For many people ads principles the way to realize a dream.

References:

Abhisek1511 (n.d.) [online]. Available from: http://www.scribd.com/doc/19974746/Personality-Self-Concept).

Hoffmann, R. (2009) "if we talk to men we have to keep it simple" [online]. Available from: http://notesofmarketing.blogspot.com/.

J.M., B. (1993) Personality. 3rd ed. Pacific Grove.

Neil, J. (2007) [online]. Available from: http://wilderdom.com/personality/L5-1WhatIsPersonality.html.
Peter Nejes (2003) Content and media factors in advertising. 2nd edition. USA

Scheicher, C.C.S.&. (2000) Perspectives on personality. 4th ed. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Schultz, A. (1994) Theories of Personality. 5th ed. Pacific Grove.

Sensation

Advertisements do everything to persuade the audience.  As everyone knows, one of the marketing messages is perception.  Perception includes:  sensation, attention, interpretation.  I’m going to focus on sensation in advertisements.

-          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1unA11kH76Y&feature=related  (touch, taste and sight)

 In this advertisement the first thing we see is a beautiful woman with beautiful eyes. She’s touching the chocolate with passion. She is doing this in the same way as touching the man, with love and sensibility. She eats the chocolate libidinously. She is closing her eyes.   She really seems relax and be like in a dream.  Movement in this advertisement is really sensitive.

There is a comparison to silk which collocate with luxury, nice to touch and makes the actor smile. The way the woman is moving and the dress, which is in chocolate colours are very eye-catching for both men and women. Every woman wants to be exactly in the same wonderful place she is.

The actress feel as if she is in paradise and everything is because of the taste of the chocolate, which we can read from everything she is doing.

-          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_TriPWR79Uhearing (hearing & sight)

The foundation at this advertisement is music. It makes people interested in what is going to happen in this advertisement so they decide to look at it. There is classical music which is livelier than it should be, and suddenly the audience can hear hip- hop music. It’s like a big competitions between two different worlds and this is very eye-catching. These two different worlds want to show that they are the best. It means that chocolate which has two completely different ingredients is the best. The music brings about a better mood and it’s like chocolate which makes people happier after consumption.

-          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ku1kgpWqOl4 (hearting & sight)

 Here speaking is the most important part. There is no music, which is really strange for TV advert. By shouting the man wants to give his number to a women who is sitting at completely different table and who seduces this man by her beautiful eyes. The man succeed to give the number to the woman. He is really happy and he’s showing this by rapping the beers with the other man.  It tries to shows that everything that is the best you have to dignify with beer.

The loud voice of the man gives us the hearing sensation and the eyes of the women are the sight sensation.  

-          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJFAFoTntdg (Sight, taste & smell)

This is coffee advertisement.  The background is very noticeable. Everything is in very dark colours exactly the same as the coffee beans. Although the woman has her eyes covered she can smell the taste of the coffee. The aroma is strong and beautiful enough to choose it as the best one.

Her movements are very slow and sensual. We can see that she is going to decide very carefully what is better.

-          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjJNfEvAoy4 (touch, sight & taste)

The taste of the water in this advertisement strikes the people’s fancy and it gives them happiness and delight.  They are moving to another world,  a very lively and happy one.  They are having in their mind what’s the best thing in their lives and everything is through the taste of the water.  By the taste of it the world becomes crazy, all emotions divest from the inside of their body.

 The woman is looking at the man with seduction. He has a surprise for her. He is looking at her seductively.   She is touching her lips libidinously and finally she is choosing the water she wants.  They are very happy that they have this water and each other.  They look like they have the best part of their lives.

They seem like being on the date. They both look very smart and sexy at the same time. The lights in the room where they are, are very dark and romantic. It gives a vibe to the entirety.  The music in this advertisement is well-chosen.

-          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mv5U0W8FDDk (heating & sight)

The loud singing of the choir is the first thing which the audience can hear. The actors seem like they are in a battleground. They are moving very fast and in a lively way. They are looking like two different groups. The audiences are very interested in what is going to happen in this ad. Finally they are bunching together and they are making the beer sign. People can sense that this advertising was really expensive and that it’s a  plus of this advertising what gives more respect for it.

-          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykXkmVURI-w (smell, sight)

At the beginning of the advertisement we can see the sense of smell.  The smell is moving the model to another world. The world of obscurity. She seems as if she is in paradise. A soft wind is blowing in her face and she’s starting to dream.  She is dancing and she is happy. People want to watch it because everything is in great harmony and with a beautiful view.

Sensation is used in all advertisements.  Here are just few examples of this trick which I hope explains a little bit of perception.

Sense of colour

Sense of colour.

Colours form a big part of people’s lives. Everybody see colours in a different way; everyone likes different colours and everyone has different associations with colours e.g. almost everyone sees different colours in the days of the week which is very interesting.

Colours can have different names as well. How people name them depends on the purpose for which they want to use it, the mood or just the thought they have in their minds. E.g  the “pink” colour we can name as : bubble gum, rose, dream words, flowery dress, Barbie dress, paradise rose etc.

All colours have different meanings. Everyone can associate some colours with different things from their life or different situations and emotions.

Here are some facts about the colours:

 Vivid red- this colour wakes up your libido or makes you more aggressive and inpatient.  Red activates passion as well- in the life and in a movie.  The colour red is very eye-catching. This attribute of the colour activates people’s space sense. Vivid red makes people’s heart beat faster and provokes the irritation. Here is the example of family who were bored by the colour of their yellow walls in the kitchen. They changed it to vivid red and immediately in this family there were arguments every day. Finally they realized with help from other people that they had to go back to the old colour. Fortunately calm came back to this family. (to fiolet ktos umrze, teoria koloru w filmie, Patti Bellantoni tp.2 )

Yellow- - it’s the colour of refutations. It’s the colour of daffodils and hornets. It’s the first spoor or caution. The visual offensive of this colour is the reason to use this in the caution sign. Venomous reptiles and amphibians usually have the colour yellow which gives a warning to people’s minds. In people’s minds it’s like something big which people shouldn’t come closer to.

Yellow is the colour of the sun as well: big life-giving energy.

Yellow if brighter is more elegant. Almost white yellow is the acme of supplication. Pastel yellow means purity.

 (p.42)

Sky blue- this colour is calm. In a blue environment people became limp and introspective. It is the colour of reverie not action. An example of that can be the exploit of the trainer Knute Rockne of the football team “Notre dame”. The theory says that after repainting the changing room, his team won every match. He painted blue walls in the opponents’ changing room which could make this people calm and the changing room of his team was red, which warmed up his team. Sky blue is a colour of malaise.

The expression “ true blue” arises from the observation that blue is the colour of people’s subconsciousness.

Research says that students surrounded by blue and green colours could talked a lot and they lost track of time. In the presence of brighter blue they felt needs of calm and quiet.

 p(85)

Orange-  is a little slightly different colour from the other ones.  While red is saying: “I’m here” yellow is vivid and blue very quiet orange is “nice”. If you don't like orange it doesn't mean you are not a nice person. The colour orange is the most exuberant and the least dramatically colour. this coulot doesn't have much inflence on people's behaviour.  The colour red when it is used in rooms can be associated with a romantic atmosphere. (114)

Green-  it’s a colour of dichotomy. It’s the colour of green vegetables or bad meat. Green from the first days of the planet signalled the food and danger.  In many movies green was used as a poison. When we try to drink a green drink there is  something in this that makes people not  like it.  166

Purple-  this colour is associate with the libidinous. Maybe because this colour is associated with the consumption of grapes. This colour became to the extrasensory, mystical and paranormal world. (200)

On the Internet people can find some really interesting activities which help them check their sense of colour. To this pages belong e.g. :

http://www.voiceofcolor.com/en/colorsensegame/en/game/frame_tarot.asp

Or

http://agylen.com/2007/09/12/test-your-color-sense/

It’s really good way to have some fun and check what’s your colour.

Colours have a very important meaning in people’s lives. Through colour people can explain their feelings and personality. Sometimes it can help with understanding many things.  Even to show love men give red rose for a women.