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.