Personality research has long been a fringe player in the study of consumer.
Little research is directly devoted to personality issues, and if.
consumer personality is investigated at all, it tends to be from the narrow.
perspective of developing yet another individual difference measure in an.
already crowded field of personality scales or considering the moderating.
effects of a given trait on some relationship of interest. Understanding the.
individual person in his or her role as a consumer should be a key issue in.
the study of consumer behavior, but in order to realize this vision the scope.
of personality research has to be broadened. In this essay I discuss recent.
work in personality psychology that may serve as the foundation for the.
development of a personology of the consumer, in which people are seen as.
dispositional, goal-striving, and narrative entities engaged in consumption in.
the broadest sense.
**********.
Personality research in the consumer context has been in the doldrums for a.
very long time. In the first 27 volumes of the Journal of Consumer Research.
(up to March 2001), 71 articles are listed under the headings of individual.
differences, personality, and self-concept (an average of about 2.6 articles.
per year). The Handbook of Consumer Behavior (Robertson and Kassarjian 1991).
contains chapters on probabilistic models of consumer choice behavior,.
neo-Pavlovian conditioning, and the role of psychophysiology in consumer.
research, but no chapter on personality research. The periodic reviews of.
consumer psychology that have appeared in Annual Review of Psychology have.
made little or no specific mention of personality research. The few articles.
that do deal with personality issues are focused on individual differences,.
and the field is balkanized and in a state of disarray. The lack of interest.
in personality is probably best reflected in extant consumer behavior.
textbooks. Some do not cover personality at all, and those that do emphasize.
