Influence Of Personality And Lifestyle On The Buying Behavior Of Undergraduate Students In Universities

Influence Of Personality And Lifestyle On The Buying Behavior Of Undergraduate Students In Universities
Abstract
The study was on the influence of personality and lifestyle on the buying behavior of undergraduate students in universities in Nigeria. The study sought to determine the relationship between lifestyle and buying behavior and also the relationship between personality and buying behavior. Lifestyle was defined in terms of AIO dimension of activities, interests and opinion. Personality was defined in terms of the big five personality traits of, agreeableness, extroversion, openness to experience, conscientiousness ad neuroticism. Buying behavior was defined as brand choice. The study was descriptive in nature and specifically a cross-sectional survey design. The multi-stage, simple random, and convenience sampling methods were used to sample 323 full-time female undergraduate students. The five research hypotheses developed were tested using multiple regressions analysis.
The study revealed that lifestyle of female undergraduate students in universities does not significantly influence brand choice. The study also revealed that personality significantly influence brand choice. The study also shows that the interaction of lifestyle and personality significantly influence brand choice. The study further revealed that socio-demographic variables of female undergraduate students in universities when moderated with lifestyle and when also combined with personality significantly influence brand choice in both cases. The study recommended that psychographic segmentation based on lifestyle should be developed rather than relying only on traditional segmentation typology. The study also recommended new products should be developed and positioned based on consumer personalities. The study also recommended promotional strategies to be based so based. Where a market is competitive, the study recommended niche strategies based on personalities of the consumer
Chapter One
Introduction
Background to the Study
The survival and growth of organizations in today’s fast-paced, globalized and increasing competitive market is dependent on their ability to satisfy—and even delight customers. Customers’ satisfaction and delight hinge heavily on organizations’ identifying, understanding and implementing in the marketing strategies, information on the behaviour consumers exhibit in searching for, processing, using and disposing of products and services to satisfy their needs and wants. But these behaviours are functions of the environmental, cultural, personal and psychological factors. One of the psychological variables documented in marketing literature to influence consumers’ buying behaviour is personality (Blackwell, Miniard, & Engel, 2007; Schiffman & Kanuk, 2010; Solomon, 2011). Personality distinguishes one person from another and shaped individual’s interaction with the external environment. A person’s attitudes, tastes, preferences and values are indicative of his or her personality.
Unconscious drives, environmental influences and cognition determine personality (Myers, 1995; Burger, 2000; Franzoi, 2000; Blythe, 2008). As a person grows up his or her personality is altered or modified (Schiffman & Kanuk, 2010) by the people or event surrounding him or her or due to his or her education—be it formal or informal.
To understand this construct called personality and infuse the knowledge to gaining insights into ‘the what?’ ‘the why?’ ‘the how?’ ‘the when?’ and ‘by the whom?’ of the consumer buying behaviour, marketers, scholars and researchers have relied not only on Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytical theory, the Carl Jung-led Neo-Freudian theories, and the traits theory, but have also borrowed from other theories like, the behavioural theory, humanistic theory, and socio-cognitive theory. Of these, the trait theory has been “the primary basis of marketing personality research” (Blackwell, Miniard, & Engel, 2007, p. 273) due basically to its consistency, stability (DeJong, 2008) and its quantitative nature. There are many dimensions of personality traits, but in the 1930s, Thurstone (in Mikolajczak-Degrauwe, Brengman, Wauters, & Rossi, 2012) suggested that there are five independent common factors underlying personality, a notion supported by, Costa and McCrae (1985), John (1997), Wiggins (1996). ‘The five factor model’—as it has come to be known—consists of five broad dimensions: agreeableness, extraversion, openness to experience conscientiousness, and neuroticism. Recent researches on personality in the field of consumer behaviour, seek to find out the relationship between these five traits and consumer buying behaviour.
A segment of consumer often not considered in most studies on consumer behaviour but whose importance is increasingly felt in business and marketplace in Nigeria, is the universities’ undergraduate students. The students’ population in any university in Nigeria is a major market for providers of goods and services in the towns or cities where universities are located. In Calabar, for example, where we have two universities, the business climate experiences doldrums whenever these schools are on vacations and more acutely during periods of industrial action in the university system. The extent of these business downturn (how-be it temporal) can be appreciated when one considers the fact that most of these universities are located in (or close to) the state capital. A business downturn in the capital city would have serious repercussions on the social and economic climate of that state and by extension, the country. Despite the relevance of undergraduate students of universities to the survival, performance and growth of businesses in these cities and in the country in general, little is known about their buying behaviour, implying an under exploitation of a potentially great market segment. Previous researches on consumer behaviour often focused on demographics and cultural variables whose limitations have been acknowledged by scholars such as, Plummer (1974), Evans and Berman (1995), Kucukemiroglu (1997), Schiffman & Kanuk (2010), Solomon (2011), and Pandey and Pandey (2012). Studies that however researched on personality are scanty and limited in scope. Their emphases were more on the explanation of the development and natures of the theories of personality than on its explanatory and predictive power with respect to buyers’ behaviour. None, to the best knowledge of the author examined the moderating effect of socio-demographic factors on the influence of personality on buying behaviour, yet the need to “incorporate personality data with information about individuals’ social and economic conditions” Blackwell, Miniard and Engel (2007, p. 273) as a measure to improve the predictability of consumer behaviour has been recognized by many authors (such as, Punj & Stewart, 1983; Solomon, 2011).
Statement of Problem
Currently, compulsive buying (CB) is most often diagnosed as „Impulse Control Disorder Not Otherwise Specified‟. Though no consensus about the classification of CB as a mental disorder was yet found there is no doubt that CB is a serious psychological problem which causes significant impairments in financial, legal, social and occupational areas of functioning of an affected person.
Therefore it is of major importance to investigate the nature of CB and its antecedents in more detail. Knowing which variables significantly influence CB will help clinicians and affected persons to understand what the „driving force‟ behind this maladaptive behavior is and to address the potential source of the problem during the therapy. Because of their stability, personality traits are considered very useful in predicting behaviour. Although few studies were conducted in order to find the link between CB and personality (eg., Mowen & Spears, 1999; Balabanis, 2001; Wang & Yang, 2008), the inconsistent results prevent from drawing reliable conclusions.
The aim of the current study is to explore the causes of these inconsistencies and to give an ultimate answer to the question whether Big Five personality traits differentiate compulsive and non-compulsive buyers especially among undergraduate students in higher institution. In an attempt to clarify the link between personality traits and compulsive buying behavior as gap identified in the previous studies, a major question emerged; what are the influences of personality traits on compulsive buying among undergraduates in University of Ibadan?
Purpose of Study
The main purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of personality traits on compulsive buying behavior among undergraduates in the University of Ibadan. Hence, the specific objectives will include the following;
- Examine the influence of personality traits (conscientiousness, agreeableness, extraversion ,openness to experience and neuroticism on compulsive buying behavior among undergraduates in University of Ibadan.
- To determine the influence of income on compulsive buying behavior among undergraduates in University of Ibadan.
- To investigate the influence of gender and age on compulsive buying behavior among undergraduates in University of Ibadan.
Significance of Study
Research on marketing tools is indeed important to understand the determinants of consumers‟ purchasing intention and buying behaviour as a whole. Through this information, marketers and retailers could as well plan their resources to gain the maximum profit. Thus, this study aim to investigate the determinants of purchasing among university students in Nigeria which implies that the outcomes of the study will fill in the gap in the literature regarding this study concepts globally and expand knowledge and perspectives on the psychological factors affecting consumers‟ purchasing intention in real life situation
From the consumer perspective, this study will add to knowledge of consumer psychology and advances methodological approach to understanding the effect of prestige sensitivity, price consciousness and value consciousness on purchasing intention while considering that theories have established the direct link between intention and behaviour in the field of consumer psychology.
Additionally, the findings of the study will present better understanding and information to marketers and suggest some rationale for international retailers to develop different pricing perception strategies when expanding their business into these cultures.
The present investigation is unique in its approach in studying the comparison of the psychological characteristics of compulsive and non-compulsive buyers among faculty of the social sciences undergraduates of the University of Ibadan.
The present investigation can be particularly helpful because university undergraduates are the young adults of the country and they have the strongest possibility of coming under the spell of this buying problem.
The importance of studying compulsive buying stems, in part from its nature as a negative aspect of consumer behavior. Specifically, research on negative facets of consumption is useful because it can potentially contribute to society‟s wellbeing, an important criterion for usefulness of any research.
More so, the present research aims at improving the understanding of compulsive buying and consequently help in dealing with it in a better way and avert it from overpowering the life of the faculty of the social sciences undergraduates of the University of Ibadan.
Finally, this research is expected to provide an acceptable way of assessing and measuring the problem associated with compulsive buying behavior. This will also be a basis for further research in the area of individual behavior and attitude and enable the researchers to further investigate the factors that predispose young adults to compulsive buying behavior.
Research Hypotheses
- Personality traits (extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism, conscientiousness and openness to experience) will jointly and independently predict compulsive buying behavior among undergraduate students.
- Income level of students (high income, moderate income and low income) will jointly and independently predict compulsive buying behavior among undergraduate students.
- Female undergraduate students will significantly report higher compulsive buying behavior than their male counterparts.
- Undergraduate students who were older in age will report less compulsive buying behavior than those who were younger in age.
Operational Definition of Terms
For the purpose of this study, the following definitions were specifically referred to:
Personality:
This is the characteristic pattern of thoughts, feelings and behaviors that make a person unique. It was measured using 44-item Big-5 scale developed by Goldberg, (1999).
Compulsive Buying:
This refers to the chronic, repetitive purchasing that becomes a primary response to negative events of feelings. It was measured using 11-item scale developed by Valence et al,.(1988). High scores indicate higher compulsive buying behavior vice-versa.
Big Five Personality Traits:
Refers to five broad dimensions used by some psychologists to describe human personality.
Openness to Experience:
Is a personality trait characterized by active imagination, aesthetic sensitivity, attentiveness to inner feelings, preference for variety and intellectual curiosity.
Conscientiousness:
Is the personality trait of being thorough, careful vigilant and a desire to do a task well.
Extraversion:
Is defined as a behavior in which someone enjoys being around people more than being alone.
Agreeableness:
Personality trait manifesting itself in individual behavioral characteristics that are perceived as kind, sympathetic, cooperative, warm and considerate.
Neuroticism:
Personality trait characterized by anxiety, fear, moodiness, worry, envy, frustration, jealousy and loneliness
Chapter Five
Discussion, Conclusions and Recommendation
This chapter presents the discussion of finding with the relevant empirical studies; drawn conclusions based on the study findings and highlighted the implication and recommendation of findings with regard to the influence of personality traits on compulsive buying behavior among undergraduates in University of Ibadan. Four hypotheses were tested while only one was rejected while the remaining three were confirmed.
Discussion
Hypothesis one which stated that personality traits (extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism, conscientiousness and openness to experience) will jointly and independently predict compulsive buying behavior among undergraduate students was tested using multiple regression analysis. The results indicate that personality traits jointly predicted compulsive buying behavior among undergraduates. This result implies that personality factors jointly accounted for 45% variance in compulsive buying while the remaining 55% could be attributed to other alienated factors not considered in this study. Further, agreeableness, agreeableness , neuroticism and openness to experience independently predicted compulsive buying behavior among undergraduates. By implication, emotional instability/ neuroticism had the highest independent influence on compulsive buying than the rest personality traits. The hypothesis is confirmed and accepted.
The findings of the current study confirm the utility of the personality approach to comprehend consumer behaviour and extend our understanding of compulsive buying behaviour. The study provides strong empirical support that personality traits have impact on compulsive buying . First of all, the results confirm that outgoing, sociable, active people are more prone to buy compulsively. Compulsive buyers score higher on Agreeableness as compared to noncompulsive buyers. This effect deserves extra attention and can explain why Balabanis (2001) found a negative relation between these two variables. If we think of compulsive buying as a not socially desirable behaviour we expect Agreeable people to score lower since they are highly motivated to maintain positive relations with others (Jensen-Campbell & Graziano, 2001). This is an important finding as it shows that Agreeableness can be sensitive to the retail context under investigation and might point out, that excessive buying does not always have to be considered as socially undesirable.
As expected, Neuroticism had significant independent influence on compulsive buying. Emotional unstable people who often experience a variety of negative feelings, such as anxiety, depression, anger or embarrassment (McCrae & Costa, 1985) are more prone to buy compulsively. On the other hand, Intellect was negatively related to CB which means that the more imaginative, daring, reasonable a person is, the lower tendency she or he has to buy compulsively. Finally, the results didn‟t confirm the influence of trait conscientiousness on compulsive buying among undergraduates. This means that responsibility, precision and self-discipline are characteristic which neither prevent nor make people more prone to engage in excessive buying behavior (Thompson et al., 2003).
Hypothesis two which stated that income level of students (high income, moderate income and low income) will jointly and independently predict compulsive buying behavior among undergraduate students was tested using multiple regression analysis. The results revealed that income levels of students jointly predicted compulsive buying behavior among undergraduates. This result implies that income levels jointly accounted for 16.8% variance in compulsive buying while the remaining 83.2% could be attributed to other alienated factors not considered in this study. Further results showed that only high level of income had significant independent influence of 30.8% on compulsive buying among undergraduates . Therefore, the results support the stated hypothesis and it is accepted.
Similarly, the finding is supported by Schlosser (2009) and Mueller (2010) who found that level of income had significant influence on compulsive buying behavior among people with high level of monthly income. However since their studies were conducted in clinical samples, their aim was not to compare compulsive with non- compulsive buyers in a general consumer population but to „assess the overall life-style and problems of subjects already recognised as compulsive shoppers‟ based on monthly earnings (Schlosser 2009) and (Mueller et al., 2010) concluded that high level of income is significantly associated with high compulsive buying behavior.
Hypothesis three stated that female undergraduate students will significantly report higher compulsive buying behavior than their male counterparts. This hypothesis was tested using t-test for independent samples and the results showed that gender had significant influence on compulsive buying behavior among undergraduates. The finding from this study suggests that females reported higher compulsive buying than their male counterparts. The hypothesis is therefore confirmed.
This finding is in line with previous research on the topic (e.g., Black, 2007; Koran et al., 2006). The research revealed significant demographical differences between compulsive and non-compulsive buyers, with young women having the most chance to buy compulsively. This tendency can be due to fact, that emotional and identity-related dimensions of shopping are more important for women than for men (Babin et al., 1994; Dittmar et al., 2004) and reflect the developmental needs of young people to explore consumer activities or to establish an adult identity by material goods (Dittmar, 2005).
In addition, Tsao and Chang, (2010) reveals that the values and preferences of consumers are reflected in their personality traits, which along with gender difference influence the formation of consumers purchase motivation. For further verification, the duo conducted a research on the impact of gender and personality traits on online shopping behavior, using the big five personality traits and gender as predictor variables. The study shows that compulsive buying behavior is positively influenced by three of the big five traits: neuroticism, extraversion and openness to experience and gender. This means that the higher people are on neuroticism, extraversion and openness to experience scales, the more inclined they would be to seek out fun, excitement and enjoyment during online shopping. Also Mowen (2000) found significant gender influence on compulsive buying. Therefore, gender determines compulsive buying behavior among undergraduates.
Hypothesis four states that undergraduate students who were older in age will report less compulsive buying behavior than those who were younger in age. This hypothesis was tested using t-test for independent samples and the results showed that age had no significant influence on compulsive buying behavior among the undergraduate students. The hypothesis is therefore not confirmed.
Researchers, analysts and authors have not agreed on the correlation between age and compulsive buying behavior. Agbonifoh et al.., (2007) noted that some studies have found relationship between age and product use while others have not. Another review across numerous studies conducted by Kassarjin and Sheffets (in Arnold, Price and Zinkhan, 2002) revealed that age only explain about 10% of the variation in consumers‟ purchase and product preference but no significant influence on compulsive buying.
Mulyanegara, Tsarenko, and Anderson (2007) in their research work on the relationship between age and compulsive buying found strong correlation between age and compulsive buying behavior. Specifically, they found out that older consumers buy more compulsively than the younger ones as against the finding in this study. However, this study found no age influence on compulsive buying among undergraduates.
Conclusion
The study found that personality traits jointly and independently predicted compulsive buying behavior among undergraduates. It was concluded that personality traits are predictors of compulsive buying among university students.
Also, the study found that income levels of students have significant influence on compulsive buying behavior among undergraduates. This means that, high level income earners among students are more likely to buy compulsively.
The finding from this study suggests that females are more prone to compulsive buying than their male counterparts. In addition, age had no significant influence on compulsive buying behavior among the undergraduate students. Therefore, it is concluded that there is gender difference in compulsive behavior.
Recommendation
Several limitations of the study should be mentioned. First, cause-effect relationships could be determined from this cross-sectional data. Thus, the sample of this study was relatively small considering the size of the model being evaluated using university of Ibadan students due to time constraints. Our results should, therefore, be considered as preliminary. It is also likely that only medium or higher effects could be identified. Third, data were collected using self-reporting questionnaires. Responses to questions may be biased by individuals‟ willingness to self-disclose their feelings, selective recall, and their desire to present themselves in a socially desirable way.
Fifth, the extent to which the findings can be generalized beyond the scope of the sample remains unclear. However, based on the findings of the study, following recommendations for future research could be taken into account. For example, future researchers could focus on different sub-groups such as ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and subjects from urban and rural areas etc with respect to compulsive buying behaviour. Also, longitudinal study could be designed to replicate the study among adolescents, youth and adult in Nigeria and this might be helpful and contribute to the literature as well as expanding the understanding of factors predicting compulsive buying among various age groups


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