Consumer Behaviour

Consumer behaviour

Word count: 1445

Introduction

The aim of this report was to choose a traditional family and establish the choices of entertainment or use of free time by the family members. In order to do this I spent two days with my chosen family so I could observe their behaviour and then I interviewed them. The transcript of this interview can be found in the appendix.

The household observed

The family that was visited and observed consisted of a middle aged couple with 2 children aged 13 (Annabel) and 18 (Jennifer). The family is English and live in London, The father (Adrian) is a software designer and the Mother (Teresa) is a biomedical scientist and is a department manager in charge of over 15 other staff members.

This family is classed as a traditional family. In the 1950’s traditional families were defined in a different way that they are today, for example in the 1950’s the father was the bread winner and the wife took care of the home, however recently the traditional family has been decreasing due to factors such as higher divorce rates, later marriages and decreasing birth rates (Assael, 2004, Pg. 435). The family is currently in the Full Nest III stage in the family life cycle (Assael, 2004, Pg. 438) this is because both children are teenagers who still live at home, This means that the family are likely to spend more money on food and household items, as well as this the family has begun to spend more money on teen related items such as clothes, electronics and recreational products. From observation I can tell that this family are in social grade B (Middle class) this is because both parents are intermediate managerial, administrative or professional (http://www.businessballs.com/demographicsclassifications.htm)

Trait theories of personality

The trait theory states that personality is composed of a set of traits that describes general response predispositions, the trait theory is applied to personality theories in marketing because specific personality variables can be measured and related to consumer usage (Assael, 2004, Pg. 302). Below is a table showing the types of personality and there characteristics:

Personality Characteristics

Melancholic Moody, anxious, rigid, unsociable, pessimistic, quiet, sober

Choleric Touchy, restless, aggressive, excitable ,impulsive, optimist, active

Phlegmatic Passive, careful, thoughtful, reliable, even tempered, clam

Sanguine Social, outgoing, talkative, easygoing, carefree, leading

Through observation I have been able to decide which personality theory best describes each member of the family. I Believe the mothers personality is Phlegmatic, I believe this because from observation she always seems very composed and in the interview it was indicated that she is careful and reliable when it comes to financial matters as the father said “Teresa takes care of the bills and how much money Annabel and Jennifer get because she’s more responsible with money than I am” The father however is more of a Melancholic personality, I believe this because in the interview he said “I don’t really go out very often I play drums and the guitar so I spend a lot of my time in my music room alone practicing” which shows that he is more of an unsociable person. As well as this he was often moody and was very anxious during the interview.

The fathers and the children’s share of the housework is limited compared to the mother although despite the unequal division the chores it never or only rarely cause differences of opinion, in the interview the mother said she makes the children do some jobs because she is “trying to teach them how to run a house and deal with more responsibility” and she states that “ if they don’t do the chores they don’t get any pocket money.” this shows that she is a вЂ?Democratic parent’ this means that she is warm and supportive and expects mutual behaviour from the children and if the Childs behaviour is considered out of bounds she will use discipline (in this case not giving the children any pocket money) (Assael, 2004, Pg. 450)

Decision making

As families are moving away from traditional roles toward more modern ones, household decision making roles are becoming less predetermined than in the past this is because �Modern husbands believe in a more egalitarian decision environment and therefore look to their wives for participation/input in every aspect of the process and expect (or accept) the wives to dominate the decision making process for some products’ (http://www.acrwebsite.org/volumes/display.asp?id=11387) In a family with children joint decision making is less likely as time becomes more constrained. In my chosen family the mother is more assertive in decision making. As shown below there are five stages in decision making:

To show which roles my chosen family fits into I will use an example of the choosing the family holiday. In the interview the father said that “We only get to go on holiday once a year because we don’t have enough time to go more” This shows that the family is time poor and there appears to be increasing competition for any spare time they do have, however when the family decides they want to go on holiday The mother starts collecting information from the internet about the places that she would like to visit, this makes her the information gatherer. The mother then shows the information that she has found and they each pick a place that they would like to go, this makes them the influencers. The final decision maker is the mother because she picks which location is better out of the two the children picked. The mother and the father are both the purchasers as they both book the holiday together on the internet and pay for it from their join account. The whole family are the consumers as they all go on the holiday. Evidence of these decisions can be seen on Appendix 1.

Shopping

In this family the mother does the grocery shopping this means that she is �the food purchaser’ the mother also pays for all of the food,