Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

A new European study on human behaviour suggests that people can be divided into one of four main personality types — with 'Envious' being the most common.

The new research, carried out by a team of researchers from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid and the universities of Barcelona, Rovira i Virgili and Zaragoza, Spain, presented 541 volunteers with hundreds of social dilemmas and asked them to report on what they would do in each situation.

Participants had to make decisions based on individual or group interests, which would lead to either collaboration or conflict with others.

The decisions also had different consequences depending on what another participant involved decided to do, with Anxo Sánchez, one of the authors of the study explaining, "Those involved are asked to participate in pairs, these pairs change, not only in each round, but also each time the game changes. So, the best option could be to cooperate or, on the other hand, to oppose or betray ..... In this way, we can obtain information about what people do in very different social situations."

The researchers then created a computer algorithm to analyze the responses and classify participants into personality groups based on their behaviour.

The results showed that the majority of the participants — 90 per cent — could be divided into just four basic personality types, Envious, Trusting, Optimistic, and Pessimistic.

The holiday season is once again upon us and this year marketers have an unprecedented opportunity to blow their sales out of the water. For the first time in history, consumers over 50 make up the majority — 51 percent — of all of consumer spending according to just-released data from the U.S. Consumer Expenditure Survey.

While marketers are preoccupied with Millennials — who became the biggest adult age demo this year — consumers over 50 control 70 percent of our country’s wealth, making them a significantly greater holiday sales opportunity than their kids.

One might expect that 50+ would account for the majority of health (63%) and insurance (68%) expenditures. However, when it comes to buying for everyone on their holiday lists, consider that people 50+ are now responsible for 51 percent of all entertainment spending as well as 57 percent of big ticket items such as new cars and trucks....

What's important to understand about attribute framing is that it's entirely irrational and easily bleeds into stupid decision making.

Taking the soap example, consumers might favor soap sold as "95% Pure" over soap sold as "Only 1% Impure" even though the latter is the superior product. That's why advertisers and marketers can (and do) use attribute framing to create preference for inferior products.

So here's the kicker. The study unexpectedly revealed that male great apes were more susceptible to attribute framing than females. In other words, men are more likely than women to make an irrational (i.e. dumb) decision based upon attribute framing....

More than 90% of shoppers say price is the top reason they buy an item from a different retailer after visiting a store without making a purchase, according to research from Cognizant. As many as 55% of shoppers leave and go to another retailer’s store if they feel the price of an item is too high.

When it comes to retailers that offer the lowest prices, there are still plenty of reasons consumers can be turned off from making a purchase. Almost half (48%) of shoppers say convenience is the top reason they will not shop at the lowest price retailer. Additionally, 32% of these shoppers prefer loyalty programs at other retailers, while 31% will shop at retailers with a better return policy....