Psychographics is a qualitative methodology used to describe

trait Trait may refer to: * Phenotypic trait in biology, which involve genes and characteristics of organisms * Trait (computer programming), a model for structuring object-oriented programs (a template class in the C++ programming language) * Trait the ...

s of humans on psychological attributes. Psychographics have been applied to the study of

personality Personality is the characteristic sets of behaviors, cognitions, and emotional patterns that evolve from biological and environmental factors. While there is no generally agreed upon definition of personality, most theories focus on motivation a ...

, values,

opinions An opinion is a judgement Judgement (or US spelling judgment) is also known as ''adjudication'' which means the evaluation of evidence to make a decision. Judgement is also the ability to make considered decisions. The term has four disti ...

, attitudes, interests, and

lifestyles Lifestyle often refers to: * Lifestyle (sociology) Lifestyle is the interests, opinions, behaviours, and behavioural orientations of an individual, group, or culture. The term was introduced by Austrian psychologist Alfred Adler Alfred Adler (; ...

. Because this area of research focuses on activities, interests, and opinions, psychographic factors are sometimes abbreviated to 'AIO variables'. Psychographics are applied to the study of cognitive attributes such as attitudes, interests, opinions, and

belief A belief is an attitude Attitude may refer to: Philosophy and psychology * Attitude (psychology) In psychology Psychology is the science of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of consciousness, conscious and Unconsci ...

belief

, as well as the study of overt

behavior Behavior (American English American English (AmE, AE, AmEng, USEng, en-US), sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to the United States. Cur ...

(e.g., activities). Psychographic studies of individuals or communities can be valuable in the fields of

marketing Marketing is the process of intentionally stimulating demand for and purchases of goods and services; potentially including selection of a target audience; selection of certain attributes or themes to emphasize in advertising; operation of adv ...

demographics Demography (from prefix ''demo-'' from Ancient Greek δῆμος (''dēmos'') meaning 'the people', and ''-graphy'' from γράφω (''graphō'') meaning 'writing, description or measurement') is the statistics, statistical study of populat ...

, opinion research, prediction, and

social research Social research is a research Research is "creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge". It involves the collection, organization and analysis of information to increase understanding of a topic or issue ...

in general. Psychographic attributes can be contrasted with demographic variables (such as age and gender), behavioral variables (such as purchase data or usage rate), and organizational descriptors (sometimes called firmographic variables), such as industry, number of employees, and functional area. Psychographic methods gained prominence in the

2016 US presidential election The 2016 United States presidential election was the 58th quadrennial presidential election A presidential election is the election An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or mul ...

and the opposing campaigns of

Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton ( Rodham; born October 26, 1947) is an American politician, diplomat, lawyer, writer, and public speaker who served as the 67th United States secretary of state The United States secretary of state is an of ...

and

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician A politician is a person active in party politics A political party is an organization that coordinates candidate A candidate, or nominee, is the prospective reci ...

, with the latter using them extensively in

microtargeting Microtargeting, often used by political party, political parties and election campaigns, includes direct marketing datamining techniques that involve predictive market segmentation (aka cluster analysis). It is used by the United States Republican ...

advertisements to narrow constituencies.

Psychographic profiling

When a relatively complete profile of a person or group's psychographic make-up is constructed, this is called a "psychographic profile". Psychographic profiles are used in

market segmentation In marketing Marketing is the process of intentionally stimulating demand for and purchases of goods and services; potentially including selection of a target audience; selection of certain attributes or themes to emphasize in advertising; ...

as well as in

advertising Advertising is a marketing Marketing is the process of intentionally stimulating demand for and purchases of goods and services; potentially including selection of a target audience; selection of certain attributes or themes to emphasi ...

. Some categories of psychographic factors used in market segmentation include: * activity, interest, opinion (AIOs) * attitudes *

values In ethics Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about Metaphysics, existence, reason, Epistemology, knowledge, Ethics, values, Philoso ...

values

* behavior * expressions * gesture Psychographic can also be seen as an equivalent of the concept of "culture" when it is used for segmentation at a national level.

Comparison to demographics

Psychographics is often confused with

, where historical generations may be defined both by demographics, such as the years in which a particular generation is born or even the fertility rates of that generation's parents, but also by psychographic variables like attitudes, personality formation, and cultural touchstones. For example, the traditional approaches to defining the

Baby Boom Generation Baby boomers (often shortened to boomers) are the demographic Demography (from prefix ''demo-'' from Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the used in and the from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly d ...

Generation X Generation X (or Gen X for short) is the demographic cohort Cohort or cohortes may refer to: * Cohort (educational group), a group of students working together through the same academic curriculum * Cohort (floating point), a set of different ...

Millennials Millennials, also known as Generation Y or Gen Y, are the demographic Demography (from prefix ''demo-'' from Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ...

have relied on both demographic variables (classifying individuals based on birth years) and psychographic variables (such as beliefs, attitudes, values and behaviors).

Infusionsoft Keap (formerly Infusionsoft) is a private company A privately held company, private company, or close corporation is a corporation not owned by the government, non-governmental organizations and by a relatively small number of shareholders or com ...

published an article arguing that customer psychographic segmentation is more useful than demographic information.

References

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External links

www.netmba.com/marketing/market/segmentation

www.strategicbusinessinsights.com/vals/ustypes.shtml

appendix to ''Lee the American'' by Gamaliel Bradford
How to Use Psychographic Data in Online Marketing
by Susan Gilbert
What are Psychographics and how to form a buyer persona?
by Zia ul Hassan Market research Market segmentation Marketing research Political campaign techniques

Psychographic profiling

Comparison to demographics

See also

References

External links