Female vs Male... The Gender Differences in Buyer Behaviour....

Admittedly it is quite easy to see the differences between a female and a male.  However it is now relevant to discover the differences between genders when it relates to Buyer behaviour.  It is necessary to explore what influences a man and a woman to buy a product or service and what appeals primarily to them.  Marketers can not promote to men the same way they do to women due to the fact that both genders are "different biologically, psychologically, and socially," (talentzoo 2010).  Therefore to sell products to both sexes accurately, they need to consider a range of different techniques.

Firstly marketers take into consideration the issues of femininity and masculinity which play a huge part in society today.  These are also considered strong aspects of identity and self concept.  Before marketers construct promotional campaigns they need to identify the different attributes/traits that are associated with both men and women, which ultimately groups them into either gender.  For example the most stereotypical traits that males are known for are; Brave, competitive, aggressive, active and strong.  Whilst women on the other hand are usually stereotyped as being; sensitive, gentle, caring and emotional.  Advertisers will use these stereotypical traits to create products and marketing material which appeal to a certain gender

According to Solomon et al., (2010) the reason there,  is a difference in gender buyer behaviour is that many products are sex-typed, which leads to differences in gender buyer decisions, as a product usually holds feminine or masculine attributes which consumers can often associate with one gender or the other.  Marketers are the main reason why products are usually sex-typed, for example; colour coded pink baby toys and princess play houses hold the feminine attribute, which therefore will not usually appeal to a men  This also occurs with major brand names, many names containing alphanumerics (Formula 409 and Clorox 2) are assumed to be quite technical therefore assumed to be masculine.  There is also a gender difference which influences the things consumers may buy.  Studies show that men tend to buy instrumental and leisure items whilst women will tend to buy symbolic and self expressive goods.

Marketers usually discover that alternative methods may need to take place when a potential customer is male rather than female for example the use of colour in a promotion, advertising and packaging can all create and present a gender message to consumers.  Colours in adverts usually identify what gender it is aimed at.  Light pink, lilacs and reds are often aimed for women, whilst men usually relate to royal blues and greens.  In 1984 Schiebe and Condry examined different advertisements according to product type and found major gender differences in the values promoted in adverts.  For women, the promotions emphasised beauty and youth whilst with the men it was upon value ambition and physical strength.
Here are some examples of this:

This is an average advert aimed for women.  It includes both the usual emphasis on beauty and youth.  The product is based around this also.  By using an older women looking younger adds to appeal of beauty and youth, this advert would not have the same effect if it had an image of a wrinkly old women.

This advert is a classic example of a mans advert.  It shows strength through the use of a healthy looking model, who is muscly and young. The use of the sea also indicates health and strength.  The blue colours also appeal to the males.  By using a young model it tries to appeal to men as this is the type of person most men inspire to be like.

According to nielsenwire (2009) marketers who wish to appeal to women effectively, the need to get product design, packaging, pricing, branding and messaging correct.  They also need to understand how the female subconscious mind receives and processes information and directs behaviour.  Marketers also need to understand that women have better memories for more detailed information than men do however men tend to have better spatial ability and ability to build systems.  There are also many other factors/implications that advertisers need to consider these are:

For women the main implications are as followed:

1) Adverts are often more detailed

2) Women appreciated very fine distinctions such as; five different variations of shampoo.

3) Women like a collaborative conversational style dialogue

4) Women preferred strong colours and evocative images

5) Girls prefer more feminine qualities in an advert such as; soft music.

Here are some examples of adverts which appeal to women, due to many of these reasons:

The main implications for a male may include:
1) Adverts usually focus on one main object
2) Men usually pick up on one or two very obvious kinds of cues.
3) Men will need to be shown the big picture as they think in a more macro way.
4) Men are less likely to process complex metaphors.
5) Men enjoy humour in adverts and are usually more crude and aggressive.
6) Sex in adverts sell to men
7) Men find a 'chatty' style in adverts annoying.  They prefer hard data and concise language.
8) Men do not really respond to any colours and images seem irrelevant.
Here are some examples of adverts which appeal to most men:

So what is the reason behind these differences?
This part identifies scientifically the reasoning behind why buyer behaviour is different for both genders.  So here goes... Firstly the hormones each human has is responsible for the development of the body and brain.  The testerone in a person influences the growth of the body halves and brain hemispheres.  A Person can either develop a bigger left body half known as an E Type of develop a bigger right body half known as an S-type.  Every human is either born one or the other and normally stays this way all through life.

So how does this relate to gender differences?

Well... Firstly S Type people are systematises, a person like this are usually characterised by their small spectrum of interests and a high attentiveness for details.  These types of people are usually males.  Whereas an E-type person is usually a woman.  The E stands for Empathics.  This means that the consumers with this type are able to identify with a large amount of defined human emotions.  It also means that the perception and understanding of cognitive and emotional process with another person is good.  This leads to interests and other factors being different to that of an S Type person.  Therefore these are the ultimate reasons why genders behave how they do.  Due to how we were developed, our buyer behaviours are based from our brain core, when we were born.  Things that appeal to women may not appeal to men due to these facts.

Can You Think of Any Gender Differences?

Next Is The Charity Assignment...

So with a new day, brings a new assignment.  This time it is based around Charity, which to be honest, does not sound too scary.  But ofcorse this means Research again....

Firstly, it would only be right of me to explain the actual assignment to you, well actually there is three assignments involved in this.  The first one is for the module 'Understanding the Customer'  whilst another is for 'The Role of Marketing in Business'  and then finally the last one is for 'Effective Modern Marketing Communications.'  The main aspect based around these three assignments was charitable giving.  The first assignment we completed was to gather Primary and Secondary research based upon giving to charity.  The second assignment was to raise a certain amount of money for a chosen charity and finally the third assignment was to create a presentation based on all the marketing techniques which we used during this process.  But before we could actually move onto the second and third pieces, we had to gather a general basis on Charitable Giving and this is what I discovered through research:

1) General information about Charities -

• Charitable giving is becoming increasingly popular within society today, due to a majority of charities having a number of awareness and fundraising campaigns. Therefore around two thirds of adults in 2010 donated to charity, with nearly half of them donating regularly throughout the whole year, (mintel 2010). 
• Stated by charitycommission (2011) there are more than 180,000 registered charities in England and Wales which in total generate more than £52 billion income.  However according to recent research of charitable giving, donations are now down due to the recession. 
• Charitycommission (2009) suggests that 56% of charities have reported that they have been and are currently affected by the economic downturn.  Even though many consumers are committed to donating and are making plans to donate in the future, (Mintel 2010).

2) Information on Charitable Giving - To complete this task it was important that I used different research techniques which included a variety of both Primary and Secondary research.  I used focus groups, mintel, TGI and many others to discover different things about charitable giving this is what was discovered:

Firstly, it was easy to discover that males were less likely to donate than females.  Using Charities Aid Foundation (2010) its states that women aged between 45-64 are the most likely to donate to charity.  Nfpsynergy (2006) also showed that 28% of single women compared to 18% of single men would have given to charity within the last month. This was also supported by the focus groups which were held.  It was also proven that females were more likely to donate more on a regular basis.  Within the focus groups which were held one female said "I give £2 a month" whilst a male said "I don't give very often."  This again is supported by TGI (2007) where 54.7% of women and only 45.3% of men have donated over £5 to charity within the last 12 months. 

The differences between gender charitable giving was also the fact that men preferred to give to large well known charities such as; comic relief and Cancer Research as they like to see where their money is going and who it is helping.  Whilst females prefer the smaller charities, “when I see lesser known charities doing fundraising I like to help.”  This is due to women being more trustworthy than men.  TGI (2007) supports this as Cancer Research UK was the charity with the most donations, 18% of consumers would donate to them.  It was also discovered that medical and children charities were the most popular within society and both receive the most funding.

Females in both groups were motivated to donate mostly by the emotive advertising on the television, usually relating to children and animals.  When asked which charities do you give to and why? A female expressed that “those adverts on TV always get me, with the starving dogs and abused children,” whilst other female members agreed. This is shown within the TGI (2007) where a 64% of women donated to NSPCC due to the emotive adverts compared to only 36% males.  An example is shown here:

Whilst the male respondents preferred the factual advertisements where they were given genuine information about the charity and what it does and also cartoons rather than the use of realistic people.  A good example of a male orientated charity advert is:

Both genders are mainly motivated to donate due to personal experiences whether they had previously suffered or had known someone who had.  Only a little number of people would donate for religious reasons.

According to TGI (2007) the biggest age group to donate £5 or more was 65+ whilst the lowest band was 15-34.  The focus groups suggested that over 30s would donate monthly and regularly whilst students said “I couldn’t really say how often I give, it depends on my mood and if I have any money at the time.”  Another fact which I discovered using Nfpsynergy (2007) is that single women and couples with no children give the most amount of money to charity due to the fact that they have bigger disposable incomes.  Finally a surprising fact which I discovered was that although higher income households give a larger total amount to charities on average, its the lower income households which are more generous.  By this it means that a low income household will give a higher proportion of their income than people with more money.

Gather Some More Facts: http://www.nfpsynergy.com/includes/documents/cm_docs/2008/w/who_gives_to_charity_updated.pdf

In contrast to the large number of people who donate to charity due to goodwill or due to the fact that  many have been personally affected by it, I also discovered through this research that there are many selfish reasons why people give to charity.  Many people would perceive a charitable person in a good way and therefore this could lead to an ego issue, which relates to personality and self concept.  By this I mean, many people feel the main reasons they give to charity is the fact that "it makes them feel good," and "people preceive them as being charitable, nice and kind."  This ironically leads to many cases of charitable giving becoming a selfish act to make a person feel or look good amongst society.  Many people like to be perceived as kind and thoughtful, which is based around self image which does not actually relate to helping a charity.  If people have reasons such as guilt, social pressure and to impress the opposite sex which makes them give to charity, then this really suggests that a person actually is not naturally generous or charitable.

Our group 'Amity' helped raised money for 'Children with Lueakemia' we raised £715.30 through many different methods such as; ticket sales, silent auctions and online donations.  We held an event called 'Paint it Red' at 'The Wycombe Academy of Music and Arts,' which was a huge success... So all I can say now is.... WELL DONE GUYS!!

Why Don't You Give A Pound or Two??

So... Gestalt Theory!...Perceptual Set!...

OK.... So continuing from the previous blog about Attention and Interpretation,  I discussed the fact that mmarketers will consider the contrast, movement, repetition, juxtapositions and size in their adverts to attract attention and also use shock tactics  Now there is a chance to introduce and discuss the more scientific theory about advertising.

According to Chisnall, P. M., (1995) in order for a human to perceive an object, the brain will need to see the whole image of it so that we can appreciate it.  Therefore this leads to marketers leaving part of their advertisements unexplained, this means the consumer are more likely to interpret it.  To make consumers pay attention to an advertisement, the advertisers will present an  incomplete image so that a consumer can use their brain and natural instinct to create something whole.  This is described by Solomon et al., (2010), he states that the brain will create meaning from the entire set of stimuli rather than just one individual stimulus.  This is known as Gestalt Psychology and this is broken into 4 different sections:

1) Figure and Ground - The terms figure and ground explain how we use elements of a scene to make a whole.  The figure is the element which captures the persons attention whilst the background is usually undistinguished. The human eye naturally creates a figure using the foreground and ground (the background). This can be done now by looking at the computer screen , everything behind the screen is blurred.  But if you look past the computer screen into the background which is now in focus, whilst the screen is blurred.

This image is a classic example of Figure and Ground. Focus on the centre and the brain will see a white vase, then focus on the two black faces and the vase has moved into the background.





2) Grouping -  According to usask (2011) the principle of similarity states that products which share visual characteristics such as; shape, size, colour, texture, value or orientations will usually be seen by the human eye as belonging or 'grouping' together. Solomen et al., (2010) states that the items who are grouped together will form an "Integrated Whole."  Therefore marketers and advertisers have discovered that to make a more visual effect they should group their products together.

This image shows grouping well, as it groups all similar products and colours together to make it visually appealing.  Personally I think this display would catch my attention and would make want to stop and look.  If they were to be displayed individually I doubt I would notice them as an individual product.




3) Closure - This is the principle which applies to when a person sees complete figures even when part of the information is missing.

This image is an example of closure as the human eye can see the three black circles covered by the white triangles. The eye naturally draws the lines to complete the whole circles.  This is known as closure.  An advertiser may decide to create an incomplete image as they know that a consumer can create a complete image once looked at it.  The panda at the top of the page is also in this closure category.



4) Stimulus Ambiguity - An advertiser may create an image or product known as a stimulus which may not be directly related to a recognisable shape or form so that the customer has to put it into their own context to understand it.  This will help engage the consumer as they will try and make sense of what the image is. 

In this image, a women is lying down on the grass, it seems as though she is pregnant, however it actually presents the new Volkswagen beetle which is made from the yellow "jumper" of the women.  The brain is confused quickly as it tries to make sense of the image.  This helps captures a consumer's attention and leads to them becoming curious about what is being sold.

These are all different effective ways of grabbing a consumer's attention.  Gestalt psychology is a way of manipulating the brain and utilising the way it works to make an advertisement stand out.  Combined with other methods used within advertising a successful campaign can be created.

Perceptual Set

The perceptual set is used with the Gestalt Psychology and many other advertising campaigns.  The perceptual set theory is an idea of perception which involves selection. inference and interpretation.  The perceptual set is usually developed over time as is usually influence by personal experiences, upbringing, values, beliefs etc, it is a natural and individual way of thinking.  Every individual has a unique perceptual set and no two people has lived the same life.  The perceptual set is personal and deep rooted however it can be changed by marketers.  For example below is an RSPCA advert:

This may change the way people think about Cruelty to Animal.  For somebody who does not really think about animal cruelty, may change the way they think and may make them think about getting involved or perhaps may alter the way they think about the subject.  For another person who hits their pet and never saw it as an issue, may reconsider and think twice about their actions.  They may also choose t help and consequently change their beliefs.  Therefore this means through the use of marketing material someones perceptual set can change.

Gestalt Psychology Rocks!

New Subject: Attention and Interpretation...

So now we have moved away from Perception onto the next subject; Attention and Interpretation.  According to an article in The Guardian, an average person will see around 3,500 marketing messages per day. This article also explains that a London Commuter on a 45 minute journey will be exposed to around 130 adverts which feature 80 different products. Wow that's a huge amount of adverts! However apparently only around 1% of these we will remember, therefore a massive 99% make little or no impact at all.

Advertisers use adverts as a promotional tool for products and services.  They create advertisements which are used to grab the attention of a potential consumer, after this, an individual will usually interpret the campaign.  Previously discussed in the Perception Blog, was the fact that the way a person perceives or interprets a product or service is totally individual and personal, "Just as people differ in terms of the stimuli that they perceive, the eventual assignment of meanings to these stimuli varies as well," (Solomon et al 2010 p132).  Therefore an advert which may attract my attention for example, may be completely different to one that attracts my mum's.  This usually occurs when the advertisers are trying to target and grab attention from a  particular group of people, for example; men, women, children, adults etc.  

A good example of target marketing would be the Snickers advert staring Mr T in a tank:

This advert is clearly targeted at males and is used to grab their attention.  It incorporates many interests of an average man, such as; football, a big vehicle, aggressive language and uses a very masculine character.  

Whereas this Coco Pops advert is clearly aimed at children due to the use of cartoon characters, a fun catchy jingle, fast editing and bright colours.  Even though this can be considered as stereotyping, many marketers will stereotype so that they can correctly target their audience.  Many advertisers will 'group' people by age, class, gender, ethnicity, occupation or social role and target them through a common interest, "stereotypes act like codes that give audiences a quick, common understanding of a person or group of people."  In advertising, marketers will use a common interest or concept within a group of people to attract their attention within a marketing communication.  For example; the use of flowers, light colours such as; pinks and lilacs are usually shown in adverts for women.  A good example of this is the Sheila's Wheels adverts.

According to Solomon et al (2010) Attention is the degree a consumer will focus on an exposed stimuli.  Due to the fact that people are shown so many advertising stimuli means that marketers have to be increasingly creative to grab the attention of a potential customer.  Marketers will use different methods to grab the attention of a broader range of people and not just a certain target group, but every one who sees the advert.  The biggest way they do this is by using shock tactics on the audience. Shock tactics are "the use of shocking images or descriptions to force people to think about something or to do something," (macmillandictionary 2009).  Marketers do this by incorporating disturbing photographs, pictures or footage into their advertisements.  They usually probe a question which helps make the audience think about the message that they are trying to create.  Due to the fact that most of these adverts are so shocking to the consumer, they are more likely to continuously think about it.  Advertisers have used these in a number of campaigns such as;

The 'think' adverts use shock tactics continuously within their advertising campaigns.  They use these to make people think about road safety and the potential impact it has.  They use graphic footage and it definitely grabs attention.

The technique of shock tactics is often used by charities to help gain support and donations from the public.  Many small companies who have spent little money on advertising often use them as well as people will often complain about the images and the media will report about them, which leads essentially to free advertising as the the advertisement is becoming well known through the press and word of mouth.  Child abuse advertisements use shock tactics increasingly:

Another way marketers try to grab the attention of an audience is when they pose a question to the consumer (rhetorical questions) or makes a statement that makes them think about it.  A good classic example of this type is the got milk? campaign which is regularly shown in America.  This type of advertising is used for healthy living.  It is used to make people think about the nutrients in their body and if they are receiving enough calcium.  They use the phrase got milk? to make people think.

 

Marketers will also consider the contrast, movement, repetition, juxtapositions and size in their adverts to attract attention in a more controversial way than shock tactics.
The use of Large billboards in random places will have an impact on consumers:

 

Repetition is important in advertising as it is "through repetition that you establish your credibility, [and] establish brand familiarity."  It continuously reminds the consumer of a brand and stimulates brand recognition.  Usually with advertisements, marketers will use the same colours and images in all adverts.  For example:

Due to the fact that it is very difficult to achieve an effective and attractive campaign that grabs the attention of a large proportion of the audience, marketers are continuously using new techniques to achieve this.  That is the reason why adverts today have evolved so much from 10 years ago, new and old products need to grab the attention of the consumers to sell and product or service.  This can be done by using a combination of techniques identified above.

To See The Guardian Article:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2005/nov/19/advertising.marketingandpr

What Adverts Do You Remember Seeing Today?

Personality and Self Concept...

Personality and Self Concept is part of every human being.  Due to the fact that everyone is different, an individuals personality and self concept in completely unique.  It may be similar to someone else's, however it will never be the same.  It is quite difficult to distinguish between personality and self concept.  The simple definitions would be;

• Personality - is the way a person that presents themselves outwardly. Personality is "the sum total of the psychical, mental, emotional, and social characteristics of an individual," (dictionary.com 2011).  A persons personality is made from a variety of characteristic from thoughts, feelings and behaviours, which help make a person unique.
• Self Concept - this relates to how a person feels about themselves inwardly.  According to simplypsychology (2011) self concept is how we think or evaluate ourselves in different ways such as; physical, morally, personally, family and in social situation dimensions.

Usually the personality and self concept of a person will be dramatically different.  The way a person sees another person  may be completely different to how a person perceives themselves.  So how does personality and self concept of a person relate to marketing?

Through using Kotler's model of buyer behaviour it shows the major influences for buyers.  In the personal column it indicates that Personality and Self Concept influences the buyer in marketing.

According to ideastoday (2011) every individual has a unique personality which influences his or her buying behaviour.  This means that many marketers will use a persons self-concept which is related to personality to sell them a product or service.  It is important for marketers to know what buyer decisions consumers will make based on self concept.  A Self concept buyer decision could be, for example an older women buying anti-wrinkle cream to make her feel younger.  Marketers may decide not to sell a product to a person but to sell it to the person they inspire to be. Examples are:

This product here would be sold to someone who wants to look younger.

This product here would be used to sell to consumers who would like to be slimmer and lose weight.

A good example of a self concept product would be the Blackberry Phone this product is targeted for those who just want a fully functioning mobile phone whilst also targeting those who want the most current and in trend mobile.  If two customers were to go into a t-mobile store and both view a blackberry phone compared with an ordinary similar phone, which has the same functionality, colour and size, there would a difference in self concept of the person who would buy the ordinary phone compared to one that would pay a little more for the blackberry brand.  Due to the fact that both would feel different about the person they are trying or should be.  A personal example of this would be my mum and I when buying an MP3 player.  I would prefer to go for the more expensive Apple brand due to the fact that I would want to be considered 'trendy' whilst my mum would completely base it on price and functionally.

Most companies will try and ‘humanise’ their branded products with certain characteristics and a personality that will appeal to the consumers such as; being honest, friendly, and trustworthy these will all help to build stronger relationships with customers, (Brassington and Pettitt, 2007).  This shows that if the image of a brand is good then it will build stronger relationships between the supplier and customer and they can identify the brand values.

An example of brand personality would be Chanel.  This would be labelled as having a sophisticated personality due to the image it presents through the advertisements used. Within the television adverts they use A list celebrities such as; Kiera Knightley and Nicole Kidman, to present the upper class, rich and famous.  Whilst the surroundings of the advert are usually grand rooms, with expensive silk, ornaments and bright expensive lights.  Finally the actors are usually wearing expensive jewellery and clothes and are portrayed as being charming and elegant, this all helps identify and characterise the Chanel brand. Below is the TV advert:

Theorist have created a number of different concepts to help describe the relationship between personality, self concept and marketing.  Here are some of these theories:

1) Cattell's trait theory of personality - According to about.com (2011), in 1936 psychologist

Gordon Allport discovered that there were 4000 English words that described personality therefore he categorised these into three levels:

• Cardinal Traits are traits that dominate an individuals life, these usually are used to describe a person and they will usually become well know for it.  Allport suggested that these traits were rare and developed in later life.
• Central Traits are the general characteristics of a person that forms their personality, they are some of the major but not most dominate traits that help describe a person.  Words such as intelligent, honest, shy and anxious are described as central traits.
• Secondary traits usually only appear during certain circumstances such as when someone gets anxious talking to a group of people, or irritated whilst waiting in a queue.

After this, Raymond Cattell reduced the original 4000 traits into 161, then reduced this again down to 16 and then developed a well known personality assessment known as the 'Sixtenn Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF).

2) Hollander's Concentric Ring Theory - Hollander believed that a person's personality could be represented by 3 concentric rings, with the inner ring being the most difficult to penetrate.

The three rings are:

1) Psychological Core - This is the real person. the core concept and personality that individuals are usually unwilling to reveal.

2) Typical Responses - This section represents how people will respond in a situation.

3) Role Related Behaviour - This is how a person will respond to a specific situation and may present an uncharacteristic behaviour.

From Hollander's theory it shows that personality is built from a persons belief and values, and how they interact with other people. Both his theory and Cattell's reflect the fact that personality has different levels in comparison to the core and personality traits of a person may change in different situation.  Also the revelations of a specific personality trait will occur at different times.

3) Freudian Theory - Another theory is the Freudian Psycho dynamic theory.  He believed that a person's personality has 3 components; ID, EGO and SUPEREGO. These all work together to create complex human behaviours," (About.com 2011). These three components are as followed:

• ID - Represents the basic instincts, and is driven by the pleasure principle which helps gratify a persons desires, wants and needs.  If a human was ruled by this personality element they would most likely be disruptive and socially unacceptable
• SUPEREGO - This is part of our personality holds a persons moral standards and ideals.  This element will give us a sense of right and wrong.  It provides guidelines for making judgements.
• EGO - This is the element between both the ID and SUPEREGO.  It will help satisfy the ID but in a way which satisfies the SUPEREGO as well by making sure it is not disruptive and unacceptable.

A good example of this theory would be a teenage being set a curfew for 10, however they want to stay out for an hour longer this is because of the ID element, however their SUPEREGO element believes that they should arrive home on time so they do not get into trouble. Therefore the EGO will compromise and the teenage will decide to go home within 15 minutes after the curfew as they know it will not cause too much trouble.

There are many personality tests all over the Internet which can apparently determine personality traits you have.  This was a theory called 'The Big Five Scale of Personality Type.'  Researchers gathered information on people with certain traits to determine which were the five main personality categories that many people would fall into.  I completed one through BBC and my results were as followed:

• I received a 3.3 out of 5 for openness, this apparently means that I will usually stick to things that I know rather then becoming overly enthusiastic about trying new things.
• I scored  4 out of 5 for Conscientiousness.  This describes how dependable, organised and hardworking a person is likely to be.  According to this I am extremely dependable and organised.
• I scored 2.8 out of 5 for Extroversion.  This section is all about pleasure-stimulating and risk taking activities and how important they are in someones life. People who are high in this section are likely to lead risky lifestyles and take greater risks, apparently I am not like this.
• I scored 3.7 out of 5 for Agreeableness.  This measures how sympathetic and considerate a person is.  According to this I am likely to show concern for feelings and will be inclined to help those in need.
• Finally I scored 3.5 out of 5 for Neuroticism.  This section measures a persons response to threatening or stressful situations. My scores show that I may occasionally feel tense or anxious.

So there we are.  Apparently a simple test on the Internet can summarise me as a person... However I do think I have some right to disagree.  I believe that I have aspects that a test cannot prove and characteristics that marketers will never be able to understand.

On the other hand, I do think that the test has shown parts of my personality correctly.  The Conscientiousness, openness and Agreeableness section has definitely matched the perception I have of myself in that area. So Well Done BBC 3/5 correct!

Try it for yourself: https://www.bbc.co.uk/labuk/experiments/personality/

Personalities Rock!