Page 100 - MYM 2015

3. Other referenced goals – examples: It really upsets me when someone does something better than I do, I compare my performance to that of others, etc.
4. Competition Seeking – examples: I perform best when I compete with others, I like to turn things into a competition, etc.
5. Worry–examples:Whenworkingonimportant projects, I am constantly fearful that I will make a mistake, I get tense other people assess my progress, etc.
6. Emotionality – examples: My heart beats fast before I begin difficult tasks; I lose sleep because I am troubled by thoughts of failure, etc.
Using these concepts and applying the various questions and responses to those inquiries found in the MTQ questionnaires, it was possible to classify respondents to a Prosper custom survey. Their responses were then plotted against their age classi cations to create the chart found in Exhibit 7. Thus, we can begin to see how the motivational traits change over time. The charted study illustrated below was conducted in September, 2014 with a response base of 2,154 consumers age 18+.
starts to rise again. Whether or not this rebellion against aging and a clear end to life is not known but is likely worth investigating in the future.
What the measurement of these Motivational Traits does illustrate is that general changes occur with age cohorts and they can likely be used to predict consumer behaviors during a consumer’s lifetime. They would appear to be relevant foundations for all generational research although in our work, we have not found them widely used.
Both Erikson’s Stage Theory and Heggestad
and Kanfer’s Motivational Traits are important psychological tools to help understand various generations and age cohorts. Most important, it
is clear that people do change over time, thus, generational snapshots, taken at a point in time would appear to be less valuable than understanding the prior context of the person and the likely direction they will experience going forward. That will likely more clearly explain their behaviors in the future than many of the variables used in traditional generational research. Clearly there are other tools the manager should employ but these seem to be exemplary in terms of understanding generations and age cohorts.
From these two examples, we can posit Research Postulate #2:
Research Postulate #2: There are a number of psychological measures which define and explain how and why consumers behave as they do during certain age or generational periods. Thus, it is important to understand the underlying context in which generational or age cohort research is or has been conducted.
Generational In uences
In our investigations, we have found some factors of particular interest which can be used in understanding the observable generational behaviors. While these may initially seem to be unrelated, when they are included and combined in generational analysis of age cohorts, they can help enhance and expand our basic understanding of the observed behaviors of each group. In this section, we provide some of the factors which we have observed from our ongoing research. We believe when combined, they can help the marketer or market analyst paint a very vivid picture of the differences between age groups and generations. We start with a generational view of Beliefs compared to Attitudes.
Exhibit 7
Standardized Scores -- Adults 18+ -- September 2014
0.40 0.30 0.20 0.10 0.00 -0.10 -0.20 -0.30 -0.40 -0.50
Motivational Traits by Age
18-24 25-34 35-44 45-54 55-64 65+
Desire to Learn Mastery Goals Other Refrerenced Goals Worry Emotionality
Competition Seeking
There are clearly two generational groupings in the Trait responses. Desire to Learn and Mastery of Goals are evident in the 18-24 and 25-34 age groups, suggesting these are inherent in people from an early age. They increase slightly during the balance of the age tracking, only starting to decline after age 55 and continue to slide at age 65+. The other four traits, Other Referenced Goals, Worry, Emotionality and Competition Seeking start at a much higher level in the early ages, but, begin to decline rapidly after age 34. This suggests that these are learned traits and
as a person gains experience in life, their importance declines. It is interesting to note that Competition Seeking reverses that downward trend at age 64 and
100 I October 2015