Psychographics – Meaning and Uses

Psychographics play an important role within market research and insight gathering exercises, as it essentially the study of personality, values, opinions, attitudes, interests, and lifestyles.

Psychographic variables are sometimes confused with demographics which are more factual in nature (e.g. Age, gender, social class, ethnicity etc). At a broader national level, UK psychographics could be seen as an equivalent to the concept of “culture”.

Psychographics are typically used alongside demographics to create an image and understanding of the customer. When a complete profile of a person or psychographic make-up is constructed, this is called a “psychographic profile” which is often illustrated in an amalgamation of pictures and words to characterise their values, attitudes and beliefs. Psychographic profiles are used in market segmentation as well as in advertising testing and evaluation.

For research methods for collecting and gathering research go to our quantitative research methods page.