Actualizers: Actualizers are successful, sophisticated, active, take charge of people with high self esteem and abundant resources. They are interested in growth and seek to develop, explore, and express themselves in a variety of ways – sometimes guided by principle and sometimes by a desire to have an effect to make a change. Image is important to actualizers not as evidence of status or power, but as an expression of their taste independence and character. Actualizers are among the established and emerging leaders in business and governments, yet they continue to seek challenges. They have a wide range of interests are concerned with social issues, and are open to change. Their lives are characterized by richness and diversity. Their possessions and recreation reflect a cultivated taste for the finer things in life.
Fulfilleds and believers are principle oriented. Fulfilleds are mature satisfied, comfortable, reflective people who value order, knowledge and responsibility. Most are well educated and in (or recently retired from) professional occupations. They are well informed about world and national events and are alert to opportunities to broaden their knowledge. Content with their careers, families and station in life, their leisure activities tend to center ground the home. Fulfilleds have a moderate respect for the status quo institutions of authority and special decorum, but are open minded about new ideas and social change. Fulfilleds tend to base their decisions on strongly held principles and consequently appear calm and self assured. While their incomes allow them many choices fulfilleds are conservative, practical consumers; they look for functionality, value and durability in the products they buy.
Believers are conservative, conventional people with concrete beliefs based on traditional established odes: family, church, community, and the nation. Many believers express moral codes that are deeply rooted an literally interpreted. They follow established routines, organized in large part around their homes, their families, and the social or religious organizations to which they belong. As consumers, they are conservative and predictable, favoring American products and established brands. Their education, income and energy are modest but sufficient to meet their needs.
Achievers and strivers are status oriented. Achievers are successful career and work oriented people who like to, and generally do, feel in control lives. They value consensus, predictability, and stability over risk, intimacy, and self discovery. They are deeply committed to work and family/. Work provides them with a sense of duty, material rewards, and prestige. Their social lives reflect this focus and are structured around family church and career. Achievers live conventional lives, are politically conservative, and respect authority and the status quo. Image is important to them; they favor established prestige product and services that demonstrate success to their peers.
Strivers seek motivation, self definition, and approval from the world around them. They are striving to find a secure place in life. Unsure of themselves and low on economic, social and psychological resources, strivers are concerned about the opinions and approval of others. Money defines success for strives, who don’t have enough of it and often feel that life has given them a raw deal. Strivers are easily bored and impulsive. Many of them seek to be stylish. They emulate those who own more impressive possessions, but they wish to obtain is generally beyond their reach.
Experiencers and makers: action oriented. Experiencers are young, vital, enthusiastic, impulsive and rebellious. They seek variety and excitement savoring the new, the offbeat and the risky. Still in the process of formulating life values and patterns of behavior, they quickly become enthusiastic about new possibilities but are equally quick to cool. At this stage in their lives, they are politically uncommitted uniformed and highly ambivalent about what they believe. Experiencers combine an abstract disdain for conformity with an outsider’s awe of others’ wealth, prestige and power. Their energy finds an outlet in exercise, sports, outdoor recreation and social activities. Experiencers are avid consumers and spend much of their income on clothing, fast food, music, movies and video.
Makers are practical people who have constructive skills and value self sufficiency. They live within a traditional context of family, practical work, and physical recreation and have little interest in what lies outside that context. Makers experience the world by working on it – building a house,, raising children, fixing a car, or canning vegetables and have sufficient skill, income an energy to carry out their projects successfully. Makers are politically conservative, suspicious of new ideas, and respectful of government authority and organized labor, but resentful of government intrusion on individual rights. They are unimpressed by material possessions other than those with a practical or functional purpose (e.g. tools, pickup trucks, and fishing equipment).
Strugglers’ lives are constricted. Chronically poor ill educated low skilled without strong social elderly and concerned about their health they are often resigned and passive. Because they are limited by the need to meet the urgent needs of the present moment, they do not show a strong self-orientation. Their chief concerns are for security and safety. Strugglers are cautious consumers. They represent a very modest market for most products and services, but are loyal to favorite brands.
