Intro Many factors go into the process a consumer has to deal with when negotiating through the process of buying goods and services. There are psychological and social processes that may have an influence consumer behavior. Some of those influences come from the process developed by the marketing communications. There is also a relationship between the consumer traits and their purchasing behaviors that will be evaluated in this paper. Culture also is important to consumer behavior and can affect regional and social needs. Finally, consumers are analytical and can interpret marketing messages to benefit their needs. All these points will be evaluated and explored in this paper on consumer traits and behaviors.

Psychological and Social Processes that Influence Consumer Behavior Consumers are driven by the desire to satisfy needs when they decide to make a purchase. Many of these needs are considered to be our Innate or primary needs. These needs are the physiological needs that we, as humans, require to help keep us alive, things such as food, air, water, shelter and sex. The satisfying of these physical needs are only a part, although a major one, of what drives us to buy the things we need. The problem with humans is that we are not completely satisfied with meeting our physical needs, but we also have to satisfy our Acquired needs or secondary needs. Just like the satisfaction of our innate needs helps us to feel good about our physical self. The meeting of our acquired needs, which consist of self-esteem, prestige, power, learning and social status helps us feel good about our psychological self. Consumers go through a process that helps them to select, purchase and consume the products and services that will meet their primary and secondary needs, and this process is known as consumer behavior. In this process, consumers decide