How the brain shops: The Circle of Life

At Fountain, we want to help our clients engage and understand their customers so their messaging resonates with them at every touch point.

In this series about how the brain shops where we will be exploring various parts of the brain, how it shops with evidence-based examples across different industries. All of these examples are driven by extensive Data Science testing, resulting in new knowledge, growth, and positive outcomes for our clients.

You can see all the series here. In the last article we helped you understand the chemical pleasure zone of shopping and the natural chemical explosion that combines in the mind.

Today we are exploring a myth; that our personality is as we were born forever more. It’s a challenge you often find in therapy and self development, an assumption based down from a time when the brain was not understood. Let’s end that and set you free.

Personality is a cycle based on the experiences you have in life. A powerful framework for understanding the self is a dynamic, evolving system. Let’s examine this in detail.

Each element in this cycle forms a continuous feedback loop, where the output of one phase inevitably feeds into the next. Here’s a breakdown of how this operates:

1. Life Experience to Behaviours: Our experiences shape our behavioural responses. For instance, encountering supportive relationships can foster openness, while repeated adversities might condition us towards caution. This phase reflects the concept of “learned behaviour” where past events guide current actions.
2. Behaviours to Habits: When certain behaviours are repeated, they crystallise into habits. Habits are essentially behavioural routines triggered by particular contexts, becoming automatic over time. This automaticity allows behaviours to operate below conscious awareness, often governing responses with minimal reflection.
3. Habits to Personality: As habits are ingrained, they merge to form the basis of personality traits. A person who repeatedly exercises patience in challenging situations, for example, develops a habit of patience that eventually becomes a defining personality trait. In psychological terms, this is the “habitualisation” of character, where habits create a stable personality structure.
4. Personality to Life Experience: Finally, personality impacts life experience by shaping perception and choices. A person with an optimistic personality might seek out and engage with positive experiences, while a more cautious person may gravitate towards safer, less risky interactions. This phase completes the loop, as the personality created by past experiences and behaviours begins to influence the new experiences a person attracts or creates.

This loop demonstrates a form of reciprocal determinism—a concept in psychology that individuals are both shaped by and shape their environments. Essentially, this cycle becomes self-perpetuating, meaning that without conscious intervention, our past continues to influence our present and future in a predictable pattern.

How to Harness This Cycle for Growth

Recognising this cycle is powerful because it allows for intentional change. By consciously adjusting behaviours or cultivating new habits, we can begin to influence personality development and, ultimately, life experience. It’s a journey that doesn’t demand an immediate transformation, but rather small, consistent adjustments in behaviours and habits that alter the trajectory of one’s personality and life experiences over time.

This cycle doesn’t suggest that personality is rigid; rather, it acknowledges personality as an evolving interplay of past and present. The power lies in our capacity to break or redirect the cycle by adopting mindful practices, questioning habitual responses, and embracing new perspectives.

As our personality evolves with our experiences, this is why we adapt what we buy, what we wear, what we eat, where we travel to. You are not who your were when you were 10, 15, 20, it’s a beautiful shopping and life experience, a circle of life:

Anytime you want more secrets of shopping and how to understand your customers shopping personality, you can test the Fountain of Knowledge in a complimentary session.

If you want to know more about how the brain shops for your specific audiences, then you can have a discovery call.

Our discovery experience includes running some Data Science x Shopping Psychology algorithms in advance of the call for maximum relevance and insights about your marketplace and brand experience.