Psychographics is a qualitative methodology used to describe traits of humans on psychological attributes. Psychographics have been applied to the study of personality, values, opinions, attitudes, interests, and lifestyles. Because this area of research focuses on activities, interests, and opinions, psychographic factors are sometimes abbreviated to ‘AIO variables’.
Psychographics are applied to the study of cognitive attributes such as attitudes, interests, opinions, and belief, as well as the study of overt behavior (e.g., activities).
Psychographic studies of individuals or communities can be valuable in the fields of marketing, demographics, opinion research, prediction, and social research in general. Psychographic attributes can be contrasted with demographic variables (such as age and gender), behavioral variables (such as purchase data or usage rate), and organizational descriptors (sometimes called firmographic variables), such as industry, number of employees, and functional area.
Psychographic methods gained prominence in the 2016 US presidential election in that the opposing campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump used them extensively in microtargeting advertisements to narrow constituencies.

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