Social influence Flashcards
The behaviour of individuals is based
on their personal characteristics and partly on their group memberships: culture subcultures family reference groups social class
Culture
The broadest component of social behaviour – an entire society.
The collective mental programming of the people in an environment…it encompasses a number of people who were conditioned by the same education and life experience”
Perceives the world through his own cultural lens.
Includes shared beliefs, attitudes, norms, roles and values found among speakers of a particular language who live during the same historical period in a specific geographic region.
Meaning-transfer model
culturally constituted world –> transferred to consumer goods via macro mechanisms such as advertising and fashion system –> meaning is finally transferred to individual consumer through a range of symbolic actions or rituals
Rituals
A type of symbolic activity consisting of a series of steps (multiple
behaviour) occurring in a fixed sequence and repeated over time
Exchange rituals
Possession rituals
Grooming rituals
Divestment rituals
Language & symbols
To acquire a common culture, the members of a society must be able to
communicate with each other through a common language
a symbol is anything that stands for something else
Heroes
Persons dead or alive, real or imaginary, who possess characteristics which are highly prized in culture and who thus serve as models of behavior
Concept can be extended to include reference groups and opinion leaders
Cultural learning
Formal learning – adults and older siblings teach a child „how to behave”
Informal learning – child is imitating behaviour of selected others
Technical learning – teachers instruct the child in an educational environment
what to do
Group levels
- Supranational level
• underlying dimensions of culture that impact multiple cultures or different
societies
• regional character, racial or religious similarities or differences, shared or
different language - National level
• shared core values, customs, personalities and predisposition factors that
tend to capture the essence of a national character of a citizens of particular
country - Group level
• various subdivisions of a country or society
• subcultures, membership and reference groups
National culture
A country or nation-state is a politically unified population that may and often does contain more than one culture or society from anthropological perspective
National culture as a sum
Cultures are formed through the interactions of different personalities
both conflicting and complementary that create a whole that is more than
the sum of its parts
Inglehart–Welzel Cultural Map
Traditional values
Secular-rational values
Survival values - place emphasis on economic and physical security
Self-expression - values give high priority to environmental protection,
growing tolerance of foreigners, gays and lesbians and gender equality, and rising demands for participation in decision-making in economic and political life.
National character
The set of psychosocial characteristics manifested by a given national population.
Based on certain stereotypes of members of other national entities
Archetypes as an expression of culture
Recurring patterns (character types, plot structures, symbols, and themes)
that occur in mythology, religion, and stories across cultures, societies, and
time periods and as such, they personify universal meanings and basic human
experiences and can trigger unconscious responses
Subculture
A distinct cultural group that exists as an identifiable segment within a larger, more complex society.
The influence of a subculture on consumer
behaviour depends on:
Subcultural distinctiveness
Subcultural homogeneity
Subcultural exclusion
Ethnic subculture
The term ethnicity implies many dimensions including a sense of common customs, languages, religion, values, morality and etiquette
Family
Members of the most basic social group who live together and interact to
satisfy their personal and mutual needs
Socialization of family members
- Consumer socialization
• process by which children acquire the skills, knowledge, attitudes and experiences
necessary to function as a consumer - Adult consumer socialization
• ongoing process (examples – marriage, pet…) - Intergenerational socialization
• common for certain product loyalties or brand preferences to be transferred from
one generation to another
Roles
Influencers Gatekeepers Deciders Buyers Preparers Users Maintainers Disposers
Group
Group = two or more people who interact to accomplish either individual or mutual goal.
Membership group
Symbolic group
Reference group
Normative reference groups
• influence general or broadly defined values or behaviour through direct
interaction
• e.g. parents, siblings, teachers, friends, peers, associates
Comparative reference groups
• benchmark for specific or narrowly defined attitudes or behaviour
• individuals you compare yourself against and may strive to be like
• e.g. celebrities or heroes
Reference group influence
Information and experience
Credibility, attractiveness and power of reference group
The conspicuousness of the product
• products that are conspicuous or status revealing are most likely to be purchased with an eye on the reactions of relevant others
Opinion leader
Individuals that influence the decision-making process through word-ofmouth
communication, generally within certain product category
Social class
The division of members of a society into a hierarchy of distinct status classes, so that members of each class have relatively the same status and members of all other classes have either more or less status
Social comparison theory
The measurement of social class
- Occupation
- Education
- Income
Social class influence
Members of a specific social class differ in terms of what they consider fashionable or in good taste.
People tend to avoid stores that have the image of appealing to a social class very different to their own
