Consumer Behaviour – week 1
Consumers’ culture
Consumers’ Culture
Imagine that you are wearing blue glasses while walking downtown in a city – everything turns blue
- culture and consumers’ culture are the glasses that filter reality
- each one of us has isole glasses, so we see the world through a specific colour
- there are several factors – demographic, and cultural – that influence how we see reality
The goal of this class is to investigate these factors, and the processes through which culture influences
consumption
Consumer culture represents the commonly held social beliefs that define what is socially gratifying within a
specific society
Examples of social differences:
- kissing when greeting each other
- alcohol consumption
Right/wrong strongly depends on the cultural context
Culture has important functions for consumers
- these functions shape the value of consumer activities and include:
o giving meaning to objects
o giving meaning to activities – different cultures can attribute a different meaning to activities
(e.g. differences in the activity of drinking coffee – for Italians extremely quick, but for Americans
having a coffee break is much longer, different consumption way, different meaning)
o facilitating communication
Cultural norms
- the rules that specify the appropriate behaviour in a given situation within a specific culture. Most,
but not all, cultural norms are unwritten and simply understood by members of a cultural group
o e.g. in Italy never show up empty-handed when being invited to someone’s place
- (if you don’t respect this cultural norm), a cultural sanction refers to the penalties associated with
performing non-gratifying culturally inconsistent behaviour
o e.g. in the previous case, being criticized when you don’t bring sth
How do cultural norms influence consumption?
- Cultural norms evolve over time
- For E.g. fashion – strongly influenced by cultural norms, evolves over time
(sth that was accepted in the 30s changed immensely in the 60s)
How is this process enacted?
There are ecological and traditional (traditions and customs are
not fixed, and can change over time) factors influencing culture
This cultural influence is considered valuable in a specific
society – And influences consumption
Example: water preservation (ecological factor) is extremely
important in the desert, in this case, the environment influences
what is important, so the core societal value and consuming
too much water is considered socially unaccepted by the society
,How do we learn about culture?
ENCULTURATION – the way people learn their native culture
Social Modelling Reinforcement
After modelling, you are
interaction Witness a specific
rewarded for what is socially
With family behaviour, and
copy it accepted, and punished for
members, and what is unaccepted
peers
ACULTURATION – the process by which consumers come to learn a culture other than their natural native
culture
What do we learn?
- Each culture has certain role expectations for its members
Role expectations – the specific expectations that are associated with each type of person within the culture
Sex roles refer to the societal expectations for men and women among members of a cultural group
Role expectations
Role conflict – a situation where the consumer experiences conflicting expectations based on cultural
expectations
Divergence – a situation in which consumers choose membership in microcultures in order to stand out or
define themselves
- she was considered one of the prettiest women in the 50s
- Back then, women didn’t shave their armpits
- In modern society, this is not the norm
- She could face a role conflict in today’s society
- She could also choose divergence – belonging to a specific microculture (activist
women standing up for their bodies)
Values
Abstract, enduring beliefs about what is right, wrong, important or good/bad
- Value doesn’t need to be shared in a specific cultural context, we can have our own individual values
Value system – our total value and their relative importance
Core societal values (Hofstede)
- Values that we share as a society
Power distance – relationships people have with
authority
In egalitarian countries (Dutch culture) – low distance
between the authoritarian figure and everyone else, in
high power distance – hierarchies are enacted (Italy)
Collectivism vs individualism
Collectivistic cultures – values of sharing commonalities are important, individualistic cultures – freedom is
more important
Uncertainty avoidance index – some cultures are extremely uncomfortable with uncertainty, so they have
structure and rules, other countries are comfortable with uncertainty
,Femininity vs masculinity – in feminine countries nurture is important, in masculine countries power is
important
Short term vs long-term orientation
Restraint vs. indulgence
in countries with indulgence, happiness and extraversion are important
In other cultures, being quiet and respectful is more important.
Personality lifestyle and self-concept
Lifestyle
Distinctive modes of living, including how people spend their time and money
- Psychographics – quantitative investigation of consumer lifestyle
- Important for companies, as most of the time target groups are described in terms of lifestyle
VALS – common technique associated with the description of groups
- Identifies different groups of consumers, and classifies them among 2 main dimensions
o Motivation – ideals, achievement, self-expression
o Resources – low resources, high resources
The two extremes:
- Survivors – low resources, low motivation
- Innovators – high resources, high motivation
Companies should target different
groups of consumers with different
marketing strategies
Geodemographic techniques
- Recently developed idea
- Techniques that provide data on consumer expenditures and
socioeconomic variables with geographic information in order to
identify commonalities in consumption patterns of households in
various regions
- E.g. map of Washington, differentiation of different areas,
described by commonalities in social and economic variables
Demographics
- The most commonly used technique
- Differentiate groups based on age, ethnicity and income
Self-congruency theory
- The basis of segmentation and targeting strategy
, - Behaviour can be explained by congruency between a consumer’s self-concept and the image of a
typical user of the product – whenever I go buy sth, I have in mind a specific image that I would like
to match
- Marketers can use congruency theory by segmenting markets into groups of consumers who
perceive high-self-concept congruence with the product-user image
o For example, if I have a strong desire for luxury, I would buy more luxury products
There is a dark side to these congruency theories
- VS models – depicting unrealistic ideals of a woman
Argo, Jennifer J., and Darren W. Dahl. "Standards of beauty: The impact of mannequins in the retail context."
Journal of Consumer Research 44, no. 5 (2018): 974-990.
- The paper studies the perception of appearance self-esteem (individual-specific variable) with the
standard of beauty (cultural variable)
Mannequins
- The appearance of female mannequins has mirrored society’s current notion of feminine perfection
- During the Depression when food was scarce, mannequins appeared affluent and well-fed (fitting
size 18 dresses)
- In contrast, today it is considered more attractive to be thinner and thus mannequins more
commonly tout a size 4 or 6 figure
Standards of beauty
- There is a litany of mediums through which the normative standard of beauty is communicated to
individuals throughout society
- Consumers are inundated with visuals of what society deems as beautiful through media and
entertainment (e.g. social media, TV, movies), and the fashion industry (e.g. fashion houses,
magazines, the catwalks)
- It is through these communication channels that the standards of beauty are defined, evolved and
brought to life
Mannequins as signals
- Mannequins, although inanimate objects, serve as normative signals of beauty that
make salient a generalized standard, and consumers compare themselves to this
standard rather than the mannequin per se
- Indeed, mannequins are designed to represent and communicate society’s current
views on what constitutes the perfect physical appearance
The role of appearance self-esteem
- Appearance self-esteem denotes the self-worth one derives from his/her body weight and image
- Past research finds that consumers who are low in appearance self-esteem respond negatively when
presented with attractive appearance-related information
Study 1A
- Present mannequins wearing a bikini and measured the reactions of participants with low and high
self-esteem whether they liked the piece of clothing or not
- FINDINGS: participants with lower self-esteem evaluated the bikini less favourably compared to
participants with high self-esteem
- IMPLICATION: standard of beauty is particularly detrimental in product evaluation when consumers
are low in self-esteem
