CONSUMER IN THEIR SOCIAL AND CULTURAL SETTING

&

INFLUENCE OF FAMILY AND SOCIAL CLASS ON

CONSUMER BEHAVIOR

POOJA SHARMA

PARUL GAUTAM

POOJA SONI

PUJA

POONAM

SHAILESH NARWAT

SWATI BANDIL

SUBMITTED BY:-

CONSUMER IN THEIR SOCIAL AND CULTURAL SETTING

:-

Social factors are those factors influencing consumer behavior significantly.

They fall into three categories:-

- reference groups,

- family ,

-social roles and status.

REFERENCE GROUP:-

that provide to the individual some points of comparison more or less direct about

his behavior, lifestyle, desires or consumer habits.

Within a reference group that influence the consumer buying behavior, several

roles have been identified :-

1. the initiator

2. the influencer

3.the decision maker

4. the buyer

FAMILY:-

The family is the most influencing factor for an individual. It forms an

environment of socialization in which an individual will evolve, shape his

personality, acquire values. But also develop attitudes and opinions on various

subjects such as politics, society, social relations or his desires.

for ex.- if you have never drunk Coke during your childhood and your parents

have described it as a product “full of sugar and not good for health”. There is far less

chance that you are going to buy it when you will grow up that someone who drinks

Coke since childhood.

SOCIAL ROLES AND STATUS:-

it is a set of attitudes and activities that an individual is supposed to have

and do according to his profession and his position at work, his position in the

family, his gender, etc.

CULTURAL FACTOR :-

Cultural factors comprise of set of values and ideologies of a particular

community or group of individuals.

Example - In India, people still value joint family system and family ties.

Children in India are conditioned to stay with their parents till they get married as

compared to foreign countries where children are more independent and leave

their parents once they start earning a living for themselves.

INFLUENCE OF FAMILY

ON

CONSUMER BEHAVIOR

WHAT IS FAMILY ??

A family is a group of two or more persons related by blood, marriage or

adoption who reside together .The nuclear family is the immediate group of

father, mother, and children living together. The extended family is the nuclear

family, plus other relatives, such as grand parents, uncles and aunts, cousins, and

parents-in law. The family into which one is born is called the family orientation.

What is the role of family??

The family provide banks & boundaries for its

Members.

STRUCTURAL VARIABLES AFFECTING FAMILIES :-

It includes the age of the head of the family, martial status, presence of children,

and employment status. Children increases family demand for clothing, food,

furniture, homes, medical care and education, while they decrease demand for

many discretionary items, including travel, higher-priced restaurants, and adult

clothing. Marketers can understand family decisions better by examining the

sociological dimensions of how families make consumer decisions.

cohesion adaptability communication

Cohesion:-

Is the emotional bonding between family members. It measures how close to

each other family members feel on an emotional level .Cohesion reflects a

sense of connectedness to or separateness from other family .

Adaptability :-

Measures the ability of a family to change its power structure, role relationships,

and relationship rules in response to situational and developmental stress. The

degree of adaptability shows how well a family can meet the challenges presented

by changing situations.

Communication: -

Is a facility dimension, critical to movement on the other two dimensions .Positive

Communication skills (Such as empathy, reflective, listening, support comments.)

Changing needs as they relate to cohesion and adaptability.

FAMILY DECISION MAKING :-

Individual members of families often serve different roles in decisions that

ultimately draw on shared family resources.

DYNAMICS OF HUSBAND WIFE DECISIOIN MAKING :-

Marketers are interested in the relative amount of influence that a husband and

wife when its come to family consumption choices the relative influence of

husband and wives can be classified as :-

HUSBAND DOMINATED

WIFE DOMINATED , AND

JOINT AND AUTONOMIC

FOR EX. During the 1950’s the purchase of a new automobile was strongly

husband dominated, whereas food and financial banking decisions more often

were wife dominated.

Husband-wife decision making also appears to be related to cultural

influence.

ROLES OF CHILDREN IN FAMILY DECISION MAKING :-

children also playing a most important role in family decision making process

This shift in influence has occurred as a result of families having fewer children ,

more dual income couples who can afford to permit their children to make a greater

no. of the choices, and the encouragement by the media to allow children to express

themselves.

THE FAMILY LIFE CYCLE:-

The emotional and intellectual stages you pass through from childhood to

your retirement years as a member of a family are called the family life cycle. In

each stage, you face challenges in your family life that cause you to develop or

gain new skills. Developing these skills helps you work through the changes that

nearly every family goes through. Not everyone passes through these stages

smoothly.

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Situations such as severe illness, financial problems, or the death of a loved one

can have an effect on how well you pass through the stages. Fortunately, if you

miss skills in one stage, you can learn them in later stages. Several factors

influence the ways in which they spend. Most important them are family

lifecycle .

TRADITIONAL FAMILY CYCLE:-

The traditional family cycle is a progression of stages through which many

families pass, starting with bachelorhood, moving on to marriage, then to

family growth, to family contraction, and ending with the dissolution of the

basic units. Traditional FLC:

Bachelorhood,

Honeymooners,

parenthood,

Post parenthood,

Dissolution.

INFLUENCE OF SOCIAL

CLASS

ON

CONSUMER BEHAVIOR

WHAT IS SOCIAL CLASS ?

The division of members of a society into a hierarchy of distinct status

classes, so that members of each class have either higher or lower status than

members of other classes.

Or

we can say that social class can be thought of as a continuum which includes

a range of social position on which each member of society can be placed ,

divided into a small number of specific social classes or strata . Within this

frame work, the concept of social class is used to assign individuals or

families to a social class category .

SOCIAL CLASS AND SOCIAL STATUS:-

Social class often measure in terms of social status ,Status is frequently thought of as the relative rankings of members of each social class

• wealth• power• prestige

THE MEASUREMENT OF SOCIAL CLASS:-

Systematic approaches for measuring social class fall into the following

category :-

Subjective Measures:

individuals are asked to estimate their own social-class positions

Four categories best describe your social class :

Lower class

Lower – middle class

Upper - middle class

Upper class

Objective Measures:

individuals answer specific socioeconomic questions and then are categorized

according to answers.

Objective measure of social class fall into two basic categories :

• Composite-variable indexes

• Index of Status Characteristics

• Socioeconomic Status Score

•Single-variable indexes

•Occupation•Education•Income•Other Variables

LIFE STYLE PROFILES OF THE SOCIAL CLASSES :-

To capture the lifestyle composition of various social – class grouping pieced

together from numerous sources , of the member of the following six social

classes :-

• Upper - upper class

• Lower upper class

• Upper- middle class

• Lower - middle class

• Upper – lower class

• Lower- lower class

Consumer behavior applications of social classes :-

Social – class profiles provide broad picture of the values , attitudes , behavior ,

that distinguish the member of various social classes . Consumer researchers find

the consumption behavior of various social classes .

1. CLOTHING , FASHION , AND SHOPPING :-

Social class is also an important variable in determining where a consumer

shops . People tend to avoid stores that have the image of appealing to a social

class very different from there own.

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2. SAVING , SPENDING , AND CREDIT :-

• Saving , spending and credit card uses all seems to be related to social class

standing . Upper class consumer are more future oriented and confident of

there financial acumen ; they are more willing to invest in insurance , stocks ,

and real estate .

• In comparison , lower class consumers are generally more concern with

immediate gratification ;when they do save, t hey are primarily in safety and

security.

3. SOCIAL CLASS AND COMMUNICATION :-

• Upper classes have a broader and more general view of the world•Regional variations in language rise as we move down the social ladder•Exposure to media varies by social class

CONCLUSION :-

Mastering the skills and milestones of each stage allows you to successfully

move from one stage of development to the next. If you don't master the skills,

you may still move on to the next phase of the cycle, but you are more likely to

have difficulty with relationships and future transitions.

Family life cycle theory suggests that successful transitioning may also help to

prevent disease and emotional or stress-related disorders. Whether you are a

parent or child, brother or sister, bonded by blood or love, your experiences

through the family life cycle will affect who you are and who you become.

The more you understand about the challenges of each stage of the cycle, the

more likely you are to successfully move on. The stress of daily living or coping

with a chronic medical condition or other crisis disrupts the normal family cycle.

A crisis or ongoing stress can delay the transition to the next phase of life

CONTINUE.....

you can learn missed skills and improve your and your family's quality of life at

any stage. Self-examination, education, and perhaps counselling are ways to

improve yourself and your family life.

Social class define by the amount of status that members of specific class

posses in relation to members of other classes.

To method of measuring social class i.e. SUBJECTIVE MEASUREMENT and

OBJECTIVE MEASUREMENT.

By the help of subjective measurement we can measure self perception and by

the help of objective measurement we can measure socioeconomic measure i.e.

Education, income, occupation.