BU432 Chapter Notes - Chapter 14: Social Code, Agnosticism, Ingroups And Outgroups
BU432
Chapter 14: Cultural Influences on Consumer Behaviour
Understanding Culture
• Culture is a concept crucial to the understanding of consumer behaviour, may be thought of as a
soiety’s pesoality
o Includes both abstract ideas, such as values and ethics, as well as the material objects
and services that are produced or valued by a group of people
o The accumulation of shared meanings, rituals, norms, and traditions among the
members of an org or a society
o The les though hih people ie poduts
o Determines the overall priorities he/she attaches to different activities and products
• Relationship between consumer behaviour and culture is a 2-way street
o G & s that resonate w the priorities of a culture at any given time have a much better
chance of being accepted by consumers
o The study of new products and innovations in product design successfully produced by a
culture at any point in time provides a window into the dominant cultural ideals of that
period
Aspects of Culture
• Culture is not static
• A cultural system consists of 3 functional areas:
o Ecology – the way in which a system is adapted to its habitat
▪ Shaped by the tech used to obtain and distribute resources
o Social structure – the way in which orderly social life is maintained
o Ideology –the mental characteristics of a people and the way in which they relate to
their environment and social groups
▪ Revolves around the belief that members of a society possesses a common
world view; that is, they share certain ideas about principles of order and
fairness
• Ethos – a set of moral and aesthetic principles
Factors that Differ Across Culture
Values and Norms
Values
• Values refer to shared beliefs shaped by individual, social, and cultural forces
• What sets cultures apart is which values are seen as being relatively more important – that is,
which ones are more heavily emphasized
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• Eey idiidual ithi a gie ultue ay ot edose the alues eually, ut it’s usually
possible to identify a general set of core values
• Hofstede’s 5 diesios of alues:
o Power distance – the extent to which the less powerful members of organizations and
institutions accept and expect that power is distributed unequally
▪ High- > degree of inequality in society & orgs
o Uncertainty Avoidance – a soiety’s toleae fo uetaity a aiguity
▪ High – tend to dislike and avoid uncertain, novel, or unusual situations
o Masculinity/Femininity – the degree to which gender roles are clearly delineated:
Traditional societies are more likely to possess very explicit rules about the acceptable
behaviours of men and women
▪ Masculine- assertiveness, dominance, comp, and segregation of gender roles
▪ Feminine- modesty, caring, compassion, less differentiation
o Individualism/Collectivism – the extent to which the welfare of the individual vs. that of
the group is valued
▪ Collectivist culture – people subordinate their personal goals to those of a
stable in-group
• Self-disiplie & Aeptig oe’s positio i life
▪ Individualist culture- attach more importance to personal goals, and people are
more likely to change memberships when the demands of the group become
too costly
• Personal enjoyment, freedom, excitement, and equality
o Long-term orientation – tends to foster an orientation toward future rewards, such as
perseverance and thrift
▪ ST values virtues related to the past and present, including respect for tradition,
peseatio of fae, ad fulfillig soial oligatios
o Indulgence vs. restraint – the extent to which a society allows relatively free gratification
of natural human drives related to enjoying life and having fun
Norms
• Values are very general ideas about good and bad goals
• From these flow norms, or rules dictating what is right and wrong, acceptable or unacceptable
o Enacted norms are explicitly decided upon (traffic lights)
o Crescive norms are embedded in a culture, and discovered only through interaction with
other members of that culture
▪ A custom is a norm handed down from the past that controls basic behaviours,
such as division of labour in household or the practice of particular ceremonies
▪ A more is a custom with a strong moral overtone; often involves a taboo, or
forbidden behaviour, such as cannibalism
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