Chapter-6: Social Groups

Chapter-6: Social Groups

What is a Group: Not every collection of individuals is a group, as the term is used by sociologists. A group consists of people who have a sense of relatedness as a result of interaction with each other. Consider four people sitting on a bench at the university, they may be only a group if they have a shared sense of relatedness though interaction, that is if they all friends, or classmates in a consumer behavior course. The marketing implication is that market segmentation typically does not involve social groups but instead uses categories since the people are not all interacting with one group.

Classification of Groups: Groups may be classified as:

(i) Content or Function: Most of us view the content of groups in terms of their function. For example, we categorized them along such lines as students, factory workers, mosque members and so on. Actually they are subtype of the major kinds of groups that we encounter in a complex society, which could generally be categorized along such lines as family, ethnic, age, sex, political, religious, residential, educational occupational and so forth.

(ii) Degrees of personal involvement: Using this criterion groups can be classified as primary and secondary. A primary group is that interpersonal relationships take place usually on a face-to-face basis, with great frequency, and on an intimate level. These groups have shared norms and interlocking roles. Families, work groups etc are examples of such group. Secondary groups are those in which the relationship among members is relatively impersonal and formalized. Political parties, Unions, Associations occasional sports groups.

(iii) Degree of organization: Groups range from those that are relatively unorganized to highly structured forms. We specify them into two categories: (a) Formal groups are those with definite structure (e.g. they may have a president, vice president, secretary etc.), they are likely to accomplish specific goals, whether economic, social, political etc. (b) Informal groups are typically primary groups, characterized by a relatively loose structure, a lack of clearly defined goals or objectives, unstructured interaction and unwritten rules because of the extent of their influence on individual values and activities.

Group Properties: In order to understand the nature of groups better, we need to examine several other important concepts.

(i) Status: Status refers to the achieved or ascribed position of an individual in a group or in society, and it consists of the rights and duties associated with that position. We refer status in a prestige sense; however, this is only one several different ways in which status may be classified. Status also may refer to some grouping on the basis of age, sex, family, occupation, and friendship or common interest.

(ii) Norms: Norms are the rules and standards of conduct by which group members are expected to abide. For informal groups, norms are generally unwritten but are, nevertheless, usually quite well understood. As employees or consumer we often readily know what we can and cannot do, wear, drive, say, eat, and so on in order to be well accepted in the society.

(iii) Role: Role is the dynamic aspects of status and includes the attitudes, values, and behavior ascribed by the society to persons occupying the status. The social structure practically prescribes what sort of role behavior is acceptable and thus what is expected? Essentially, role theory recognizes that an individual carries out life by playing different roles. This means that each consumer enacts many roles, which may change over time, even during the course of a day. For example, a woman may have the role of wife, mother, employee, family financial officer, lover, part-time schoolteacher, and many others. Role have a strong, pervasive influence on our activities as consumers.

(iv) Socialization: Socialization refers to the process by which a new member learns the system of values, norms, and expected behavior patterns of the group being entered. When a new student arrives on a college campus, he or she soon learns from fellow students what is being expected in the way of dress, eating patterns, class attendance, extra curricular activities and so on. In a way individuals are continuously in a process of socialization. Consumer socialization, therefore, is the process by which individuals acquire skills, knowledge, and attitudes relevant to their effective functioning as consumers in the marketplace. This is particularly relevant to young people.

(v) Power: Groups have power to influence their members’ behavior. Various sources of social power may be operative in different social group situations. (1) Reward power: This is based on the perception one has of another’s ability to reward him. This could be material (tangible items such as money or gifts) and non-material (intangible things such as recognition, praise). (2) Coercive power: This is the power of influence behavior through the use of punishment or the withholding of rewards. Punishment could be psychological. (3) Legitimate power: This power stems from members’ perception that the group has a legitimate right to influence them. We speak of such behaviors with expressions like should, ought to and so on. Many of these feelings have been internalized from parents. (4) Expert power: This influence results form the expertise of the individual or group. Consumers regularly accept influence form those they perceive to have superior experience, knowledge, and skill. (5) Referent power: This influence flows from the feeling of identification an individual has with the group. The individual’s identification with the group can be established or maintained if he or she behaves, believes or perceives as the group does.

Reference Groups: Reference groups are those an individual uses to refer in determining his judgments, beliefs, and behavior.

Types of reference groups: (i) Membership groups: Membership reference groups are those to which the individual belongs. Membership in some groups is automatic by virtue of the consumers’ age, sex, education, and marital status. Before acting, consumers’ thinks his or her role as a member of the group. (ii) Non-membership groups: Non-membership reference groups are those to which the individual does not presently belong. Many of these groups are anticipatory or aspirational in nature that is, those to which the individual aspires to belong.  (iii) Positive groups: A positive reference group for the upwardly mobile consumer may be the country club crowd in that city. (iv) Negative groups: A person attempts to avoid being identified with some group. For example, an individual who is trying to succeed as a new management trainee may attempt through her speech, dress, and mannerisms to disassociate herself from her lower-social-class background in order to have a greater chance of success in her job.

Reasons for accepting reference group influence: Generally, consumers accept reference group influence because of the perceived benefits in doing so. It has been suggested that the nature of social interactions between individuals will be determined by the individual’s perception of profit of the interaction. An interaction situation may result in rewards such as friendship, information, satisfaction and so on; but it will also exact costs such as lost time, money expended, alternative people and activities sacrificed. Thus, individuals will choose their groups and interact with members based upon their perception of the net profit of the exchange, rather than rewards or costs alone.

(i) Informational benefit: Consumers most readily accept those information sources that are thought to be most credible. A consumer using an informational reference group may (a) actively search for information form opinion leaders or some groups with the appropriate expertise or (b) come to some conclusion through observing the behavior of other people.

(ii) Utilitarian benefit: This reason refers to pressure on the individual to conform to the preferences or expectations of another individual or groups. An individual accepts influence from the groups because she hopes to attain certain specific rewards or avoid certain punishment controlled by the group.

(iii) Value expressive benefits: This relates to an individual’s motive to enhance or support his self-concept by associating himself with positive reference groups and disassociating himself form negative referents. The individual may say what the group member say, do what they do, and believe whey believe in order to foster the relationship and satisfying self-image.

The Variability of Reference Group Influence: Reference groups can be very potent influence on behavior in general, and they may also be very influential on consumer behavior. For example, before making a decision about purchasing a product, consumer often consider what a particular group would do in this situation.

(i) Variability among products: The influence of reference groups on the purchase of consumer goods varies among products. Publicly consumed luxury products, Privately consumed luxury products, publicly consumed necessity products, and privately consumed necessary products differ in their reference groups’ influences. Consumers perceive their own personal preferences to strongly outweigh reference groups’ in arriving at their product and brand decision

(ii) Variability among groups: Reference group influence varies according to characteristics of the group or its type. Perhaps differences in needs or motivations among the groups result indifferent responses to reference groups.

(iii) Variability among individuals: Personality, social character of consumers may affect reference group influence. On the other hand, demographic attributes of consumers also affect reference group influence on individual consumers.

(iv) Variability by type of influence: Informational, utilitarian, and value expressive reference group have different influence on consumers. Consumers buy products that others in their groups buy, not to establish some self-fulfilling role relationship to others, not to obtain reward to avoid punishment form the group, but simply to acquire what they perceive as a good procuct.

(v) Variability by situation: The nature of consumer situation has an important impact on the nature of reference group influence.

Marketer should, therefore, carefully assess the extent to which reference group influence exists for their product, what type of influence appears to be more pervasive, and how customer segments may differ in their responsiveness to such influences. The situational nature of such influence also needs to be understood. From such knowledge, more effective marketing strategies may be developed incorporating referent power.

Which Reference Groups Dominates: The reference groups are highly relevant and potent influence in consumer decision-making. But how do we identify the specific individual, group, or groups who are most relevant to the consumer behavior. Unfortunately, at this stage we are unable to answer this question. We simply are not sure which reference groups will be most important in a given buying decision. It is very difficult for the marketer to know which reference group generally dominates.    

• Consumer Behavior @ Md. Akteruzzaman, Assistant Professor of Marketing, Chittagong University