Chapter 12
Income and Social Class
CONSUMER
BEHAVIOR, 9e
Michael R. Solomon
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Chapter Objectives
When you finish this chapter, you should
understand why:
• Both personal and social conditions
influence how we spend our money.
• We group consumers into social classes that
say a lot about where they stand in society.
• A person’s desire to make a statement about
his social class, or the class to which he
hopes to belong, influences the products he
likes and dislikes.
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Consumer Spending and
Economic Behavior
• General economic
conditions affect the way
we allocate our money
• A person’s social class
impacts what he/she does
with money and how
consumption choices reflect
one’s place in society
• Products can be status
symbols
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Discretionary Income
• The money available to a household over and
above what it requires to have a comfortable
standard of living
• How we spend varies based in part on our
attitudes toward money
• Tightwads
• Spendthrifts
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Wal-Mart Study on
Attitudes Toward Money
Brand aspirationals
Price-sensitive affluents
Value-priced shoppers
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Consumer Confidence
• Behavioral economics
• Consumer confidence
• Factors affecting the overall savings rate:
• Pessimism/optimism about personal
•
•
circumstances
World events
Cultural differences in attitudes toward
savings
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Social Class Structure
• “Haves” versus “have-nots”
• Social class is determined by income, family
background, and occupation
• Universal pecking order: relative standing in
society
• Social class affects access to resources
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Discussion
• How do you assign people to social classes,
or do you at all?
• What consumption cues do you use (e.g.,
clothing, speech, cars, etc.) to determine
social standing?
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Picking a Pecking Order
• Social stratification
• Artificial divisions in a society
• Scarce/valuable resources are distributed
unequally to status positions
• Achieved versus ascribed status
• Status hierarchy
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Social Mobility
Horizontal Mobility
Upward Mobility
Downward Mobility
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Figure 12.1 American Class Structure
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Components of Social Class
• Occupational prestige
• Is stable over time and similar across
•
cultures
Single best indicator of social class
• Income
• Wealth not distributed evenly across
•
classes (top fifth controls 75% of all
assets)
How money is spent is more influential on
class than income
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Predicting Consumer Behavior
• Whether social class or income is a better
predictor of a consumer’s behavior depends
on the type of product:
• Social class is better predictor of lower to
moderately priced symbolic purchases
• Income is better predictor of major
nonstatus/nonsymbolic expenditures
• Need both social class and income to
predict expensive, symbolic products
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Consumer View of Luxury Goods
• Luxury is functional
• Luxury is a reward
• Luxury is indulgence
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Taste Cultures
• Taste culture: differentiates people in terms
of their aesthetic and intellectual preferences
• Upper- and upper-middle-class: more likely
to visit museums and attend live theater
• Middle-class: more likely to go camping and
fishing
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Figure 12.2 Living Room
Clusters and Social Class
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Taste Cultures
• Codes: the way consumers express and
interpret meanings
• Allows marketers to communicate to markets
using concepts and terms consumers are
most likely to understand and appreciate
• Restricted codes: focus on the content of
objects, not on relationships among objects
• Elaborated codes: depend on a more
sophisticated worldview
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Status Symbols
• What matters is having more wealth/fame
than others
• Status-seeking: motivation to obtain
products that will let others know that you
have “made it”
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Parody Display
• Parody display:
deliberately avoiding
status symbols
• Examples:
• Ripped jeans
• Sports utility
•
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vehicles
Red Wing boots
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Problems with Social Class Segmentation
•
•
•
•
Ignores status inconsistencies
Ignores intergenerational mobility
Ignores subjective social class
Ignores consumers’ aspirations to change
class standing
• Ignores the social status of working wives
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Chapter Summary
• Both personal and social conditions
influence how we spend our money.
• We group consumers into social classes that
say a lot about where they stand in society.
• A person’s desire to make a statement about
social class influences the products he likes
and dislikes.
Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall
12-21