Chapter 11: Introduction to the Environment

Environment is the physical and social characteristics of a consumer’s external world such as
objects (product & stores), spatial relationship (locations & product in stores), and the social
behavior of other people. Two levels of environment are: macro (large scale; factors such as
climate, economic conditions, political system) and micro (more tangible physical and social
aspects of a person’s immediate surroundings).
Aspects of environment could be divided into two subclasses: social and physical environment.
Social environment have hierarchical relationships starting from culture -> subculture -> social
class -> parties (organizations / reference groups / family / media). It is useful to make a clear
distinction between macro (indirect and vicarious social interactions among very large group of
people such as culture, subculture and social class) levels and micro levels (face to face social
interactions among smaller groups of people; such as families and reference groups).
Physical environment includes all the nonhuman, physical aspects of the field in which consumer
behavior occurs. It could be divided into spatial element (physical object of all types, including
products and brands) and non-spatial elements (intangible factors such as temperature, humidity,
illumination, noise level and time).
To understand the influence of the environment, we should analyze a more specific situations. A
situation could be defined as neither tangible physical environment nor the objective features of
the social environment. It is the person who is acting in an environment for a purpose. It involves
sequence of goal-directed behavior, along with affective and cognitive responses and the various
environments in which they occur.
There are five generic consumer situations:
1. Information acquisition (such as reading billboard, discussion with a friend)
2. Shopping (window shopping in a mall, surfing a brand’s website)
3. Purchase (paying groceries at the cashier, obtaining a visa card at a bank)
4. Consumption (eating a product)
5. Disposition (recycling the can).

Chapter 12: Cultural and Cross Cultural Influences

Culture is the mental frames and meaning shared by most people in a social group. There are
several issues in analyzing the culture: (1) cultural meaning can be analyzed at different levels
(from subcultures until family influences), (2) the concept of shared or common meaning, is
critical to understanding culture, (3) cultural meanings are created by people, (4) cultural meanings
are constantly in motion and can be subject to rapid changes (5) social groups differ in the amount
of freedom people have to adopt and use certain cultural meanings.
The major attributes of culture is called content (including beliefs, attitudes, goals, and values held
by most people in the society). The way to measure it falls as follows:
1. Content analysis - material object often produced by the social group
2. Ethnographic fieldwork - involve detailed and prolonged observation of consumer’s
emotional responses, cognitions and behaviors during their ordinary daily lives
3. Measures of values - value of privacy and safety
Cultural as a process describes how this cultural meaning is “moved about” or transferred between
these places by the action of organizations and by individuals in the society. Cultural meaning are
present in the three locations:
1. Social and physical environment -> culture are created by the actions of people live
together. It is a continuous and reciprocal movement of meaning between overall cultural
environment, organizations, and individuals in the society.
2. Products and services -> create and deliver symbolic cultural meaning (i.e virginia slims
are for woman) and personal meaning.
3. Consumers -> rituals (symbolic actions performed by consumers to create, affirm, evoke
or revise certain cultural meaning), actions such as acquiring, possessing, exchanging,
grooming and divesting rituals to incorporate cultural meaning to consumers. Consumers
buy products as a way to acquire cultural meanings to use in establishing self identities.
Cross cultural differences have a few points to consider: (1) self concept (i.e Americans are more
individualistic compared to Japanese), (2) Similar cross cultural changes (i.e woman’s role in the
world are shifting from just a full time housewives), (3) Materialism (importance a consumer
attaches to worldly possessions). It underlies the development of a consumptiveness.

Chapter 13: Subculture & Social Class

Subcultures are distinctive groups of people in a society that share common cultural meanings for
affective and cognitive responses, behaviors, and environmental factors.
 ● Levels to analyze subcultures. In analyzing a subculture, marketers seek to identify the
typical characteristics, meaning and behavioral tendencies shared by people in those
groups.
○ Geographic subcultures - the physical environment (topography, climate, natural
resources) and social environment (economics, population demographics, lifestyle)
are affecting the culture and buying behavior.
○ Age subcultures - the teen market, baby boomers (born between 1946 - 1964),the
mature market.
○ Ethnic subcultures - the black subculture (African American), hispanic, asian
○ Gender subcultures
○ Income subculture
○ Acculturation process.
Acculturation refers to how people in one culture or subculture understand and
adapt to the meaning (values, beliefs, behaviors, rituals, lifestyles) of another
culture or subculture. Consumer acculturation refers to the people’s ability to
acquire cultural knowledge to be skilled in different cultures or subcultures. There
are four stages of acculturation:
- Honeymoon stage (fascination)
- Rejection stage (old behaviors and meanings may be inadequate for acting in the
new subculture)
- Tolerance stage (appreciating new subculture and cultural conflict will decrease)
- Integration stage (adjustment to the subculture is adequate, although acculturation
need not be complete or total; viewed as an alternative way).
● Social Classes
Social class refers to a national status hierarchy by which groups and individuals are
distinguished in terms of esteem and prestige. Level of social classes: upper, middle,
working and lower classes.

Chapter 14: Reference groups and family

A reference group involves one or more people whom someone uses as a basis for comparison or
point of reference in forming affective and cognitive responses and performing behaviors. They
usually share certain common cultural meanings. There are few types of reference groups: formal
/ informal, primary / secondary, membership, aspirational, dissociative. They have both positive
and negative effects on consumers. Based on their influence, reference groups are divided into
three categories:
● Informational reference group influence: it transmits useful information to consumers
about themselves, other people, or aspects of the physical environment such as products,
services and stores.
● Utilitarian reference group influence: reference group controls important rewards and
punishments. This works if the reference groups have control over, their behavior is
visible to the group and they are motivated to obtain rewards or avoid punishment.
● Value expressive reference group influence: identifying and affiliating with certain
reference group that express these desired meanings, consumers can draw out some of
these meanings and use them in their own self-construction projects.
Reference group hit two dimension concern: (1) to the degree to which a product or brand is a
necessity or a luxury, (2) the object in question is conspicuous or known by other people.
Besides reference groups, Family also play an important part in the decision making. Every
family has a householder, the person who rents or owns the household (family or nonfamily).
The roles are includes: influencers, gatekeepers, deciders, buyers, and disposers. Even a family
could face a conflict in the decision making; a disagreement. There are six common types of
family influence strategies: expert, legitimate, bargaining, reward / referent, emotional,
impression management.