Income and Social Class

PERILAKU
KONSUMEN
WEEK 13
SEM GENAP
21/22
Chapter Objectives
When you finish this chapter, you should understand why:
1.Our confidence in our future, as well as in the overall economy,
determines how freely we spend and the types of products we buy.
2.We group consumers into social classes that say a lot about
where they stand in society.
3.Individuals’ desires to make a statement about their social class,
or the class to which they hope to belong, influence the products
they like and dislike.
1. OUR CONFIDENCE IN OUR FUTURE,
AS WELL AS IN THE OVERALL
ECONOMY, DETERMINES HOW
FREELY WE SPEND AND THE TYPES
OF PRODUCTS WE BUY.
Income and Consumer Identity
• Consumer demand for goods and services depends on both our
ability and our willingness to buy.
• Discretionary Income is the money available to a household over
and above what it requires to have a comfortable standard of
living
• Attitudes toward money
• Tightwads
• Spendthrifts
Consumer Confidence
• Consumers’ beliefs about what the future holds are
an indicator of consumer confidence.
• These beliefs are important because they influence
how much money people pump into the economy
when they make discretionary purchases.
• Factors affecting the overall savings rate:
• Pessimism/optimism
• World events
• Cultural differences
In our society, wealth is still more likely to be earned than inherited although this
pattern seems to be shifting.
Source: From 2000 advertising campaign. Courtesy of The Phoenix Companies, Inc.
 2. WE GROUP CONSUMERS INTO
SOCIAL CLASSES THAT SAY A LOT
ABOUT WHERE THEY STAND IN
SOCIETY.
Social Class and Consumer Identity
• Members of every society divide into the “Haves” versus “have-
nots”. Determined by:
o Income
o Occupation
o Education
o Family background
• Social class more generally to describe the overall rank of people in a
society
Determinants of Social Class Structure

Income

Occupation
Education

Family
Background
Picking a Pecking Order
• Distribution of scarce/valuable resources
• Based upon relative standing, power, or control
• Status hierarchy
• Achieved Status (by hard work)
• Ascribed Status (by who they are)
Social Stratification

The process of social stratification refers to this

creation of artificial divisions, “those processes in a
social system by which scarce and valuable
resources are distributed unequally to status
positions that become more or less permanently
ranked in terms of the share of valuable resources
each receives.

• Creation of artificial divisions among people

• Distribution of scarce/valuable resources
Income vs Social Class
What predicts consumer behavior better? Social class or income?
 Well, it depends on the product!
• Social class is a better predictor of purchases that have symbolic
aspects but low to moderate prices (e.g., cosmetics, liquor).
• Income is a better predictor of major expenditures that do not have
status or symbolic aspects (e.g., major appliances).
• We need both social class and income data to predict purchases of
expensive, symbolic products (e.g., cars, homes).
3. INDIVIDUALS’ DESIRES TO MAKE A
STATEMENT ABOUT THEIR SOCIAL
CLASS, OR THE CLASS TO WHICH
THEY HOPE TO BELONG, INFLUENCE
THE PRODUCTS THEY LIKE AND
DISLIKE.
Status Symbols and Social Capital
• Status symbol describes possessions (or perhaps the use of services)
that communicate wealth or prestige to others.
• Status seeking (through consumption) is a global trend
• What matters is having more wealth/fame than others
• Let others know that we can afford them
Taste Cultures
A taste culture describes consumers in terms of their aesthetic and
intellectual preferences.

• Upper- and upper-middle-class

Museums and live theater
• Middle-class
Camping and fishing
Codes in Taste Cultures
• 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
REVIEW

KERJAKAN di LMS:
• QUIZ 12
THANK YOU…