Page 131 - DSOC202_SOCIAL_STRATIFICATION_ENGLISH

Social Stratification

Notes • Two, when people are “other-directed” or susceptible to social influence, they would buy
such products and services and/or brands that people from their respective social classes
purchase. This is because they look for social approval. So they would purchase certain
products and service offerings and/or brands because they are used and favored by
members of their own class.
• Third, people are class conscious and relate brands to their social class; thus, they would
buy brands which they feel relate to their “class”, and would avoid brands that they relate
to “lower-class” products. There are social-class influences on the actual consumption of
products.
• Fourth, the higher social class or the upper social class also acts as reference groups, for
people in the lower class. The latter aspire to emulate the former and desire buying products
and brands which the former buy.
(ii) Similarity of people within a social class : People within a social class are similar to each
other. This similarity is not only witnessed in terms of their education, occupation and
income, but also their thinking, values, norms, attitudes, lifestyle and behavioral patterns.
There is similarity among members within each social class and dissimilarity with between
social classes.

Social Class Categories and Lifestyle Profiles
Various classifications of social class have been proposed. Sociologists have divided the society
into distinct class divisions that number two, three, four, five, six and even nine class social
structures. Which of the classifications is most useful, depends upon the purpose of the researcher,
and also on the amount of detail that the research/study requires. Consumer researchers are
interested in the social-class structures primarily for the purpose of viewing them as potential
markets for their products and service offerings. For reasons of uniformity, researchers prefer to
adopt a three class structure, and thereby divide social classes into upper, middle and lower
classes.
Each social class is characterized by certain lifestyle factors, in terms of shared beliefs, norms,
attitudes, activities, interests and behavior. These are similar within people of each class and
different across social classes. In fact, they tend to distinguish the members of a social class from
the members of other social classes.
However, it may be noted here that people from the middle class may serve as aspirational groups
or have a reference group appeal for the lower; similarly people of the upper class may serve the
same for people in the middle class. With this impact, people in a class may possess beliefs, norms,
attitudes, activities, interests and behavior that are a hybrid of two or more classes.
Social Class Mobility

People in community can move from one strata to another. They can move either up or down the
social class; this mobility gets exhibited in two forms. One, individuals can move either up or
down in social-class standing across generations, i.e. while their parents may have belonged to
one strata, they begin to belong to another, either upper or lower. Two, such a transition may also
be seen through one’s life, i.e. as a person becomes independent and starts earning, he may belong
to one class and as he progresses in life, he may begin to belong to another. Upward mobility is
more common and is generally the trend these days.
As mentioned above, the higher social classes often become aspirational and reference groups for
people of lower social status. Marketers realize this and use symbols of higher-class status into
their products, as also the advertisement, both in terms of content and context. It has also been
seen that that products and services that were traditionally within the realm of one social class,
are now getting into the realm of lower social classes. The influence of upper classes on lower, has
also benefited the “me-too” marketers, who come up with counterfeiters and doners, to satisfy the
lower classes; thus we have ‘me-too” products for various products and/or brands.

126 LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY