The Social Environment

The social environment exerts its influence at different levels of social aggregation. At the simplest level we have the lone individual, who may influence the way another individual, or even a group of individuals, behaves in the process of taking decisions about such matters as how (and indeed whether) to spend his, or her, money. Similarly, a group of people may influence the decision-making of a lone individual, or decision-making by other groups. At a more aggregated level still, there is evidence, as we shall see, that social stratification exerts an influence on the consumer behaviour of individual members of the different social classes. Finally, at the most aggregated level of all, that of cultures, and within them subcultures, there may again be powerful influences at work, although the somewhat amorphous nature of the concept of culture makes it difficult to identify meaningful proxy variables which would enable tests to be made of the precise impact of the cultural factor. There are nevertheless specific aspects of culture which seem to lend themselves to empirical testing.