Every person belongs to a group whether it be through family and friends or education and work, groups are generally described as two or more people who share a set of norms. A definition from business dictionary describes groups as being ' collection of individuals who have regular contact and frequent interaction, mutual influence, common feeling or comaraderie and who work together to achieve a common set of goals'. http://www.businessdictionary.com/
Groups influence the socialisation process, they influence what we learn and how we behave, this is most visable within schools, friends and work. Solomon (2006) describes people as being social animals who try to please others, and pick up clues as to how to behave by observing the actions of those around them, the need to fit in and be apart of something is what most oftern drives and the purchase decisions of consumers.
Products or brands that have got an association with a certain group may be percieved differently by the public depending on how the group is percieved within society this could have a huge affect on the company's or brand's success. An example of this is with Burberry a well known brand, which for along time was associated with 'Chavs' who within society are looked down upon, therefore consumers wouldn't buy into this brand as they didn't want to be associated with this group or brand. Since then burberry have tried to disassociate with themselves with this group by changing how they use they logo and the number of fake goods that are out.
Maslow's hierarchy of needs identifies key motivational stages in a person's personal growth and attainment, these are physiological, safety, belongingness, ego needs and self-actualisation. This model is a fixed develomental hierarchy, therefore in order to progress the next level of the hierachy each level must be fully attained.
Marketers have embraced this concept and when promoting brands and products to their auidences more than often they use 'belonging' as a pivital message. This is because it gives their consumers a sense of connection and to be apart of something, therefore belonging to a group.
More than often advertisments are being done using groups of people, it is very rare for you to see products and brands being advertised using just one individual in todays society, this re-emphasizes the message of belonging. I have found some examples of this.
A theorist named Wright came up with different catergories of groups in which people could determine which ones they belonged to. There are eight different groups; ascribed, associative, peer, aspirational, diassociational, contrived and reference. Each group vary from those that you are born into, social or professional groups, every person at some point in their lives would have been apart of each of these groups.
Each of these groups vary from those that we were born in to, social or professional therefore each of these categories represent a stage in each individuals life. When going though this myself I found that I belonged to 5 of these groups; ascribed, peer, associative, reference and acquired. This is through friends and family as well as being in college and uni and work.
Several psychologists have come up with ways to test out theories regarding conformity and group behaviour amongst individuals as to whether people's characters change when put into different groups. One of the most well known experiments was conducted by Zimbardo, by which he had created a prison in an university where a selected amount of students were placed into two groups, the prisoners and the guards.
This experiment received a lot of bad coverage, however it managed to demonstrate how individuals confirm to certain roles when put into certain situations. The guards in this experiment fully took on the role that they thought was expected of them, doing things that even Zimbardo was shocked by. The prisoners were deeply affected by this experiment resulting in it being stopped earlier than expected.
The video below shows some of the experiment that was conducted and what the guards made the prisoners do.
Generally people join groups that have various forms to them, and more than likely change their attitudes and behaviours to conform to the group. This can be seen as a form of acceptance within these groups. Marketers try to appeal to groups when advertising their products as they know that others in the groups will also by into the product to try and fit in. Some marketers even go as far as give the most popular child in school a product just so that the other children in the playground will want to purchase that product. This just goes to show how important groups are to people and how much people long for acceptance by others.
YOur postings always look great and your use of English is very good. You provide a full reflection of all the lecture content. What would make this better is the addition of wider academic reading from articles/case studies on warc
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