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A Theoretical Approach to the Influence of Social Class on Consumer Behavior

The consumer decision making process is complex and important in determining purchase behavior. Many researches and marketers study in this field to identify how consumer makes purchasing decision. Consumer behavior is influenced by several factors and social class is also one of these factors. The purpose of this study is explaning how social class affects consumer behavior.

Social Class Predicts Generalized Trust But Only in Wealthy Societies

This research examined the relationship between social class and generalized trust, or a belief that others have a benign intention in social interactions, in a diverse set of societies represented in the World Values Survey. The strength of the relationship varied significantly across societies: Although social class was a positive predictor of generalized trust in wealthy countries, as reported in past research, among less wealthy countries social class was uncorrelated with trust. These results indicate that resources available to individuals of high social class may make a trusting belief more rewarding; nevertheless, in less wealthy societies, the socio-political- economic infrastructure that supports generalized trust is unavailable, and therefore even individuals of high social class are reluctant to trust others. This finding extends prior theorizing on trust in finding the interactive relationship between an individual-level factor and a society- level factor in shaping individuals’ inclination toward trust.

The Concept of Confidence in Bank

Confidence in commercial banks is considered an important factor that ensures a successful commercial banking operations and development, and provides continuous, high-quality consumer and commercial banking cooperation. In recent years this sector has been characterized as volatile and constantly loosing consumer confidence. This paper analyzes the scientific literature on the topic of theoretical concepts of trust; influencing factors in the formation of the consumer confidence in commercial banks are discussed; the model of consumers‘ confidence in commercial banking is provided. The model puts the influencing factors into three categories, representing trust formation stages. The first stage in the formation of confidence is attributed to the factors determining the initial choice of the bank. In other words, this is the information that a potential commercial banking services consumer can access without starting the co-operation with the certain bank. The formation of a second phase encapsulates confidence factors affecting further cooperation with a commercial bank, i.e. the information that the user receives in collaboration with a financial institution and the opinion that he (the user) of the financial institution, forms in the initial phase of cooperation. The third phase consists of the factor, determining the emergence of trust in commercial banks.

Social Class—Not Income Inequality—Predicts Social and Institutional Trust

Social Psychological and Personality Science

Trust is the social glue that holds society together. The academic consensus is that trust is weaker among lower-class individuals and in unequal regions/countries, which is often considered a threat to a healthy society. However, existing studies are inconsistent and have two limitations: (i) variability in the measurement of social class and (ii) small numbers of higher level units (regions/countries). We addressed these problems using large-scale (cross-)national representative surveys (encompassing 560,000+ participants from 1,500+ regional/national units). Multilevel analysis led to two consistent sets of findings. First, the effects of social class on social trust were systematically positive, whereas the effects on institutional trust depended on the way social class was measured. Second, the effects of income inequality on social and institutional trust were systematically nonsignificant and smaller than the smallest negative effect of interest. Our findings suggest that res...

How social class shapes thoughts and actions in organizations

This chapter presents the premise that social class is a potent, robust, and distinct predictor of how people think and act in organizations. Drawing on theories of social cognition, I define social class as a dimension of the self that is rooted in objective material resources (via income, education, and occupational prestige) and corresponding subjective perceptions of rank visa `-vis others. Informed by demonstrations of the psychological effects of social class, I describe how social class may shape behavior in three illustrative domains of organizational life: social relationships, morality, and judgment and decision-making. I document objective and subjective measures of social class to guide research on its effects. I conclude by discussing the risks and benefits of investigating the social class of organization members, and the potential costs for organizations and researchers who ignore social class.