This document summarizes key concepts related to social and cultural influences on motivation and consumer behavior. It discusses theories of motivation from Freud, Maslow and McClelland. It also covers concepts like status needs, power distance, saving face, and how emotions, conformity, reference groups and opinion leaders vary across cultures and influence consumption. Motivation and consumer behavior are shaped by underlying cultural values that differ between individualistic and collectivistic societies.

1. CORPISM-08/02
International Consumer
Behavior
Week 5: Social Processes
Prof. Ethan Chazin
1

3. Cool Stuff

8. Motivation

9. The internal state of an organism that drives it
to behave in a certain way. 3 types of
explanation of motivation exist:
• Physiological explanations highlight the
importance of internal drives or needs, called
primary drives.
• Behavioral explanations that rely on acquired
drives through learning are called external
drives.
• Psychological explanations tend to apply to
complex human behaviors.

10. Sigmund Freud

11. • Id contains sexual and aggressive
instincts in the unconscious mind.
The Libido is the sexual instinct.
• Ego, the conscious mind works on
the reality principle.
• Superego consists of the conscience
and ego ideal.
The Chazin GroupThe Chazin Group Freud

13. Maslow
Hierarchy of
needs,
arranged in
order of
importance.

14. David McClelland
Theory of achievement motive - people do
things out of a need for power, achievement,
and affiliation.
Directly related to 2 cultural
dimensions of U.S. culture:
High masculinity and low
uncertainty avoidance.

15. What drives
consumption?

16. Can be
driven by
functional or
social needs.
Consumption

17. Both?

18. Can be driven by
cultural and
environmental
needs.
Taste &
Convenience
No Artificial
Ingredients

19. K
What do you think?

20. Differences in sensitivity to certain product
attributes and varying buying motives can
be explained by underlying cultural values
that vary by product category.
Purity
Social StatusSafety

21. Status Motive

22. • Status needs differ across countries that
income differences cannot explain.
• Status motives vary with power distance,
individualism/collectivism, and
masculinity.
• Luxury products have more attraction in
masculine cultures.
The Chazin GroupThe Chazin GroupStatus Needs

23. Power Distance

24. Face

25. • Entered English language from Chinese.
• A characteristic of collectivist societies.
• Describes the proper relationship with your
social environment.
• Losing face involves one’s actions being publicly
and negatively judged by others, resulting in a
loss of social and moral good standing.
The Chazin GroupThe Chazin GroupSaving Face

26. Green Motives

29. • AKA Environmental Marketing, Eco-
Consumerism.
• Awareness of the environmental impact of
consuming is growing.
• Awareness of environmental issues is high
globally, but varies drastically from country to
country.
• “The assumption that by buying anything,
whether green or not, we’re solving the
problem is a misperception.”
The Chazin GroupThe Chazin Group Green

38. Emotion

39. “In the U.S., we place a premium on feelings. We
all recognize that each of us is unique and that we
have our own individual feelings about things,
events, situations and people around us. We
consciously try to be aware of our feelings, so to
“in touch” with them. To be in touch with our
feelings and to understand the world around us
emotionally is to be a mature adult in society.”
David Matsumoto, American psychology

40. • English words form the core of
psychologist theories on emotions,
but words for emotions vary from
culture to culture.
• English words for emotions do not
cover the important emotions that
exist worldwide (shame & guilt.)
• Important East Asian emotions are
generally lacking in list of emotions
words.
The Chazin GroupThe Chazin GroupEmotions

41. • Emotions across western cultures vary
greatly.
• The American experience for anger
stresses the expressions of one’s rights,
goals, and needs.
• In more collectivist countries anger has a
different experience, focusing on
separation & disconnection.
• In countries like Korea, anger as emotion
focuses on consequences i.e. disturbing
harmony.
The Chazin GroupThe Chazin GroupEmotions

43. 1960s

44. 1971

45. 1970s

46. 1980

47. 1990s

48. • Face & shame are typically East Asian
emotions.
• Japanese culture characteristic amae, desire to
be dependent on another’s love and kindness.
• Much research into human emotions focused on
facial expressions. Universalists argue some
emotions can be conveyed across cultures:
happiness, surprise, fear, anger, disgust,
sadness.
• Free choice allows respondents can use their
own descriptions of emotions for facial
features.
The Chazin GroupThe Chazin GroupEmotions

49. • How people recognize emotions (and judge
them) varies across cultures, and is LEARNED
behavior.
• Japanese focus on eyes, Americans on
mouths. :-) or :-( versus ^_^ and ;_;
• Chinese don’t typically correlate a facial
expression with a implicit emotion.
• Research reveals there are many discrepancies
in recognition of emotions.
• The match between the cultural background of
the expresser and the judge is important.
The Chazin GroupThe Chazin GroupEmotions

50. • Emotions may be more accurately
understood when members of the same
national, ethnic, or religious group that
expressed the emotion judges them.
• Emotions can be portrayed vocally.
• Cultures differ in how people display
emotions.
• A smile is NOT always a reaction to
something positive. In many Asian
cultures, smiles indicate discomfort and
embarrassment.
• Chinese and other East Asian cultures are
discouraged from having dramatic facial
expressions.
The Chazin GroupThe Chazin GroupEmotions

51. How we greet one
another…

54. Emotion Science

56. • Paul Eckman research based on
universal emotions perceived identically
by all cultures in facial expressions.
• Lisa Barrett, when asked about Ekman
and his study. “But at first, when I read
that work, I thought, Well, nobody can
take this seriously. This can’t possibly be
right. It’s too cartoonish.”
• Same expressions have different
meanings indifferent cultures.
The Chazin GroupThe Chazin GroupThe Research

57. Emotions in
Advertising

58. • Ad execs have felt emotional appeals
had more attraction across cultures
than “thinking” appeals.
• Caused by the assumed
“universality” of emotions such as
happiness, anger, embarrassment.
• Universality of emotions in
advertising driven by consumer
behavior theorists like Morris
Holbrook.
The Chazin GroupThe Chazin GroupEmotion in Advertising

66. • In (American) ad theory, concept of
emotion is used in classifying
advertising in “rational” versus
“emotional” terms, where emotion
implies feeling, pleasure or mood.
The Chazin GroupThe Chazin GroupEmotion in Advtsg

68. Group influences on
consumer behavior

69. • Group influences on consumer
behavior vary.
• The in-group versus out-group
discussion is important.
• The in-group is people whose well
being an individual is concerned
with.
• In-group concept extremely
important to collectivist societies.
The Chazin GroupThe Chazin Group

70. Conformity

71. • The key to marketing in Asia is
perceived popularity.
• Japanese people want to be a little
different, but hate to be VERY
different.
The Chazin GroupThe Chazin Group

72. VALS

74. Reference Groups

75. • Group that serves as a reference point in
forming people’s attitudes and behaviors.
• Strongest cultural determinant of reference
groups is individualism/collectivism.
• In Western consumer behavior theory 3
groups exist:
– Informational
– Utilitarian; and
– Value-expressive
The Chazin GroupThe Chazin GroupReference Groups

76. Opinion Leaders

77. • Specific individuals are assumed to
influence the decision-making
process of others, through word-of-
mouth communication.
The Chazin GroupThe Chazin GroupOpinion Leaders