Consumer tastes and habits Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Consumer tastes and habits - Essay Example It is important to point out that most of Pierre Bourdieu’s focus was on things that have aesthetic component and the manner in which consumption patterns on such things reflected the class and social class that people want or do not want to associate with (Miles 1998). The concept of social class and status Different fashions adorned by different people are attributed to the certain degree of social class and status that people want to identify with. Upon recognition of this phenomenon, marketing experts wrote numerous articles on the subjects particularly, in the 1950s. Consumer behaviour experts have since recognised the need to pay attention to social classes and status and this is in agreement with numerous research works that have been done on consumer behaviour; there is general agreement that consumer behaviour of different people conforms to their social class. To some extent, consumer behaviour overrides the income levels. This, through research, is demonstrated by t he facts that as people grow older, their income levels increase but in most case, they do not change their social class. There is a tendency for people to maintain their social classes they grow older; they remain within the class and this is a clear demonstration that social classes’ overruns income levels with regard to tastes and preferences. In this regard, social class and status are strongly affected by the values and the lifestyles that people have as opposed to the amount of money or income they get periodically.