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Volume 2(3): 295–307
Copyright © 2002 SAGE
(London, Thousand Oaks, CA and
New Delhi)
articles
Consumer lifestyles: a social stratification
perspective
Rob Lawson and Sarah Todd
University of Otago
Abstract. Although a link between lifestyles and social class has long been acknowledged, marketers have more closely identified lifestyles with psychographics and
therefore with psychological segmentation. We propose that the origins of lifestyle are
more correctly reflected in Weber’s approach to status and that it can be viewed more
appropriately as the most relevant form of social stratification for a contemporary
society. Evidence from an ongoing national study of consumer lifestyles is used to
demonstrate how consumer lifestyle segmentation can be used to reflect structural inequalities within society. The ability of lifestyle measurements to evolve and adapt is
illustrated. In this sense, lifestyle segmentation is found to be related to, but different
from, class and the term psychographics is arguably redundant. Key Words consumer lifestyles psychographics segmentation social stratification
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Introduction
The term ‘lifestyle’ is applied in many everyday situations. A scan through daily
newspapers in the UK over a two-day period in June 2001 found reference to
‘lifestyle choices’, ‘lifestyle magazines’, ‘healthy lifestyles’ and ‘leisure lifestyles’.
The exact meaning of these and other similar terms is never actually articulated
but there seems a common understanding that we are reflecting on a pattern of
attitudes and behaviours that are in some way consistent across an individual’s
life, or a particular domain of their life. In consumer research and market
segmentation, the term ‘lifestyles’ has also had widespread reference with many
studies using the term over the last 50 years (e.g. Blackwell and Talarzyk, 1977;
Cosmas, 1982; Gutman and Mills, 1982; Lastovicka et al., 1999; Mitchell, 1983;
Plummer, 1974; Reynolds et al., 1977; Roberts and Wortzel, 1979). One of the
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criticisms levelled at such research is the poor conceptualization of the construct,
making judgements on reliability and validity of results problematic (Lastovicka,
1982). With perhaps the one major exception of Holt (1997), lifestyles in marketing and consumer research are generally linked with the constructs of psychographics and values. While not excluding these relationships, we suggest that a
richer and more substantive assessment of lifestyles can be obtained by reference
to the sociological literature of stratification, especially that pertaining to social
class and status.
Lifestyles
Plummer (1974) credits Lazer (1963) as the first to introduce the concept of
lifestyle patterns and the potential for its relationship with marketing. The definition suggested then is still one of the most widely used and accepted, with Lazer
defining lifestyles as: ‘. . . a systems concept. It refers to the distinctive mode of
living, in its aggregative or broadest sense . . . It embodies the patterns that
develop and emerge from the dynamics of living in a society’ (Lazer, 1963; cited
in Plummer, 1974: 33).
While in most senses this definition reflects our current understanding of
lifestyles, one forgotten point is the perception of lifestyles as a systems concept.
It should be recalled that systems approaches were common in the social sciences
in the 1960s, including management and marketing (e.g. Alderson 1957; Katz and
Kahn 1965), and that this approach does provide a structured way of understanding global, and what may appear to be rather nebulous, constructs, since they
demand specification of components and relationships. Lazer also proposed a
lifestyle hierarchy attempting to show where the construct emerged in the consumption process, whereby group and individual expectations are derived from
a broad cultural framework. These are translated into lifestyle patterns which
determine purchase decisions and market reactions.
Culture and society
|
Group and individual expectations and values
|
Lifestyle patterns and values
|
Purchase decisions
|
Market reactions of consumers
Figure 1
Depiction of Lazer’s (1963) proposed lifestyle hierarchy
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The linking of values and lifestyles as proposed by Lazer emerges again with the
development of VALS by Mitchell (1983) at SRI International. The VALS
approach, which was derived from a theoretical base in Maslow’s work (1954),
explicitly linked the two constructs together. There have been suggestions that
VALSII actually drops the links between values, lifestyles and purchasing (Gunter
and Furnham, 1992) because of the shift in the conceptual base to profiling by
resources and self-orientation (principle, status or action-orientated). However,
since the self-orientations can be quite clearly linked with elements of other value
schemes such as Rokeach (1968) and its derivatives (e.g. Kahle et al., 1986;
Schwartz 1992), this link would still seem to hold. Indeed, Kahle and others’ work
on List of Values provides some explicit and clear contrasts with VALS.
Lifestyles and psychographics
The links with values are one of the features that seem to establish the concept of
lifestyles in the domain of psychological phenomena. Gunter and Furnham
(1992) clearly place lifestyles alongside personality, values and psychographics as
methods of psychological segmentation. Whilst values and personality have both
received extensive attention in the parent discipline of psychology, ideas on
lifestyles and psychographics have not. One result is that much confusion still
exists between these two terms within the marketing literature. According to
Gunter and Furnham, the origins of psychographics in marketing can be traced
back to Lazarfield’s commercial market research in the 1930s (1992: 31) but it is
clear that they became prominent in the late 1960s and 1970s as a result of disillusionment with the results of research linking more standard motivation and
personality constructs (including both traits and types) with aspects of consumption.
However, like lifestyle, the term psychographics has not enjoyed any clear and
consistent understanding. In his review of 24 articles on psychographics, Wells
(1975) reveals 32 definitions of psychographics. Demby (1974) offers a summary
of such definitional differences by suggesting psychographics can be applied in
any of three contexts:
1 the application of behavioural concepts from the social sciences to market
research;
2 the particular quantitative research process used with psychological variables to
predict consumer behaviour; and
3 the human characteristics of consumers that may have a bearing on their
responses to products and marketing activities.
These three approaches treat psychographics as variously an application, a
method, or a set of psychological variables. In part, the uncertainty over the
psychographics construct can be easily understood when it is appreciated that,
although following similar quantitative approaches and with checklists for AIO
(activities, interests, opinions) content, it has always been accepted that psycho-
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graphics are based on original measures tailor-made to describe particular product
areas or market segments. While contributing to the immediate relevance of the
study, this obviously produces problems in external validation and the assessment
of reliabilities (e.g. Burns and Harrison, 1979; Hustad and Pessemier, 1974;
Lastovicka, 1982; Wind and Green, 1974). Essentially it seems that there are three
main ways in which psychographics are linked to lifestyles in the literature:
1 following from the second of Demby’s categories, psychographics refers to the
quantitative methods and techniques by which lifestyle profiles are constructed
(e.g. Wells, 1975);
2 psychographics refers to the psychological measures (e.g. attitudes, beliefs and
personality traits as per the third Demby category), while lifestyles refer to the
activities and behaviours (e.g. Dorny, 1971); and
3 the terms are used interchangeably (e.g. Gunter and Furnham, 1992).
Obviously all these interpretations confirm lifestyles within the framework of
psychological segmentation, but perhaps the greatest difficulty is with the second
distinction because it does not accord with other accepted definitions. For
example, activities are recognized as a central component in AIO schedules on
which psychographics have been established. Also, it has long been accepted that
segmentation may be done backwards (i.e. grouping on behaviour and profiling
on attitudes and other personal characteristics) or forwards (grouping on concepts such as attitudes and then examining behavioural differences between the
groups). Since we can work the relationship between the psychological variables
and the behaviours both ways, it does not help to distinguish them in this way
without also coming to some conclusion regarding method.
One feature that may contribute towards this confusion is that both pyschographics and lifestyles have always been accepted as appropriate to describe a
general life situation or a consumption situation relating to a specific product
class – the most common examples relate to food, health, leisure and travel and
tourism. One more recent development in the conceptualization of lifestyles at the
product-specific level which deserves special mention is the work of Grunert et al.
(1996) who developed food-related lifestyles for European consumers using a
means/end structure as the central axis for their lifestyle definition. This explicitly
links the benefits sought with the outputs attained, as well as the behaviours (e.g.
cooking methods) and contexts (e.g. meal situations) needed to support those
outputs. The Grunert approach reinforces the relationship between lifestyles
as the overall pattern of behaviour and values as the driving force behind the
behaviours. Grunert’s conceptualization has also been transferred to a tourism
context (Lawson et al., 1999) and seems to provide the possibility of a robust
framework for considering lifestyles at a domain-specific level. However, basing a
general lifestyle classification around the same central means/end structure would
be more problematic since the range of behaviours would be too large to investigate and there would be many aggregation difficulties. This is a parallel situation
to the debate regarding the measurement of self-concept and self-identity at a
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global or contextual level, though the majority of evidence favours an integrated
approach (Giddens, 1991: 100).
As can be seen, the marketing literature referring to lifestyles is heavily related
to psychographics and values. The recent exceptions to this are Shields (1992) and
Holt (1997). Shields uses the term ‘lifestyle shopping’ as the title for a collection
of postmodern readings on aspects of shopping and does not really attempt to
develop a single conceptual framework for the discussion of lifestyles. Holt takes
a different line and provides a rigorous analysis of the construct from a poststructuralist viewpoint with examples of individual American lifestyle case
studies. However, while offering some rich description of single consumers, this
approach is of limited value in an applied subject that demands an empirical base
for market segmentation. By definition, segmentation concerns heterogeneity, or
inequality, within the market place.
Class and status
Inequality within the sociology literature is assessed through stratification
(Crompton, 1998) and has historically concentrated on castes, class, status,
gender and perhaps age. Caste, gender and age are not relevant to the present discussion but class and status clearly are.
Weber (1948) drew a clear and early distinction between class and status.
Despite disagreeing with Marx in other ways, for example in value orientation
and class as a basis for action, Weber did view class as essentially an economic
phenomenon. His view of status was related to ‘estate’ or ‘stande’ that represented
life chances or fate for the group in question. Unlike class, status is a group phenomenon which can be a basis for action and participation in that such a group
gives individuals their fundamental sense of identity and Weber himself uses the
term ‘style of life’ to describe status groups. However, this distinction seems to
have become overlooked in the last 50 years and Crompton (1998) describes the
confusion that has come to surround the term social class. She identifies three
different meanings:
1 class as ‘prestige, status, culture or lifestyle’;
2 class as structured inequality related to the possession of economic resources
and power; and
3 classes as actual or potential social and political actors.
The third meaning need not concern us here but the confusion over the first
two is relevant. The second definition is clearly the way early writers such as Marx
and Weber discussed class, while the first interpretation is found in some early
marketing readings such as Myers and Gutman (1974). Indeed, Levy (1966)
explicitly described social class variations as ‘variations in lifestyle’, with differences in the consumption behaviour of classes being attributable to lifestyle
differences. The differing interpretations evident in the first and second interpretations are most likely to result from the role of occupation as a determinant of
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class and lifestyle. While there has been debate as to whether occupation or
income, or a multidimensional variable, is best used (e.g. Schaninger, 1981),
occupation has been the most common measure of assessing social class in the last
50 years and this has been used to draw conclusions relating to both the first two
meanings given above. For example, Goldthorpe et al.(1969) discuss what are
essentially lifestyle and consumption differences based on occupational structures. Further, the new social class system devised for the 2001 UK Census, and
intended to reflect economic inequalities, uses a revised occupational classification as its basis and talks about ‘occupational status’ as the method of allocation
between groups (National Statistics, 2001). We also believe that the distinctions
have been blurred by some authors and marketing researchers seeking to avoid
using the term class and using terms such as ‘socio-economic status’ to refer to
equivalent occupational based classifications (e.g. Bellon, 1999). This may be
emphasized in countries such as Australia and New Zealand where notions of class
hierarchies with associated privileges are very much against egalitarian ideals
expressed in other aspects of their culture (e.g. Mackay, 1986). Elley and Irving
(1985), who were responsible for the major grading system of occupations in New
Zealand in the 1970s and 1980s, explicitly say that they were not producing a
social class system, although it is obviously the direct equivalent of the British
system bearing that name.
In Weber’s terms, class has always been a value-free construct which should not
have carried any pejorative associations. A consistent view among many sociologists (e.g. Chaney, 1996; Giddens, 1991; Hetherington and Munro, 1997) is that
stratification in a contemporary society must represent and accommodate the
choices that people make. While occupation influences ‘life chances’, modern
work modes and increasingly complex divisions of labour only represent part of
the equation. Hetherington and Munro’s book (1997), subtitled The Labour of
Division, emphasizes how distinction is important and how people work as their
own agents to achieve this. This is a reflection of Weber’s original discussion of
status and, in the opinion of Chaney and Giddens, places lifestyle as the central
and appropriate construct for contemporary social stratification:
In modern social life, the notion of lifestyle takes on a particular significance. The more tradition loses its hold, and the more daily life is reconstituted in a dialectical interplay of the local
and the global, the more individuals are forced to negotiate lifestyle choices among a diversity
of options. (Giddens, 1991: 5)
In this opinion, Giddens is essentially reflecting Bourdieu’s view of stratification (1984), when he argued for a middle ground between Durkheim’s social
physics based on logical instruments and Garfinkel’s account of accounts which
restricts us to recordings of the social world of the type Holt (1997) portrays in his
view of lifestyles. Bourdieu argues that we have to move to ‘. . . a sort of collective
classification obtained by aggregating individual classifications or, more precisely,
the individual strategies, classified and classifying, through which agents class
themselves and others.’
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Lifestyle segmentation, social stratification and marketing
We would argue that this is exactly what lifestyles (or psychographic) classifications do in marketing. The approach allows for expressions of individual positions
on matters relating to all domains of life which can be aggregated through cluster
analysis to produce relevant lifestyle segments. Furthermore, the process of adopting AIO schedules to suit the context of the product class, segment or cultural
group under consideration is a necessary part of realizing this goal. Bourdieu does
allow for structured data collection using survey instruments. That process may
require more debate to overcome issues relating to data and methods of aggregation, but repeated New Zealand consumer lifestyle surveys by Lawson et al.
(1989), Faris et al. (1996) and Todd et al. (2001) have shown reliability or consistency between many segments, with modifications to others that can be recognized and explained in the context of other political and social phenomena.
To illustrate how lifestyles can be used as a stratification construct that
describes structured inequalities over time and provides a relevant basis for
market segmentation, we can review the history of three national consumer
lifestyle surveys (referenced above) of New Zealand conducted by the Department
of Marketing, University of Otago in 1989, 1995 and 2000. All three surveys
followed similar methodologies based on an extensive AIO schedule consisting of
approximately 500 questions distributed to a random sample of the New Zealand
population. Although all the surveys were self-completion instruments, the 1989
survey was personally delivered to 2089 individuals and 1632 completed questionnaires were collected. For cost reasons, both the 1995 and 2000 surveys were
posted out to 10,000 individuals on a mailing list purchased from New Zealand
Post, which was randomly drawn from their database of New Zealand households.
In 1995, the effective fully completed response rate was 37 percent, and in 2000, a
38 percent response rate was obtained. A variety of incentives were used to
encourage responses including prize draws and a $1 donation to one of three
pre-specified charities for every questionnaire returned.
All three lifestyle studies applied forward segmentation, whereby the attitudinal
statements from the AIO schedules were used to classify respondents and predict
behaviours of the groups. In 1989, the questionnaire included 167 attitudinal
questions that were used for the clustering. In revising and updating the questionnaire to make it relevant in 1995, 11 of those questions were removed from
the schedule and 32 further items were added. Examples of changes involved the
removal of two of the questions regarding attitudes towards the family that had
shown absolutely no discrimination between segments in 1989. Questions were
added to reflect new issues that had arisen such as the possibility of New Zealand
becoming a republic, or changes in technology like the introduction of electronic
payment methods. Between 1995 and 2000, a further 7 attitudinal questions were
removed and 42 were added so that the clustering took place on a total of 223 variables. Obviously, these changes make some comparisons between the different
studies based on detailed items difficult but, as discussed earlier, they are necessary in the context of a stratification method that is dynamic. Fundamentally, it is
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Table 1
Summary of consumer lifestyle segments, 1989–2000
Summary of 1989 consumer lifestyle segments
Success-driven Extroverts, 8.9%
Career and social players
Money and modernity
Free enterprisers
Educated Greens, 12.4%
Societal reformers
Supporting topical causes
Intellect and education focus
Envious Strivers, 21.1%
Life’s a struggle
Cautious and conformist
Wanting life’s ‘essentials’
Active Family People, 21.9%
Family life enthusiasm
Active warm togetherness
Children’s development focus
Friendly Quiet Lifers, 15.4%
Friendly, close-to-home focus
Elderly and nostalgic
Companionship
Traditional Values Family People, 20.3%
Orderly family life
Discipline and obedience
Local community activities
Summary of 1995 consumer lifestyle segments
Success-driven Extroverts, 16.4%
Self-oriented
Value-free enterprise
Actively ambitious
Educated Liberals, 9.7%
Socially concerned
Progressive and egalitarian
Enjoy variety and diversity
Social Strivers, 13.0%
Outer-directed
Conformist
Feel life is a struggle
Active ‘Family Values’ People, 15.5%
Family and community focus
Traditional principles
Positive outlook
Conservative Quiet Lifers, 13.5%
Homebodies
Conservative views
Reflective and nostalgic
Accepting Mid-lifers, 17.1%
Observe rather than partake
Accepting of status quo
Content
Pragmatic Strugglers, 14.7%
Family survival focus
Politically conservative
Determined
Summary of 2000 consumer lifestyle segments
302
Success-driven Extroverts, 13.2%
Value-free enterprise
Actively ambitious
Urban
Educated Liberals, 10.3%
Progressive and egalitarian
Enjoy variety and diversity
Happy and in control
Social Strivers,13.1%
Outer-directed
Conformist
Active and informed
Traditional Values People, 18.8%
Family and community oriented
Conservative
Emphasize individual responsibility
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Summary of 2000 consumer lifestyle segments (cont.)
Accepting Mid-lifers, 19.4%
Observe rather than partake
Accepting of status quo
Relatively inactive
Pragmatic Strugglers, 11.8%
Politically conservative
Negative outlook
Opinionated
Young Pleasure-seekers, 13.5%
Generation Xers
Hedonistic consumption
Living for today
also no different to the continuous updating of social class based on occupational measures where new occupations are added to codes, old ones deleted, or the
grading of an existing one revised because of changes in income levels or qualifications. Without such revisions, the instrument used would simply not capture
some aspects of choice that have become available to individuals when determining how they wish to position themselves within society. For example, between
1995 and 2000, issues relating to food consumption in New Zealand extended
from established concerns relating to aspects such as convenience or nutrition to
include debates over organic production and genetic modification. From a sociological perspective, it is vital that a stratification process relevant to explaining
patterns of consumption behaviour can be modified in this way.
Allowing for revisions of the survey instrument, the segments for the three
lifestyle studies were constructed using identical methods. All three studies used
k-means clustering methods to classify respondents into a range of solutions with
different numbers of groups. These were evaluated for stability and their predictive power in relation to the behavioural variables in the surveys. The chosen
segments were then tested for face validity with other marketing academics and
practitioners in New Zealand. These groups and the changes observed are
described below.
While there were changes in the number of segments from 1989 to 1995, there
are obvious similarities, although the gradual disappearance of an ‘active family’
segment is noticeable. Other changes reflect demographic trends such as an
ageing population, and moves in government policy to encourage individual
responsibility and the deregulation of many aspects of the economy.
Specifically, in the 1995 study, five of the groups were identifiably similar to
1989 with the notable exception of the Active ‘Family Values’ segment. Consistent
with the remarks about increasing independence and ambition the Success-driven
Extroverts grew, forming an estimated 16 percent of the population. The Strivers
group matured in age but no longer displayed all the conflicts portrayed in 1989.
Consequently they were renamed as Social Strivers in order to better depict their
real nature. The Educated Greens were also renamed as the Educated Liberals, with
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the green issue seemingly not so prevalent as in 1989; rather it became one of
many social concerns about which they expressed strong opinions. The older
traditional group described as Quiet Lifers was still present in 1996, but with an
even stronger focus round the home and apparently less active and neighbourly
than in 1989. Hence, they too were renamed, as the Conservative Quiet Lifers. The
1995 segment labelled Active ‘Family Values’ People is descended from the 1989
Traditional Values Family People. The same spiritual and community focus as in
1989 is still evident but in 1995 more resources and a more active togetherness
were indicated. The Pragmatic Strugglers emerged in 1995, a segment low in
resources with many single parent families. In attitudes they show some similarities with the 1989 Active Family People and their presence as a distinctive group
reflects increasing divisions in resources in New Zealand society at the time,
together with social changes such as an increasing divorce rate. The Accepting
Mid-lifers is more difficult to equate with any of the 1989 segments. They are predominantly middle-aged, comfortably off and not governed by any strong sense
of social status or internal belief system. The emergence of such a group that holds
few political opinions and expresses little interest in social concerns is consistent
with the political apathy evidenced by low voter turnouts recently seen in many
countries including the USA and the UK.
From 1995 to 2000, demographic characteristics of several of the groups
changed, again reflecting an ageing society in particular. The Success-driven
Extroverts, then, are still very much in evidence and there appears to be little
difference to the group described in 1995, although in a reversal of the trend from
1989 to 1995, there is a slight reduction in the size of this group. The Educated
Liberals also appear to be very much the same group as previously identified,
although now slightly older than before and with a wider representation of different living arrangements evident. The Pragmatic Strugglers are still present. A
notable change in this group is that there are more older members, and also that
they appear more inclined to indicate they are getting a raw deal, and slightly less
inclined to believe that they are going to get out of their present financial and
social position. Traditional Values is one of two older groups identified in this
most recent study. They undoubtedly comprise some of the former Active ‘Family
Values’ People grouping, and share many attitudes with the Success-driven
Extroverts, although are more traditional in some of their opinions expressed. The
better-resourced members of the former Conservative Quiet Lifers also appear to
have moved into this group. The Accepting Mid-lifers is again the largest segment,
and shares many identifiable characteristics with the 1995 group of the same
name. However, demographically there is a change, with more older, retired
households evident. Social Strivers are still evident, and it is possible that some of
the less well off Active ‘Family Values’ People have moved into this group. Overall,
they still demonstrate the same conflict between what they want and what they
can attain, and a conflict between attitudes and actual behaviour. However, the
opinion that they are getting a raw deal and are struggling is not so strongly
expressed as in 1995. It is possible that the less well-resourced members of this
group in 1995 have moved into the Pragmatic Strugglers segment.
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While several of the changes discussed above can be attributed to changes in
demographic trends, it is also evident that relative variations within the segments,
as well as the emergence of new groups, reflect wider changes that occurred in
New Zealand society over the time period within which these studies were conducted. ‘Middle’ New Zealand has noticeably diminished, to the point that it is no
longer a distinct segment, while an analysis of the resources available to the
various segments indicates an increasing gap between those who have the wherewithal to cope with modern society, and those who do not. This finding is not
unique to New Zealand, being consistent with established international trends.
Additionally, the emergence of the Pragmatic Strugglers in 1995, while undoubtedly reflecting demographic changes such as an increased divorce rate and
smaller families, also reflects government policies at the same time, moving New
Zealand towards becoming a ‘user-pays’ society, with this group apparently
having limited access to health and education services, and other social resources.
Thus, the changes observed in consumers’ lifestyles, measured on the basis of AIO
items, can also be viewed as reflecting the changed social stratification of New
Zealand.
Concluding comments
To conclude, we believe that consumer research and marketing would benefit
from conceptualizing lifestyles in terms of social stratification as opposed to a
form of psychological segmentation. In that context it appears to be a more relevant tool for market analysis than social class, as well as avoiding the debate that
surrounds the operationalization and measurement of that concept. Lifestyle deals
with the choices people make and the outputs of individuals. This is opposed to
class which, while commonly measured on the basis of occupation, deals with
some of the inputs to economic and social power. In this way it reflects the
difference between class and status as articulated by Weber. Finally, we believe
that it is an appropriate time to discontinue use of the term psychographics and
consign it to a period of marketing history. That is not to say that marketers
should be embarrassed or apologetic about the construct, but that it should be
recognized that it is fundamentally no different to what is now termed lifestyles.
Also, through the association with both values and social stratification, lifestyle
has attained a much broader acceptance, especially in the parent behavioural
discipline of sociology. Indeed, marketers may actually take some satisfaction
from saying that we were here before Bourdieu! The benefit of a clearer conceptualization of lifestyle would aid our understanding of segmentation studies and
their implications, as well as reducing the confusion that currently exists with
overlapping terminologies.
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Rob Lawson is Professor, Department of Marketing, University of Otago.
Address: PO Box 56, Dunedin ,New Zealand
[email:[email protected]]
Sarah Todd is Senior Lecturer, Department of Marketing, University of Otago.
Address: PO Box 56, Dunedin ,New Zealand
[email: [email protected]]
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