Cultural Influences on Consumer Decision-Making Part 2

44) Raymond Chandler wrote classic American detective stories. By always using certain roles for his characters and props that were appropriate to the genre, Chandler's novels followed a(n) ________. A) cultural formula B) enacted norm C) fashion cycle D) innovation process Answer: A 45) Kyle liked to think he could program anything digital. He created a new video game, and a major industry firm wanted to buy it from him. He was bothered by their insistence that he modify the game by including a popular product's logo on the clothing of his main character. In this example, Kyle is concerned about the practice of ________. A) cultural jamming B) advergaming C) pretailing D) plinking Answer: B 46) What term refers to desired end states that can apply to many different cultures? A) instrumental values B) more C) terminal values D) norms Answer: C 47) The ________ assumes that people link very specific product attributes to terminal values. A) knowledge structure theory B) means-end chain model C) diffusion of innovation D) cultural production system model Answer: B 48) Which of the following best supports the argument that tourism is a sacred experience? A) Tourism rarely involves the binary opposition of work and leisure. B) Tourism involves seeking authentic experiences that differ from daily, mundane activities. C) Tourism involves the four most important dimensions of culture. D) Tourism provides opportunities for individuals to better understand their culture's crescive norms through interaction with other cultures. Answer: B 49) In a culture production system, the communications subsystem ________. A) generates new symbols and products B) selects and manages the distribution of new symbols and products C) gives meaning to new products and provides a symbolic set of attributes D) organizes the sharing of symbols Answer: C 50) Once a culture is established it doesn't change. An apparent change in a culture is simply the emergence of a new culture. Answer: FALSE 51) A metaphysical myth fulfills the cultural function of explaining how the components of the universe relate to each other. Answer: FALSE 52) In many cultures, stories feature talking animals that act as mediating figures. Answer: TRUE 53) Most holidays commemorate a cultural myth. Answer: TRUE 54) Passing a driving test to receive a driver's license is an example of a rite of passage. Answer: TRUE 55) Profane consumption involves consumer objects and events that are ordinary. Answer: TRUE 56) Casting directors, textbook authors, and retail buyers are all examples of formal gatekeepers in the culture production process. Answer: TRUE 57) A style typically begins as a risky or unique statement by a relatively small group of people. Answer: TRUE 58) Romance novels often follow a cultural formula. Answer: TRUE 59) Hofstede's Dimensions of National Culture organizes cross-cultural values based on power distance, individualism, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, long-term orientation, and indulgence. Answer: TRUE 60) The indulgence versus restraint dimension of Hofstede's Dimensions of National Culture deals with the extent to which a society allows relatively free gratification of basic and natural human drives related to enjoying life. Answer: TRUE 61) The extent to which the less powerful members of organizations and institutions accept and expect that power is distributed unequally is referred to as power distance. Answer: TRUE 62) Values associated with a long-term orientation are respect for social obligations and the need to save face. Answer: FALSE 63) Where you choose to sit in an almost empty movie theater is most likely determined by your culture's mores. Answer: FALSE 64) Every year, the students at a prestigious engineering school remove a car from the parking lot and place it on the highest point of the roof of the main engineering building. The students have been doing this for decades, but not once has anyone ever confided to an outsider how it was done. This is a classic example of a ritual. Answer: TRUE 65) Anna's best friend Aubrey was getting married. Anna spent a lot of time thinking of the perfect gift. She was so excited about the gift that she gave it to Aubrey before the wedding. Aubrey cried and told Anna that she would never in her life have a better friend. Reformulation is the proper term for the new bond between Anna and Aubrey. Answer: TRUE 66) A professor was given a warning after he made a bad joke about Princess Diana shortly after her death. Students were likely upset because they saw Princess Di as a profane character worthy of special attention and respect. Answer: FALSE 67) Products appearing in retail stores are examples of the use of product placement. Answer: FALSE 68) Creolization occurs when foreign influences integrate with local meanings. Answer: TRUE 69) The worldwide popularity of McDonald's suggests that there is a global consumer culture that unites people around the world by their common devotion to brands. Answer: TRUE 70) The transition of Turkish tea to a mass-market product illustrates the process of sacralization. Answer: FALSE 71) People occupy sacred time and space when they travel on vacation. Answer: TRUE 72) In the modern holiday rituals of Christmas, the figures of Christ and Santa can be seen as binary opposites; one promotes selflessness while the other promotes materialism. Answer: TRUE 73) Shira wants to prove that even the most mundane of objects can be sacralized through the process of objectification. She should use examples of hoarding to support her argument. Answer: FALSE 74) A cultural system consists of three functional areas. What are they? Give a brief explanation of each. Answer: Culture's functional areas include: a. Ecology–the way in which a system is adapted to its habitat. This area is shaped by the technology used to obtain and distribute resources. b. Social structure–the way in which orderly social life is maintained. This includes the domestic and political groups that are dominant within the culture. c. Ideology–the mental characteristics of a people and the way in which they relate to their environment and social groups. This revolves around the notion that members of a society possess a common worldview. They share certain ideas about principles of order and fairness. They also share an ethos, or a set of moral and aesthetic principles. 75) Explain the meaning of objectification and how it occurs. Provide an example. Answer: Objectification occurs when we attribute sacred qualities to mundane items. This occurs through the process of contamination. Students may provide a mix of examples. For instance, Archie Bunker's chair from the television show All in the Family is a sacred item. 76) Describe the difference between an enacted norm and a crescive norm. Indicate forms that the crescive norm may take. Answer: An enacted norm is explicitly decided on, such as the rule that a green traffic light means "go" and a red one means "stop." The rules are not subtle; they are specific. A crescive norm is embedded in a culture and is discovered only through interaction with other members of that culture. These norms can be subtle. Crescive norms include the following: a. A custom is a norm that controls basic behaviors, such as the division of labor in a household or the practice of particular ceremonies. b. A more is a custom with a strong moral overtone. A more often involves a taboo or forbidden behavior, such as incest or cannibalism. Violation of a more often meets with strong sanctions from other members of a society. c. A convention is a norm regarding the conduct of everyday life. These rules deal with the subtleties of consumer behavior, including the "correct" way to furnish one's house, wear one's clothes, host a dinner party, and so on. 77) Explain the idea of an antifestival and describe an example of an antifestival. Answer: An antifestival is an event that distorts the symbols associated with other holidays. For example, Mardi Gras is a three-day festival held just before Lent. Lent is a religious and pious time, a period of self-sacrifice and meditation leading up to Easter. During Mardi Gras, people adorn themselves in clothing that they would not normally wear and engage in behavior that they normally would avoid. 78) Define rites of passage and indicate the various stages of role transition that can occur. Give at least two examples of rites of passage. Answer: Rites of passage are special times in an individual's life marked by a change in social status. Both primitive and modern societies set aside times when such changes occur. Some of these changes may occur as a natural part of life cycles (e.g., puberty or death), while others are more individual in nature (e.g., a birthday or graduation). Rites of passage consist of three phases or stages of role transition: ∙ Separation stage, which occurs when the individual is detached from his or her original group or status, e.g., the college freshman leaves home. ∙ Liminality stage, in which the person is literally in between statuses, e.g., the new arrival on campus tries to figure out what is happening during orientation week. ∙ Aggregation stage, which takes place when the person reenters society after the rite of passage is complete, e.g., the student returns home for winter vacation as a college "veteran." Examples of rites of passage include: a divorce, getting a raise, a birthday, a marriage, a military recruit going to boot camp, an internship completed and a medical practice begun, a novitiate becoming a nun, retirement from a job, and so on. The final rite of passage is death. 79) Compare and contrast sacred and profane consumption. Answer: Sacred consumption involves objects and events that are "set apart" from normal activities and are treated with some degree of respect or awe. They may or may not be associated with religion, but most religious items and events tend to be regarded as sacred. On the other hand, profane consumption involves consumer objects and events that are ordinary and everyday; they do not share the "specialness" of sacred ones. (Profane does not mean vulgar or obscene in this context.) 80) Identify what the term cooptation means. Give an illustration of the concept and demonstrate how it applies to the movement of meaning as shown in the text. Answer: Cooptation occurs when cultural products undergo a transformation. Original meanings are transformed by outsiders. According to the text, instruments of movement (such as advertising and fashion systems) connect to cultural values and symbols; these cultural values and symbols change consumer goods over time. As the consumer performs consumer rituals, individual consumers are affected. As an example of the change, the text explains how the influence of hip-hop has gone beyond its urban, African-American roots to the American mainstream. 81) Explain the three distinct stages of gift-giving rituals. Answer: The three stages include gestation, presentation, and reformulation. Gestation is the preparation stage in which the giver procures an item. The presentation stage is the process of the actual exchange. Reformulation refers to the shift in the bond between giver and receiver due to the experience. 82) How can a myth be true and false at the same time? Answer: A myth is a story containing symbolic elements that represent the shared emotions and ideals of a culture. A myth is true in that the story contains some metaphysical, cosmological, sociological, or psychological aspect that expresses a truth to a particular culture. However, the actual occurrences in the story do not have to be historically, or even logically, true. 83) Some people have been offended when marketers refer to an event such as the Super Bowl as a sacred event. They believe that business people are being disrespectful. Explain how the concept of sacred in consumer behavior is both the same and different from the concept of sacred in a traditional religious context. Answer: In marketing, an event, place, or person becomes sacred because it is "set apart" from normal activities and begins to be treated with some degree of respect or awe. There are numerous reasons why this may happen, religion being only one of many. There is nothing in the definition that refers to specific or historical religious events, places, or persons. The term as utilized, however, does have similarities with religious feelings. A "sacred" object in religion is treated as very special. It is handled with care and given special packaging considerations. This is also true of sacred objects in marketing. Religious people would be offended if a sacred object was treated casually, or if someone made light of it. The same is generally true with a sacred object in marketing. The manner in which society reacts to Elvis Presley or to Princess Diana is quite similar to how a saint would be treated by a religious person. The two concepts are different in that a sacred object need not have religious connections of any kind. Even those who react to an event like the Super Bowl as a sacred occasion may be offended if the suggestion is made that the event has religious overtones for the person. 84) Use cultural ideas about food and eating as examples to explain the differences between the three types of crescive norms discussed in the book. Answer: A crescive norm is one that is embedded so deeply inside a culture that it is discovered through interaction with other members of that culture rather than through memory or study. A custom is a crescive norm that controls basic behavior. For example, custom would dictate at what times and how much people eat. A more is a custom with a strong moral overtone. Mores would dictate what kind of food is acceptable to eat. For example, dog meat is taboo in the United States, but not necessarily in other countries. A convention is a crescive norm that regulates how we conduct our everyday lives. Conventions would dictate what utensils we use to eat a meal or what to wear at dinnertime. 85) A female writer looks at a common myth of the Western culture and writes a novel applying that myth to fictional modern characters. Using the concept of a culture production system (CPS), explain how this writer will market her ideas to her readers. Answer: The writer produces the novel. She is part of the creative subsystem. She takes her idea from a myth or a story containing the symbolic elements that represent the shared emotions and ideals she shares with her customers. Her novel must be accepted for publication by a managerial subsystem, which makes her ideas tangible in the form of a book, and then mass-produces and distributes her novel. After her novel is published, it must be promoted. The promotion gives meaning to the story and provides it with a set of attributes that are communicated to consumers. This is a communication subsystem. The novel may still remain unnoticed by the general public until the gatekeepers either allow it through to the consumers or begin to promote the book. If the book is given notice by Oprah Winfrey, media people give positive reviews, or if friends, spouses, and associates begin to talk about the novel, then it is much more likely that the symbol pool used by the writer will be communicated to the final consumer. Culture modifies this entire procedure. The creation most likely came from the symbols of the culture. What is accepted and promoted is driven by cultural values and images. Whether the ideas are acceptable to gatekeepers is largely a matter of culture. 86) Use the example of a political campaign to discuss the relationship between various cultural formulas and reality engineering. Answer: The idea behind the cultural formula is that a culture will tell stories in which certain roles and props are utilized in a consistent manner. Certain images and symbols are recycled by being used repeatedly, or by being applied to new situations. Communication and meaning is facilitated because everyone is on "the same page" and understands the meanings and context in which the story unfolds. Reality engineering occurs when marketers appropriate elements of popular culture and use them as promotional vehicles. During a political campaign, the candidate will try to tie him- or herself into as many positive cultural formulas as possible. The candidate, for example, may take off his coat and roll up his sleeves (symbolic of the working man) to demonstrate that the candidate is willing to work for the common person. The flag will be shown as a backdrop. At the same time, the candidate will attempt to manipulate the voters' concept of reality by tying himself or herself to positive cultural images and symbols, while attempting to connect his or her opponent to negative images. 87) Choose a myth and explain the myth in terms of the four interrelated functions myths play in a culture. Answer: Answers will vary but each myth explained should include explanations with the four functions: metaphysical, cosmological, sociological, and psychological.