The Market for Luxury Goods: Income versus Culture

Dubois, Bernard; Duquesne, Patrick

doi:10.1108/03090569310024530

Cited by 467 publications

(316 citation statements)

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“…These people may be characterized by overconsumption, as their class consciousness, if strongly shaped by lifestyle, is higher than their objective, economic class. The prominence of overconsuming people with seemingly mistaken class consciousness might be inevitable in status-competitive, consumer societies to the extent that one's cultural consumption is not strongly restricted by budgets at hand but significantly affected by striving to be ''on trend'' (Dubois & Duquesne, 1993). We also confirmed that major findings under the assumption of the infinite range of assimilation also hold true for finite ranges of assimilation which are considerably larger than those of distinction.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 77%

“…Note that cultural consumption in the contemporary society is significantly influenced by ''social status'' (Alderson et al, 2007) and cultural values (Dubois & Duquesne, 1993). Consumer research and economic psychology report that popularized luxury consumption is influenced by social aspirations (Karlsson, Dellgran, Klingander, & Gärling, 2004) and psychological indulgence (e.g., Kivetz & Simonson, 2002).…”

Section: Theory and Model Of Assimilation-distinctionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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How Do Cultural Classes Emerge from Assimilation and Distinction? An Extension of the Cucker-Smale Flocking Model

Kang

et al. 2013

The Journal of Mathematical Sociology

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When cultural tastes are not neutral but hierarchically matched to social status, people assimilate themselves to higher status by consuming cultural goods while distinguishing themselves from lower status by developing new tastes. Extending the Cucker-Smale model for mutual influence among agents, we examine when and how many cultural classes emerge from continuous distributions of tastes and what conditions those classes satisfy, through the assimilation-distinction mechanism. We simulate the models with different initial distributions of tastes (uniform, normal, and chi-square), given various ranges of 2 parameters: (a) the strength and (b) the range of distinction relative to assimilation. Tastes are flocking and cultural classes emerge when the range of assimilation is much larger than that of distinction. The number of classes increases with the strength of distinction, whereas the distance between classes equals the range of distinction. Some properties of emergent classes are mathematically proved. First, in a two-class system, the stronger distinction, the larger the upper class. Second, in a three-class system, the middle class is necessarily larger than the lower class and likely larger than the upper class. Third, a 3-class system cannot emerge if distinction is weaker than assimilation. These properties are universal and do not depend on the initial distribution of cultural tastes. This independence predicts homogeneous cultural classes emerging across different social conditions. Also, the cultural middle class as the largest group may explain why subjective class consciousness is often higher than objective position. Unless assimilating efforts can reach an infinite range, there emerges a cultural outcast at the lowest end of the cultural hierarchy.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 77%

Section: Theory and Model Of Assimilation-distinctionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Do Cultural Classes Emerge from Assimilation and Distinction? An Extension of the Cucker-Smale Flocking Model

Kang

et al. 2013

The Journal of Mathematical Sociology

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“…The economic value of luxury, fashion and status products is argued to be substantial. 31 Mason 32 argued that people express themselves through consumption in a myriad of ways, and in this context, products and brands have the ability to communicate messages to others, in that product styles determine how consumers Materialism as a word or trait is generally viewed in a very negative sense and is clearly reflected in the various denouncements of materialism by all major world religions and in numerous other critiques. It is interesting to note from the previous research that it has been established that materialism is viewed as an evil phenomenon and that the USA is commonly viewed as a country that encourages and breeds this evil phenomenon.…”

Section: Fashion Marketingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Influence of materialism, gender and nationality on consumer brand perceptions

Kamineni

2005

J Target Meas Anal Mark

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“…Although it could be assumed that a primary indicator for the purchase of high-price goods would be the income or the economic power of consumers, it was shown that their cultural background has approximately the same predictive power to explain the purchase of luxury goods (Dubois & Duquesne, 1993). Socio-economic and cultural background however does not only play a role in consumption of luxury goods but in shopping behaviour in general (Arnould & Thompson, 2005;McCracken, 1986).…”

Section: Cultural Ergonomicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The influence of socio-cultural background and product value in usability testing

Sonderegger

Sauer

2013

Applied Ergonomics

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This article examines the influence of socio-cultural background and product value on different outcomes of usability tests. A study was conducted in two different socio-cultural regions, Switzerland and East Germany, which differed in a number of aspects (e.g. economic power, price sensitivity and culture). Product value (high vs. low) was varied by manipulating the price of the product. Sixty-four test participants were asked to carry out five typical user tasks in the context of coffee machine usage, measuring performance, perceived usability, and emotion. The results showed that in Switzerland, high-value products were rated higher in usability than low-value products whereas in East Germany, high-value products were evaluated lower in usability. A similar interaction effect of socio-cultural background and product value was observed for user emotion. Implications are that the outcomes of usability tests do not allow for a simple transfer across cultures and that the mediating influence of perceived product value needs to be taken into consideration.

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The Market for Luxury Goods: Income versus Culture

Cited by 467 publications

References 0 publications

How Do Cultural Classes Emerge from Assimilation and Distinction? An Extension of the Cucker-Smale Flocking Model

How Do Cultural Classes Emerge from Assimilation and Distinction? An Extension of the Cucker-Smale Flocking Model

Influence of materialism, gender and nationality on consumer brand perceptions

The influence of socio-cultural background and product value in usability testing

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