What parts of your decision making process does your social life affect?

Social factors are present in everyday decisions. They are among the most influential factors for consumers, and affect all the decisions they make.

Social differences are present in everyday lives of all people. So, naturally, they affect the way people conceive all the things that surround them. With that said, we can assume that social differences affect the way people decide whether a product is good or not good for them. Because we’re constantly surrounded by other people, we tend to accept their views and thoughts about something. Social factors are all the factors that originate from your friends and family, your surrounding society and your social status. With information I got from management study guide website, which has lots of great information regarding this topic, we learn that a person's family, reference groups, social status and role play the most important social factors when making a decision.

Source: blog.zyncro.com

 Social factors can be classified as:

• Reference groups
• Family
• Role in Society
• Social Status

Reference groups

 Reference groups are the people that surround the consumers in everyday life. For example, reference groups are friends, neighbors, relatives and distant family members. All of them affect the way we behave and shape our decisions. Good example for this is present everywhere around you. People that are same age and hang out tend to dress similarly and buy similar products. If a friend recommends a product you are more likely to buy it. Also, in different stages of life, you are surrounded with different people, so you make different decisions. A college bachelor is more likely to buy party material than a house furniture. Just because at that stage of life, household furnishing is not a necessity it does not mean he won’t need it the future.

Family

 Family is one of the strongest social factors. Stuff that you learn at home, usually stays with you for the whole life. Also, family roles come into play here. There are products specially made for moms, dads etc. Because a family is really big part of our lives, it influences us a lot. Some things that we learn at home stay with us for life and we pass them to our children. That’s why family influence is really important social factor that’s present in everyday decisions.

Role in society

 Everyone has a role in a society. Workers, students, businessmen or boss, everyone has a different role in society, and thus makes different decisions. Student and a businessman won’t have same tastes and preferences, just because of their different needs and habits.

Social status

 In modern society, social status plays a really important role. People try to show or hide what social class they belong to. Social class should not play a major role, but it unfortunately does. Also, what social class you’re in, determines how much money and on what you can spend it. People from upper middle class would spent on stuff that are not necessary for their survival, while lower class spends money only on products that are necessary for survival. For people that are in poverty vacations and new cars are a luxury, while for someone that’s in better economic situation that is just a necessity and something they take for granted.

Future research: What are personal factors and how do they affect your decisions?