Examples Of A Reference Group

What Is a Reference Group?

By Charlotte Nickerson, published Feb 18, 2022 | Fact Checked by Saul Mcleod, PhD

Summary

A reference group is the collectivity to which individuals or groups refer when making comparisons about their lives. They may be positive or negative, encompassing respective beliefs which is aspired to and behavior which is rejected as inappropriate.
The reference groups that someone has can as well modify over time, as attitudes and beliefs evolve. Anthropologists and sociologists have identified several unlike types of reference groups.
The commencement of these differentiations is between normative and comparative reference groups. Normative reference groups are the source of an individual's norms and values, while comparative reference groups are those that an private compares themselves to.
Other sociologists have differentiated between negative and positive reference groups. Positive reference groups — ones that individuals wish to emulate — tin be classified as either contractual or aspirational, depending on whether or not an private has contact with that group. Meanwhile, negative reference groups can be categorized as disclamant or avoidant in the aforementioned way.
Reference groups exist to provide a point of comparing that assists an individual in integrating with their social environment. Marketers can evoke reference groups as a way of predicting and guiding consumer behavior. These evoked reference groups can exist either familiar or aspirational.

Definitions, Functions, and Examples

The term reference group, start coined by the sociologist Hebert Hyman (1942), refers to any group that someone uses as a point of comparing in the procedure of their self-appraisement.

Reference groups could be fix up as models of beliefs or every bit representing goals or attainment. People tin can have many unlike reference groups in dissimilar spheres of their lives, friends, peers, and family unit.

Someone could look at the norms, attitudes, or values of the reference group members. For instance, someone who joins a new workplace may look at more senior employees at the company for cues as to how to dress, speak, and behave in a way that is accepted by the social reference grouping of their function. To practise so, an individual may cull from several existing social groups (Barkan, 2011).

People can look up to several reference groups at once for behavioral cues, and these reference groups have neither a set size nor require an individual to identify with that group explicitly.

Typically, reference groups are informal, pregnant that they are unstructured and do not work towards achieving specific goals. Instead, group membership is based on shared interests and values. Conversely, at that place are formal reference groups where the members of a collective have certain goals and a rigid structure and hierarchy. These tin can include, for example, labor unions and religious groups.

Reference groups take several functions:

They can provide people with a basis for reference so that they tin can evaluate their attitudes and beliefs;
Settle a benchmark of measure out that allows people to determine their self-identity and conduct in a social environment;
Deed every bit a source of inspiration or aspirations for people to live up to or work towards; shape values in terms of what someone thinks is right or wrong by allowing someone to decide which values they want to emulate and which ones to reject;
Allow people to immerse themselves in a new environment by providing them with a standard to follow so that they can integrate improve (Barkan, 2011).

Muzafer Sherif (1953) suggested that humans are unique in how they display reference group beliefs by modifying their conduct based on what they learn from their social environment. This can either exist done by assimilating the values of other individuals or groups or by acting in opposition to the social standards of other individuals or groups.

For instance, a teenager may actively reject becoming similar his parents by partaking in behaviors his parents do not display, such as heavy drinking and staying out late.

This procedure of behavioral adaptation means that reference groups become sources of an individual'due south understanding of self-identity, cognition, and perception. They also allow people to evaluate their behave and performance in a social or professional situation.

Finally, studying reference group beliefs can provide a fundamental to agreement social relationships and attitudes.

Types of Reference Groups

Harold Kelley (1952) determined that there are two singled-out types of reference groups based on the functions that they perform. These are Normative and Comparative reference groups.

Normative reference groups serve as a source of an individual's norms, values, and attitudes. People look up to these groups in order to understand how to conduct themself in an environment. For example, a child at a new school may look up to their older peers to empathise acceptable means to clothes and behave inside cliques.

Comparative reference groups, meanwhile, are those that people can employ as a standard against which they compare themselves during self-appraisal. For example, in the aforementioned school scenario, a student may compare themselves to those who achieve high grades and test scores to approximate their skill and performance.

The American social psychologist Theadore Newcomb (1953) created ii farther categories of reference groups based on the nature of comparing betwixt them. These are positive and negative reference groups.

Types of Positive Reference Groups: Contractual and Aspirational

Positive reference groups are ones in which people aspire to become members. Typically, individuals admire the socialization and behavioral patterns and attitudes of a group and wish to emulate them.

For case, a tech worker may prefer otherwise unusual habits such equally waking upwardly extraordinarily early or drinking Soylent as a way of emulating tech billionaires.

In that location are two types of positive reference groups: Contractual and aspirational. A contractional group is a positive reference group with whom someone has face to face contacts and whose ideology they approve of.

For example, someone may consider sure mentor figures at their role to have positive values and behavior, and seek to emulate them as a result (Merton, 1968).

Meanwhile, aspirational reference groups are those that one does not take contact with, but nonetheless inspires someone to take upward their norms. For example, a young athlete may expect up to the habits of professional basketball players, fifty-fifty if they have never met them.

Types of Negative Reference Groups: Disclamant and Avoidant

Negative reference groups are ones that individuals disapprove of and utilize their patterns of behavior and opinions and attitudes as a standard to avoid.

For example, someone may avoid dressing or speaking in a way similar to a grouping associated with a low criminal status (Merton, 1968).

A disclaimant group is a negative reference group that someone has face to face contact with, but disapproves of their group ideology. This stands in contrast to avoidance groups, which people do non have in-person contact with (Barkan, 2011).

For example, consider a political canvasser. The canvaseer may consider members of the local chapter of the opposing political party to have values and behaviors that they disdain and do not wish to emulate. They may besides come up in contact with members of this reference grouping on a regular footing within the community. These political party members can exist considered to be part of a disclaimant group.

Meanwhile, this canvasser may resent the grouping of people who pb a political party. Although they may disdain the college-ups of a party for similar reasons to why they dislike members of the disclaimant group, they probable accept no contact with them. In that case, the political higher-ups are an abstention group (Barkan, 2011).

Reference groups have several of import characteristics (Barkan, 2011):

They fix ideals of behavior and attitudes, values, and ideologies for those who reference them;
They are not groups or people who consciously or deliberately organized to represent specific social values. They are conceptual groups that 1 often cannot join formally;
Becoming a member of a reference group involves adopting the lifestyle and values of a grouping. For example, an immigrant to France may demand to learn to comprise French culture into their own lifestyle equally a fashion of cultivating a sense of acceptance and belonging. They may be tested on this integration formally or informally;
Finally, someone'southward reference group is in a most-constant state of flux. Every bit people enter new social environments and phases of life, they look up to reference groups as means to carry out self-appraisement. Someone who aspired to join the "cool kids," every bit a teenager may aspire to pb lifestyles similar those they encounter on their friends' social media as an adult.

Application in Marketing

The concept of reference groups is of import for understanding socialization, conformity, and how people perceive and evaluate themselves (Newcomb, 1953).

Reference groups can be used to promote goods or services. Ane category of reference groups used by marketers is that of consumer relevant groups. Some groups, such equally family and friends, can exert a great influence on consumer beliefs through exercising pressure on an individual to comply with group norms.

This thought of consumer relevant groups has been used in advertisement through appealing to groups with whom an audience tin relate. The individual can exist inspired to bear similar the individuals in the group, taking on their consumer beliefs.

Often, this form of marketing can take on the shape of testimonials and endorsements. Alternatively, marketers can evoke an aspirational figure — such as a celebrity — in society to entreatment to the values that a consumer wants to emulate (Newcomb, 1953).

Charlotte Nickerson is a member of the Class of 2024 at Harvard University. Coming from a enquiry background in biological science and archaeology, Charlotte currently studies how digital and physical infinite shapes homo behavior, norms, and behaviors and how this can be used to create businesses with greater social impact.

Content is rigorously reviewed by a squad of qualified and experienced fact checkers. Fact checkers review articles for factual accuracy, relevance, and timeliness. We rely on the about electric current and reputable sources, which are cited in the text and listed at the bottom of each article. Content is fact checked later it has been edited and before publication.

This article has been fact checked by Saul Mcleod, a qualified psychology teacher with over 17 years' feel of working in further and higher teaching. He has been published in psychology journals including Clinical Psychology, Social and Personal Relationships, and Social Psychology.

Nickerson, C. (2022, Feb 18). What Is a Reference Group?. Simply Sociology. https://simplysociology.com/reference-grouping.html

References

Barkan, S. Eastward. (2011). Sociology: Agreement and irresolute the social globe. Flat World Knowledge, Incorporated.

Hyman, H. H. (1942). The psychology of status. Archives of Psychology (Columbia University).

Kelley, H. H., & Volkart, E. H. (1952). The resistance to change of group-anchored attitudes. American Sociological Review, 17(iv), 453-465.

Kuhn, M. H. (1964). The reference group reconsidered. The Sociological Quarterly, v(1), 5-21. Merton, R. (1968). Social Theory and Social Structure. The Gratuitous Printing.

Newcomb, T. M. (1953). An approach to the study of communicative acts. Psychological review, sixty(half-dozen), 393.

Sherif, Yard. (1953). The Concept of reference Groups in Homo relations.