What Does YOUR Car Say About You?

I have started off with this video as I feel that it provides a good, basic explanation of why people conform to group opinion, they do not want to "rock the boat", or they simply feel that if everyone else is says something then it must be true. The need to "belong" is half way up Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, under social needs. After a person's basic physiological and safety needs, such as water, food and shelter, have been satisfied psychological needs are to be fulfilled; emotional needs such as warming loving relationships and a supportive communicative community. Maslow explains that humans need to feel acceptance from the "group" which is often found in family, a tight social group, sports teams and other groups, but can lead to the formation of gangs.

Most people belong to many different groups consciously, sub-consciously and sometimes unintentionally. Below is a diagram of some of the different groups I belong to and how they affect me.

All theses different groups pose various amounts of influence on different parts of my life. For example my reference group affects the products that I buy. Now that I am at university I have to do my own grocery shopping, and when buying habitual products, such as bread, milk, sugar I have found myself just picking up whatever brand I'm used to having at home, that my Mum would have bought. My peers often affect both the products and brands I buy. Teenage needing to belong is summed up well by bloggist Black Champagne

teenagers are very insecure in their own look and status and they need to latch onto trends to give themselves security and an identity.

It's a way of using others as a benchmark to your own behaviour and purchases. Festinger (1954) came up with the Social Comparison Theory which states

individuals want an accurate assessment of their opinions and performance, and that in the absence of objective standards, they look to others (preferably those who are similar in a relevant dimension) for information about their relative standing.

Gauging one's own behaviour by that of those around you is something that everybody does. Buying outward status symbols such as the most fashionable brands and the latest car are easy, obvious ways of portraying social standing as class. And can easily be bought. They are also a barrier that people, at first, don't need to get through. You are being constantly assessed by those around you. So is it that fashion is an outward depiction of your personality and creativity, or do you create a persona through how you outwardly depict yourself?

Festinger, L., A Theory of Social Comparison Processes. Human Relations, 1954

His first hypothesis is that in humans there exists a drive to evaluate his opinions and abilities by comparison with the opinions and abilities of others. Both opinions and abilities have a strong impact on his behavior. People want to know how their abilities stack up against others. Some abilities have clear criteria (e.g., running times), others are actually an opinion themselves (when there are non-social means of comparison available). People also don't tend to evaluate themselves against others that are too different than themselves. In fact, given a range of people they will choose people most like themselves for comparison. Also, a discrepancy in a group with respect to opinions or abilities will lead to action by members to reduce that discrepancy.

One website, Social Conformity and Violence, states that "Conformity can be defined as a change in a person's behavior or opinions as a result of real or imagined pressure form a person or a group of people". It goes on to say that a key part of group conformity is compliance, the "behaviour of a person motivated by desire to gain reward or avoid punishment".

A private necessity might be a washing machine, and a public luxury could be a luxury car. The most common type of public luxury is the car. It has been stereotyped and personalities have been judged on them for years. An article in the Telegraph says "sociological research has revealed that the population at large does draw conclusions about the personality of car owners from their vehicles. The longer the bonnet of a car, the more arrogant and macho the driver is judged to be. The larger the boot, the less youthful the owner". And the car industry feeds off this seemingly innate judgement. One of the most common theories for this phenomena is that it is an easy way of comparing your success against those around you. If you park your car in the company car park you can immediately gauge your car against that of almost everyone else in that company. If you park your car on your street you can see straight away how it sizes up to your neighbours. But if you really want to know what your car says about you, read Forbes' analysis.