Q. How can you explain the concept of culture and subculture?
For the principle of studying consumer behaviour culture can be defined as the sum total of learned beliefs values and customs that serve to guide as well as direct the consumer behaviour of all members of that society.
Howard and Sheth has defined culture as A selective manmade way of responding to experience a set of behavioural pattern. Therefore culture consists of traditional ideas and in particular the values which are attached to these ideas. It includes belief, knowledge, morale, art, law, customs and all other habits acquired by man as a member of society. An conventional concept about culture is that includes a set of learned values, beliefs, attitudes, habits and forms of behaviour that are shared by a society as well as are transmitted from generation to generation within that society.
We can as well put as: Culture refers to the set of ideas, values and attitudes that are accepted by a homogenous group of people and transmitted to the next generation. Or the sum total of approaches of living built up by a group of human beings two terms that are associated with culture are:
- Enculturation-Learning about one's own culture
- Acculturation-Learning about a new culture