Makalah Diskusi KRKK No. 02
Understanding Consumption Behavior of Socially
Excluded Consumers
Joseph Robert Daniel1
Social exclusion, defined as “a state in which individuals are unable to participate fully in economic, social, political and cultural life, as well as the process leading to or sustaining such state” (UN, 2016), is a threatening, pyschologically harmful human experience. It has destructive influence on one’s self-control and self-esteem,
belongingness and meaningful existence (Williams, 2009). It can deteriorate one’s learning ability (Baumeister, Twenge and Nuss, 2002) and has been linked to
aggressive and risky behavior (DeWall, Twenge, Gitter, Seth, and Baumeister, 2009). In Indonesia, social exclusion is a major challenge of human development (UNDP, 2017). There are still many Indonesian communities today that continuously struggle with barrier to educational services, health services, legal services, religious
expressions and many others (Asia Foundation, 2016). These barriers are often created by external factors such as geographical remoteness, unfair distribution of goods and services, power imbalance between market actors, stigmatization and discrimination from the majority groups in the society, and internal factors like bio-physical or psychosocial disadvantages.
However, being socially excluded is not a status held only by a particular,
disadvantaged group. In fact, seeing a class or group of citizens as socially excluded without understanding their actual experiences may lead to another kind of
stigmatization (cf. Baker, Gentry and Rittenburg, 2005). Everyone at some degree and at some points in life can experience various levels of this psychological
phenomena. Losing a friend, failing a class, being left uninvited to a party, or getting fired from a job are several examples of life experiences that can make anyone feel rejected and suffer psychological effects of exclusion, either temporarily or
permanently.
In dealing with social exclusion, people deploy various strategies to recover from its psychological consequences. One way that they usually pursue is through
consumption of not only products and services, but sometimes political ideas, radical ideologies, and spiritual beliefs. Consumption functions as a means through which they can mitigate the consequences of being excluded. However, how do socially excluded consumers navigate their consumption activities? And equally important, how should marketers and government design their products and activities to improve the life of socially excluded consumers?
Understanding consumption behavior of socially excluded consumers is important for two main reasons. First, in consumer protection narrative, socially excluded
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consumers are arguably the most vulnerable and in need for empowerment. These consumers represent people who are barred from resources and opportunities needed for full and equal participation in marketplace as well as people who have physical or psychological disadvantages in navigating consumption experience. These people are often discriminated and fall victim to manipulative, predatory and fraudulent marketing activities due to their unfortunate conditions (see Daniel, 2017; cf. Li, 2017a and 2017b). Developing suitable and effective governmental
intervention to improve their lives calls for critical reflection on the influence of social exclusion on their behavior, particularly in their consumption activities. Secondly, socially excluded consumers represent a potential market segment with special and different needs compare to the inclusive consumers. Marketers need to design products and services that specifically tailored to these needs and bring social justice for this type of consumers, instead of creating one-size-fits-all products and services that may only worsen their exclusion. For this purpose, insights from consumer research that socially excluded consumers tend to consume in order to enhance social connection and restore their sense of control are worth to be reviewed.
Enhancing social connection
Being affiliated with social group as well as being valued and respected by others is critical for human’s well-being and survival (Baumeister and Leary, 1995). When people experience social exclusion, they feel that their place in a social group or social belongingness is endangered. Such experience will bring complex
psychological effects that resulting in, among others, a heightened desire to boost or restore sense of belongingness (Lakin, Chartrand, and Arkin, 2008).
Consumer research suggests that excluded consumers restore their belongingness through several mechanisms. The first mechanism is by buying products that
symbolize group membership (e.g. Football jersey, T-shirt of a particular rock band) (Mead, Baumeister, Stillman, Rawn and Vohs, 2011). It has been acknowledged that people do not buy products only for their functional, utilitarian benefit but also for their symbolic benefit (Levy, 1959; Hirschman and Holbrook, 1982). They also buy products or services to communicate their identities, signalling their tastes,
aspirations and values (cf. Belk, 1988). The use of products that can make
consumers feel that they are part of something or communicate their social identity to others is an effective way to reduce emotional damages of social exclusion. Secondly, Mead’s et.al (2011) study also suggests that when consumers feel excluded, they tend to prefer products that are also prefered by their interaction partner. This finding can be linked to the argument that when people experience exclusion, they tend to be more conformistic to others in order to fulfill their need to belong (Williams, Cheung and Choi, 2000). However, other studies have also
highlighted that if consumers are okay with being excluded and view the cause of exclusion as something beyond their control, they tend to favor unique products that can magnify their distinctive personal attributes over products that signalling
Thirdly, other than tailoring their spending preferences to the preferences of their interaction partner, consumers also mitigate the psychological effects of exclusion by consuming products that have human-like characteristics or products that can be treated as interaction partner (anthropomorphized products: e.g. Apple’s Siri)
(Mourey, Olson, dan Yoon, 2017; Chen, Wan, Levy, 2016; Waytz, 2013). In other words, sometimes consumers do not use products merely as instrument to revitalize social connection with others, but instead treat the products as the source of social connection itself. This finding resonates with the studies in nostalgic consumption, that when consumers feel that they are being left out, they demonstrated high preference for products that remind them of consoling past (Loveland, Smeesters, and Mandel, 2010). Products and brands are alternative source of emotional comfort. Mitigating the psychological effects of exclusion by restoring social connection and seeking emotional comfort highlights the critical role of affect when people
experience exclusion. Social exclusion impairs brain function and limits consumer capacity to properly form rational assessment (Baumeister, Twenge and Nuss, 2002). Consequently, they will tend to rely more on their affect (i.e. feelings and emotion) to evaluate alternatives and make sense of their options (Lu and Sinha, 2017; Faraji-Rad and Pham, 2016). Hence, for socially excluded consumers,
products with strong emotional appeal of social connection will be more attractive.
Restoring control
Another deeply ingrained human’s need that is threatened when people experience social exclusion is sense of control. Social exclusion often hinders people to access social support, resources, information and so on (Hutchison, Abrams, dan Christian, 2007). This condition, If happen frequently, will reduce people’s self-efficacy and make them feel powerless over their environment (McLoughlin-Volpe, Aron, Wright, dan Lewandowski, 2005), leading them to anxiety and depression.
tend to favor practical, utilitarian products in order to restore their control. However, researchers have acknowledged this contradiction and contended that since social exclusion threatens two basic psychological needs (i.e. belongingness and sense of control), then in consumption situations, the behavior of the consumers will be determined by the ‘relative strengths of these two forces’ (Su et.al, 2016).
Lesson Learned and Recommendations
The newly established Peraturan Presiden Nomor 50 Tahun 2017 about National Strategy for Consumer Protection contends that ensuring fairness in the marketplace is one of Indonesia’s critical objectives in its prospective consumption-based
economy. Other than strengthening government institutional capacity in consumer protection and increasing market players obedience, empowering consumers to fulfill their rights is also one of the key strategies to achieve this objective. In the case of socially excluded consumers, empowerment activities should be focused on
rehabilitating their sense of belongingness and control, which based on the literature review above can be done by:
1. Heightening affective information (i.e information that focus on emotional appeal) over descriptive, rational information of products/services and governmental programs;
2. Increasing the availability of practical goods and services;
3. Ensuring fairer marketing activities so irresponsible marketers cannot exploit the vulnerabilities of socially excluded consumers without being punished (e.g. increasing tax, product ban, license removal, etc).
4. Giving consumers more ways/mechanisms to acquire goods and services. 5. Facilitating the establishment of consumer communities with direct link to
the products/services manufacturers, so consumers would not have to acquire second-hand or third-hand products.
By focusing on restoring the sense of belongingness and control, government and business practitioners are in better place to change the life of socially excluded consumers. These two core components of well-being are fundamental for anyone to be adaptive in a social environment. Rehabilitating these primary needs will not only help socially excluded consumers protecting themselves from exploitation in this relatively vicious consumption-driven economy, but also fulfill a constitutional duty, protecting the rightful citizens of this country.
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