Social Class and Consumer Choice: The Role of Cultural Capital

Research shows low SES consumers have proximal focus and thus prefer immediately-enjoyable hedonic products. These findings, however, focused on “economic” aspects of SES, neglecting the second understudied “socio-cultural” aspect. We posit low social status can instead increase utilitarian choices, by cueing a lack of cultural capital—i.e., internalized knowledge, skills and behaviors reflecting cultural competence. When consumers perceive low status, they turn to building cultural capital, which requires responsible behaviors. Utilitarian products afford them this opportunity to act responsibly. In studies 1-3, we show chronic and perceived low status increases utilitarian preferences, as does a lack of cultural capital. We then implicate process—low status people, lacking in cultural capital, chronically prefer utilitarian products, but high status people prefer utilitarian products when situationally-cued to lacking cultural capital (study 5-6). A final study provides mediating evidence as well as a boundary condition—these effects arise in private when responsible actions provide self-signals of garnering cultural capital. In social situations, low status instead increases hedonic choices. These choices provide social capital, compensating for lack of cultural capital. For policy makers we offer an important practical insight—remind low SES consumers of constraints on their cultural rather than economic capital to increase responsible private choices.