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Eugene Sivadas: Assistant Professor of Marketing Communications, School of Communication, Management, and Public Policy, Emerson College, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
ACKNOWLEDGMENT: The authors thank Equifax: National Decision Systems Encinitas, CA, for use of InfoMark, its desktop, geodemographic system. Jane Crossen, NDS Chicago Regional Manager has been particularly supportive. The authors are indebted to Leo McCallen, Cincinnati Bell Forecasting and Analysis for providing data about long-distance billing, and cable television subscription ownership. The authors thank Chris Allen, James Kellaris and Neal Ritchey for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this manuscript.
Introduction
Research in consumer behavior has been dominated by studies of the individual (Sheth, 1979). Leong (1989) reported that only 4.1 percent of the references in articles published in the Journal of Consumer Research between 1974 and 1988 came from sociology, the science of group behavior. (During the same period, 26.8 percent of the references came from psychology.) Recently, Wells (1993, p. 303) argued that marketing researchers should pay more attention to the sociological forces that influence consumers, suggesting that "With more acute awareness of sociological models and sociological methods, consumer researchers would see new approaches to old problems."
Approximately 30 percent of all research in major sociological journals is devoted to the nature and effects of social stratification (Miller, 1991). W. Lloyd Warner (1941) is credited with the modern definition of social class. "By class is meant two or more orders of people who are believed to be, and are accordingly ranked by members of the community, in socially superior and inferior positions" (Warner and Lunt, 1941, p. 82). Members of a given social class are approximately equal in community esteem, share behavioral expectations, and regularly socialize among themselves in both formal and informal ways. Coleman (1983) underscored that social class is of particular importance to marketing research because classes are both motivational groupings and status categories that shape consumer behavior. Echoing similar sentiments, Levy (1992) called social class a source of "outstanding variation in consumer behavior" without which we cannot construct the field's "grand template".
In the decade since the publication of Coleman's paper, several forces have impeded researchers from gaining a better understanding of the role of social class in influencing consumer behavior. Perhaps foremost, America's changing demographics have nullified the rules...