Middle Eastern Women Pursuing College Education – Leveled Relationships on Graphs of Reference Groups
In class we have discussed graphs that represent networks of people, companies, countries and more. Initially we discussed simply relationships between two nodes, and then we added complexity by discussing positive and negative relationships. This, however, remains in many cases a large simplification of our world. In an effort to understand how these graph simplicities generalize to real world examples I searched for articles on reference groups. Reference groups are commonly known as a group, generally social group, that a person uses to form attitudes and behaviors off of. In consumer behavior, reference groups are networks. For some products reference groups can be simplified to as small a graph representation as we have worked with in class, but for most the network that actually influences our purchasing decisions is a multifaceted network of many overlapping reference groups (or smaller networks). This overlapping of reference groups complicates networks because rather than simply having a network with positive or negative relationships, as we have discussed in class, we have relationships with multiple levels of good or bad associated with them. To explain this more clearly let me offer an example:
Two reference groups you may have might be your friends and your family. If you go to the mall to purchase a new pair of shoes your mom, friends, and pop culture celebrities each may have different levels of influence on your decision. Also complicated here is that the relationships with each depend on each other. For example, your relationship with your mom and taking her shopping advice may be affected by your favorite celebrity’s relationship with their mom.
To entertain my curiosity with the idea of levels of relationships within consumer behavior, not just a binary system of positive or negative relationships, I found an article that focuses on reference groups as influencing factors for young Middle Eastern women considering the consumption of a college education. I have linked this article below. The article does an excellent job discussing the idea of levels of relationships in a graph representing reference groups as it pertains to influencing Middle Eastern young ladies decisions to pursue a college degree. The article asserts that at the time of its writing the father had the strongest influence and then the mother then as it pertained to Middle Eastern young women their friends had very little influence, and even their family outside of their parents had little influence in their decision to consume or not consume. The research that this article is based off is somewhat older and I would be interested in the findings of more modern research in comparison to this data as a source of reference for the growing individuality of women in societies and the influences of societal development on relationships and the levels they rank at in multi-leveled graphs and networks.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/350228?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents