The definition of a reference group can sound different:
A reference group is a certain group of people that can directly or indirectly influence the decision of an individual or his attitude towards something.
A reference group is a group that is the standard (the best example of something) for a person or group of people.
Examples of reference groups: rich people for poor people, smart people for stupid people, owners of branded items for people who want to have this brand, etc. (all examples are special cases)
Each person evaluates himself and chooses a line of behavior according to group standards. But since people belong to several different communities, each of which is a unique subculture or counterculture, the guidelines for our actions and attitudes towards them are different.
Features of the definition
A synonym for reference is reference. References can take many forms: thought, auditory perception (onomatopoeia), visual (text), olfactory or tactile, emotional state, relationship with others, space-time coordinate, symbolic or alphanumeric, physical object or energy projection. In some cases, techniques are used that deliberately hide the link from some observers. Like in cryptography.
References are mentioned in many areas of human activity and knowledge, the term taking on shades of meaning specific to the context in which it is used. Some of them are described in the sections below.
Etymology
Referentiality is a word of foreign origin. The word reference comes from Middle English referren, from Middle French référer, from Latin referre, formed from the prefix re and ferre - “to carry.” There are a number of words that come from the same root - these are reference, referee, referent, referendum.
The verb refers (to) and its derivatives can carry the sense of “referring to” or “connecting with”, as in the meanings of references described in this article. Another meaning is “to consult.” This is reflected in such expressions as “reference work”, “reference service”, “certificate of work”, etc.
In linguistics and philology
Studies of how language interacts with the world are called reference theories. Another name is the theory of reference. Frege was a proponent of the mediated standard theory. Frege divided the semantic content of every expression, including sentences, into two components: meaning and reference (reference). The meaning of a sentence is the thought it expresses. Such thought is abstract, universal and objective. The meaning of any subrepresentational expression lies in its contribution to the idea of what the embedded sentence expresses. Feelings define reference and are also ways of representing the objects that expressions refer to. Links are objects in the world that select words. Feelings of sentences are thoughts. And their references are true values (true or false). References to sentences included in statements about statements and other opaque contexts are their ordinary meanings.
Examples
Bertrand Russell, in his later work and for reasons related to his theory of acquaintance in epistemology, argued that the only directly referential expressions are "logically proper names". Logically proper names are terms such as “I”, “now”, “here” and other indexes.
He regarded the proper names described above as “abbreviated definite descriptions.” Therefore, "Donald J. Trump" may be short for "current President of the United States and husband of Melania Trump." Definite descriptions designate phrases that are analyzed by Russell into existentially quantifiable logical constructs. However, such objects are not to be considered meaningful in themselves; they have meaning only in the sentence expressed by the sentences of which they are a part. Hence for Russell they have no direct reference as logically proper names.
Need for export
When might the need for an expert arise? They can turn to him if a problematic situation arises within the framework of everyday life, if something unexpected occurs in the course of everyday life (Ionin 1996: 97). A man ate all his life without thinking about his teeth. And how evil they remind of themselves in such a way that he can no longer think about anything except teeth. The car drove for a while, and then stopped... The end of normal life is coming, and our knowledge and experience are not enough to overcome the problematic situation.
We turn to experts to maintain the normal course of daily life. Even among our most outstanding contemporaries, the outstanding of our contemporaries are amateurs in most areas with which they have the honor of encountering. What can be said about the mass of ordinary people? It is not surprising that when choosing goods and services, we have no choice but to take into account the opinions of experts. I don’t know anything about medicine, so I will choose a toothpaste, a brush, a medicine, relying mainly on the opinion of doctors.
Advanced Theory
Despite the fact that reference in psychology is the more well-known meaning of this concept, it also plays a big role in linguistics. On Frege's account, any referring expression has a meaning and a referent. This "indirect reference" has certain theoretical advantages over Mill's point of view. For example, referential names such as Samuel Clemens and Mark Twain create problems for the direct referential view because someone might hear “Mark Twain—Samuel Clemens” and be surprised—thus making their cognitive content appear different.
Despite the differences between the views of Frege and Russell, they are generally regarded as descriptivists. Such descriptivism was criticized in the name and necessity of Saul Kripke.
Kripke advanced what became known as the “modal argument” (or “argument from rigidity”). Consider Aristotle's name and description of "Plato's greatest student," "founder of logic," and "Alexander's teacher." Aristotle obviously fits all the descriptions (and many more that we commonly associate with him), but it is not necessarily true that if Aristotle existed, he would be any or all of these descriptions. Aristotle could well have existed without doing any of the things for which he is known to posterity. He could exist and not become known to posterity at all, or die in infancy. Suppose that Aristotle is associated with Mary with the description "the last great philosopher of antiquity", and the (actual) Aristotle died in infancy. The description of Mary then seems to refer to Plato. But this is deeply illogical. Therefore, according to Kripke, names are rigid designators. That is, they refer to the same person in every possible world in which that person exists. In the same work, Kripke formulated several other arguments against Frege-Russell descriptivism.
Typology of reference groups
An individual has the opportunity to belong to a reference group or to be far from it. The interaction group (R. Merton's term), or membership group, is the immediate social environment of the individual. This is a group whose membership is not disputed. If a person values membership in a given group, then he will strive to gain a foothold in it and considers the norms and values of its subculture as an authority for himself, strive to be like the majority of its members, then this group can be called a reference group for this person. In this case, the interaction group and the reference group will simply coincide, but their qualitative characteristics are completely different. If a person considers himself superior to the members of his group or views himself as an outsider in it, then no matter how closely he is connected with it, such a group cannot be called a reference group. In this case, the group cannot offer attractive norms and values.
A reference group is a real social group or an imaginary one, which, as a result of social construction, acts as a statistical community; group members may not even suspect that to someone they are one cohesive group. For example, for decades, for the majority of Soviet people there was such a mythical reference group called “West”, “America”.
The more ossified, closed a given society, the greater the likelihood that an individual's reference group will be his social interaction group. For example, in a pre-capitalist society, a class social structure dominates, with the help of which most people are born into a certain class (a group with a certain social status, which is fixed by laws) and remain in it all their lives, passing on their class status by inheritance. In such a society, for a peasant to compare himself with the court aristocracy and imitate it was the height of absurdity. Capitalist or state socialist (e.g. Soviet) societies can be open to social mobility. This will mean that anyone born into a peasant family will not have a chance to break through to the very top of the political, administrative or economic hierarchy. Such a society makes perfect sense to an individual who is at the bottom, but who imitates those who may be at the very top. It is potentially possible for such a society to become closer to the reference group. The “American Dream”, as the main myth of America, proclaims that every American can become a president or a millionaire. There are enough examples in American mythology to prove that this dream is real. Soviet mythology is also replete with many examples of heroes who rose from “simple workers and peasants” to the highest positions in the state.
The connection between an individual and reference groups is very often unstable, mobile and vague. This means that at different stages of his biography he may belong to different reference groups. Moreover, when choosing various elements of a lifestyle, while making various purchases, an individual should focus on various reference groups.
For example, if we have an athlete in front of us, then when choosing sportswear, his favorite team or sports star can act as a reference group, but if he is not someone’s fan, but just an athlete, then the sports star’s opinion on issues that go beyond the boundaries of sport will no longer be authoritative. And the choice of toothpaste is more likely to be influenced by the opinion of the dentist rather than by your favorite athlete. Although, of course, it could be different.
Semantics
In semantics, “reference” is the relationship between nouns or pronouns and the objects that are named by them. Therefore, the word "John" refers to the person John. The word "it" refers to some previously specified object. That is? The object referred to is called the referent of the word. Sometimes a word denotes an object. The reverse relation, the relation from an object to a word, is called an example; the object illustrates what the word stands for. In parsing, if a word is related to a previous word, the previous word is called an antecedent.
Gottlob Frege argued that the reference cannot be interpreted as being identical in meaning: "Hesperus" (the ancient Greek name for the "evening star") and "Phosphorus" (the ancient Greek name for the "morning star") refer to Venus, but the astronomical fact is that " Hesperus" is "Phosphorus", that is, it is still the same object, even if the meanings of the words mentioned are known to us. This problem led Frege to distinguish between meaning and reference to a word. Some cases seem too complex to be classified within this framework. Adopting the concept of a secondary link may be necessary to fill the gap.
How does a reference group influence human behavior?
Reference groups, depending on the individual characteristics of a person and the social situation, have different influences on individual consumers. First, reference groups contribute to the socialization of the individual. Secondly, they play an important role in the formation of self-esteem and social comparison. Third, reference groups are a mechanism for conforming to social norms.
Socialization
The process of socialization of people occurs under the influence of various reference groups. For example, a manager informs a new employee that the company has adopted a certain form of clothing, and an informal group - a team - teaches the newcomer what kind of clothing is appropriate in certain situations. In the process of socialization and cultural adaptation, a person learns which behavioral patterns are most favorable both for himself and for the group.
Shopping with friends is one way to learn what is important and relevant to others. While the overall frequency of visits to major shopping centers in the United States has been declining over the past few years, visits to these places by American teenagers (especially girls) have increased sharply. An in-depth study of this phenomenon made it possible to identify some factors, especially relevant for teenage girls (aged 12-19 years), which allow us to consider visiting shopping centers an activity related to social learning of representatives of this environment. Motives for visiting shopping centers also include exploring trends, comfort, safety, company and freedom of choice.
Self-perception
By interacting with other people in the reference group, a person protects and corrects his own self-esteem. What we think about ourselves, through the reactions of people whose values we share and whose opinions we value, influences our social connections. Consumption of goods is a form of social interaction. When we buy and use goods, we communicate certain signals to others. Our clothes, car, position speak for us. Our behavior and lifestyle become an expression of our self (or idealized self-image) to a reference group. By wearing a sports team T-shirt, the consumer combines his or her own personality with the cultural significance of the item of clothing. Consequently, he thereby modifies his social affiliation. People also maintain their self-perception by agreeing to perform their “learned” roles. Belonging to multiple groups, a person internalizes multiple roles and feels pressure in different situations to act according to someone else's expectations and prescribed role. One of the first groups that many people join is sports teams, which can serve as a source of shaping an individual's self-perception.
Testimonial advertisements are the embodied application of an understanding of the social significance of individual perception. The child looks at sports mega-stars dressed in Nike brand uniforms, and consciously or unconsciously transfers (at least partially) respect for his idols to this brand. Advertising testimonials from respected actors, politicians and athletes can be very effective if the reference group self-image of the featured celebrity matches the ideal self of the target consumer.
Social comparison
Most people have a need to evaluate themselves by comparing themselves with other people. How successful, healthy, or wealthy an individual considers himself to be depends on whether he wins or loses compared to his peers or members of other reference groups. A person not only receives information from reference groups, but also uses them as a frame of reference that allows him to evaluate his behavior, opinions, abilities and achievements. But at different times, people choose different groups for comparison. When an individual and a group are similar, we are more confident in the accuracy of the information received; at the same time, we tend to evaluate different views only when we are quite confident in our own opinions and abilities.
The comparison is not limited to groups with whom we have personal contact. Sources of social comparison can be advertising and television. Every day, women all over the world see on television and in magazines a plethora of retouched images of professional models walking down catwalks. Many of them, when they see these images, feel disappointed and dissatisfied with their own bodies. One of the effects of this social comparison is the spread of anorexia and bulimia among women, as well as the resort to the services of companies performing liposuction, breast implants and other plastic surgeries. Unfortunately, only the positive results of this choice are obvious - the media does not often talk about the dangers associated with similar decisions of public figures.
Conformity
A person’s desire to conform to a reference group often leads to conformity—a change in beliefs or actions under real or perceived group pressure. There are two types of submission: concession and recognition. Concession occurs when a person submits to the wishes of a group without accepting its beliefs and behavior. And recognition means that the individual has actually changed his beliefs and values in favor of the beliefs and values of the group. Sometimes the consumer consciously seeks to imitate the behavior of other members of the group or to be assigned to it in order to receive some kind of reward (social approval). But sometimes the influence of a group manifests itself more subtly and occurs without the person’s conscious desire to do so. For example, some consumers, not knowing how to behave in a particular situation, may use group norms as a model of correct behavior. Knowing how to persuade people to accept the norms of a group or an individual within that group, such as a salesperson, is an important factor in determining successful communication, but understanding this process is just as important for you as a consumer because it allows you to resist such communications .
Impact tools
In your life, you make decisions based on who you influence or who you can persuade, and who influences you and who can convince you of something. If you have the ability to persuade, your likelihood of success increases significantly. That's why organizations spend millions on training their employees in sales and negotiation skills.
Influential social psychologist Robert Cialdini studied the nature of concessions and the reasons why people respond to incentives the way they do. In his works, he reveals six psychological principles that encourage people to give in to peer pressure, and also explains how to protect yourself from such manipulation. People consciously or unconsciously use these principles (reciprocity, loyalty and constancy, social confirmation, likability, authority, and narrow-mindedness) to persuade others, which often leads to automatic, thoughtless concessions. Awareness of these principles increases the ability to resist them. By being aware of these methods, you can evaluate them and respond accordingly.
Instruments of influence that evoke a strong desire for response and consent include the following:
- Reciprocity is the ancient principle of “you give me, I give you” or “debt is repaid.” This principle is the basis of the Hare Krishna practice of giving flowers or books at airports. It is also the basis of an entire branch of business - specific advertising techniques (for example, when they give you a free pen, pour you a cup of coffee, etc.). When someone gives you something, you feel obligated to give something in return. No one claims that exchange must be fair or adequate, and those who use this principle for their own purposes hope for exactly that.
- Loyalty and consistency are obstacles to common sense. When a person has carefully analyzed and weighed everything, as a result of which he has decided to remain committed to something, he tends to consistently defend and support his position, regardless of whether it is true or not. Think about how, when you bought a new car or computer, you went out of your way to praise this brand or this model, even noticing its individual shortcomings. Many people remain committed to the decisions they originally made, even in the face of serious reasons for dissatisfaction. This principle allows us to understand why some people, having made unprofitable investments, do not part with the acquired property, even when it becomes obvious that their investments cannot pay off.
- Social confirmation - “we are like everyone else.” This principle explains why people laugh when there is laughter on a television show, why what could be a peaceful demonstration turns into a violent mob, and why it happens that someone robs a person in front of a huge crowd of people and no one intervenes. for the sacrifice. The reason is that no one wants to stand out from the crowd. Research shows that the week after a suicide incident is widely publicized, suicide rates increase. According to the doctrine of social confirmation, publishing information about a suicide legitimizes other suicides.
- The ability to please. Physical attractiveness and the ability to be liked increase a person's influence. This is why using attractive models in advertising and friendly introductory phrases when selling over the phone increases the likelihood that the attempt to persuade the audience will be successful. People love people who share their interests, lifestyle, and culture, but they can have an even greater impact on you if they are nice to you and say nice things to you. Think about times when you bought a gym membership or joined a timeshare because you were overly fond of the salesperson.
- Authority is controlled honor. Form is not an accident. It influences others by sending a nonverbal signal that its bearer is endowed with authority, just like a title, office and other attributes. Cialdini reported in his studies that hospital patients did not ask any questions when a complete stranger in a doctor's coat ordered them to change the course of treatment. Many non-specialists in medicine have the same name, look the same, use the same terms, but lack education, experience and skills, and can sometimes cause harm to the patient.
- Limitation is the rule of small doses. When items such as stamps or coins come onto the market with errors or when popular toys are produced in limited quantities, their value increases. Even illusory limitations have enormous power. Realtors who have other (often imaginary) buyers regularly use this leverage over the buyer. If you don't buy this product now, it may not be available tomorrow. When two buyers who are willing to buy the same car meet "by chance" at a transaction site, the competition that arises between them may lead to a willingness to pay a higher price.
Linguistic sign
The very concept of a linguistic sign is a combination of content and expression, the former of which may refer to entities in the world or refer to more abstract concepts such as "thought". Certain parts of speech exist only to express reference, namely anaphors such as pronouns. A subset of reflexives expresses the joint reference of two participants in a sentence. These could be agent (actor) and patient (acted), as in “the man washed himself,” topic and recipient, as in “I showed Mary to myself,” or various other possible combinations. But it is not only the humanities that have absorbed this term. The exact sciences also boast their own versions of this term, such as the dispersion and referentiality of light in physics. But a much more extensive definition of reference is given to us by computer science, which is discussed below.
Normative function of the reference group
Note 2
One of the first to highlight the functions of the reference group was G. Kelly in 1952. He suggested that this type of group can perform two key functions: normative and comparative (evaluative).
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The normative function determines the key standards of behavior of an individual within a social group. In essence, an individual becomes part of a reference group only on the condition that he follows its values, rules and norms. In the modern world, a norm is a key indicator that regulates an individual’s social behavior and influences his value and ideological attitudes. But any individual strives to improve, while focusing himself on generally accepted standards and forms of behavior. Thus, based on examples of behavior within the reference group, he adopts the style of communication, manners of behavior, as well as rules of etiquette and dress code. In general, a person strives to do everything possible to become part of the reference group and set normative standards himself.
Often the reference group is influenced by fashion. There are a large number of countries that are considered trendsetters: Italy, France. In them, those standards and norms first appear, which are then accepted as unprecedented and undeniable and spread throughout the world. But the spread is also uneven and depends on how ready the residents themselves are to follow these norms and accept a new style of clothing and behavior.
Equipment and computers
In computer science, hardware referentiality is a value that allows a program to indirectly refer to a specific piece of data, such as the value of a variable or an entry in computer memory or some other storage device. A link is said to refer to data, and accessing the data is called link dereferencing. The concept of equipment reference therefore often refers not to the equipment as such, but to the data.
Referentiality is different from the database itself. Typically, for references to data stored in memory on a given system, the reference is implemented as the physical address where the data resides in memory or on a storage device. For this reason, a link is often mistakenly confused with a pointer or address and claimed to "point" to data. However, a reference can also be implemented in other ways, such as an offset (difference) between the address of a data element and some fixed "base" address as an index into an array. Or, more abstractly, as a descriptor. More broadly, on the Web, links can be network addresses, such as URLs. In this context, the term “referentiality of technology” is sometimes used.
Self-identification reference group
The reference group of self-identification can be called a group to which an individual belongs and is under the pressure of its norms and values. He, perhaps, would like not to succumb to this compulsion, but, as the saying goes, “to live with wolves is to howl like a wolf.” The group will directly or indirectly force him to adhere to such a style of behavior, among other things and consumption, which can be considered as “appropriate” for a member of this group, and to avoid such a style that can be considered “indecent”, “strange” in it.
Value reference group - we can name a real or imaginary group of people who will be considered by this individual as bright carriers expressing the values that he shares. Because this same group not only secretly sympathizes with these values, but is engaged in professing them through its lifestyle and has advanced much further than it in the implementation of these values, the individual will imitate this group, and also strive to follow the style of behavior accepted in it. He may not be a member of this group, sometimes he may be very far from it both in physical and social space. Often, the role of this reference group can be played by “stars” of sports, cinema, pop music and heroes, outstanding figures in the sphere that is predominant in the formation of a given individual.
A utilitarian reference group is a group that has an arsenal of positive and negative sanctions, which means it can both reward and punish a specific individual. A variety of real and imaginary social groups can act in this capacity.
For example, an employee of an institution can dress the way his boss likes, so as not to irritate him and not create obstacles for his own career. At work, even with all his desire, he will not drink vodka or eat garlic, because he knows that his boss has the power to fire him for such features of his consumption style. A young man can choose a style of behavior that evokes sympathy, if not from everyone, then from a select part of girls or even just one, but the best. Girls in this case will act as a utilitarian reference group, which has an arsenal of positive and negative sanctions, such as obvious and hidden manifestations of sympathy, love, antipathy, and contempt.
Differences
The concept of reference should not be confused with other values (keys or identifiers) that uniquely identify a data element but provide access to it only through a non-trivial lookup operation in some table data structure.
References are widely used in programming, especially for efficiently passing large or volatile data as arguments to procedures or for exchanging such data among different applications. In particular, a reference can point to a variable or record that contains references to other data. This idea is the basis of indirect addressing and many related data structures such as linked lists. Links can cause significant complexity in a program, partly due to the possibility of dangling and wild links, and partly because the topology of the linked data is a directed graph, the analysis of which can be quite complex.
References increase flexibility in where objects can be stored, how they are distributed, and how they are passed between regions of code.
Important point. As long as the data link can be accessed, the data can be accessed through it, the data itself does not need to be moved. They also make it easier to share data between different areas of code. Everyone keeps a link to it.
Reference group - in psychology this means a friendly team
The reference group, both real and imaginary, has only two important functions:
- Comparative - in it the fundamental role is assigned to the totality of perception processes. This is a kind of standard, based on which people can evaluate not only themselves, but also those around them.
- Normative - it itself develops attitudes and rules that are distributed among other people. If an individual does not accept these values because they contradict his internal attitudes, then the group is not considered a reference group for him.
The versatility of these functions makes it possible to comply with the fundamental rules in any time period when the formation of a reference group occurs. With their help, the goals and rules that form their basis are promoted. A person, based on his motives, independently determines whether to become a member of the community or remain in the role of an observer in order to use its developments.
The concept of "reference group" is often used in sociology. This term is best suited to describe the relationship between one person and a group. With its help, it is possible to explain the socio-psychological mechanisms that are necessary for the formation of certain value attitudes in the minds of people.
Mechanism
The referencing mechanism, while it varies in implementation, is a fundamental feature of a programming language. Common to almost all modern programming languages. Even some languages that don't support explicit use of references have some internal or implicit use. For example, the call-by-reference convention can be implemented using explicit or implicit references.
More generally, a link can be thought of as a piece of data that allows another piece of data to be uniquely retrieved. This includes primary keys in databases and keys in an associative array. If we have a set of keys K and a set of data objects D, any well-defined (unambiguous) function from K to D ∪ {null} defines a reference type, where zero is an image of a key that does not refer to anything meaningful.
An alternative representation of such a function is a directed graph called a reachability graph. Here, each data element is represented by a vertex and there is an edge from u to v if the data element in u refers to the data element in v. The maximum output degree is one. These graphs are valuable in garbage collection, where they can be used to separate accessible from inaccessible objects.
Psychology
In psychology, reference is a very common concept found in several theories. From a mental processing perspective, psychology uses self-reference to establish identification with a mental state during introspection. This allows a person to develop his own guidelines to a greater degree of immediate awareness. However, it can also lead to circular reasoning, preventing thinking from developing.
According to Perceptual Control Theory (PCT), the reference condition is the state in which the output of the control system tends to change the controlled quantity. The basic statement is that “all behavior is oriented at all times to the control of certain quantities in relation to specific reference conditions.”
Reference group
A reference group is a real or imaginary social community that acts for an individual as a standard, a role model, a source of formation of social norms and value orientations; a group to which an individual would like to belong. The concept of “reference group” is used in the system of social sciences and was first introduced in the 30s of the 20th century by G. Hyman. Initially, the term “reference group” denoted a community of which an individual is not a member, but to which he strives to belong. Later, it began to be interpreted more broadly, including the group to which the individual belongs and whose opinion is authoritative for him. Both a small and a large social group can act as a reference group. Thus, for a child, the reference group is the family, for a teenager - a community of peers, for a young person - often students in general, for an adult - representatives of a specific prestigious profession. As a rule, the higher the level of social maturity of an individual, the more demands he places on the community he chooses as a reference group. And vice versa, the lower the degree of social maturity, the worse the quality of the chosen reference group.An individual's correct choice of a reference group plays two important social roles—comparison and socialization. When comparing himself with a reference group, the individual evaluates his current social position and chooses the desired benchmark for future advancement or building a social career. In the process of socialization, he assimilates the norms and values of the reference community, that is, first he identifies himself with it, and then internalizes (assimilates) its cultural patterns of behavior. The reference group also serves as a center of social gravity, when an individual, dissatisfied with his group of belonging, moves up the social ladder to another. Social mobility is facilitated by the presence of a center of repulsion—the antipode of the reference group. The reference group also serves as a support group, increasing the individual's social well-being and [in some cases] providing him with physical protection.
In social sciences, reference groups are distinguished on the following grounds:
- Based on the functions performed, normative and comparative reference groups are distinguished. The normative reference group acts as a source of norms regulating the behavior of an individual, a guideline for a number of problems that are significant to him. In turn, the comparative reference group is a standard for the individual in assessing himself and others. The same reference group can act as both normative and comparative.
- Based on the fact of group membership, presence groups and ideal groups are distinguished. A presence group is a reference group of which an individual is a member. An ideal reference group is a group whose opinion an individual is guided by in his behavior, in his assessment of events that are important to him, in his subjective attitudes toward other people, but of which he is not a member for some reason. Such a group is especially attractive to him. An ideal reference group can be either a real one existing in a social environment or a fictional one (in this case, the standard of subjective assessments and life ideals of an individual are literary heroes, historical figures of the past, and similar characters).
- In accordance with the individual’s agreement or rejection of the norms and values of the group, positive and negative reference groups are distinguished. If the social norms and value orientations of a positive reference group fully correspond to the ideas about the norms and values of the individual, then the value system of a negative reference group, with the same degree of significance and importance of the assessments and opinions of this group, is alien to the individual and is opposite to his values. Therefore, in his behavior he tries to receive a negative assessment, “disapproval” of his actions and position from this group.
In sociology and social psychology, the concept of “reference group” is used mainly to explain the socio-psychological mechanisms involved in the formation of value-normative regulation of the individual in the individual consciousness, as well as in conducting sociological research.
Self-reference (self-reference)
Self-reference occurs in natural or formal languages when a sentence, idea, or formula refers to itself. The reference can be expressed either directly (through some intermediate clause or formula) or through some encoding. In philosophy, it also refers to the ability of a subject to talk about or refer to himself: to have a type of thought expressed in the nominative singular case of the first person.
Self-reference has been studied and has applications in mathematics, philosophy, computer programming, and linguistics. Self-referential statements are sometimes counterintuitive and can also be considered recursive.
In classical philosophy, paradoxes were created by self-referential concepts, such as the paradox of omnipotence: to establish whether it was possible for a being so powerful that it could create a stone that it could not lift. Epimenides' paradox "All Cretans are liars", uttered by an ancient Greek Cretan, was one of the first recorded versions. Modern philosophy sometimes uses the same technique to demonstrate that an intended concept is meaningless or ill-defined.
Intergroup referentiality
In sociology there is such a thing as a reference group. It denotes a social group to which a person is accustomed to refer. And with which he identifies himself in one way or another. Intergroup referentiality is the ability of multiple groups to refer to each other.
Reference group theory is regularly used to analyze the current socio-political situation in the country. In recent decades, sociologists have paid close attention to the referentiality of small groups, because this is an important phenomenon from the point of view of microsociology.
Reference group influence
The influence of the reference group has a particularly strong effect on the behavior of a significant part of girls and women. It is among them that the willingness to make the greatest sacrifices, inconveniences in order to cause delight or simply the attention of that part of the men who are the reference group, or envy, approval from other women acting as the second reference group is especially noticeable.
Thus, doctors have long proven that high heels have a harmful effect on women’s health. But again and again the fashion for them will return, and millions continue to wear these beautiful but uncomfortable shoes. Why? As the king of London shoe fashion, Manolo Blahnik, explained, “high heels elevate a woman, make her strong in order to drive men crazy and conquer the world” (Maslov 6.11.97). Thus, the key to understanding women's consumer behavior often lies in the tastes of men.
