What behaviors of people belong to consumer ethics?

The Influence of China's Cultural Core Values on Consumer Behavior

The core values of Chinese culture are some basic values formed and widely held by the Chinese nation in a certain historical period. In the discussion of China's cultural characteristics, many thoughts involve the core values of China culture, such as people-oriented in the relationship between heaven and man, harmony in interpersonal communication, selfishness, contentment, honesty and credit, etc. This paper will introduce some important value principles and concepts, which greatly affect our current consumption behavior and habits.

(A) the quality of diligence and contentment

In China's traditional culture, there is a value principle of "keeping justice and order, eliminating human desires". Therefore, in family and personal consumption, we emphasize abstinence and thrift, advocate careful calculation, live within our means, oppose extravagance and waste, and oppose the attitude of eating, drinking and having fun in time, so that the change of income will have a rapid and direct impact on the purchase decision. Diligence has always been the main line of China's consumption view in history, and luxury only exists as a companion. Due to the backward productive forces in ancient times, natural and man-made disasters caused the lack of products and the lack of people's economic purchasing power, people formed the habit of thrift, and people were "complacent" as long as they were "satisfied". With the rapid development of modern China economy, people's consumption concept has also changed greatly, and a large number of people are ahead of consumption. Although the concept of thrift still restricts people's consumption patterns to a large extent, now China's consumption concept is not only frugal and contented, but also different in consumption tendency.

(2) The concept of harmony.

China culture pays attention to harmony and unity, which is an important difference between Chinese and western cultures. Social harmony is the best ideal state and order. This idea of "harmony" and "preciousness" treats the values of different nationalities and cultures, that is, it advocates equal treatment, recognizes the different values of other nationalities and cultures, and advocates the mutual infiltration and tolerance of ideas and cultures among different nationalities or groups. It is more obvious between people. In commodity trading, China people are used to the consumption pattern of peace of mind. Therefore, under the influence of this kind of values, the commodity market in China's history is relatively stable, and the situation of friendly "mutual market" among all ethnic groups and countries emerges one after another, rather than competing for and disrupting the market. "Harmony is precious" has naturally become a hidden rule. Before the 1990s, when most consumers were dissatisfied with their consumption, even if their rights and interests were damaged by businesses, they often swallowed their anger and only confided their dissatisfaction to their friends, colleagues or other acquaintances, and rarely obtained the protection of their rights and interests through legal complaints. Now, this situation has been greatly improved. However, change is very slow, and further change will be a long-term process. One of the reasons is that the traditional concepts of "harmony is precious" and "letting nature take its course" are still deeply rooted.

(C) the value orientation of righteousness before profit

The treatment of the relationship between righteousness and benefit embodies the value orientation of China's ethics. For example, the concept of "valuing righteousness over profit" put forward by Neo-Confucianism in Song and Ming Dynasties is one of the most far-reaching ideological trends in China's traditional culture. It should be said that justice before benefit and the rule of law are the core of China's traditional concept of justice and benefit, which has always been in an orthodox position and has the most obvious influence on China's traditional culture. In the real game between manufacturers and consumers, smart manufacturers often pay equal attention to "righteousness" and "benefit" For the sake of long-term interests, manufacturers are willing to give up their immediate local interests and safeguard consumers' "profits", and "righteousness first" has become the embodiment of corporate integrity. For consumers, they get the "righteousness" of the manufacturer, and naturally they get the "profit" they deserve. Therefore, consumers tend to buy products from honest manufacturers and pay attention to their promises and services during and after sales.

(D) the concept of good faith

In China culture, "sincerity" means truth, and the most basic meaning is sincerity to one's own nature. Based on "sincerity", many related values have been derived, such as integrity, sincerity, loyalty to the cause, keeping promises and getting results. Under the condition of market economy, consumers will collect a lot of information about different brands of similar products, and evaluate and choose different brands. This evaluation and selection process will be influenced and restricted by consumers' various values. Consumers in China often have high brand loyalty and enterprise loyalty (including store loyalty). They often only choose trustworthy brands, which is the significance of standardized brand signal transmission. Consumers are also happy to buy products recommended by "acquaintances". This is the consumer's interpretation of "honesty" under the market economy.

Psychological resilience and flexibility

Consumers should also evaluate the actual utility and value of products when purchasing. The evaluation results will be related to consumers' behaviors after purchase, such as repeated purchases, returns, complaints and complaints. Cultural values will affect consumers' behavior after purchase: some consumers take positive actions when they are dissatisfied, such as returning goods or exchanging goods, and complain to companies and consumer associations, which reflects the side of psychological resilience. Another part of consumers may take the attitude of "swallowing up" and "letting nature take its course" and not take action; Other consumers may seek other products to reduce their inner disharmony, which shows that they have great psychological flexibility when shopping.

(6) outdated ideas

In Liang Shuming's view, being conservative means being good at the past and thinking about the present, following the tradition and being safe, taking few risks, and moving to a different place is as quiet as moving. This is also closely related to other consumption concepts. For example, the concept of thrift was restricted by the level of productivity and cultural values in ancient times, and thrift became the guiding ideology of consumption behavior. People don't know that expanding consumption can promote economic growth. Now appropriate consumption in advance is also a kind of consumption mode that conforms to the law of economic development. However, before the reform and opening up, people despised this consumption pattern, which was traditionally regarded as a bad behavior of "failure" and not a healthy consumption pattern. Facts have proved that only by daring to try can we gain new knowledge and gain, and conservative thinking has also become a factor affecting China people's consumption behavior.

These different psychological and behavioral responses of the above-mentioned consumers can be said to be the result of certain cultural values in a sense.

To sum up, various elements of culture, such as values, norms, customs, material culture, etc. , has its own influence on consumer behavior. Consumers have their own values at every stage, from generating consumer demand, obtaining product information, making choices and judgments, to making purchase decisions and after-sales evaluation. No matter the concept of honesty or frugality, it will directly or indirectly reflect the heritage and influence of China's traditional cultural values. In a word, it is extremely important to establish a scientific concept of consumption. In the actual consumption process, we should correctly grasp the influence of traditional culture and values on consumption behavior.