Psychographic Segmentation is one of the many different approaches taken in dividing the market into segments. It divides the market into groups based upon social class, lifestyle and personality. It is based upon the assumption that types of products and brands an individual purchases will reflect that person's characteristics and patterns of living.

Social class is the single most used variable for research purposes, and divides the population into groups based on the occupation of the Chief Income Earner, as such it can be seen as a socioeconomic scale.

An example of this is the National Readership Survey in the UK. The following chart summarizes the socioeconomic scale:

Social Grade

Description of Occupation

Example

Upper Management

Company director

Middle management

Middle manager

C1

Supervisory

Bank Clerk

C2

Skilled manual Labor

Plumber

Semi- & unskilled labor Laborer

Pensioners and Unemployed

Unemployed, Retired

This scale operates on the assumption that individuals in...
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