Q.What is a reference group? How is it different from the group to which a person actually belongs?

A reference group is a group whose standards, lifestyle or values a person looks up to and tries to model themselves on, even though that person does not actually belong to the group in question. This is what distinguishes a reference group from an in-group: an in-group is a group one is actually a member of and identifies with directly, whereas a reference group is a group one measures oneself against from the outside, borrowing its standards as a benchmark for one's own aspirations, tastes or sense of achievement.

Reference groups matter to sociology because they function as an important channel through which culture, lifestyle expectations and ideas of success spread from one group to another. The colonial period in India offers a well-documented illustration: many middle-class Indians came to treat the English gentleman as a reference group, adopting elements of English dress, dining and manners even without belonging to English society themselves. Notably, this borrowing was not applied evenly across gender — Indian men who adopted English habits for themselves often expected the women of their own families to remain visibly 'Indian', or at most to adopt a partial, modified version of English femininity rather than the full model being imitated by the men. …