Reference Group

A reference group is a group whose lifestyle, values or standards a person looks up to and tries to emulate — even though that person is not actually a member of the group in question. This is the crucial feature that separates a reference group from an in-group: an in-group is a group one belongs to and identifies with directly, whereas a reference group is a group one measures oneself against, aspires toward, or borrows standards from, from the outside. Reference groups matter to sociologists because they function as an important source of information about culture, lifestyle, aspiration and what counts as 'success' or 'achievement' for the person doing the aspiring.

The colonial encounter in India offers a clear historical illustration. Many middle-class Indians in the colonial period came to see the English gentleman as a kind of reference group — someone whose manners, dress and way of dining were worth imitating, even though the aspiring Indian obviously did not belong to that English social world. Significantly, this process was not gender-neutral: Indian men frequently wanted to adopt English dress and dining habits for themselves, while at the same time wanting the women in their own families to remain visibly 'Indian' in dress and conduct — or, at most, to take on a modified, partial version of English femininity rather than the full English model. The comparison a person or group makes with a reference group, in other words, is rarely applied evenly; it is shaped by other social divisions such as gender, and by what the aspiring group considers appropriate to imitate and what it considers necessary to preserve. …