1 Understanding the impact of consumer culture
Helga Dittmar
You only need to look at, and listen to, people around you, particularly children and adolescents, to appreciate that consumer culture has a powerful psychological impact. Celebrities, fashion models, media stars, even computer game heroes and toys, influence who they aspire to be and what they want to look like. Having the ârightâ things has become vital, not so much because of these material goods themselves but because of hoped for psychological benefits: popularity, identity, happiness. I have found this psychological impact so intriguing that I started to study it over 20 years ago, and have continued ever since. This book summarises my whole research programme.
Given the high visibility of consumer cultureâs impact on us, it comes as a surprise that, until recently, psychologists have been curiously reticent on this topic. This book therefore aims to help fill this gap, by outlining primary research that documents the consequences for our identity and well-being of the contemporary search for the material âgood lifeâ and the âbody perfectâ. This chapter is not only an introduction to this research, it also offers a framework for understanding consumer culture from a social psychological perspective. It provides:
- An outline of the contents of the core research chapters.
- A discussion of the three core constructs: consumer culture, identity, well-being.
- A brief analysis of the material âgood lifeâ and âbody perfectâ as identity ideals that are central to consumer culture.
- A model of the psychological processes through which these ideals come to have a profound influence on our identity and well-being.
It is hard to overestimate the significance of consumer culture. Economic, socio-cultural, and psychological transformations, which have accelerated since the 1950s, have produced mass consumer societies characterised by mushrooming credit facilities, overwhelming consumer choice, and a central role for consumption in everyday life. Although Baudrillardâs (1998) characterisation of contemporary life as âperpetual shoppingâ may still be exaggerated, leisure activities increasingly involve consuming, and shopping itself has become a leisure and lifestyle activity. Indeed, arguably, shopping malls have become centres of both socialising and socialisation (Underhill, 2004). At a deeper level, consumer goods have come to play a stronger psychological role for us: we value and buy them as means of regulating emotions and gaining social status, and as ways of acquiring or expressing identity and aspiring to an âideal selfâ (Dittmar, 1992a, 2004a). This notion, that consumers can be thought of as identity-seekers, is central to this book. Research findings are presented which demonstrate that, although material goods can have positive functions for individuals in enhancing or maintaining their sense of who they are, there also is a âdark sideâ to consumer culture: it can be toxic for the identity and well-being of adults, adolescents, and children.
The link between material goods on the one hand, and identity and wellbeing on the other, is used a lot in advertising, a core component of consumer culture. Goods are marketed as bridges toward achieving the âbody perfectâ and the material âgood lifeâ, as symbols of an âideal selfâ, with the message that we canâas if by magicâtransform ourselves to be more like the glamorous models and celebrities who promote the products. Of course, consumers do not simply take these messages at face value, they are âinterpretive agents, rather than passive dupesâ (Arnould & Thompson, 2005, p. 875), but it is very hardâif not impossibleâto remain untouched by the continuous exposure to the normative socio-cultural ideals portrayed in the mass media as ânormalâ, desirable, and achievable. Idealised models in the mass media not only communicate that beauty and affluence should be central life goals for everybody, they also define what it means to be beautiful, successful, happy, and âcoolâ. The sheer exposure to adsâon TV, radio, the internet, billboards, products, in cinemas, magazines, and shopsâis staggering. Estimates suggest that exposure has hit an all-time high in developed consumer societies, such as those in Europe and North America, where individuals see as many as 3000 ads a day (Brower & Leon, 1999; Kalkbrenner, 2004). As we will see in this book, there is growing evidence that mass media exposure is linked in various ways to people internalising consumer culture ideals of beauty and affluence as personal values, no matter how unhealthy and unrealistic those ideals, and the pursuit of them, might be. Thus, there are psychological costs of consumer culture, andâat the extremeâthey can manifest as mental and physical health pathologies, such as compulsive buying or extreme body-shaping behaviours. These two quotes capture some of these costs:
Most of the worldâs population is now growing up in winner-take-all economies, where the main goal of individuals is to get whatever they can for themselves: to each according to his greed. Within this economic landscape, selfishness and materialism are no longer being seen as moral problems, but as cardinal goals of life. Vast numbers of us have been seduced into believing that having more wealth and material possessions is essential to the good life. We have swallowed the idea that, to be well, one first has to be well-off. And many of us, consciously or unconsciously, have learned to evaluate our own well-being and accomplishment not by looking inward at our spirit or integrity, but by looking outward at what we have and what we can buy. Similarly, we have adopted a world view in which the worth and success of others is judged not by their apparent wisdom, kindness, or community contributions, but in terms of whether they possess the right clothes, the right car, and more generally, the right âstuffâ.
(Richard Ryan, foreword to Kasser (2002, pp. ixâx))
[In] our culture,... it takes less time for people to judge you for what they see you have than it takes for them to stop and ask you what you do. Much less than for them to ask you who you are ... The danger, however, is that you yourself come to believe in these material signs of identity. You begin to confuse image (how other people see you) with self-image (how you see yourself). You begin to confuse self-image with self-worth. Ultimately, you may think you are only as good as the car you drive or your newest pair of shoes.
(Catalano & Sonnenberg, 1993, pp. 37â38, emphases in original)
OVERVIEW OF THE CORE RESEARCH CHAPTERS
This book cannot possibly give an exhaustive account of the many ways in which consumer culture impacts on individualsâ identity and well-beingâthis would simply be an impossible undertakingâbut what it does offer is a selective, but hopefully rich, review of research findings with two themes. The first is the role of having, buying, and desiring material goods, and the second focuses on how we respond to idealised media images of beauty. For both, the research documents consequences for individualsâ identity and wellbeing, and considers vulnerability factors as well as underlying psychological processes.
Addressing the question âto have is to be?â, Chapter 2 gives an overview of the social psychology of material possessions. It outlines different perspectives on the instrumental and symbolic functions of peopleâs favourite possessions, offering an integrative model, but also demonstrates that constructing, expressing, and maintaining a sense of identity is central to why material possessions are so important to us. It reports research on identity-related differences in the functions of possessions, showing that life stage, culture, and gender all influence the relative emphasis people place on different psychological functions of their material possessions.
Owning material possessions is different from buying new consumer goods, but it stands to reason that psychological functions important in having material possessions, such as the desire to express or enhance identity, also play a role in motivating people to buy. Chapter 3 demonstrates that âconsuming passionsâ are important drivers, where people buy goods in attempts to make themselves feel better and move closer to an ideal identity, which can crowd out ârationalâ concerns with how much the goods cost and whether they serve a practical purpose. This chapter also highlights the increasing significance of the internet as an alternative buying environment, and compares âclicksâ with âbricksâ, i.e. buying motives online with buying motives in conventional shops and stores.
Psychological, rather than functional, buying motives are likely to be linked to an underlying value system that places a strong emphasis on money and material goods as a means to achieve important life goals, such as life satisfaction, success, and happiness. Yet, such a materialistic value orientation often leads to the disappointed question âis this as good as it gets? â Chapter 4 focuses on the link between materialistic values and individualsâ well-being, where materialists are less satisfied, less happy, and have more psychological problems. The nature and strength of this negative link does vary, however, and some of the research reported identifies factors that influence the link between materialism and well-being: value conflict, moneymaking motives, and level of income.
Both identity seeking and materialistic values are vulnerability factors for compulsive buying, often called shopping addiction in the mass media, which manifests itself in uncontrolled, excessive buying with harmful psychological and financial consequences. Chapter 5 reviews the clinical perspectives used to understand this dysfunctional consumer behaviour, but then develops a new perspective on compulsive buying as identity seeking. This new perspective is supported through research findings in both conventional and online buying environments. Age trends suggest that compulsive buying is on the increase, which highlights the need for intervention aimed at questioning materialistic values and the associated âI shop therefore I amâ ideology.
In addition to material ideals, the mass media also communicate norms and values related to appearance and the âbody perfectâ. There is increasing concern about the negative impact of ultra-thin models, commonly used in the advertising and fashion industries, on womenâs body image. Yet, advertisers defend their use with the argument that these images âsellâ. Addressing the question âdoes size matter?â, Chapter 6 reports a series of experimental exposure studies that provide direct evidence that ultra-thin models have a detrimental effect on many womenâs body image, whereas attractive models with a healthy body size, resembling that of the average UK woman, do not. In addition, these studies are also the first to examine, and challenge, the claim that thin models are needed for effective advertising.
If unrealistically thin models in advertising have a negative effect on many women, then it may well be the case that the muscular male models increasingly used in advertising have a similarly detrimental effect on young men. Thus, Chapter 7 extends experimental exposure studies to male body image, but it also examines the psychological mechanisms through which individuals come to feel bad about their bodies after seeing idealised media models. Drawing on Self-discrepancy Theory, it presents a process model whereby ideal models lead both women and men to think of their own identity in terms of ideal body shapes, leading to a âthink ideal, feel badâ sequence. It is important to study such dissatisfaction because it is a precursor of unhealthy body-shaping behaviours (e.g. dieting, muscle-enhancing strategies).
What is, perhaps, most striking is how early children become aware of consumer cultureâs messages about âwhat is beautiful and who is âcoolâ â. Given all the negative consequences of these consumer culture ideals documented by the research findings in this book, the question of how children come to internalise core values, such as material and bodily ideals, is both timely and crucial. Chapter 8 shows that exposure to the ultra-thin idealâin the form of dolls such as Barbieâis a cause of body dissatisfaction in girls as young as 5 to 7 years, and that 8-to 11-year-old children endorse beliefs that having the ârightâ material goods will make them more popular with their peers, particularly if they already have problematic peer relations.
So, what is the price of consumer culture? This question is addressed in the concluding Chapter 9, which takes stock of the findings reported throughout the book and highlights the psychological costs of consumer culture ideals, delineating the processes through which negative effects and detrimental behaviours may occur, and who is most vulnerable to such negative effects. Developing a good understanding of why and when consumer culture exacts a high price can inform intervention and prevention. Yet change is not likely to be easy, either on a societal levelâbecause there are profits to be made from the material âgood lifeâ and âbody perfectâ idealsâor on an individual levelâbecause these consumer culture ideals can and do function as a âcage withinâ.
CORE CONSTRUCTS: CONSUMER CULTURE, IDENTITY, AND WELL-BEING
Providing a comprehensive analysis of the three core constructsâconsumer culture, identity, and well-beingâis beyond the scope of this book. Instead, I will give a brief characterisation of each construct to give a sense of how each is understood and used from the social psychological perspective that informs the primary research reported in this book.
Consumer culture
Consumer culture is best seen as âthe sociocultural, experiential, symbolic, and ideological aspects of consumptionâ that have been researched from a âfamily of theoretical perspectives that address the dynamic relationships between consumer actions, the marketplace, and cultural meaningsâ (Arnould & Thompson, 2005, p. 868). As such, it addresses exactly those dimensions of consumption that have been neglected in more traditional work on behavioural consumer decision-making, micro-economics, and consumer psychology. This has typically used ârational choiceâ models of how consumers supposedly maximise utility when they decide which products to purchase, or cognitive psychology, which maps the (often faulty) information-processing that happens during purchase. In contrast to these perspectives, the profound role of symbolic, experiential, and socio-cultural dimensions of consumption have been recognised for some time in diverse social science disciplines, including sociology, anthropology, human geography, history, communication, and media studies. Their main concerns have been with analysing links between consumer culture and broader social, cultural, and ideological structures (e.g. Appadurai, 1986; Douglas & Isherwood, 1979; Featherstone, 1991; Hochschild, 2003; McCracken, 1990; Slater, 1997). Notwithstanding the importance of this work, the main concern in this book is somewhat different: it is to understand the psychological impact of consumer culture ideals specifically on the identity and well-being of individual adults, adolescents, and children. Given this concern, relevant aspects of consumer culture theory and research are summarised here in terms of five interrelated themes.
The first theme concerns methods used when conducting research, where qualitative techniques of data collection and analysis have been central to consumer culture research, such as in-depth interviews with consumers (e.g. Belk, 1988; Dittmar & Drury, 2000; Mick & BĂźhl, 1992), or deconstructing popular culture âtextsâ as lifestyle and identity instructions to consumers, such as advertisements (e.g. Belk & Pollay, 1985) or comics (Belk, 1987). Yet consumer culture can, and should be, researched by a diversity of methods, including also quantitative methods, such as surveys or experiments. In the research described throughout this book, we have employed exactly such a multi-method approach. This is an important point to emphasise, because one of the bookâs unique contributions to a critical analysis of consumer culture is to document its impact on us through rigorous empirical research that offers a direct and precise assessment of psychological processes and outcomes. In particular, I would like to highlight some of the benefits of experimentation in this respect, because they may be less familiar to readers and researchers outside psychology. We use experiments because they allow us to demonstrate unambiguously that exposure to idealised media models actually causes dissatisfaction with our own bodies, through showing that those people who have seen such âbody perfectâ depictions feel significantly worse about their body than a comparison group of people who have not seen these depictions, but have been treated identically in all other respects (see also my address at the Frontiers in Research Conference at the University of Ottawa: http://www.research.uottawa.ca/frontiers/pdf/2006-dittmar.pdf).
Second, consumer cultureâs concern with the symbolic, experiential and socio-cultural meanings and functions of consumer goods is not limited to the purchase of products but spans the whole consumption cycle that includes acquisition, consumption, and possession. A related point is that consumer culture abounds with symbolic messages associated with material goods and âidealâ people. In brief, a symbol is an entity that stands for another entity, andâmost importantlyâit can have meaning only to the extent that it has a shared reality among people. Having a âfashionâ designer briefcase can only be an effective symbol of being âtrendyâ if others (at least those in the ownerâs social reference group) share the belief that the briefcase is, indeed, fashionable. Our most obvious system of symbols is language, both written and spoken. However, there is increasing evidence that we can and do use material objects as a kind of quasi language, although there are limitations to this analogy (cf. Dittmar, 1992a).
Third, through the advertising and fashion industries, consumer culture presents individuals with images that contain âlifestyle and identity instructions that convey unadulterated marketplace ideologies (i.e. look like this, act like this, want these things, aspire to this kind of lifestyle)â (Arnould & Thompson, 2005, p. 875). The symbolism inherent in consumer goods can be defined as the images of âidealized people associated with [the good]â (Wright, Claiborne, & Sirgy, 1992), and the message is that buyers not only consume the actual good advertised, but also its symbolic meanings (successful, happy, attractive, glamorous), thus moving closer to the ideal identity portrayed by media models. Although there is diversity in the nuances of idealised imagery, they seem variations around prominent themes, with the âbody perfectâ and the material âgood lifeâ as central.
Fourth, given that global connections are expanding, predominantly through the mass media and the internet, it is important to consider increasing globalisation of consumer culture, which penetrates into, but also interacts with, local culture (e.g. Appadurai, 1990; Slater, 1997). This aspect of consumer culture is relevant to this book in two ways. First, the internet is offering a new buying environment that is fast becoming a serious alternative to shopping and browsing in conventional shops and stores. With limitless access 24 hours a day 7 days a week, a rapidly growing number of â[c]onsumers can shop the globe from the convenience of their homesâ (Lyons & Henderson, 2000, p. 740). This book examines buying motives online (Chapter 3), and their relationship to dysfunctional, excessive buying behaviour on the internet (Chapter 5). Second, the psychological processes through which consumer culture has its impact on us are investigated here primarily in highly developed, long-standing mass consumer societies such as the UK, although we also study materialism in other European countries, one recently turned affluent, Iceland, and the other a former Eastern bloc country, Croatia (Chapter 4). However, these psychological processes are likely to generalise beyond already-established mass consumer societies, along with the rapid and florid...