Tag Archives: consumerism

Wanting to fit in leads to interesting behavior

Posted on by

A new study in the Journal of Consumer Research finds that people are willing to alter their behavior in a quest to try to fit in:

“Social exclusion is a very painful experience, which makes it a strong motivator,” explains Tyler Stillman, a visiting sociology professor at Southern Utah University, who is one of the study’s co-authors.

In one experiment, researchers paired study participants with a partner who left midway through the study. Some of the participants believed their partners left because they didn’t like them — and those people were more easily talked into buying a silly school spirit trinket. In another study, people who felt excluded were more likely to say they were willing to try cocaine. Researchers say their findings could have real-life implications.

Interesting results. If these results are all based on lab experiments, how much more willing would people be to change their behavior to fit in when confronted with real people?

I would be curious to find if the study looked at different age groups. If lab experiments were only conducted with undergraduate students, might the results change if the same experiments were done with older adults?

The new American normal: pursuing an enriched social life rather than spending

Posted on by

Sociologist Amitai Etzoni argues that Americans have reached a point where from this point on they may choose to enhance their social lives rather than consume:

The Great Recession provides a golden opportunity to test Maslow’s prescription. As most everybody has read by now, we lived beyond our means for decades, and we borrowed about all we could from overseas and indebted our children. It’s payback time.

There is no way on earth Americans over the next decade will continue to experience the kind of increases in income, and hence standards of living, we have seen since World War II. The question is if they will respond in anger — or benefit, by dedicating themselves, once their basic needs are sated, to spending more time with each other, their children, in social activities and cultural pursuits.

Polls suggest that large numbers are ready.

As Etzioni notes at the end of this piece, the real test of these opinions will come once the economy recovers. If people have more income and disposable income, will they return to their consumerist ways?

But perhaps these attitudes will lead to something different: a society that no longer desires or tries to attain explosive growth periods. Perhaps the true non-consumerist society will be content with slow but consistent growth.

Measuring Presidential popularity with merchandise

Posted on by

There are traditional ways to measure Presidential popularity: polls that in some way measure approval or disapproval. Here is another possible way: sales of Presidential merchandise.

I’ve always wondered why Presidents or other political officials allow such merchandizing using their figures and words in order to make money. Perhaps it is simply publicity (even if it is in opposition to them). Or perhaps they don’t want to appear to be the politicians who cracks down on such things. Or perhaps by running for or entering public office, there is a tacit understanding that they are now in the public eye and can be used for money-making purposes.

And what does it mean culturally to reduce any politician to a piece of merchandise?

Pastors as entertainers vs. helping people grow spiritually

Posted on by

In an op-ed in the New York Times, G. Jeffrey MacDonald argues that part of the reason clergy are so burned out is that expectations from parishioners have changed:

The pastoral vocation is to help people grow spiritually, resist their lowest impulses and adopt higher, more compassionate ways. But churchgoers increasingly want pastors to soothe and entertain them. It’s apparent in the theater-style seating and giant projection screens in churches and in mission trips that involve more sightseeing than listening to the local people.

As a result, pastors are constantly forced to choose, as they work through congregants’ daily wish lists in their e-mail and voice mail, between paths of personal integrity and those that portend greater job security. As religion becomes a consumer experience, the clergy become more unhappy and unhealthy…

In this transformation, clergy have seen their job descriptions rewritten. They’re no longer expected to offer moral counsel in pastoral care sessions or to deliver sermons that make the comfortable uneasy. Church leaders who continue such ministerial traditions pay dearly.

Even as MacDonald suggests there is a large trend toward more consumerist church experiences, he does not mention how pastors might have fed into this or gone along with this. If he doesn’t think pastors have gone along with this, then perhaps the issue is that congregations have taken more control over local churches and demand things like video screens over protests from clergy. If he does think pastors have gone along with this, why did they do so?

I would be curious to hear how MacDonald would change the situation: should change come from pastors, the congregations, both, somewhere else? Is it a matter of the church giving in to cultural pressures?