A social scientist suggests that the human propensity for rubbernecking is all about group behavior:
Tag Archives: reference groups
The guilt of over living in a McMansion
While it is clear that a number of people think that owning a McMansion is a negative thing, I haven’t seen as much reaction from the people who actually live in the homes that others would derisively call McMansions. Amidst a farewell to an “environmental pioneer” who recently passed away, here is one person’s experience of owning a McMansion:
Linda tried to live sustainably long before it was chic and was always health conscious. More than a decade ago, she was reading food labels to avoid eating anything with high fructose corn syrup. She was the first person we knew to drive a Prius.
When Alex and I bought a McMansion nine years ago in McLean, Va., after living in a small bungalow, I felt self-conscious inviting her over, as if we had somehow let her down.
Linda became an informal adviser after we sold what Alex called our BAH (big a– house) in December 2009 and embarked on building an energy-efficient home half the size in the neighboring, walkable town of Falls Church. She, John and their son, Eli, were the first friends we had for dinner in June once the house was habitable. We had talked so much about the project that I knew she’d share my enthusiasm. Besides, she’d understand our green house better than I do.
When she saw the spray foam insulation in the unfinished storage room, she lamented that she didn’t have any in her house, which she had retrofitted as best she could. Yes, she had spray foam envy!
While this is just one story, I wonder if it hints at a broader explanation. Are tastes for or against a McMansion be primarily dictated by one’s reference group? Once you are in a McMansion subdivision (not the teardown variety where there could be other home sizes), presumably there is less judgment about the other houses. But if your friends and family don’t approve of such homes, there would be some dissonance.
The key moments for understanding who does or does not buy McMansion would come at two points:
1. When moving into a new house. While it ultimately is a decision made by the future homeowners, all sort of other people include family members, real estate people, and friends have input.
2. When hosting people from outside the neighborhood in the house. This could get particularly interesting if the homeowners and visitors have differing views about suburbs and home styles.
I think we need some research into this topic: what is the lived experience of McMansion owners and what happens when they encounter criticism for their choice in homes?
What the advertising in the magazines you subscribe to says about you
One book one of my classes is recently reading, The Suburban Christian, offered this simple method for measuring your consumption levels (or perhaps what you aspire to consume): look at the advertising and the goods for sale in the magazines that you subscribe to.
This reminds me of something I noticed a few months into my first subscription to The Atlantic. I like this magazine for its reporting and commentary but I noticed that the advertisements were for luxury items I had no hope of buying and had never really even dreamed of buying. These goods were on par with the commercials that suggest that buying your spouse a Lexus with a giant bow on the top is the appropriate Christmas present.
This diagnostic would seem to fit with Juliet Schor’s ideas in The Overspent American about reference groups. Schor argues that media, television in particular, has presented Americans in the last few decades with a distorted view of the middle class. The typical TV middle-class family lives in a large house, seems not have any financial problems or even worries, has all sorts of popular consumer objects, and it is hard to tell if they even work. The average American watches these kinds of shows and starts comparing themselves to these middle-class TV families and raising their consumer aspirations to match what they see. Similarly, magazine advertisements suggest a certain lifestyle or things that the average American needs. These pitches can have a subtle but marked impact on who we compare ourselves to and what we think we need.
Legally Sociable 