Self-esteem is an important motivational drive for consumption involving both the acceptance and rejection/avoidance of symbolic goods. This paper examines the relationship between self-esteem and the rejection of goods and brands within the context of fashion consumption by young professionals. A conceptualisation which accounts for consumers' use of various strategies in their efforts to maintain or enhance their self-esteem is suggested. A small-scale exploratory study is used to examine first, how consumers invest products and brands with negative symbolic meanings; and second, how this leads consumers to reject products and brands. The importance of understanding negative symbolic consumption when marketing high involvement products such as fashion goods is identified; and the implications for fashion retailers and marketing management are discussed.

Rejection is at the heart of anti-consumption and is therefore key to some of the central relationships in symbolic consumption. However, researchers find rejection difficult to study because of the lack of material traces. This article draws on earlier frameworks to develop a new integrated and expanded conceptualization in order to achieve a more nuanced view of how rejection operates within symbolic consumption; and also to initiate research directions for investigating and theorizing rejection in anti-consumption. The focus on anti-consumption incorporates the interaction between avoidance, aversion and abandonment, and the relationship between distastes and the undesired self (mediated by the marketing, social and individual environments). A series of interrelationships and illustrations suggest how the expanded conceptualization is useful for theorizing and investigating anti-consumption. Crown

The relationship between self-image and product/brand imagery remains an important area of concern in marketing research and marketing practice because of its impact on product/brand evaluation and choice; however many studies report inconclusive findings about this relationship. A conceptual model is developed which links a function of attitudes ± as the pursuit and maintenance of self-esteem and self-identity ± to the public and private contexts of self-concepts; and the subsequent intrinsic and extrinsic congruence between brand evaluation and choice. In this exploratory study the Self-Monitoring Scale is used to explore the link between the social and psychological determinants of self-presentation in the pursuit of self-esteem and maintenance of self-identity, and to inform the examination of the relationship between selfconcept and product symbolism. Findings from the qualitative and quantitative stages of a study of the UK alcoholic soft drinks market are presented. There were distinct differences between the self-monitoring groups when the interpretation of specific brand images was investigated. The results provided empirical support for viewing the self as a divisible entity. The implications for marketing practice are discussed.

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In this paper we examine how the complex relationship between consumption and production evolves in empty nest households as individuals reconstruct their sense of self during periods of major household change and role status transitions. Specifically, we seek to understand the "lived experience" of mothers as they negotiate the role status transition on entering the empty nest stage of family life, and thus to provide glimpses of how women manage production and consumption in order to create family life across a variety of diffused sites as their children move away from home. The main themes to emerge from the data are: the distress associated with this role status transition as women re-evaluate their definition of the self and their mothering role; and the evolving role of enacting love and mothering as the emphasis changes, in many cases, from production-led tasks to consumption-based activities.

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