Mindfulness: Its Transformative Potential for Consumer, Societal, and Environmental Well-Being

Abstract

The authors propose that mindfulness is an antidote to mindless consumption, which adversely affects individual and collective well-being. The concept of mindfulness is explained and applied to the consumption context. More specifically, the authors examine mindful consumption as an ongoing practice of bringing attention, with acceptance, to inner and outer stimuli, and the effects of this practice on the consumption process. The transformative potential of mindful consumption is reviewed across domains of consumer, societal, and environmental well-being, with suggestions for future research. The article highlights some of the challenges to realizing the transformative potential of mindful consumption and concludes with suggestions for the actions that consumers, institutions, and policy makers could take to promote mindful consumption.

Consumer Wisdom: A Theoretical Framework of Five Integrated Facets

“…Taken as a whole, Contemplation exemplifies a firm commitment to mindfulness, as it is newly emerging in consumer psychology (e.g., Bahl et al., ; Mick, ). Mindfulness is the act of being mentally present in a nonjudgmental manner with respect to both internal stimuli (e.g., thoughts, emotions, bodily sensations) and external stimuli.…”

“…Bahl et al. (, p. 200) suggest that “mindful consumption is an inquiry‐based process that endows consumers with awareness and insight to choose their responses rather than react blindly or habitually.” The importance of mindfulness to wisdom is also evident in the next facet of consumer wisdom, Emotional Mastery.…”

“…The conceivable merits of a reliable and valid consumer wisdom scale are high, including, for instance, better understanding of consumer wisdom's associations with subjects such as retirement saving; personal hygiene practices; the use of Western conventional disease remedies versus Eastern and other alternative medicine practices; consuming soda, sugary food, alcohol, and tobacco products; materialism; compulsive buying; hoarding; and gambling. It could also stimulate investigations of consumer wisdom as a moderator variable in (Elgin, 1993); frugality (Lastovicka et al, 1999); mindfulness (Bahl et al, 2016); values-based choice (Huber et al, 1997); consumer lifestyle (Weinberger, Zavisca, Silva, 2017) Personal resource management Resource theories (Dorsch, Tornblom, & Kazemi, 2017); personal saving and saving orientation (Garbinsky et al, 2014;Dholakia et al, 2016); consumer spending and self-control (Haws, Bearden, & Nenkov, 2012); valuation of the future (Bartels & Urminsky, 2015); propensity to plan (Lynch et al, 2010) Consumer knowledge and expertise (Alba & Hutchinson, 1987;Sujan, 1985); purchase decision involvement (Mittal, 1989); values-based choice (Huber et al, 1997); robust satisficing (Schwartz, 2015); thinking, fast and slow (Kahneman, 2011) Emotional Mastery Avoidance of negative emotions Hierarchical approach to negative emotions (Laros & Steenkamp, 2005); regret (Tsiros & Mittal, 2000); dissatisfaction (Fournier & Mick, 1999); consumer emotional intelligence (Kidwell et al, 2008); temptation (Baumeister, 2002); guilt (Burnett and Lunsford, 1994); persuasion knowledge (Friestad & Wright, 1994 Consumer co-production (Etgar, 2008); borrowing & sharing (Belk, 2010); collaborative consumption (Belk, 2010(Belk, , 2014Scaraboto, 2015); gifting (Belk, 1996); escaping the market (Kozinets, 2002); voluntary simplicity (Elgin, 1993) Transcendence…”

Facets of Mindfulness in Stages of Behavior Change Toward Organic Food Consumption

“…The concept of mindfulness has been discussed recently in terms of its potential to contribute to a sustainable lifestyle (Ericson et al 2014;Hunecke 2013) and sustainable consumption behavior (Bahl et al 2016;Fischer et al 2017;Rosenberg 2004). Mindfulness is often defined as nonjudgmental awareness, which is characterized by paying Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-020-01351-4 ) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.…”

Education for Sustainable Consumption through Mindfulness Training: Development of a Consumption-Specific Intervention

“…For ESC this could mean that unconscious, non-sustainable consumption choices could be elucidated and diminished (Rosenberg, 2004;Bahl et al, 2016). (2) Secondly, mindfulness practice is deemed to support an enhanced awareness of immediate daily experiences.…”