The duality of social self-categorization in consumption

Abstract

''Consumer culture'' theories frequently claim that people use symbols of consumption to socially self-categorize and satisfy their needs for assimilation or differentiation. Through two empirical quantitative studies, we argue that self-categorization operates according to a duality overlooked by these theories. On one hand, self-categorization can be understood as the assimilation of the ''I'' into a normatively well-characterized group, a self-categorization that we define as ''ontological'' in this article. On the other hand, it can be understood as the identification with socially standardized and impersonal models, a self-categorization that we term ''formal.'' In the two studies, we investigated whether the psychologically perceived distance between the in-group and out-group (metacontrast) is greater in ontological than in formal self-categorization and, second, whether these two forms of self-categorizations operate independently (not correlated) in consumption. The results support the two hypotheses. However, further studies should be developed in order to give a more definitive character to the theory. If the findings of this work were to be confirmed by other ecological contexts and sampling techniques, there might be consequences for ''self-brand connection'' analyses and in general for consumption studies where social self-categorization theory can be applied.

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