The psychology of luxury consumption

Dubois, David; Jung, SungJin; Ordabayeva, Nailya

doi:10.1016/j.copsyc.2020.07.011

Cited by 82 publications

(83 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…The main social comparisons are based on salient aspects of our environment such as consumption patterns (Irwin, 2015;Pahl et al 2007). In line with previous research, consumption decisions are a central part of our daily life and do not just involve the purchase of basic goods but allow people to build lifestyles and differentiate them from others, communicating acquired status or social prestige (Dubois et al 2020).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 60%

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The perception of economic inequality in everyday life: My friends with the most and least money

García-Castro

García-Sánchez

Montoya-Lozano

et al. 2021

Asian J of Social Psycho

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The study of perceived economic differences in everyday life is relevant to deepen the knowledge of how inequality shapes psychological processes. In the current research, Spanish undergraduates (N=547) were asked what their friends with the most and least money could do with their resources. Using a qualitative and quantitative approach, we performed a content analysis of the 1,085 open-ended responses given, ran latent class analyses with the coded material to identify groups of participants, and explored whether class membership was associated with their awareness of inequality and support for redistribution. Participants perceived inequality among their friends through daily indicators such as consumption, opportunities, leisure, and mental health; some participants used compensatory strategies to mitigate perceived inequality. Latent class analyses suggested that participants differed mostly in the attention paid to consumption and in the use of compensatory strategies. Exploratory analyses suggested that perceiving inequality in everyday life in terms of consumption, negative attributes towards the wealthy, or positive attributes towards low socioeconomic groups was related to acknowledging economic differences among individuals and support for redistribution. The study of perceived economic inequality in everyday life continues a new line of research with the potential to obtain results more consistent with people's experiences.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 60%

“…Indicators Consumption: The action of buying products and services with money. Its function is to cover primary and secondary needs, real or fictitious (Dubois, Jung, & Ordabayeva, 2020).…”

Section: Tablesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The perception of economic inequality in everyday life: My friends with the most and least money

García-Castro

García-Sánchez

Montoya-Lozano

et al. 2021

Asian J of Social Psycho

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“…Notably, since our society bestows status primarily based on wealth and financial success, the vast majority of existing studies has examined within-domain compensatory consumption in the context of luxury goods, such as luxury cars (Griskevicius et al 2007), designer apparel and accessories (Berger and Ward 2010;Desmichel, Ordabayeva, and Kocher 2020;Dubois, Jung, and Ordabayeva 2021;Keinan, Crener, and Goor 2020;Nunes and Dreze 2008;Wang and Griskevicius 2014;Ward and Dahl 2014), and high-end homes and home goods (Frank and Cook 1995;Solnick and Hemenway 1998). For example, participants who were threatened by their low relative hierarchical rank or power were willing to pay more for larger brand logos of products that signaled high status and power, such as a conspicuous luxury pen or luxury apparel (Lee and Shrum 2012;Rucker and Galinsky 2008).…”

Section: Using Products To Cope With Status Threatmentioning

confidence: 99%

Status Pivoting

Goor

Keinan

Ordabayeva

2020

Journal of Consumer Research

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Prior research has established that status threat leads consumers to display status-related products such as luxury brands. While compensatory consumption within the domain of the status threat (e.g., products associated with financial and professional success) is the most straightforward way to cope with comparisons to high-status individuals, we examine when, why, and how consumers cope with status threat by choosing to “pivot” and display success and achievements in alternative domains. Using a mixed-method approach combining field and lab experiments, incentive-compatible designs, netnographic analysis, observational study, and qualitative interviews, we show that consumers cope with status threat by signaling their status and success in alternative domains. We conceptualize this behavior as “status pivoting” and show that it occurs because experiencing status threat motivates consumers to adopt beliefs about trade-offs across domains; that is, to believe that status acquisition requires trade-offs and hence others’ success in one domain comes at the cost of success in another domain. We compare the prevalence and appeal of status pivoting to restoring status within the domain of the threat. We further examine when consumers are likely to engage in status pivoting and show that this effect is attenuated when high status within the domain of the threat is attainable.

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“…Indeed, previous research has shown conspicuous consumption can be adopted as a means to support and express their social standing. Since behaviors signaling social power and status can increase self-esteem ( Wojciszke and Struzynska–Kujalowicz, 2007 ), conspicuous consumption that can signal social power and status ( Dubois et al., 2021 ) can be viewed as a means to restore self-esteem. For example, using products that carry a visible logo of a luxury brand is used to signal one's dominance ( Panchal and Gill, 2019 ) and to compensate a sense of low social power ( Koo and Im, 2019 ).…”

Section: Literature Review and Hypothesis Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We adopted the five items for conspicuous consumption (e.g., “cars,” “shoes,” “nice dinner with friends,” “new mobile phone,” and “watches or jewelry”), following previous literature ( Sundie et al., 2011 ; Wang and Griskevicius, 2013 ) as such items are easily visible to others in social interactions ( Charles et al., 2009 ) and adopted as status signals ( Desmichel et al., 2020 ; Dubois et al., 2021 ). We asked, “Compared to your peers, how much money would you spend on _____” on a 9-point Likert scale (1 = much less than the average, 9 = much more than the average).…”

Section: Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Social class, social self-esteem, and conspicuous consumption

2021

Heliyon

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Previous research has suggested the negative relationship between self-esteem and conspicuous consumption since conspicuous consumption is aimed to gain social recognition and signal status. However, it has not been much explored how this relationship holds depending on social classes. We propose subjective social class will moderate the relationship between social self-esteem and conspicuous consumption. We also hypothesize the mediating roles of social dominance orientation and life satisfaction in the proposed moderation effect. By conducting the survey with the American sample, we tested these predictions. In Study 1, we showed that the negative relationship between social self-esteem and conspicuous consumption appeared only among high subjective social class individuals. In Study 2, we replicated Study 1 and further demonstrated that social dominance orientation and life satisfaction respectively mediated the interactive effect of subjective social class and social self-esteem on conspicuous consumption. The results suggest that among individuals who perceive themselves to be in a high social class, a low level of social self-esteem is conducive to conspicuous consumption. The theoretical implications and limitations of the present investigation are discussed.

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The psychology of luxury consumption

Cited by 82 publications

References 40 publications

The perception of economic inequality in everyday life: My friends with the most and least money

The perception of economic inequality in everyday life: My friends with the most and least money

Status Pivoting

Social class, social self-esteem, and conspicuous consumption

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