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Lecture Outline
1. Defining the Self Concept
2. Freud and Psychoanalysis: Linking Self and Consumption
3. Consumption and the Extended Self
4. Marketing to the Self Concept
Real
Self
Ideal
Self
An example may be
the yummy
mummy ideal,
which many feel
they must fulfill.
Introducing Freud
By providing an explanation of the dynamics
underlying self-hood, psychoanalytic theory can help
explain the role played by goods and services in the
makeup of our selves. Put simply, Freuds theory offers
an explanation which focuses on the investment of
psychic energy (motive force) into consumer goods.
Psychoanalysis is the name of:
a procedure for the investigation of mental processes
which are almost inaccessible in any other way,
a method (based upon that investigation) for the
treatment of neurotic disorders and
a collection of psychological information obtained along
those lines, which is gradually being accumulated into a
new scientific discipline.(Freud 1923)
Putting it Together
According to Freud, the id is the source of all true needs,
providing energy and motive force for the demand for need
satisfaction.
The superego reins in the desire for direct sexual satisfaction
and replaces such actions with others for the sublimation of
sexual desire is through the purchase of consumer goods and
services.
Freuds nephew, Edward Bernays, put this theory into
marketing practice. For more information on this, see the
documentary The Century of the Self (especially episode 1)
-Our achievements
-Our minds
-Our homes and territories
Maintaining Multiple
Levels of the Extended Self
Individual level you are what you wear.
Family level includes your house and
furniture.
Community level includes your
neighbourhood and hometown.
Symbolic Interactionism
Everything we do has implications for the self,
implications that we obsessively monitor; wearing
this, eating that, looking like this are all read as
reflections of the self. Constellations of consumption
are used to express particular role identities.
Conclusions
Various theories of the self have become very important to
the study of consumer behaviour
Who we are, or who we think we are, largely shapes
consumption
Relevance to both individuals and marketers
Consumer researchers enhanced conversations about the self
by developing theory of the extended self
Questions???