12: Affluence, Leisure, and Consumption Flashcards
Having the economic means to privately afford leisure time and luxury material consumption
Affluence
What is leisure time? Rationally, we should…
Time spent not working and not engaging in sustenance activities (eating, sleeping)
Rationally, we should balance our work and leisure time to maximize our utility
Average amount of time spent working in the industrial revolution? The early 1900s?
Industrial rev = ~70 hours a week
Early 1900s = workers movement pushed for an 8 hour day and weekends off
What were unions pushing for in the 1920s? When was their success regarding this push?
6 hour work day plus weekends (30h/week)
During the great depression, govt supported reduced working hours to try and spread employment out
Who was John Maynard Keynes and what did he believe regarding work hours?
Famous economist
Believed in the 21st century a 15h work week would suffice
Why was the government interested in increasing consumption in the 20th century?
If you wanted to see economic growth, you could not have the working class reducing their work hours and consuming very little
People are happier when economy is growing
In democracies we re-elect economically successful govts
Growth = larger military
Why were corporations interested in increased consumption?
They like profits
Sell more products = more success/money
Four ways of accelerating consumer demand
- Increase pay for working class (while pushing back against reduced working hours)
- Improve access to credit
- Planned obsolescence
- Advertising
What is psychological vs physical obsolescence and what did corporations do with regards to obsolescence to maintain demand for products?
Psychological: effort to introduce fashion and style to the working class so after a couple of years products (cars, clothes) would go out of style
Physical: products do not function for long periods of time, break down after short period
Producers maintained demand by shortening psychological and physical lifespans of products
Examples of physical obsolescence
e.g. iPhone breaking down after two years
e.g. repairability of products (access to parts, specialized screws)
Advancements that allowed for the rise of mass media advertising in the 20th century
Radio and TV allowed advertisers access into the homes of the masses (both became fundamental parts of everyday life)
What is overconsumption? Misconsumption?
Over: too much is being consumed to be sustained leading to catastrophe for species unless something changes (species/societal level)
Mis: individual consumes in such a manner that it undermines his/her own well being e.g. debt (individual level)
What is persuasion?
A form of social influence
Process of guiding another person to changing their beliefs or preferences
Intentional socialization
Incentive based paths of changing beliefs/preferences
- social rewards/punishments
- formal (legal) rewards and punishments
Both lead to a behaviour change that can lead to belief/preference changes
Slide 32
What are paths of persuasion?
Use of high or low cognitive persuasion to change beliefs/preferences leading to behaviour change
Slide 34, 36
Challenging old and new beliefs/preferences through comparing strengths/logic of argument
High cognition
What is low cognition
When facts other than logic of argument are used to persuade someone often taking advantage of our heuristics and our emotions
How does low cognition take advantage of heuristics and emotions
- emotional forms of engagement that disengage skepticism/mistrust using humour, fear, excitement
- characteristics of the messenger (authority, musicians)
- taking advantage of our fears and hopes regarding social identity and status
Three parts of social/self identity
Ideal self (actions/behaviour/lifestyle we deem as ideal)
Real self
Failed self
How does social/self identity affect consumption?
- decisions to make purchases are part of an attempt to find meaning, status, and identity
- products are no longer sold by advertisers, instead lifestyles are sold (products are conduits to a lifestyle)
What term did Veblen coin? What does it mean?
Conspicuous consumption
Consumption with the primary intent being to gain status
Conspicuous consumption is not just about being at the top of the status hierarchy, it is…
about fitting in and and not falling in status
Focus of members of society becoming maintaining and enhancing status
Status seeking
What is the problem with status seeking
Zero sum game
Nobody is really advancing if everyone improves
Does nothing to improve total happiness (may reduce it bc of misconsumption and overconsumption)
Examples of ‘automatic’ costs related to living in North America
- rent/mortgage
- utilities
- insurance
- child care
- cellphone
- car payment
Impact of commercial marketing
Appears to be supporting continuation and expansion of consumption based lifestyle/happiness
What is commercial marketing? Social marketing?
Commercial: persuasion driven by industries that want you to consume their product
Social marketing: persuasion by governments, NGOs, and others meant to change your behaviour to support the social good
Slide 66
look
Early efforts at social marketing were mostly… effectiveness?
- High cognition (seeking to explain facts)
- Low cognition involving injunctive norm messaging
Limited effectiveness in changing behaviour: self interest over-rides ‘moral’ message
What is injunctive norm messaging? What is the problem with it
Telling someone else how they should behave
e.g. bc it is the right thing to do
There is an unintended underlying message that says most people do the wrong thing, and a lot of people want to fit in
Recent approaches to social marketing? Type of messaging?
More low cognition tactics
Descriptive norm messaging is an effort to normalize good behaviour and denormalize bad behaviour
What are descriptive messages
Identifying what others are doing and using self concern about fitting in as a means to influence behaviour
