Russell W. Belk

Possessions and the Extended Self

Our possessions are a major contributor to and reflection of our identities. A variety of evidence is presented supporting this simple and compelling premise. Related streams of research are identified and drawn upon in developing this concept and implications are derived for consumer behavior. Because the construct of extended self involves consumer behavior rather than buyer behavior, it appears to be a much richer construct than previous formulations positing a relationship between self-concept and consumer brand choice.

Materialism: Trait Aspects of Living in the Material World

The relevance of materialism to consumer behavior is discussed. Materialism is advanced as a critical but neglected macro consumer-behavior issue. Measures for materialism and three subtraits—envy, nongenerosity, and possessiveness—are presented and tested. The subtraits are compared over three generations of consumers from the same families, and measure validity is further explored via responses to a sentence completion task. Based on these results, a call is made for research into related macro consumer-behavior issues.

Situational Variables and Consumer Behavior

This paper suggests that explicit recognition of situational variables can substantially enhance the ability to explain and understand consumer behavioral acts. A definition and description of situations is offered, existing research is summarized, and implications for consumer research are considered.

A Naturalistic Inquiry into Buyer and Seller Behavior at a Swap Meet

Naturalistic inquiry as an ethnographic approach is explained and utilized for exploring emergent themes in buyer and seller behavior at a swap meet. Components of the method used include purposive sampling, triangulation across researchers, emergent theme analysis, autodriving, memoing, member checks, and auditing. Four emergent dialectical substantive themes are discussed: freedom versus rules, boundaries versus transitions, competition versus cooperation, and sacred versus profane.

Developmental Recognition of Consumption Symbolism

Communicating through consumption choices involves decoding information about others based upon observations of their consumption behavior. Using photographs of automobiles and houses, the ability to recognize consumption symbolism is examined in six age groups and compared between males/females and “higher”/“lower” social-class subjects. Grade school is found to be the time during which most consumption decoding skills are attained.

The Mountain Man Myth: A Contemporary Consuming Fantasy

Modern mountain men form temporary consumption enclaves focused on reenacting the 1825-40 fur-trade rendezvous held in the Rocky Mountain American West. In the process, they become part of a transient consumption community predicated on invented traditions and the invocation of a mythic past to create and consume fantastic time and space. Based on ethnographic methods employed over a five-year period, we develop a historically contextualized understanding of this consumption fantasy. We analyze how modern mountain men enact fantasy experiences of a primitive alternative reality within the bounded ritual space of the modern rendezvous. We conclude that participation in this fantasy world offers a special opportunity for transformative play, while reinforcing a romanticized set of beliefs.

Becoming a Consumer Society: A Longitudinal and Cross-cultural Content Analysis of Print Ads from Hong Kong, the People's Republic of China, and Taiwan

Results of a longitudinal study of ads from Hong Kong, the Peoples Republic of China (PRC), and Taiwan depict distinctive consumer cultures. PRC ads emphasize utilitarian appeals, promise a better life, and focus on states of being as a consumption theme. Hong Kong ads stress hedonistic values, promise easier and American lifestyles, and focus on doing. Taiwan ads fall between these two extremes, but are converging toward Hong Kong ads in consumption appeals over time. PRC ads, presumably anchored by remnants of an anti-materialistic political ideology, seem to chart a different trend.

Cross-cultural differences in materialism

Materialism was explored in twelve countries using qualitative data, measures of consumer desires, measures of perceived necessities, and adapted versions of the Belk (1985) materialism scales with student samples. The use of student samples and provisionary evidence for cross-cultural reliability and validity for the scales, make the quantitative results tentative, but they produced some interesting patterns that were also supported by the qualitative data. Romanians were found to be the most materialistic, followed by the U.S.A., New Zealand, Ukraine, Germany, and Turkey. These results suggest that materialism is neither unique to the West nor directly related to affluence, contrary to what has been assumed in prior treatments of the development of consumer culture.

Artifacts, Identity, and Transition: Favorite Possessions of Indians and Indian Immigrants to the United States

The things to which we are attached help to define who we are, who we were, and who we hope to become. These meanings are likely to be especially salient to those in identity transitions. In this study we examine such meanings by comparing favorite possessions of Indians in India and Indians who immigrated to the United States. Because the Indian sense of self differs considerably from Western concepts, these immigrants provide an interesting and important group in which to examine the use of possessions in securing identity. Results suggest that possessions play an important role in the reconstruction of immigrant identity. Copyright 1991 by the University of Chicago.

Gift Giving as Agapic Love: An Alternative to the Exchange Paradigm Based on Dating Experiences

The social sciences are dominated by a paradigm that views human behavior as instrumental exchange. It is not surprising that consumer research on gift giving has also been dominated by this exchange paradigm. The present research on dating gift giving among American college students finds support for two variants of this paradigm, but it also reveals an alternative paradigm of gift giving as an expression of agapic love. It is suggested that agapic expressiveness is a needed addition to exchange instrumentalism for understanding gift giving and perhaps for understanding consumer behavior in general.