Summary
Excerpt
Table Of Contents
- Cover
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Foreword
- About the editors
- About the book
- Citability of the eBook
- Contents
- List of Contributors
- Conspicuous Consumption Approach: “Veblen’s Consumption Model”
- The Concept of Involvement and the High Involvement Model
- Howard Sheth Model “The Model of Buyer Behavior”
- The Nicosia Model
- Sheth-Newman Gross Model of Consumption Values
- Engel-Kollat-Blackwell Model (EKB)
- Bettman’s Information Processing Model
- Henry Assael Model
- Planned Behavior Theory
- Social Cognitive Theory1
- Extended Technology Acceptance Model [TAM2]
- Model of Personal Computer Utilization
- United Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology
- Model of Acceptance with Peer Support (MAPS)
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
Miada Bashir Mohamed Abdallah
Ph.D. Candidate, University of Selçuk, Social Sciences Instıtute, myadtbshyr@gmail.com.
Ercan Aktan
Assoc. Prof. Dr., Aksaray University Faculty of Communication, Department of Public Relations and Advertising, ercanaktan@aksaray.edu.tr, ORCID: 0000-0001-8731-1896.
Hasret Aktaş
Assoc. Prof. Dr., University of Selçuk, Communication Faculty, hasreta@gmail.com.
Bünyamin Ayhan
Prof. Dr., University of Selcuk, Communication Faculty, bayhan@selcuk.edu.tr.
Zühal Fidan Baritci
Assist. Prof. Dr., University of Aksaray, Communication Faculty, zuhal_fidan@hotmail.com.
Murat Çakırkaya
Assist. Prof. Dr., University of Necmettin Erbakan, Applied Sciences Faculty, murat.cakirkaya39@gmail.com.
M. Nur Erdem
Assist. Prof. Dr., University of Ondokuz Mayıs, Communication Faculty, nur.erdem@omu.edu.tr.
Figen Kayış
Lecturer, Cappadocia University, Department of Public Relations and Advertising and Ph.D. Candidate, University of Selçuk, Social Science Institute, figen.kara89@gmail.com.
Nihal Kocabay-Şener
Ph.D., Istanbul Commerce University, nkocabay@ticaret.edu.tr.
Murat Koçyiğit
Assoc. Prof. Dr., University of Necmettin Erbakan, Tourism Faculty, mkocyigit@erbakan.edu.tr.
Büşra Küçükcivil
Research. Assistant, University of Necmettin Erbakan, Social Sciences Faculty, busrakucukcivil@gmail.com.
Hasan Rençber
Research Assistant, Univesity of Süleyman Demirel, Communication Faculty, hasanrencber@gmail.com.
Mustafa Şahin
Ph.D. candidate, University of Selcuk, Social Sciences Institute, sahinmstafa@gmail.com.
Funda Şehirli
Asisst. Prof. Dr., University of Zonguldak Bülent Ecevit, Communication Faculty, f.sehirli, beun.edu.tr.
İmran Aslan
Assoc. Prof. Dr., University of Selcuk, Communication Faculty, imranaslan@selcuk.edu.tr.
Abdülcelil Mücahid Zengin
Assist. Prof. Dr., Necmettin Erbakan University, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Department of Public Relations and Advertising, mzengin@erbakan.edu.tr.
Ercan Aktan
Conspicuous Consumption Approach: “Veblen’s Consumption Model”
Introduction
It is normal that individuals consume to fulfill their needs as much as they have needs to maintain their lives. The tendencies in consumption tried to be determined through a large number of scientific researches on the drives which affect the consumer behaviors, how the consumers react against messages and what their consumption patterns and habits are. These models are called traditional and modern consumer behaviors.
“Veblen Model”, which takes place among traditional consumer behavior models and which is the subject of this paper, deals with conspicuous consumption and attempts to define the behaviors of consumers. In his 1899 research, Veblen evaluated the consumer behaviors in the context of conspicuous consumption and he has presented many discussions and scientific researches on the model in the course of time. This study aims to present the features of Veblen’s model.
Although there are researches available on this subject, the aims of this research includes the following approach stated by Güleç (2015: 2) as; “Although Veblen explains the concept of “conspicuous consumption” very clearly with examples, the examples given by the philosopher are related to American lifestyle and culture. It is obvious that since the period Veblen lived, the world of society in general and more specifically the world of consumption have changed dramatically. However, to gain a perspective about the overconsumption of today, repeating Veblen’s ideas is an important reference point. Because, with the economic, cultural and technological changes came along with globalization, a period that changed the lives of people and will concern the whole humanity has begun and consumption has spread all over the world. It is possible to say that the world has become a global market place with the global marketing and exportation of communication, information technologies, media, tourism and popular culture. At this point, individuals have started to be interested in not only the products themselves but also the charming images and symbols of the products and started to consume more and conspicuously”.
Veblen’s research on the concept of conspicuous consumption focuses on new lifestyles. In the study, these new lifestyles are defined as a consumption chain. The chain rings are entertainment styles, clothes, ornaments and other ←13 | 14→similar types of shopping. By all means, consumption has become an important act for people in historical process. However, since the beginning of modern period, consumption has been a tool of individual expression, an indicator of social status and a way of gaining ground. Veblen has conducted a research about rich individuals who are a part of the group in which people try to show that they are different than the others, and according to the results he reached, he revealed that these individuals are imitating the European aristocrats. So, he has highlighted that, this emulative consumption of the rich part of the society is a way of expressing oneself and is in the shape of “conspicuous consumption”. In this context, the conspicuous consumption theory has developed in a similar way with the emergence of a class which “does not use their time effectively and productively” (Turan at al., 2015: 185).
In this study, Veblen, who developed the conspicuous consumption model, and findings on Veblen’s way of thinking have been discussed followed by an attempt to define what the concept of conspicuous consumption is. In addition to that, the factors that drive people to conspicuous consumption and their features are among the subjects presented in the study. In this regard, the main aim of the study is to present Veblen’s way of thinking, define the concept of conspicuous consumption and identify the factors that drive people to this kind of consumption.
1 Thorstein Bunde Veblen and on Veblen’s Way of Thinking
Thorstein Bunde Veblen was born in Wisconsin, U.S.A. He is the son of a farmer family who newly immigrated from Norway to America and was living in a small rural town in Wisconsin. Veblen studied in Northfield, Carleton College Academy in Minnesota. He attended to and was influenced a lot by the classes of John Bates Clark (1947–1938), who was at the beginning of his academic career and would be famous as a neo-classical economist. After his graduation, he studied economics in Johns Hopkins University and Yale University and in 1884, he got his Ph.D., presenting his dissertation in Yale University. Until 1891, he could not find a position at the university and lived in his family’s farm and at that year, he started his job in Cornell University as a lecturer. He got his first academic job and title (as associate professor in 1900) in newly founded Chicago University. While working there, he did the editorship of “Journal of Political Economy”, which was a famous academic economics magazine and published his books The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899) and The Theory of Business Enterprise (1904), which criticize businessmen. As the ideologists did not like him due to his critical approach to businessmen and private businesses and his ←14 | 15→inappropriate domestic life, he left the university in 1911 and started to work in University of Missouri. During this period, he was continually subjected to criticisms and ridicules of ideologists in and out of the university. Because of those reactions, he left his job in 1918 and went to New York. He started to work as the editor of The Dial, which was an influential magazine in New York and from 1919 to 1926, he contributed a great deal to the foundation and development of a university called “New School for Social Research”, which is now called New School. During that same period, he published his book entitled “The Engineers and the Price System”, in which he predicted that the Soviet Russia revolution was done by “engineers” and as a new economic system, “State of Engineers” would be founded. He contributed in the developments like organizations of “Technology Alliance” and “Technocracy Movement”, which promote the development of those ideas. Veblen started to live in seclusion in his house in California in 1927 and he died in 1929, before the break out of great depression which he had predicted well in advance (Web_1).
“Since the late 19th Century when Veblen lived, capital stock, which institutionalized as big and more systematic companies, has gradually taken the place of individual wealth stock of early stages of capitalism. “Taylorism” and scientific management has taken the place of old individualistic capital management. Most of the capitalists were absolute profiteers and started to act like an administrative committee. This committee functioned by “managing the administers” of the new company structure. The economic articles that reflect the institutional and cultural transformation of the period most perfectly are Veblen’s articles” (Web_2).
Veblen has gained a different financial perspective to the other economists during and after his period. In the years following the industrial revolution, the insufficiency of the existing economics to find solutions to the problems of the period has set a very important environment for the institutional economics to express itself. In other words, the institutional economics, which emerged by being encouraged by the insufficiency of the existing economics, has promoted scientifically different quests in economics and development of new perspectives with the new point of view it introduced in the world of economic thought (Turan et al., 2015: 162). Thorstein Veblen is recognized as an important philosopher in the sciences of economics and sociology. Veblen has analyzed the concept of consumption from economic and sociological aspects in his “The Theory of Leisure Class”, which is one of his most important and influential works.
Details
- Pages
- 220
- Publication Year
- 2020
- ISBN (PDF)
- 9783631812570
- ISBN (ePUB)
- 9783631812587
- ISBN (MOBI)
- 9783631812594
- ISBN (Softcover)
- 9783631804933
- DOI
- 10.3726/b16567
- Language
- English
- Publication date
- 2020 (March)
- Keywords
- Consumer Behavior Low Involvement High Involvement Technology Acceptance Social Cognitive
- Published
- Berlin, Bern, Bruxelles, New York, Oxford, Warszawa, Wien, 2020. 220 pp., 30 fig. b/w, 7 tables.
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