• Media type: E-Book; Report
  • Title: From status-seeking consumption to social norms: An application to the consumption of cleanliness
  • Contributor: Woersdorfer, Julia Sophie [Author]
  • imprint: Jena: Max Planck Institute of Economics, 2008
  • Language: English
  • Keywords: consumer needs ; status seeking ; consumer learning ; D02 ; cleanliness ; D62 ; D11 ; D83 ; externalities ; social norms
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  • Description: Interdependencies in consumer behavior stem from either status-seeking consumption or compliance with social norms. This paper analyzes how a consumption act changes from a means to signal the consumer's status to a means of norm compliance. It is shown that such a transformation can only be understood when consumer motivations other than social recognition are taken into account. We depict norm emergence as a learning process based on changing associations between a specific consumption act and widely shared, non-subjectivist consumer needs. Our conjectures are illustrated by means of a case study: the emergence of the cleanliness norm in the 19th century.
  • Access State: Open Access