Instrumental and Ceremonial Aspects of Consumer Behavior Among Women in the USA

The present paper analyzes consumer behavior as an institution defined by instrumental and ceremonial factors. The purpose of the research is to propose an alternative framework of consumer analysis. It provides empirical grounds for questioning the dominant mainstream framework and provides a scheme of analysis that allows for consumer theory to look at consumer behavior as an indicator for inequality and class stratification in comparative systems. The research is narrowed to US society as an example of a capitalistic system and excludes from the historical analysis the specific characteristics of different ethnic identities in that society. This approach, to a certain extent, imposes a limitation for comprehensive analysis, since different cultures exist in interaction with one another. However, I believe that this abstraction does not represent a simplification, since the studied segment is analyzed in a historical dimension. The assumption of mainstream consumer theory -that individual consumer behavior is independent of the consumer choices of others -excludes habit formation as an element of consumer behavior at all. The paper shows that consumer products have both instrumental and ceremonial aspects – they satisfy our basic life needs and our desire for social identity. If so, we should ask ourselves what does form our desires. The present research starts with the proposition that social behavior is habitual. Based on the philosophy of John Dewey and Thorstein Veblen, I accept that habits are rooted in the past and represent ideologically based ceremonial values. Since consumer behavior as an economic activity is also social behavior, we need to search for its basis in the past. Thus, analysis of consumer behavior requires a historical approach. In addition, to explore the ceremonial and instrumental values that set the rules for consumer behavior, we need qualitative data. Since we allow for historical analysis and qualitative data, we can go about specification of consumer behavior as gender-defined. Later we can extrapolate some implications for consumer theory as a whole and for economics as a study of social activities. Why this paper probably will not be of interest for most of the contemporary economists? 1. It employs qualitative rather than quantitative data. 2. It does not employ the "economics" concepts of Utility Functions, Indifference Curves and Maximization. It explores ceremonial values and instrumental realities and makes judgments about the economic behavior. 3. It understands economic behavior not as rational behavior, conducted by informed agents, but as constrained by habit, social standards and instrumental reality. 4. It does not attempt to derive Demand Curves, Consumer Surplus, and Substitution Effects, and thus does imply the irrelevance of equilibrium.