Symbolic consumption and the social construction of product characteristics

As recognized since long, consumption serving to signal social status, group membership, or self-esteem is a socially contingent activity. The corresponding expenditures are motivated mainly by the symbolic value they have for transmitting the signal. However, this presupposes some form of social coordination on what are valid, approved symbols. Unlike consumption not serving signaling purposes, the technological characteristics of the goods and services consumed may be secondary – what counts is their socially agreed capacity to function as a symbol. The paper discusses in detail the cognitive underpinnings of social agreement on consumption symbols and a model of their spontaneous emergence. _________________________ *) I owe thanks to Ori Heffetz for drawing my attention to the phenomenon of symbolic consumption and the participants of a workshop on the meaning of consumption at Johnson School, Cornell University, 2008 for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.