Normative Order,Reification and Role Dis Tance Applied To Consumer Behaviour

Abstract

The meaning of consumption is no longer as evident as it used to be, when poverty among the proletariat and conspicuous consumption among the upper classes gave it a much stronger significance. In opposition to economic utilitarianism, structural-functional sociology has looked upon consumer behaviour as socially functional and governed by socially structured goals. Some recent Marxist writers have explained consumer behaviour in the "affluent" society as caused by manipulation and indoctrination The increasing consumption is seen as a process of reification. Despite their great differences structural functional theory and Marxism show similarities in their explanations of the internalization of the socially structured goals and in the indoctrination of a dominating ideology, respectively. A third possibility of describing an increasing part of consumer behaviour is to regard it as an expression of role-distance. The values underlying consumer behaviour may be only role-specific and therefore not an expression of the values of the personality. Concomitantly, consumer behaviour may not be the legitimation of the economic order, which it is often supposed to be.