“Am I as extended as you say I am?” Consumer’s emic perspectives on the extended self

Abstract

Although the extended self-construct has been widely investigated in consumer research, it has inspired relatively few critiques. Moreover, there has been little research which directly assesses consumers’ own emic perspectives on the extended self. Here, an empirical investigation is reported which explicitly solicits consumers’ own ideas and hermeneutically considers them in relation to etic researcher theory. The findings indicate a major theoretical blind spot: not only do consumers differ in the polysemy, that is, the various meanings and discourses they apply to the extended self but also that marketing theory should be revised to reflect this lack of universal understanding.