The ubiquity of natural and organic products reflects that consumers are changing, and that they are more educated and conscious about the products and services they consume than ever before. For many years, consumers of ethical products have been associated with a bohemian lifestyle. In the last years however, due to numerous social factors, this small niche segment has been growing steadily and is becoming mainstream.(1)
Recent research studies about environmental and social issues related to ethical consumption are bringing into notice the importance of the meaning of consumption practices, in particular the aspect on how consumption contributes to the construction of identities among consumers who proclaim to be ethical.(2)
The Concept of the Self and Identity
The concept of the self developed in Europe in the late medieval period, where people began to see each human as unique, instead of part of a group.(3) Social scientists and theorists use the terms ‘the self’ and ‘identity’ to explore selfhood. Within the field of sociology, the analysis of the self has delivered an opportunity for revisiting the relation between individuals and society. This enabled the description of several ways in which “individuals are constituted as identities or subjects who interact in a socially structured world of people, relationships and institutions.”(4) This way of looking at individuals and their relationship to society, and the importance attached to the unique nature of the self, is most common in Western cultures. In Western societies for example, employees are motivated to express their unique selves by practices such as ‘casual Friday’.
The concept of the self can be disentangled into several disconnected identities, which might be driven by the different roles an individual fulfils, such as being a student, a daughter, a woman, and so forth. Some of these identities might be particularly central and prominent to an individuals’ self-concept.(5) Identity is linked with the expression of beliefs, values and ideas. People define an internal self, which they then use to consciously shape their external identity. Hence, identity is found to be an ‘identity bricolage’, where existing identities are decomposed into their separate components, and then recombined into a new identity.(6)
According to Cherrier individuals “engage and experience lifestyle that gives rise to their desired self and state of being” by the means of reflection.(7) A person’s actual identity may be sculpted by a combination of ideas about how the identity that individual pursues would be achieved in its optimal form. An individual’s actual and aspired ideal identity will have an impact on the consumption decisions and practices he or she engages in.(8)
Consumption and Identity
For almost 50 years now, consumption has increasingly been disentangled from its fundamental utilitarian conception, which was originally based on the use value of products and services. The consumption process has turned into an act that involves the creation of meaning and exchanges of symbols. Consumers are not longer just consuming goods or services, they are consuming the images and the meanings of products.(9)
Nowadays individuals consume, for it is “through consumption that people build up and reinforce their identities.”(10) In modern societies consumers are free to “create and invent their own self-identity.”(11) Consumers are capable of creating their own individual selves through the consumption of symbols and objects with which they can identify.(12)
From a sociological point of view, Elliott states that individuals are progressively turning to consumption, for their selves are increasingly becoming dislocated and displaced because of global post-industrial capitalism.(13) Pullen et al argue that people’s identities are “increasingly eroded by factors such as unemployment, divorce, the break-up of family, (and) mobility.”(14) Ernest Dichter attempted to explain the reasoning behind growing costumers’ strive for self actualization through consumption. He argued that this phenomenon was facilitated, due to the fact that for the first time in history, individuals are offered the chance for fulfilment and liberation through consumer society.(15)
Marketing and consumer research are increasingly paying attention and exploring the ways in which the consumer, with the aid of market generated products, forms a consisted, but diverse and frequently fragmented sense of self.(16) Holt points out, that in term of marketing research, “consumers are viewed as identity seekers and makers and it is the marketplace that is regarded as the primary source of ‘mythic and symbolic resources’ through which people construct narratives of the self.”(17) Thus, marketing has been said to play, since the 1950s, one of the key roles in creating, maintaining and reproducing selves and identities.(18)
The Role of Ethical Consumption in Identity Construction
During the last two decades, much attention has been paid to the research area of responsible consumption, which “assigns to the consumption a significance that passes the only utilitarian aspects of the purchase”.(19) Belk claims that postmodern consumers are capable of purchasing, consuming and disposing ethical goods and services, as well as practices, that mirror who they are and also who they desire to be.(20) Ethical consumers might for example, cease using toiletry products containing chemicals which were tested on animals as a manifestation against animal cruelty, be against the acquisition of low-cost objects manufactured in sweatshops to express their disfavour regarding the exploitation of workers or buy fair-trade products and organic goods to endorse environmental sustainability and labour rights. The fact that the consumer is able to select among an extensive range of options requires an active involvement in determining and choosing ethical goods, organizations and eventually consumption patterns in accordance with their ethical believes. By actively participating in the process of shaping their lifestyle in terms of ethical consumption, the consumers examine their individual ethical concerns and concepts of the self, which will then determine individual perceptions and personalized customs of what is considered a good life and common welfare.(21)
An exploratory study conducted by Shaw and Clarke revealed that consumers of ethical products and services have strong feelings of obligation for the people on which the choice of purchase might have an impact on, and that there are considerable linkages between ethical issues and self-identity.(22) Shaw et al. argue that when an issue becomes essential to the self-identity of a person, the intention of behaviour is adapted in accordance.(23) According to this, “ethical consumers may make ethical consumption choices because ethical issues have become an important part of their self-identity.”(24)
Shaw et al. also point out that ethical issues are not considered by the consumers in isolation.(25) In fact, consumption practices represent the results of an interaction between individual and collective identity.(26) Cherrier notes that when incorporating human relations to ethics, ethical considerations and beliefs become “socially organized and flexibly yet systematically constituted through a constant dialogue between the participants and the movement.”(27)
Conclusion
There is no doubt that ethical consumption is playing an increasingly important role in today’s business environment. Hence it is extremely important to understand ethical consumers and their concerns, in order to successfully satisfy their needs with appropriate ethical goods and services. This also includes considering the fact that ethical consumers use consumption practices, and the corresponding associated symbols and meanings, to create and maintain their identities. This identity formation process on the basis of ethical consumer goods has implications for academics and marketing managers alike.
Photos:
I) Identity Crisis by Chelsie
II) Identity Disorder by Holly Skye
(1) MarketWatch, 2007
(2) Ozcaglar-Toulouse, 2007
(3) Salomon et al, 2006
(4) Elliott, 2001, p.8
(5) Hoyer and MacInnis, 2007
(6) Featherstone, 1995, cited in Cherrier, 2007
(7) Cherrier, 2007
(8) Hoyer and MacInnis, 2007
(9) CarĂ¹ and Cova, 2007
(10) CarĂ¹ and Cova, 2007, p.5
(11) Bauman, 1988 cited in Pullen et al., 2007, p.16
(12) Pullen et al., 2007
(13) Elliott, 2001
(14) Pullen et al., 2007, p.5
(15) Baudrillard, 1988
(16) Arnould and Thompson, 2005 cited in Pullen et al., 2007
(17) Holt, 2002 cited in Pullen et al., 2007
(18) Elliott, 1999 cited in Pullen et al., 2007
(19) Ozcaglar-Toulouse, 2007, p.385
(20) Belk, 1988, cited in Cheerier 2007
(21) Cheerier, 2007
(22) Shaw and Clarke 1999, cited in Shaw et al. 2000
(23) Shaw et al., 2000
(24) Shaw et al., 2000, p. 882
(25) Shaw et al, 2000
(26) Cheerier, 2007
(27) Cheerier, 2007, p.332
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