This paper considers how identity, a person's sense of self, affects economic outcomes. We incorporate the psychology and sociology of identity into an economic model of behavior. In the utility function we propose, identity is associated with different social categories and how people in these categories should behave. We then construct a simple game-theoretic model showing how identity can affect individual interactions. The paper adapts these models to gender discrimination in the workplace, the economics of poverty and social exclusion, and the household division of labor. In each case, the inclusion of identity substantively changes conclusions of previous economic analysis.

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Economics and Identity

Over the last ten years, scholars in human geography have been paying increasing theoretical and empirical attention to understanding the ways in which the production of scale is implicated in the production of space. Overwhelmingly, this work reflects a social constructionist approach, which situates capitalist production (and the role of the state, capital, labor and nonstate political actors) as of central concern. What is missing from this discussion about the social construction of scale is serious attention to the relevance of social reproduction and consumption. In this article I review the important literature on scale construction and argue for enlarging our scope for understanding scale to include the complex processes of social reproduction and consumption. I base my critique on a short case study which illustrates that attention to other processes besides production and other systems of domination besides capitalism can enhance our theorizing and improve our attempts to effect real social change.

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The social construction of scale

The neglect of men in consumer decision-making research is lamentable given the clear evidence that they are an important shopping group and are likely to make shopping decisions differently from women This study addresses the subject of male decision making using Sproles and Kendall's (1986) Consumer Styles Inventory (CSI) All of the original eight traits and four new traits namely; store-loyal/low-price seeking, time-energy conserving, confused time-restricted and store-promiscuity were identified for men The study also demonstrated the potential of the CSI for segmenting markets as meaningful and distinct groups of buyers with different decision-making styles were identified The findings suggest that retailers should appeal to their buyers by improving the efficiency of the shopping process and value perceptions when dealing with male shoppers

Male Consumer Decision-Making Styles

Carolinians could avoid taking a stand, leaving fire-eaters to rage to their hearts’ content. But the piracy cases stripped away that luxury. They stripped away the mask of unity, too, spotlighting the distress and volatility of white Charleston’s divided mind on questions of slavery and federal relations. When a grand jury refused to indict the Echo’s crew in November 1858, Spratt, serving as chief defense counsel, moved for their release. But he did not stop there. Citing the recent decision in Dred Scott v. Sanford as an example of a local court declaring a federal law unconstitutional, he urged Judge Andrew Magrath similarly to strike down the statutes prohibiting the slave trade. This would be “Higher Law with a vengeance,” protested state Attorney General Isaac Hayne, a short-sighted policy sure to boomerang on slaveholders. Cautious Magrath, however, ignored each counsel’s overwrought arguments, upholding the validity of the piracy statutes and retaining the prisoners in custody. The longer slave traders languished in jail, the louder hard-liners like Spratt trumpeted their cause, and the more Charlestonians squirmed. A popular moderate local politician, Magrath tried to defuse the issue without giving victory to either side. In the case of the Brothers, a Charleston District grand jury in January 1859 refused to indict the crew, and Magrath released them. When the Echo’s hands came to judgment three months later, indictments were returned, but the sailors went free despite incriminating evidence. Finally, in 44 Message No. 1 of His Excellency Jas. H. Adams, Governor of South Carolina to the Senate and House of Representatives, at the Session of 1856, With Accompanying Documents (Columbia, 1856); Report of the Special Committee of the House of Representatives, of South Carolina, on so much of the Message of Gov. Jas H. Adams, as relates to Slavery and the Slave Trade (Columbia, 1857). 45 Charleston Courier, December 1-9, 1858; Isaac W. Hayne, Argument Before the United States Circuit Court... in the Motion to Discharge the Crew of the Echo, Delivered in Columbia, S. C., December, 1858 (Albany, 1859), 6. On Magrath, see R. G. Dun and Company, Credit Ledgers, South Carolina, 1: 411, Baker, HU.

Politics, chess, hats: The microhistory of disunion in Charleston, South Carolina

Meritocracy, in contemporary parlance, refers to the idea that whatever our social position at birth, society ought to facilitate the means for ‘talent’ to ‘rise to the top’. This article argues that the ideology of ‘meritocracy’ has become a key means through which plutocracy is endorsed by stealth within contemporary neoliberal culture. The article attempts to analyse the term ‘meritocracy’, to open up understandings of its genealogy, and to comprehend its current use. It does so through three sections. The first section considers what might be wrong with the notion of meritocracy. The second traces some key points in the travels of the concept within and around academic social theory, moving from Alan Fox and Michael Young’s initial, disparaging use of the term in the 1950s, to Daniel Bell’s approving adoption of the concept in the 1970s, and on to its take-up by neoconservative think tanks in the 1980s. The third section analyses the use of meritocracy as a plank of neoliberal political rhetoric and public discourse. It focuses on the resonance of the term in relatively recent British culture, discussing how what it terms ‘meritocratic feeling’ has come to operate in David Cameron’s ‘Aspiration Nation’. This final section argues that meritocracy has become a potent blend of an essentialised and exclusionary notion of ‘talent’, competitive individualism and the need for social mobility. Today it is a discourse which predominantly works to marketise the very idea of equality.

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Meritocracy as Plutocracy: The Marketising of 'Equality' Under Neoliberalism

Why Gender Matters-Leonard Sax 2017 A revised and updated edition (with more than 70% new material) of the evergreen classic about the innate differences between boys and girls and how best to parent and teach girls and boys successfully, with completely new chapters on sexual orientation and on transgender and intersex kids. Eleven years ago, Why Gender Matters broke ground in illuminating the differences between boys and girls--how they perceive the world differently, how they learn differently, how they process emotions and take risks differently. Dr. Sax argued that in failing to recognize these hardwired differences between boys and girls, we ended up reinforcing damaging stereotypes, medicalizing normal behavior (see: the rising rates of ADHD diagnosis), and failing to support kids to reach their full potential. In the intervening decade, the world has changed drastically, with an avalanche of new research which supports, deepens, and expands Dr. Sax's work. This revised and updated edition includes new findings about how boys and girls interact differently with social media and video games; a completely new discussion of research on gender non-conforming, LGB, and transgender kids, new findings about how girls and boys see differently, hear differently, and even smell differently; and new material about the medicalization of bad behavior.

Jane Graves

Papers

The Sex of Things: Gender and Consumption in Historical Perspective

‘When Things Go Wrong … Inside the Inside’: A Psychoanalytical History of a Jug