Our possessions are a major contributor to and reflection of our identities A variety of evidence is presented supporting this simple and compelling premise Related streams of research are identified and drawn upon in developing this concept and implications are derived for consumer behavior Because the construct of extended self involves consumer behavior rather than buyer behavior, it appears to be a much richer construct than previous formulations positing a relationship between self-concept and consumer brand choice

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2489522.pdf

Possessions and the extended self.

With the radical changes in information production that the Internet has introduced, we stand at an important moment of transition, says Yochai Benkler in this thought-provoking book. The phenomenon he describes as social production is reshaping markets, while at the same time offering new opportunities to enhance individual freedom, cultural diversity, political discourse, and justice. But these results are by no means inevitable: a systematic campaign to protect the entrenched industrial information economy of the last century threatens the promise of today's emerging networked information environment. In this comprehensive social theory of the Internet and the networked information economy, Benkler describes how patterns of information, knowledge, and cultural production are changing--and shows that the way information and knowledge are made available can either limit or enlarge the ways people can create and express themselves. He describes the range of legal and policy choices that confront us and maintains that there is much to be gained--or lost--by the decisions we make today.

/pdf/the-wealth-of-networks-how-social-production-transforms-4mt4ax3tfp.pdf

The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom

For several years the study of social behavior has been undergoing a revolution with far-reaching consequences for the social and biological sciences. Partly responsible are three recent changes in the attitudes of evolutionary biologists. First was growing acceptance of the evidence that the potency of natural selection is overwhelmingly concentrated at levels no higher than that of the individual. Second was revival of the comparative method, especially as applied to behavior and life histories. Third was spread of the realization that not only are all aspects of structure and function of organisms to be understood solely as products of selection, but because of their peculiarly direct relationship to the forces of selection, behavior and life history phenomena, long neglected by the evolutionists, may be among the most predictable of all phenotypic attributes. These ideas have been appreciated by a few biologists for a long time, but they have only recently begun to characterize the science as a whole. Darwin’s discussion of sterility between species as an incidental effect of evolutionary adaptation (41, p. 260) and his refusal to deal with sex ratio selection (42, p. 399) suggest awareness of the difficult problem of determining the levels at which selection is most powerful. Yet significant clarification of this basic issue did not really commence until publication of Wynne-Edwards’ massive volume (179) championing group selection and inadvertently exposing its unlikelihood. As late as 1958, Fisher felt constrained to add to the revised edition of his 1929 classic, The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection, the admonishment (53, p. 49) that his fundamental theorem and its associated considerations, already misused then by decades of population geneticists dealing (as they saw it) with the fitness of populations, refer strictly to "the progressive modification of structure or function only in so far as variations in these are ofadvantage to the individual... [and afford] no corresponding explanation for any properties of animals and plants.., supposed to be of service to the species to which they belong." Williams’ critique (171) provided a significant turning point. Nevertheless, one has only to pick up any biological journal or attend any biological meeting to realize that this question has not yet been settled for all

https://faculty.washington.edu/ccab/Alexander1974.pdf

The evolution of social behavior

This paper explains involuntary unemployment in terms of the response of firms to workers' group behavior. Workers' effort depends upon the norms determining a fair day's work. In order to affect those norms, firms may pay more than the market-clearing wage. Industries that pay consistently more than the market-clearing wage are primary, and those that pay only the market-clearing wage are secondary. Thus, this paper also gives a theory for division of labor markets between primary and secondary. INTRODUCTION In a study of social relations among workers at a utility company in the eastern United States, George Homans [1953, 1954] observed that a small group of young women (doing a job called “cash posting”) exceeded the minimum work standards of the firm by a significant margin (i.e., on average by 15 percent). Most of these women neither desired nor expected promotion in the firm in return for their troubles. Why did they do it? Section II shows that the standard neoclassical model cannot simultaneously explain both the behavior of the firm and the behavior of the cash posters. But, as shown in Section III, application of a standard sociological model does explain the behavior of both the young women and their employer. According to this model, in their interaction workers acquire sentiment for each other and also for the firm.

Labor Contracts as Partial Gift Exchange

The wealth of networks : how social production transformsmarkets and freedom

The Gift Relationship: From Human Blood to Social Policy.

Richard M. Titmuss's The Gift Relationship has long been acknowledged as one of the classic texts on social policy. Honored by the New York Times as one of the ten most important books of the year when it first appeared in 1970, Titmuss's The Gift Relationship is even more topical now in an age of AIDS and changing health care policy. A seemingly straightforward comparative study of blood donating in the United States and Britain, the book elegantly raises profound economic, political, and philosophical questions. Titmuss contrasts the British system of reliance on voluntary donors to the American one in which the blood supply is largely in the hands of for-profit enterprises and shows how a nonmarket system based on altruism is more effective than one that treats human blood as another commodity. This updated edition contains the original text along with new chapters that: consider the relevance of Titmuss's arguments to the AIDS and current health care crises; outline recent developments in blood donation and transfusion systems; examine the systems for human milk donation; and assess the response to the original edition and make the case for its continuing relevance today. At a time when health and welfare systems are under sustained attack from many quarters, this new edition of The Gift Relationship is essential reading for everyone interested in social policy and the future of our society.

Richard M. Titmuss

Papers

The Gift Relationship: From Human Blood to Social Policy.

The gift relationship : from human blood to social policy

The gift relationship

Essays on 'The welfare state'

The gift relationship from human blood to social policy