Showing papers in "ACR North American Advances in 1991"

Echoes of the Dear Departed Past: Some Work in Progress on Nostalgia

Abstract: This paper provides a brief preview of some work in progress on the phenomenon of nostalgia in consumer behavior. It begins by introducing some background considerations and key definitions. It then reviews an initial finding on what appears to be a nostalgia-related preference peak in musical tastes. Three limitations in this study suggest directions for further research. The resulting work in progress involves three studies designed to address various aspects of these three limitations. NOSTALGIA IS OLD The phenomenon of nostalgia is almost as old as life itself. Metaphorically, when God banished Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, they very soon had reason to look back with longing to how nice things had been in the good old days. Since then, a wistful desire to recapture the dear departed past has haunted humankind. Many agree with M. H. Abrams (1971) that this impulse to regain Paradise to achieve a reconciliation with Lost Innocence and a reunification with the Prelapsarian Beauty of the World is the essence of romanticism. Thus, Homer's Odysseus struggles to return home, and the hero of Joyce's Ulysses repeats a comparable journey. Poets like Milton in Paradise Lost, novelists like Proust in Remembrance of Things Past, songwriters like Lennon and-McCartney in \"Yesterday,\" and screenwriters like George Lucas in \"American Graffiti\" have constantly reiterated similar themes. And, as Bart Giamatti (1989) never tired of reminding us, our National Pastime replays the urge to come home at least 52 times per game, weather permitting. In sum, then, it seems fair to say that the sense of nostalgia has always inextricably infused our consciousness of the basic human condition. NOSTALGIA IS NEW Nevertheless, nostalgia has recently received renewed attention from popular journalists and marketing practitioners observing the contemporary scene in America. Many commentators feel that the role of nostalgia in modern society is increasing, perhaps because the multitudinous Baby-Boom Generation has now started to reach an age at which nostalgia begins to matter in a Big Way. Thus, for example, Becky Holman recently told a columnist for the Minneapolis Star Tribune that \"people are studying nostalgia today the way they studied sex in advertising three years ago\" (Meyers 1990, p. 1D). We see evidence of this nostalgia boom everywhere we look in reruns of the old Jackie Gleason programs and the formation of the Royal Association for the Longevity and Preservation of the Honeymooners (R.A.L.P.H.); in the reassessment of Richard Nixon and a new willingness to reconsider him as something more human(e) than he seemed at the time of Viet Nam and Watergate; in the emergence of Victorian and Country-Kitchen fashion trends and the introduction of such fad-oriented magazines as Victoria, Memories, and Joe Franklin's Nostalgia; in the resurgence of 1950s Rock 'n' Roll and Member Login

Disposition of Possessions During Role Transitions

Abstract: The functions of acquisition, usage, and disposition of possessions during role transitions and processes of identity reconstruction have been given little or no scrutiny in previous research either within or outside of consumer behavior literature. This study reports the effects of possession disposition preceding, during, and following role transitions. Evidence presented here indicates that possession disposition is employed to facilitate or validate both role and status changes-enhancing and solidifying new self-concepts and social role identities.