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Journal Article

Conspicuous Consumption, Relationships and Rivals: Women’S Luxury Products As Signals to Other Women

TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigated how women's luxury products function as a signaling system directed at other women who pose threats to their romantic relationships and found that activating a motive to guard one's mate triggered women to seek and display lavish possessions.
Abstract: Past research shows that luxury products can function to boost self-esteem, express identity, and signal status. We propose that luxury products also have important signaling functions in relationships. Whereas men use conspicuous luxury products to attract mates, women use such products to deter female rivals. Drawing on both evolutionary and cultural perspectives, five experiments investigated how women’s luxury products function as a signaling system directed at other women who pose threats to their romantic relationships. Findings showed that activating a motive to guard one’s mate triggered women to seek and display lavish possessions. Additional studies revealed that women use pricey possessions to signal that their romantic partner is especially devoted to them. In turn, flaunting designer handbags and shoes was effective at deterring other women from poaching a relationship partner. This research identifies a novel function of conspicuous consumption, revealing that luxury products and brands play...
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors describe four major theories of gender differences (socio-cultural, evolutionary, hormone brain, and selectivity hypothesis) and assess relevant research from 2000 to 2013 in marketing, psychology, and biomedicine.

383 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a review of the state of knowledge on luxury brand marketing and provide a new and usable definition of a luxury brand, based on the concept of "luxury brand".

280 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors provide a systematic review of the current state of luxury research by mapping the research landscape to identify key research clusters, publications, and journals that have relevance to the luxury subject across disciplines.

173 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigated consumer brain responses underpinning passive viewing of luxury versus basic (low emotional value) branded products when participants are alone or with another person, and recorded event-related potentials while female participants passively viewed pictures of luxury and basic branded products.
Abstract: Electrophysiological and hemodynamic studies provide substantial evidence of dissimilar brain responses when people view emotional compared with neutral pictures. This study investigates consumer brain responses underpinning passive viewing of luxury (high emotional value) versus basic (low emotional value) branded products when participants are alone or with another person. Conforming to social facilitation theory and using electroencephalogram methods, the authors recorded event-related potentials while female participants passively viewed pictures of luxury and basic branded products. They examined event-related-potential amplitudes in three time windows, corresponding to the P2 and P3 components and the late positive potential (LPP). Dissimilar brain responses occurred in the Together but not the Alone condition for the P2 and P3 components over visual cortex sites. The LPP amplitude was higher for luxury than for basic branded products, but only in the Together condition, suggesting that the presence...

137 citations


Cites background from "Conspicuous Consumption, Relationsh..."

  • ...Goals determine what people give attention to (Plassmann, Ramsøy, and Milosavljevic 2012; Wang and Griskevicius 2014), and thus further research could examine whether goals in a social context are likely to modify the way people attend to emotionally significant marketing stimuli such as luxury and…...

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper found that signaling busyness has also become a status symbol and is regarded as an aspirational lifestyle among the rich and famous, which is contrary to the prediction that signaling time spent leisurely is associated with high status and wealth.
Abstract: Movies, magazines, and popular TV shows such as “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” often highlight the abundance of money and leisure time among the wealthy. Consistent with this portrayal, Veblen’s (1899/2007) theory of the leisure class suggests that the wealthy signal their ability to live idle lives by consuming time unproductively. At the same time though, complaining about being busy and about working all the time is an increasingly widespread phenomenon in modern society. On Twitter, celebrities publicly complain about “having no life” or “being in desperate need for a vacation” (Alford 2012). New York Times social commentator suggests that a common response to the question “How are you?” is “Busy!” (Kreider 2012). An analysis of holiday letters indicates that references to “crazy schedules” have increased since the 1960s (Schulte 2014). Contrary to the prediction that signaling time spent leisurely is associated with high status and wealth, we propose that signaling busyness has also become a status symbol and is regarded as an aspirational lifestyle.

129 citations

References
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: An overview of simple and multiple mediation is provided and three approaches that can be used to investigate indirect processes, as well as methods for contrasting two or more mediators within a single model are explored.
Abstract: Hypotheses involving mediation are common in the behavioral sciences. Mediation exists when a predictor affects a dependent variable indirectly through at least one intervening variable, or mediator. Methods to assess mediation involving multiple simultaneous mediators have received little attention in the methodological literature despite a clear need. We provide an overview of simple and multiple mediation and explore three approaches that can be used to investigate indirect processes, as well as methods for contrasting two or more mediators within a single model. We present an illustrative example, assessing and contrasting potential mediators of the relationship between the helpfulness of socialization agents and job satisfaction. We also provide SAS and SPSS macros, as well as Mplus and LISREL syntax, to facilitate the use of these methods in applications.

25,799 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, a variety of evidence is presented supporting this simple and compelling premise and implications for consumer behavior are derived for consumer behaviour 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 selfconcept and consumer brand choice.
Abstract: 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

7,705 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A contextual-evolutionary theory of human mating strategies is proposed, hypothesized to have evolved distinct psychological mechanisms that underlie short-term and long-term strategies between men and women.
Abstract: This article proposes a contextual-evolutionary theory of human mating strategies. Both men and women are hypothesized to have evolved distinct psychological mechanisms that underlie short-term and long-term strategies. Men and women confront different adaptive problems in short-term as opposed to long-term mating contexts. Consequently, different mate preferences become activated from their strategic repertoires. Nine key hypotheses and 22 predictions from Sexual Strategies Theory are outlined and tested empirically. Adaptive problems sensitive to context include sexual accessibility, fertility assessment, commitment seeking and avoidance, immediate and enduring resource procurement, paternity certainty, assessment of mate value, and parental investment. Discussion summarizes 6 additional sources of behavioral data, outlines adaptive problems common to both sexes, and suggests additional contexts likely to cause shifts in mating strategy.

3,660 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen as mentioned in this paper is a well-known theory of leisure classes and can be found at the Monthly Review website. Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article.
Abstract: Review of The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen. This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website , where most recent articles are published in full. Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

2,173 citations


"Conspicuous Consumption, Relationsh..." refers background in this paper

  • ...The tendency to purchase and exhibit expensive goods is known as conspicuous consumption (Veblen 1899), whereby luxury goods—and luxury brands—are often used to communicate a person’s wealth or level of prestige (Bagwell and Bernheim 1996; Han et al. 2010; Mazzocco et al. 2012; Rucker, Galinsky,…...

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  • ...and Rivals: Women’s Luxury Products as...

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  • ...Electronically published August 29, 2013 teem, express one’s identity, and signal status (e.g., Belk 1985; Han et al. 2010; Richins 1987; Veblen 1899)....

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the relevance of materialism to consumer behavior is discussed and three subtraits (envy, nongenerosity, and possessiveness) are compared over three generations of consumers from the same families.
Abstract: The relevance of materialism to consumer behavior is discussed. Materialism is advanced as a critical but neglected macro consumer-behavior issue. Measures for materialism and three subtraits—envy, nongenerosity, and possessiveness—are presented and tested. The subtraits are compared over three generations of consumers from the same families, and measure validity is further explored via responses to a sentence completion task. Based on these results, a call is made for research into related macro consumer-behavior issues.

1,774 citations