Download consumer behavior solomon book chapter 9 14th edition and more Study Guides, Projects, Research Consumer Behaviour in PDF only on Docsity!
Identity and the Self
CHAPTER OBJECTIVES When you finish reading this chapter, you should be able to:
9-1 Explain how the self-concept strongly influences consumer behavior. 9-2 Describe how our consumption choices are expressions of our identities and extensions of our selves. 9-3 Summarize how consumers are finding new ways to express identity via their consumption choices.
9-4 Recognize the many sociocultural factors that contribute to gender identity. 9-5 Discuss how our bodies are an important component of our identities.
S
hould she, or shouldn’t she? Shaquana has been danc- ing around this question for months. Several of her friends decided to get tattoos, and although they complained about how painful the process was, they were leaning heavily on her to get one as well. Until now, Shaquana hasn’t been too keen to follow along with the pack. But then, her mother suddenly recovered from a nasty COVID-19 infection, and she felt it was time to express gratitude for that. After she does some research on popular designs, Shaquana is happy to learn that spiritual images like mandala, hamsa, and lotus designs are big right now. As one tattoo artist explained, “They are deeply associated with healing, balance, growth, rebirth, and positive energies, therefore many people associate with them.”^1 After a lot of thought, she designs a tat for the side of her neck that incorporates her mother’s likeness within a lotus mandala. Yes, the inking hurt for a while—but it’s worth it because now her body carries a permanent reminder of her love for her mother.
The Self
Are you what you buy? We choose many products, from cars to water bottles, because we want to highlight or hide some aspect of the self—whether we want to feel successful or attractive or even to connect with a loved one as Shaquana did. In this chapter, we’ll focus on how consumers’ feelings about themselves shape their consumption practices, particularly as they strive to fulfill their society’s expectations about how a person should look and act.
OBJECTIVE 9- Explain how the self-concept strongly influences consumer behavior.
Source: Bagus Production/Shutterstock
Chapter 9 • Identity and the Self 253
The Self-Concept and Self-Esteem
The self-concept summarizes the beliefs a person holds about their own attributes and how they evaluate the self on these qualities. Although your overall self-concept may be positive, there certainly are parts of it you evaluate more positively than others. The self-concept is a complex and malleable structure. Some parts are stable, but each of us modifies some elements of it as we make our way through life—and particularly as we discover new ideas, social groups we admire, and, yes, images we receive from the culture around us that validate certain types of people over others. Each element that contributes to our self-concept is an identity. One way to define identity is “any category label with which a consumer self-associates that is amenable to a clear picture of what a person in that category looks like, thinks, feels and does.” Some of these identities are stable (e.g., mother, African American), whereas other identities are more temporary and likely to change (e.g., Katy Kat [fan of singer Katy Perry], college student, Prius driver). 2 A person who sees herself as environmentally responsible, for example, is more likely than someone who doesn’t think much about the environment to drive a Prius hybrid vehicle. “Green” products are more likely to get that person’s attention because “being green” is an identity that contributes to her self-concept. Self-esteem refers to the positivity of a person’s self-concept. People with low self-esteem expect that they will not perform very well, and they will try to avoid embarrassment, failure, or rejection. When Sara Lee developed a new line of snack cakes, for example, researchers found that consumers low in self-esteem preferred portion- controlled snack items because they felt they lacked self-control.^3 In contrast, a more recent study found that individuals who are made to feel powerful spend more money on themselves (“because I’m worth it!”), whereas those who experience a feeling of powerlessness spend more on others than on themselves. 4 When consumers compare some aspect of themselves to an ideal, this judgment influences their self-esteem. They might ask, “Am I as good-looking as I would like to be?” or “Do I make as much money as I should?” The ideal self is a person’s conception of how they would like to be, whereas the actual self refers to our more realistic appraisal of the qualities we do and don’t have. We choose some products because we think they are consistent with our actual self, whereas we buy others to help us reach an ideal standard. In addition to our real and ideal selves, a third form of the self sometimes influences what we choose to buy and use: our avoidance selves.^5 This term refers to the type of person we don’t want to be. Sometimes our desire to distance ourselves from undesirable types can be an even bigger driver as we go out of our way not to buy products we associate with that category. For example, kids may work hard to avoid clothing or other items that make them look like a “nerd.”
The Self and Others
Have you ever obsessed over just the “right outfit” to wear on a special date or to an important job interview? We often engage in a process of impression management in which we work hard to “manage” what others think of us; we strategically choose clothing and other products that will show us off to others in a good light.^6
Some products promise to give our self-esteem a boost. Source: Orbit and all affiliated designs are owned by and used courtesy of the Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company or its affiliates.
Chapter 9 • Identity and the Self 255
to balance their own personal preference and those of the group, regardless of the size of the group they are choosing wine for. But independent consumers make choices that balance self and others’ preferences only when they are in small groups. When they are in larger groups, they give priority to their own preferences.^12
Self-Consciousness
Have you ever walked into a class in the middle of a lecture? If you were convinced that all eyes were on you as you awkwardly searched for a seat, you can understand the feeling of self-consciousness. In contrast, sometimes we behave with shockingly little self-consciousness. For example, we may do things in a stadium, at a riot, or at a fraternity party that we would never do if we were highly conscious of our behavior (and add insult to injury when we post these escapades online!).^13 Certain cues in the environment, such as walking in front of a mirror, are likely to promote self-consciousness. That feeling in turn may influence behavior. For example, one pair of researchers is looking at whether grocery shoppers who push a cart with an attached mirror will buy more produce and healthy foods because their heightened self-consciousness makes them more weight conscious.^14 Some people seem to be more sensitive in general to the image they communicate to others. A heightened concern about the nature of one’s public “image” also results in more attention to the social appropriateness of products and consumption activities. On the other hand, we all know people who act as if they’re oblivious to the impression they make (they seem to “march to the beat of a different drummer”). Consumers who score high on a scale of public self-consciousness express more interest in clothing and use more cosmetics than consumers who score lower. 15 In one study, highly self-conscious subjects expressed greater willingness to buy personal products, such as a douche or a gas-prevention remedy, that are somewhat embarrassing to buy but may avoid awkward public incidents later.^16 Similarly, high self-monitors are more attuned to how they present themselves in their social environments, and their estimates of how others will perceive their product choices influence what they choose to buy. 17 A scale to measure self-monitoring asks consumers how much they agree with statements such as, “I guess I put on a show to impress or entertain others” or “I would probably make a good actor.” Perhaps not surprisingly, publicly visible types, such as college football players and fashion models, tend to score higher on these dimensions. 18
The Malleable Self
In a way, each of us really is several different people—for example, your family members may not recognize the “you” who turns into a “party animal” on Saturday night! We have as many selves as we do different social roles. Depending upon the situation, we act differently, use different products and services, and even vary in terms of how much we like the aspect of ourselves we put on display. A person may require a different set of products to play each of their roles: They may choose a sedate, understated fragrance when they play their professional self but splash on something more provocative on Saturday night as they head out to a club.
Role Identities: Do You Know Your Lines?
That famous marketer William Shakespeare wrote, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.”^19 OK, he was actually a playwright—and a very astute judge of human behavior! The dramaturgical perspective on consumer behavior views people as actors who play different roles. We each play many roles,
256 Section 4 • Being: Using Products to Create and Communicate Identity
and each role has its own script, props, and costumes. 20 The self has different components, or role identities , and only some of these are active at any given time. Some identities (e.g., husband, boss, student) are more central to the self than others, but other identities (e.g., dancer, gearhead, or advocate for the homeless) may dominate in specific situations. 21 Indeed, some roles may conflict with one another. For example, one study of Iranian young people who live in the United Kingdom described what the authors termed the torn self , where respondents struggle with retaining an authentic culture while still enjoying Western freedom (and dealing with assumptions of others who believe they might be terrorists).^22 If each person potentially has many social selves, how do we decide which self to “activate” at any point in time? The sociological tradition of symbolic interactionism stresses that relationships with other people play a large part to form the self.^23 According to this perspective, we exist in a symbolic environment. We assign meaning to any situation or object when we interpret the symbols in this environment. As members of society, individuals learn to agree on shared meanings. Thus, we “know” that a red light means stop, the “golden arches” mean fast food, and Queen Bey is Beyoncé’s nickname. That knowledge is important to understand consumer behavior because it implies that our possessions play a key role as we evaluate ourselves and decide “who we are.” 24
A marketer may want to ensure that the appropriate role identity is active before pitching products that customers need to play a particular role. One obvious way to do this is to place advertising messages in contexts in which people are likely to be well-aware of that role identity; for example, when fortified-drink and energy- bar companies hand out free product samples to runners at a marathon. Source: Joel Carillet/iStock/Getty Images.
Because there are so many facets to each of us, consumers must balance their multiple identities. Research shows that cues in our environment can prime certain facets of our identity, such as being a student, a friend, a sibling, a parent, or as we will see in Chapter 11, our identification with an ethnic/racial group.^25 Source: Ira L. Black/Corbis via Getty Images
258 Section 4 • Being: Using Products to Create and Communicate Identity
researchers asked children of various ages to create “who am I?” collages, for which they chose pictures that represented their selves, older kids between middle childhood and early adolescence inserted more photos of branded merchandise. Also, as they aged, their feelings about these objects evolved from concrete relationships (e.g., “I own it”) to more sophisticated, abstract relationships (e.g., “It is like me”).^40
We Consume to Express Our Identities
We’ve already seen that people often strategically choose products that they believe will cause others to think about them in a certain way. Consumers actively assemble consumption practices, products, and brands to express themselves as part of their identity projects ; the active creation and communication of how a person defines and communicates their identity to the world. As we saw in Chapter 5, these consumption constellations can be made up of brands, experiences, or practices. The brands and products we associate ourselves with help determine our own self-concept and social identity. 41 Yes, it turns out there may be some truth Our consumption choices are expressions of our identities andextensions of our selves. to the old saying, “You are what you... drive, wear, eat, etc.”
Source: Asier Romero/Shutterstock.
OBJECTIVE 9- Describe how our consumption choices are expressions of our identities and extensions of our selves.
Figure 9.1 Levels of the Extended Self Source: Matsabe/Shutterstock.
Individual Family Community Group
The Extended Self
As we noted previously, many of the props and settings consumers use to define their social roles become parts of their identities. Those external objects that we consider a part of us constitute the extended self. In some cultures, people literally incorporate objects into the self: they lick new possessions, take the names of conquered enemies (or in some cases eat them), or bury the dead with their possessions.^42 As Figure 9.1 shows, we describe four levels of the extended self, ranging from personal objects to places and things that allow people to feel as though they are rooted in their larger social environments:^43
1. Individual level —Consumers include many of their personal possessions in self- definition. These products can include jewelry, cars, clothing, as well as expres- sions of our digital identity as we will see later in this chapter. The saying “You are what you wear” reflects the belief that one’s things are a part of one’s identity whether in real or virtual worlds. 2. Family level —This part of the extended self includes a consumer’s residence and the furnishings in it. We can think of the house as a symbolic body for the family, and the place where we live often is a central aspect of who we are. 3. Community level —It is common for consumers to describe themselves in terms of the neighborhood or town from which they come. For farm families or other residents with close ties to a community, this sense of belonging is particularly important. 4. Group level —We regard our attachments to even larger social groups as a part of the self; we’ll consider some of these consumer subcultures in later chapters. A consumer also may feel that landmarks, monuments, or sports teams are a part of the extended self.
Chapter 9 • Identity and the Self 259
One study found that people may view their shoes as magical emblems of self, Cinderella-like vehicles for self- transformation. Based on data collected from consumers, the researcher concluded that (like their sister Carrie) women tend to be more attuned to the symbolic implications of shoes than men. A common theme that emerged was that a pair of shoes obtained when younger—whether a first pair of leather shoes, a first pair of high heels, or a first pair of cowboy boots—had a big impact even later in life. These experiences were like those that occur in well-known fairy tales and stories; think of Dorothy’s red shoes in The Wizard of Oz , Karen’s magical red shoes in Hans Christian Anderson’s The Red Shoes , and Cinderella’s glass slippers.^44 Many material objects—ranging from personal possessions and pets to national monuments or landmarks—help to form a consumer’s identity. Just about everyone can name a valued possession that has a lot of the self “wrapped up” in it, whether it is a beloved photograph, a trophy, an old shirt, a car, or a cat. Indeed, usually we can construct a pretty accurate “biography” of someone when we simply catalog the items they display in their bedroom or office (try it if you don’t believe us). A study illustrates that the product/self-bond doesn’t even have to be that strong to influence a consumer’s self-concept. Researchers approached women in a shopping mall and gave them one of two shopping bags to walk around with for an hour. Women who received a bag from Victoria’s Secret later reported to the researchers that they felt more sensual and glamorous. In another experiment, MBA students were asked to take notes for six weeks using a pen embossed with the MIT logo; they reported feeling smarter at the end of the term.^46 In these situations, we see how easily an everyday object like a shopping bag or a pen can become part of a person’s extended self.
You don’t have to be Carrie of Sex and the City fame to acknowledge that many people feel a strong bond to their footwear. The singer Mariah Carey posted a photo of her huge shoe closet on Instagram and labeled it, “Always my favorite room in the house... #shoes #shoes #moreshoes.” 45 Source: Ariwasabi/Shutterstock.
Buying, Having, Being
Secret Pleasures A recent study suggests that con- suming a product in secret makes it more attractive. 47 Researchers asked women to imagine eating cookies, chocolate, and apple chips in secret as they hid from others. They found that the respondents consistently enjoyed the products more when they ate them this way. The women also reported thinking about these “guilty pleasures” more as they became preoccupied with their secret habit.
To assert our consumer identity, we sometimes claim a space for it. Recent ethnographic research that focused on women who knit reveals that consumers use physical spaces intentionally to assert their identity.^48 Knitting is usually associated with the domestic space of the home, and the researchers found that women who knit claim space for their activity in the home, as if it were a small territory (e.g., a knitting nook) where they can express their pride and commitment to this identity. Interestingly the researchers also found that the women also made a point of practicing their craft in commercial and public venues (e.g., knitting while attending a baseball game) to destabilize, at least temporarily, the negative stereotypes that are often associated with knitting. Get out there and show your knitted colors! Source: Pixel-Shot/Shutterstock
Chapter 9 • Identity and the Self 261
to affirm their identity through nonmaterial aspects of life. Or they may avoid brands that they feel are too “corporate” to signal their desire for a more just world. In other words, some anti-consumption acts, like boycotting or avoiding products, are emancipating.
Embodied Cognition
To what extent do the products we buy to influence others as we pursue our identity projects also define ourselves? Social scientists who study relationships between thoughts and behaviors talk about the theory of embodied cognition. A simple way to explain this perspective is that “states of the body modify states of the mind.”^54 In other words, our behavior and observations of what we do and buy shape our thoughts rather than vice versa. One of the most powerful examples is the idea that our body language changes how we see ourselves. In one of the most widely viewed TED talks ever, a social psychologist discusses how power posing (standing in a confident way even if you don’t feel confident) affects brain activity and potentially “fools” you into being more assertive. 55 The embodied cognition approach is consistent with consumer behavior research that demonstrates how changes in self-concept can arise from usage of brands that convey different meanings. For example, findings from a study may help you to improve your golf game by taking advantage of the placebo effect we discussed in Chapter 5. All the subjects used the same putter, but in one experimental condition, they were led to believe that it was specifically made to enhance performance. These golfers played better—though they took credit for their performance rather than “thanking” the putter! The research- ers concluded that superior scores resulted because using a brand the sub- jects thought would give them an edge lowered their anxiety about doing well on the task and raised their self-esteem regarding their golf game.^56 The self-fulfilling prophecy at work!
Our Digital Selves
Given how much time we spend on social media, in virtual reality worlds, or on gaming platforms, it makes sense that we also express our identities in the digital environments where so much of our lives take place today. Our digital selves represent our identity in these worlds, whether expressed via our social media profiles, Instagram photos, or by Bitmojis or avatars.^59 On social media, we use brands to express both actual and ideal selves. A study that analyzed Facebook users’ profile pages, as well as diaries, focus groups, and in-depth interviews with those users, found that over half of the 84 participants reported strategically presenting an ideal digital self rather than their IRL (in real life) self.^60 New virtual makeover technologies make it even easier for each of us to involve the digital self as we choose products to adorn our physical selves. 61 Some cutting-edge retailers are starting to roll out interactive
Is it true that “you are what you wear?” One pair of researchers used the term enclothed cognition in their work that showed how the symbolic meaning of clothing changes how people behave. In one study, they asked respondents to wear a lab coat, which people associate with attentiveness and precise work. Indeed, they found that subjects who wore the lab coat displayed enhanced performance on tasks that required them to pay close attention. But they also introduced a twist: When respondents were told the garment was in fact a painter’s coat rather than a doctor’s lab coat, the effects went away. In other words, the respondents interpreted the symbolic meaning of the clothing and then altered their behavior accordingly.^57 It’s tempting to point out that a study your humble first author conducted more than 40 years ago on the “dress for success” phenomenon found similar results for students in job interview settings. Male job candidates who wore professional attire acted more assertively and confidently during the interviews and on average even asked for higher starting salaries!^58 Source: Ground Picture/Shutterstock.
The digital environment makes it easy to create and communicate our ideal selves. Indeed, some fashion designers, including Michael Kors, Zac Posen, Alexander McQueen, Calvin Klein, and Diane von Furstenberg, already are creating collections for Bitmoji. People can buy a “real” dress and get the same one for their digital self.^62 Source: The Fabricant.
262 Section 4 • Being: Using Products to Create and Communicate Identity
dressing rooms or augmented reality website applications that allow the customer to “see” what a pair of sunglasses, a sapphire ring, or a sweater would look like on their own bodies. The online glasses merchant Warby Parker allows consumers to upload a picture of themselves to try on frames virtually. Other apps such as Perfect 365 and Face Tune let you touch up your photo so you can remove a pimple, a wrinkle, or even a few pounds before you post it on Instagram or Facebook for others to admire. 63
Virtual makeover technologies such as smart dressing rooms that use augmented reality (AR) to help the shopper to envision what an item will actually look like on their body will transform the shopping experience. Source: Yoshikazu Tsuno/AFP/Getty Images.
Our constant exposure to social media accelerates the well-known phenomenon of FOMO (fear of missing out). Some critics have voiced concern about how platforms like Instagram (which Facebook owns) “raise the bar” of appearance for teens who are bombarded by images of perfect, beautiful bodies. Indeed, Facebook’s own research found that about one- third of teen girls they surveyed agreed that when they felt bad about their bodies, these feelings were worse when they used Instagram. According to a former Facebook manager, “As these young women begin to consume this eating disorder content, they get more and more depressed. It makes them use the app more. And so, they end up in this feedback cycle where they hate their bodies more and more.”^64 Source: © Mark Anderson/Andertoons.com.
264 Section 4 • Being: Using Products to Create and Communicate Identity
Although it can be tough to generalize, researchers typically find that males tend to be more self-oriented, whereas females are more other-oriented and more sensitive to cues in the environment. 75 A recent set of studies compared the responses of males and females in a “pay-what-you-want” setting. Males’ decisions tended to focus exclusively on the economic benefits of paying less for the items. In contrast, females approach the payment decisions with a communal orientation; their motivation centers on obtaining a good outcome for others as well as for themselves.^76 These differences reflect either an agentic orientation or a communal orientation. Agentic orientation emphasizes instrumentality and independence, whereas communal orientation values inclusiveness and interdependence. In traditional settings, little boys are encouraged to “win” as they compete against other boys (e.g., playing “war”), while little girls, in contrast, are encouraged to “get along” with one another and build social ties (e.g., “playing house” with dolls). Gender also affects how we process information: For example, females find ads that are visually harmonious (i.e., a balanced or symmetri- cal arrangement of design elements) more attractive.^77 But in many ways, gender is a lot more complex than preferences for different kinds of images—and it’s getting more so as cultural conversations abound about how to think about gender and what it means to be “male,” “female,” or even whether gender is relevant at a time when so many people question their own gender identity.
Beware of Gender Stereotypes in Advertising and Products
The way in which marketers promote brand personalities often links to traditional thinking about males versus females. Our exposure to products that are marketed according to gender stereotypes literally starts at birth—think of newborn babies swathed in either pink or blue blankets. There are many sex-typed products like this; they feature shapes and colors our culture associates with one gender or the other, even if the product itself is pretty much gender-neutral. For example, the following products, used by both men and women, are marketed to men: Powerful Yogurt (nicknamed “brogurt”), Bounce Pure Sport Fabric Softener Sheets, Kleenex Mansize, and Dr. Pepper Ten (slogan: “No girls allowed”). And there are many “female” examples of this: Bic for Her pens (in pastel colors), Sleep Pretty in Pink (earplugs for women), Go Girl energy drinks (in a pink can), and Chick beer (now defunct!).^78 You would have to be living under a rock not to see the many advertisements that invoke gender to sell a brand. Our culture’s traditional stereotype of the ideal male is a tough, aggressive, muscular man who enjoys “manly” sports. A study that tracked advertising in eight male magazines with primarily male readerships (ranging from Maxim to Golf Digest ) reported that most contain ads that can contribute to “hyper-masculinity” because of heavy emphasis on violence, dangerousness, and callous attitudes toward women and sex.^79 Another study that tried to answer the question of why women are more likely to embrace sustainable behaviors than men found that men associate green behavior with femininity, so going green threatens their masculinity. 80
In traditional settings, little boys are encouraged to “win” as they compete against other boys (e.g., playing “war”), while little girls, in contrast, are encouraged to “get along” with one another and build social ties (e.g., “playing house” with dolls). Source: KlavdiyaV/Shutterstock.
Frito-Lay launched a new Cracker Jill mascot to accompany its Cracker Jack brand. Source: Frito-Lay North America, Inc. A Division Of Pepsico.
Chapter 9 • Identity and the Self 265
Androgyny and Gender-Bending Products
In contrast to sex-typed products, an androgynous product is neither specifically masculine nor feminine—and, indeed, it may include characteristics we associate with both traditional gender categories. Androgyny can open new markets, if marketers expand their reach by appealing to people of other gender identities who don’t typically buy what they sell. Some companies that sell exclusively to one gender may decide to test the waters with the other gender when they promote gender-bending products , which are traditionally sex-typed items adapted to the opposite gender, such as the recent profusion of merchants like Kahr, Walther, and Taurus that sell pink guns for women (“pink it and shrink it!”). Here are some other gender benders:^81
- Although makeup for men isn’t a new trend in the U.S. (yet), over 3 million British males regularly wear cosmetics products like “manscara” and “guyliner”—and only 2 percent of 18- to 24-year-old men define themselves as totally masculine. Manny Gutierrez, Maybelline’s first male brand ambassador, helped to encourage this practice. A store in London called A Wanted Man offers a brow bar, while Quiff and Co. sells wigs and hairpieces. The online retailer MMUK Man opened its first brick-and-mortar store to sell a male clientele concealers, mascaras, and other products.^82 - Old Spice has long been known as the brand Dad keeps in his medicine cabinet, but young women who like the scent and the relatively low price are tuning into the deodorant as well. This resurgence is a bit ironic because the first product the company introduced in 1937 was a women’s fragrance. - Febreze is an odor-neutralizing line of products that Procter & Gamble (P&G) markets to women for housecleaning. However, P&G finds that a lot of men spray it on their clothes to delay doing laundry. And in Vietnam, where the product is called Ambi Pur, men who ride motor scooters use it as a deodorizing spray for their helmets.^83
Toward Greater Gender Fluidity
Marketers must be aware and respectful of current debates about gender iden- tity. They need to stay tuned in, as the meaning of gender continues to evolve. In the U.S., as in parts of Asia and Europe, many young consumers seem to
During World War II, the U.S. Government invented a character it named Rosie the Riveter to inspire women to contribute to the war effort by working in factories—not a part of the female gender stereotype at the time. An updated version promotes COVID- vaccinations. Source: Vaccine Vaccinated Rosie The Riveter Vaccinator Painting by Tony Rubino, United States.
A male sex-typed message from an Australian beer brand. Source: Philip Game/Alamy Stock Photo.
Androgyny refers to the possession of both masculine and feminine traits. Source: Independent Photo Agency/Alamy Stock Photo
Chapter 9 • Identity and the Self 267
- There^ are^153 countries^ with^ laws^ that discriminate against women economically, including 18 countries where husbands can legally prevent their wives from working. - Worldwide, one in three women and girls will experience abuse or violence in their lifetime.
The Body
A person’s physical appearance is a large part of their self-concept. Body image refers to a consumer’s subjective evaluation of their physical self. Our evaluations don’t necessarily correspond to what those around us see. A man may think of himself as being more muscular than he really is, or a woman may feel she’s heavier than what the scale indicates. Whether these perceptions are accurate is almost a moot point because our body insecurities weigh us down whether they’re justified or not.^92 Some marketers exploit consumers’ tendencies to distort their body images when they prey on our insecurities about appearance. They try to create a gap between the real and the ideal physical selves and consequently motivate a person to purchase products and services they think will narrow that gap. Social media also impacts how we feel about our bodies—as anyone who ruefully scrolls through images of “ripped” people on Instagram or other platforms can tell you. A recent study of Facebook users reported that one-half of them felt more self- conscious about their body image after they looked at photos of themselves and others on the site. 94 Another study reported a similar effect in brick-and-mortar stores: When women walk into a store that has attractive salespeople, they feel less positive about their own appearance.^95 So much for “retail therapy”!
Ideals of Beauty and Stereotypes
Our satisfaction with the physical image we present to others often depends on how closely we think the image corresponds to the ideal our culture values. An ideal of beauty is a particular model, or exemplar , of appearance. Ideals of beauty for both men and women may include physical features (e.g., a well-rounded derrière for women or a well-defined six-pack for men) as well as clothing styles, cosmetics, hairstyles, skin tone (pale versus tan), and body type (petite, athletic, voluptuous, and so on). Our desires to match up to these ideals—for better or worse—drive a lot of our purchase decisions.
Marketing and Advertising Contribute to a
Society’s Ideals of Beauty
Advertising and other forms of mass media play a significant role in determining which forms of beauty we consider desirable at any point in time. An ideal of beauty functions as a sort of cultural yardstick. Consumers compare themselves to some standard (often one the fashion media advocate at that time), and they are dissatisfied with their appearance to the extent that they don’t match up to it. This may lower their own self-esteem or, in some cases, possibly diminish the effectiveness of an ad because of negative feelings a highly attractive model arouses.^96
Many major marketers have embraced Gay Pride. Source: Bryan Bedder/Stringer/Getty Images.
OBJECTIVE 9- Discuss how our bodies are an important component of our identities.
268 Section 4 • Being: Using Products to Create and Communicate Identity
Our culture communicates these standards—subtly and not so subtly—virtually everywhere we turn: on magazine covers, in department store windows, on TV shows. Feminists argue that fashion dolls, such as the ubiquitous Barbie, reinforce an unnatural ideal of thinness. When we extrapolate the dimensions of these dolls to average female body sizes, indeed they are unnaturally long and thin. 97 If the traditional Barbie doll were a real woman, her dimensions would be 38–18–34! Mattel conducted “plastic surgery” on Barbie to give her a less pronounced bust and slimmer hips, and the company now sells an even more realistic Barbie featuring wider hips and a smaller bust.^98 Whether the ideals of beauty are shaped by advertising and affect society or shaped by society and reflected in advertising is an age-old debate. The “Hemline Index” for example has been a popular “theory” since the 1920s. It states that when shorter skirts for women are in style, we can expect good economic times while longer hemlines signal a downturn. Sure enough, the flappers of the 1920s wore knee-length skirts that were considered daring at the time. But the stock market crash pushed hemlines back down. Miniskirts heralded an economic boom in the 1960s, but then the oil crisis of the 1970s was paired with longer smock dresses and tunics. Today this “index” no longer seems to predict much (if it ever did) due to the widely variable styles that different segments of consumers prefer in our more complicated society. 99 Still, this perspective hints at important underlying relationships between our ideals of beauty and what’s going on in the world around us (e.g., androgynous styles and fluid gender identities). Indeed, a recent historical content analysis of Brazilian print ads in a popular magazine ( Veja ) from the past 50 years suggests that advertising
In a series of Dove ads in China, pregnant bellies are painted with questions from unborn girls. “If you knew I would grow to be a flat-nosed girl, would you still welcome me?” asks one. “If you knew I’d grow up to weigh 140 jin [154 lbs.], would I still be your baby?” asks another. The third: “I’ll soon come to the world, but if I grow to only have an A bra cup, will you tease me?” Many Chinese women worry that if they don’t meet cultural beauty ideals, they’ll be labeled a “leftover woman” or a “spinster,” terms for women who reach the age of 26 and are still single.^93 Source: Phil Date/Shutterstock.
270 Section 4 • Being: Using Products to Create and Communicate Identity
Beyond Ageism and Sexism
Norms of beauty are continually changing. Female social media influencers are resisting and defying previously ageist and sexist fashion and beauty ideals.^106 For example, surveys show that a significantly lower proportion of girls aged 16 to 24 shave their armpits and legs as compared to about five years ago. Sales of shaving and hair removal products are down as well. The desire for a “natural” look no doubt is inspired by celebrities, including Lizzo, Paris Jackson, Mo’nique, Mary J. Blige, and Kate Middleton, who proudly display body hair, scars, tattoos, and birthmarks, and even move- ments like “girlswillbeboys” that encourage women to shave their heads. 107 But things still are very much in flux. For instance, the trend toward more naturalness, including physical appearance, led some analysts to predict that the “no make-up movement” would reduce cosmetic use. Yet researchers who analyzed trends in the number of tweets with “#nomakeup” and compared them to market sales of “all available facial cosmetic products” found no such evidence.^108 To find out more, the researchers conducted an experiment in which they showed participants the image of a woman with a caption that implied that she used makeup, didn’t use makeup, or didn’t mention it at all. Then they asked them to rate how attractive the model was and how much effort they thought she exerted to look good. The findings revealed that people attribute attractiveness a person achieves with low effort to “natural” beauty, which means that someone who is attractive without make-up is considered more attractive than if they have make-up on, and vice versa. So, in the end, the researchers concluded that calls to look more natural in fact increase artificial beauty practices because people perceive that they should try to create the appearance of naturalness. It’s the age-old formula: Working hard to make it look like you don’t have to work at all...
Negative Consequences of Impossible Body Ideals
For several years, Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty has drawn attention to unreal- istic beauty ideals by featuring women with imperfect bodies in its advertising. One ad read, “Let’s face it, firming the thighs of a size 8 supermodel wouldn’t have been much of a challenge.” Unilever initiated the campaign after its research showed that many women didn’t believe its products worked because the women who used them in its ads didn’t look realistic.^109 When the company asked 3,200 women around the world to describe their looks, most summed themselves up as “average.” Continuous exposure to all these media images can result in body image distortions. These psychological disorders cause the patient to believe that their body literally is bigger or smaller than others see it. Researchers link a distorted body image to eating disorders, including anorexia and bulimia. These disorders may involve binge eating (usually in private), in which a person may consume more than 5,000 calories at one time. The binge is followed by induced vomiting, abuse of laxatives, fasting, or overly strenuous exercise—a “purging” process that reasserts the person’s sense of control. Most eating disorders occur among white, upper-middle-class teens and college- age women. In addition, a person’s peers may encourage binge eating; Groups such as athletic teams, cheerleading squads, and sororities may reinforce this practice. In one study of a college sorority, members’ popularity within the group increased the more they binged.^110 Eating disorders affect 9 percent of the U.S. population. These
A haircare line called Beauty & Pin-Ups selected Katie Meade, a woman with Down syndrome, as the face of its beauty campaign to challenge conventional stereotypes of female beauty. Source: Rachel Mummey/Barcroft Images/Barcroft Media/ Getty Images.
Chapter 9 • Identity and the Self 271
conditions are second only to opioid overdose in terms of the deaths they cause— about one fatality every 52 minutes.^111 At least 400 websites attract young people with “ana” and “mia,” nicknames for anorexia and bulimia. These “communities” focus on what they call thinspiration as they offer tips on crash dieting, bingeing, vomiting, and hiding weight loss from concerned parents. Group dieting is a growing problem as consumers patronize blog rings devoted to excessive weight loss—especially when they challenge female college students to lose as much weight as possible before events such as spring break. In one typical post, a woman confessed to eating “one cracker, one strawberry and a little bit of soup” in a 24-hour period, whereas another recounted a lunch of a slice of mango and a stick of gum. These sites, often adorned with photos of ultrathin celebrities and slogans such as “Diet Coke Is Life” appeal to followers of an underground movement called pro-ana (pro-anorexia) who sometimes identify themselves in public when they wear red bracelets, as one blog proclaims.^112
Body Positivity: Enter the Fatshionistas
The growing popularity of “full-figured” women has drawn attention to the endangered self-esteem of larger women. In a study that focused on fatshionistas —plus-size consumers who want more options from mainstream fashion marketers—the researchers identified a blog post that sums up the alienation many of these women feel:
For many of us who were fat as children and teens, clothes shopping was nothing short of tortuous. Even if our parents were supportive, the selection of “husky” or “half-sizes” for kids was the absolute pits. When that sort of experi- ence is reinforced as a child, we often take it into adulthood.... We simply have been socialized not to expect better than to be treated as fashion afterthoughts.
Buying, Having, Being
Vanity Sizing It’s not surprising that standards are changing; the typical woman’s body is no longer as “petite” as it used to be. The most purchased dress today is a size 14; it was a size 8 in 1985! The size and shape of the “average” U.S. consumer is dramatically different from what it was 60 years ago; essentially the fashion industry is selling clothing to super-thin women who don’t exist (at least not many of them do). The U.S. government estimates that two-thirds of U.S. adults are overweight or obese. Nevertheless, apparel companies still develop clothing lines based on a 1941 military study that set sizing standards based on a small sample of mostly white, young (and presumably physically fit) female soldiers. Indeed, even the sizes we wear send messages about body ideals. Clothing manufacturers often offer vanity sizing, where they deliberately assign smaller sizes to garments. Women prefer to buy the smaller size, even if the label is inaccurate. Those who have low self-esteem related to appearance think of themselves more positively and believe they are thinner when they wear vanity sizes. 113
We are living in changing times, when our culture is sending mixed messages about ideal body types. Source: Left: Staras/Shutterstock; Right: Iurii Racenkov/Shutterstock
