Routledge Studies in Consumer Research – serie

Despite a century of intensive research into the human mind, our understanding of how people in everyday life actually make choices and solve problems is surprisingly limited. Through the study of green, environmentally friendly consumers, this book examines basic aspects of the working of the human mind, and recommends a fundamental re-orientation regarding the ideas and methods which are applied in contemporary cognitive research. It addresses such questions as: How do consumers develop 'meaning' regarding green products? How are such processes subconsciously structured by certain activities of the mind? How intelligent and successful are consumers in assessing the environmentally friendly attributes of products in daily life? Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, drawing on insights from psychology and anthropology as well as the author's own intensive field research, the book’s interdisciplinary framework allows the author to develop an understanding of the entire cognitive process. Taking an international approach, and incorporating original, ground-breaking anthropological and cognitive research, this book is a must read for advanced students of consumer behaviour, the sociology of consumption and behavioural psychology.

Consumption is widely regarded as one of the most important phenomena in contemporary society, but, till now, there has been very little analysis of how consumption patterns evolve, transform and proliferate. This revealing book provides an incisive treatment of consumption on a global scale from a cultural, philosophical and business perspective.Beginning with an analysis of how a dominant form of consumption pattern took hold in modern, capitalist, market economies, this book explores the contemporary changes and paradoxes in our consumption patterns during the transitional period from the modern to the postmodern. The text focuses on the forces shaping American consumption patterns, from corporations to Hollywood, and concludes with an analysis of the emerging trans-modern possibilities of the new 'theatre of consumption' where communities with a variety of consumption styles will flourish. This is an original and radical analysis in which its first-rate authors structure this key topic in a multi-disciplinary and forward-thinking way. As such, it will be of great interest to students and researchers of consumer behaviour in business and the social sciences, as well as those concerned with contemporary cultural transformations.

Despite a century of intensive research into the human mind, our understanding of how people in everyday life actually make choices and solve problems is surprisingly limited. Through the study of green, environmentally friendly consumers, this book examines basic aspects of the working of the human mind, and recommends a fundamental re-orientation regarding the ideas and methods which are applied in contemporary cognitive research. It addresses such questions as: How do consumers develop 'meaning' regarding green products? How are such processes subconsciously structured by certain activities of the mind? How intelligent and successful are consumers in assessing the environmentally friendly attributes of products in daily life? Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, drawing on insights from psychology and anthropology as well as the author's own intensive field research, the book’s interdisciplinary framework allows the author to develop an understanding of the entire cognitive process. Taking an international approach, and incorporating original, ground-breaking anthropological and cognitive research, this book is a must read for advanced students of consumer behaviour, the sociology of consumption and behavioural psychology.