MATERIAL SELF

MATERIAL SELF

• Shaping the way we see ourselves. The role of

consumer culture on our sense of self and
identity.
• Refers to tangible objects, people, or places
that carry the designation my or mine.
 MATERIAL SELF
• Refers to all of the physical elements that reflect who a
person is which includes his/her body possessions and home.
• The body is the innermost part of the material self.
• Family, home, and clothes also form a person’s material self.
• Practical interests of a person is part of his/her material self
includes instinctive impulses of collecting property.
• Luxury and materialism are by-products of the material self.
 WILLIAM JAMES
• “A man’s self is the sum total of all that he can call his, not
only his body and psychic powers, but his clothes, his house,
his wife and children, his ancestors and friends, his
reputation and works, his lands and horses, and yacht and
back-account. All these things give him the same emotions.
If they wax and prosper, he feels triumphant; if they dwindle
and die away, he feels cast down, --- not necessarily in the
same degree for each thing, but in much the same way for
all.”
 MATERIALISM
• The importance a consumer attaches to worldly
possession.
• Theory or belief that nothing exists except matter,
its movements and its modifications.
• Theory or belief that consciousness and will are
wholly due to material agency.
• A tendency to consider material possessions and
physical comfort as more important than spiritual
values.
 CONSUMER CONSUMPTION

• Consumers own high priced, status oriented good to

impress others and to convince them of their high
social status.
• For some, possessions become the symbolic
components of self-identity and consider possessions
as their meaning in life. When these symbolic
components are destroyed or loss, an aspect of self
is also destroyed which can result to negative
reactions.
 BURRIS & REMPEL

• “The more a possession symbolically represents

the self, the greater the negative reactions
experiences if it is lost.”
 BERTRAND RUSSELL

• “It is the preoccupation with possessions, more

than anything else, which prevents us from
living freely and nobly.”
 CURTIS (2017)
• Manifested that cash can have serious bearing on one’s
belief regarding the way a person views himself/herself.
• Evidences behind the idea that money truly can change
people:
a. Social and Business Value
b. Self-sufficiency and Service
c. Self-view
d. Ethics
e. Addiction
 A. SOCIAL AND BUSINESS VALUE

• By recognizing a task’s social value, a person sees it

as a worthy investment of time and a part of his/her
social duty and he/she is usually happy to help out.
• Money is offered as motivation, people start thinking
less of the social aspect and more about the
business value.
 B. SELF SUFFICIENCY AND SERVICE

• Money conscious individuals are more self sufficient

than their peers, particularly when money is made
the focus.
 C. SELF VIEW
• Class Essentialism – wealthiest people with the deepest
sense.
- the idea that differences between classes are
based upon identity and genetics, rather than
circumstances.
• Poor people tend to believe that social class was not
related to genes, anyone can be rich and anyone can be
poor.
• Rich people believe that wealth was part of genes and
identity, based upon their own circumstances and actions.
• Wealthy people believe that more or less, life is fair and
people mostly get what they deserve.
 D. ETHICS
• Those who perceive themselves to be in a higher class were
the most likely to engaged in unethical behavior.
• Self interest maximization – an idea suggests those who
have the most money or occupy higher classes are more to
take “what’s in it for me?” attitude.
• They actively work toward the most benefit for themselves.
(Piff, 2012)
 E. ADDICTION
• A person gets a positive response from a certain type of
behavior.
• Behavioral or Process Addiction – a compulsive behavior
not motivated by dependency on an addictive substance
but by a process that leads to a seemingly positive
outcome.
 SHAPING THE WAY WE SEE OURSELVES: THE
ROLES OF CONSUMER CULTURE ON OUR
SENSE OF SELF AND IDENTITY
• Possessions and the Extended Self
*Goffman (1961)
*Rosenblatt, Walsh and Jackson (1976)
*Snyder and Fromkin (1981)
*McLeod (1984)
*Juliet Schor (1998)
*Dinisman (2017)
• Special Cases of Extended Self
a. Collections (“I shop, therefore I am”)
b. Pets as Extended Self
• Bodily parts
 POSSESSIONS AND THE EXTENDED SELF
GOFFMAN (1961)

• Provides review of the evidence of deliberate lessening of

self manifestation in such institutions as mental hospitals,
homes for the aged, prisons, concentration camps, military
training camps, boarding schools and monasteries.
• Systematically deprive them of all personal possessions
including clothing, money, and even names.
 POSSESSIONS AND THE EXTENDED SELF
ROSENBLATT, WALSH AND JACKSON (1976)
• Suggests that a process of grief and mourning may follow
the discovery of theft, just as one might grieve and mourn
the death of a loved one who had been a part of one’s life.
 POSSESSIONS AND THE EXTENDED SELF
SNYDER AND FROMKIN (1981)
• More standardized possessions that are substituted may
eventually restore some sense of self, the new self should
necessarily be less unique and involve more of a shared
group identity.
 POSSESSIONS AND THE EXTENDED SELF
MCLEOD (1984)
• Who lost possessions to a mudslide, went through a process
of grief similar to that of losing a loved one.
• Moving from denial to anger, to depression and finally to
acceptance.
• Our immediate family is a part of ourselves.
 POSSESSIONS AND THE EXTENDED SELF
JULIET SCHOR (1998)
• “Cycle of work and spend” – work more to buy more.
• The level of consumption is set mainly by people’s choices
about how much to work and how much income to earn.
• The individual chooses between hours at work (which yield
income) and leisure (a “good” in itself but a costly one
because it entails foregoing income)
• Consumption is the major form of reward for long hours and
a hurried pace of work. Consumer expenditures have
become a means by which people with frenetic lives keep
it all going.
 POSSESSIONS AND THE EXTENDED SELF
DINISMAN (2017)
• Their belongings as an extension of themselves, so
they feel the loss as a threat to their self identity
which elicits strong negative emotional reactions.
 SPECIAL CASES OF EXTENDED SELF
A. COLLECTIONS (“I SHOP, THEREFORE I AM”
• Does possession of something define who we are?
• A compulsive tendency urges to increase desires to
collect as much as they could which gives them a
greater feeling of security and becoming a basis of
the sense of self and identity – “I shop, therefore I
am; I have, therefore I am”
 POSSESSIONS AS PART OF THE SELF
• Perfume, jewelry, clothing, food, homes, vehicles, pets,
religious icons, drugs, gifts, heirlooms, antiques,
photography, souvenirs, and collections.
• The more we believe we possess the more it becomes part
of the self.
 MASTERY OF POSSESSION AND
HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
• Relationships with object are always three way (person –
thing – person)
• 8 to 30 years olds – parents and grandparents
• Preretirement adulthood – emphasis shifts
• 40 to 50 years olds – social power and status
 WAYS OF INCORPORATING
POSSESSIONS INTO THE EXTENDED SELF
• Overcome – do not let your possession control you. Be in
control with the things that you own.
• Know them – differentiate what you want and what you
need.
• Create – take action to fulfill your needs.
• Give possessions – there are some things that we own and
we do not use it, we can give it to others who needs it.
• Objects may become part of us – our possessions is part of
our self.
 SHAPING THE WAY WE SEE OURSELVES
WHY DO WE SHOP OR BUY?
A. Biological Perspective
B. Psychological Perspective
C. Spiritual Perspective
D. Economic Perspective
 A. BIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE
• There are some parts of the brain that influence how we buy
things:
• Hypothalamus: I need this
• Prefrontal Cortex: Its necessary
• Amygdala: I want this
• Prefrontal Cortex: Ok
MASLOW’S MOTIVATION MODEL
 B. PSYCHOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE
• Sigmund Freud – Pleasure Seeking
Pleasure seeking means that a man only act based on
pleasure or things that gives him satisfaction or makes him
feel good. People tend to look at only the pleasure brought
by our possessions without thinking its consequences.
Examples are drugs or sex.
• Abraham Maslow – Maslow Hierarchy of Needs
Displays different motivations and is organized based on
what people desires or want to accomplished.
 C. SPIRITUAL PERSPECTIVES
Kinds of Self:
1. Peripheral or Masked Self – from the word periphery
meaning surface and person from the word persona
meaning theatrical mask.
2. Authentic Self – true self, simple, equal.
 D. ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVE
• Consumer culture or economic culture.
Consumer culture is our behavior in buying goods that
helps us achieve a status in the community.
• How do we know if we are a slave of consumerism?
• Is human having the same as human being?
 SPECIAL CASES OF EXTENDED SELF
B. PETS AS EXTENDED SELF
• Pets regarded as representative of self and as family
members.
• We name our pets, feed, care for them, photograph them,
spend money on them , groom them, talk to them, protect
them, sleep and play with them and mourn their death.
• Pets can be therapeutic in expanding the self of children,
hospital patients and the elderly.
 PETS AS EXTENSION/SYMBOLIC OF
THE SELF
• Pets have become part of the extended self.
Pets belong to the top 5 possessions.
• Covert et al, 1985 – The positive relationship
between self-esteem and owning pets.
• Levinson, 1962 – The dog as “co-therapist”
 BODY PARTS
• The most central parts of the extended self.
• Self extension is called cathexis.
• Cathexis involves charging an object, activity or idea with
emotional energy by the individual.
• Csikszentimihalyi and Rochberg-Halton (1981) proposed the
seemingly identical concept of psychic energy investment
to describe the process of identification with possessions of
any type.