Understanding Social Consumption Trends

Social consumption refers to the act of consuming products or services in a communal or group setting, emphasizing shared experiences and interactions.

Social Consumption FAQ

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What is consumption sociology?

It includes the range of emotions, values, thoughts, identities, and behaviors that circulate the purchase of goods and services, and how we use them by ourselves and with others. Due to its centrality to social life, sociologists recognize fundamental and consequential relationships between consumption and economic and political systems.

Is consumption a social phenomenon?

For Wilk (2002), “consumption is still a poorly understood phenomenon and the social, cultural, economic, and psychological variables that determine consumption have not been clearly identified”.

What are the social purposes of consumption?

Among social purposes of consumption, status is perhaps the most famous. In economics, the notion of “conspicuous consumption” was introduced separately by John Rae and Thorstein Veblen in the late nineteenth century, which refers to consumption that is driven by social status and prestige ( Mason, 1998, Lipsey et al., 1999 ).

Can'sustainable consumption' be applied to sociology?

The current vogue for applying theories of practice to the policy domain of ‘sustainable consumption’ has been generative of conceptual renewal, however the field now sits closer to the applied environmental social sciences than to the sociology of consumption.

Does social media influence consumption?

While extant research has extensively studied how social media content influences the consumption of individuals (e.g., Cheung et al., 2011, Wang et al., 2012; Erkan & Evans, 2016), the reverse linkage – whether, how, and why individuals consume products or services to influence their social media content has not been systematically explored.

What is social value in the context of consumption?

Social value in the context of consumption is the perceived utility of a product or service based on its association with one or more specific social groups ( Sheth et al., 1991 ).

What is a sociology of consumption?

My sense was that a “sociology of consumption” is mostly concerned with how consumption differs across groups and how power relations are often reproduced and challenged through relations of consumption. Stillerman shines in making an overall argument that consumption helps produce power relations, while also being informed by them.