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Factors influencing behavior in psychology
Psychology and human behavior essay
Factors influencing behavior in psychology
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1 - Consumerism developed in America during the early twentieth century in large part due to the boom in industry created by Europe 's inability to create goods after World War I. Combined this with American inventions such as Henry Ford’s assembly line and Americans had money to spend (Schultz, 2013). With the advent of an electrical distribution system, Americans had electricity in their homes for the first time, which led to the desire for all types of electrical appliances to make life easier. All these new products meant that companies had to get the word out about their products which ignited the advertising industry, which led to even more consumerism. Mix into this recipe, the growing credit industry, and you had consumerism like
Joshua Shavel Consumer Nation 10/5/17 How Consumerism Changed America America is often described as a nation of consumers. This description usually has a negative tone, implying that Americans are materialistic, and in comparison to the majority of other countries, this is true. Many people accuse Americans of having a level of consumption that is actually wasteful in a lot of ways. Finding the difference between “needs” and “wants” is difficult in a consumer nation, where options are almost limitless. Consumerism can also bring about positive change, though, and this is especially true in the United States.
Within this critical literature review, the article which will be under analysis is “low- income families and coping through brands: Inclusion or stigma?” which was written by Kathy Hamilton in 2012. The article concentrates on the coping strategies used by single parents and low-income families to avoid stigmatisation and threats upon their social identities. Therefore, to avoid stigmatisation these low-income families may take part in conspicuous consumption where families may spend a lot of money on luxury goods to make themselves look better, which can give them a sense of economic power and acceptance within society. However, due to the rise of ‘chav’ culture surrounding single mothers, it can be much harder to move away from stigmatisation,
In 1964, a young Korean man moved to New York for the first time. He became fascinated with the fast paced action of the city and commercialized world around him. He noted the bright lights, big screens, and skyscrapers within the city. However, with all of these things he could not help but be distracted by the distinct lack of interaction between people. The people around him were more focused on what was happening on the screen than the communities around them.
In addition to self-indulgent superiority complexes, a consumerist society also imposes social conformity. The green symbol claims “the way to live righteously is to enact one’s vignette with as much energy as possible, and oppose, as fiercely as possible, those who undercut the proper enactment of the sacred vignettes.” Individuals were created for “the sole purpose” to propagate consumerist messages; their ability to conform determines their right to live safely. Similarly capitalist societies with rampant consumerism believe individuals must earn housing and food through work. This mindset assumes social assistance breeds inefficient, dependent individuals and claims they deserve to suffer for their incompetence.
Consumption In Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World”, the concepts of consumerism and utopia are continuously compared and discussed in tandem with one another to decide if any correlation between them is present. Although people may argue that the humans belonging to the World State are happy, their lack of simple human pleasures such as love, religion, intellect, free will, etc, denies the people of actual joy. Since the government is what controls these pleasures by glorifying consumption, the World State’s culture and consumerism must interrelate. The government's control of common human experiences and characteristics such as love, pain, religion, and free will result in the total dependence on the state.
A consumerism makes the community and economy stable which is the goal of the society. In Brave New World, the motto of the government is “community, identity, and stability” (6). Claim: A consumer economy makes the society of Brave New World which is when the most important in the economy is buying and selling of goods and services overall. Establish Evidence: In the Western civilization, Huxley would realize that consumers still make up most of the economy.
In the point of shifting the significance of sneakers from symbolism of cultural identity to subcultural identity, sneaker enthusiasts are able to retain their salient identity among the norm. Researches justified that followers of a particular product were able to be identified by their consumption activities (e.g. Celsi et al. 1993; Donnelly and Young 1988; Schouten and McAlexander 1995). Their levels of identification with the collective are able to be applied for classifying them into hard core members and soft core members (Fox 1987; Kates 2002; Beverland et al. 2006). Hard core members are strictly enslaved to the core value while soft core members only have peripheral relationship with the group.
In modern Western civilization, based on Aldous Huxley’s personal views, he implied warnings about the future of modern society throughout Brave New World. Huxley implied the dangers of technology, a big government, degrading humanity and its implication; therefore, modern citizens should be consequently thinking those dangers and how it still applies to modern civilization. If Huxley observed the daily life of modern students in western civilization, he would point out how life in Brave New World is similar to life today through technology, consumption, and how we see each other. Consumerism makes the community and economy stable, which is the goal of the society in Brave New World. In the novel, the buying and selling of goods and services are important to them in their consumer economy.
The consumption society has made us feel that happiness lies in having things, and has failed to teach us the happiness of not having things” by Elise M. Boulding. Because society has been surrounded by the consumer culture for as long as we can remember, it becomes a little bit difficult to exactly pinpoint the origins of our values and assumptions, or in other words, “our natural world”. Culture, in many ways, has been defined and molded by the public. Marketing is a major structure in the consumer society and the most important. Culture and tradition mostly play a role in what we consume and how we consume it.
This sociological study will analyze the problem of commodity fetishism in American consumer culture. Karl Marx’s theory of commodity fetishism is a major problem in the United States due to the inability of consumers to see the intrinsic value of a commodity. American consumer culture tends to become trapped in the “magical qualities” of a product, which makes them unable to understand the object as it was made by a laborer. This abstraction of the commodity is part of Marx’s analysis of capitalist products that is separated from the labor and become valuable objects in and of themselves. This is an important sociological perspective on commodities, which creates an irrational consumer culture in the American marketplace.
Lack of understanding local customers’ shopping habit cultures. Using a suitable strategy to adapt and match the host nation’s culture is one of the most difficult challenges that many multinational enterprises have to overcome (Alphonse 2014). According to Harzing test based on Barlett & Ghosal’s foreign market entry theory (1999), while
In the early 21st century, those living in the developed world encounter the effects of globalisation on a daily basis. On a most basic level, from the Internet to the food that is consumed, it is possible to instantly access a different part of the world. Globalisation has also affected lives in ways that are not instantly obvious – views, beliefs and attitudes shaped by globalisation have changed how the world is perceived. Globalisation is different in the 21st century to how it was in the 20th century, and though the most underlying difference is the rapid development of technology, there are subtle ways in which it has changed – and ways in which it has not changed at all.
As established in the previous paper, globalization has a major impact on the individuals and society as a whole. It reshapes social structures and significantly alters the social experiences of the people. Social phenomena such as intersocietal as well as intrasocietal inequality and conflict are associated with the increased connectivity of the world. Such social realities spark the interest of sociologists across the globe, as they study the relationship between individuals and societies. To facilitate their endeavors, sociologists utilize sociological theories that study society on the micro- and macro level.
4.0 Implementation 4.1 Broader perspective Globalization is affected by various factors that drive towards its existence and formation in the society and a set of these macroeconomic factors. As per this analysis we can get an overview of the current economy of the country that helps the researcher to make relevant suggestions and recommendations that can benefit the economy as well as society to make them believe and trust that the globalization enhances their behaviour and life style. PEST Analysis: Source: Visual.ly website PEST Analysis of Saudi Arabia Political environment Giddens and Griffiths (2006, p. 59) states that mainly there are three reasons why politics has become one of the main drivers of globalization.
