Identity Seeking
Social psychology sees the compulsive buying of consumer goods in terms of identity seeking - as an exaggerated form of a more normal search for validation through purchasing. Without a strong sense of identity, pressures from the spread of materialist values and consumer culture over the recent decades can drive the vulnerable into compulsive shopping.
In a global context where we are all encouraged to "shop till we drop" - to find solace in possessions - compulsive shopping inevitably poses the further question, "Minority pathology or Mass problem?". With advertisements offering not so much products as narratives (of success, glamour) to identify with, compulsive buying may seem only an extreme aspect of what consumer culture demands from us all.
Read more about this topic: Compulsive Buying Disorder
Famous quotes containing the words identity and/or seeking:
“So long as the source of our identity is external—vested in how others judge our performance at work, or how others judge our children’s performance, or how much money we make—we will find ourselves hopelessly flawed, forever short of the ideal.”
—Melinda M. Marshall (20th century)
“With our principles we seek to rule our habits with an iron hand, or to justify, honor, scold, or conceal them:Mtwo men with identical principles are likely to be seeking fundamentally different things with them.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)