A psychological rendering of consumerism

Brunner, F. M. (1996). A psychological rendering of consumerism(Doctoral dissertation, Pacifica Graduate Institute, 1996). UMI no. 3002424

Consumerism was defined as a theory which stated that an increasingly greater consumption of goods was of economic benefit. The root word, consume, meant to ingest, use up, waste, or destroy totally. A tension was noted between these two definitions as coming from an expectation of something beneficial resulting from waste and destruction.
The question posed was: What is the price for the individual living within the theory of consumerism? A hermeneutic method was used to investigate both the parts and whole. The study's organization supported this by centering on four topical areas: history, social sciences, economics, and psychology. Each chapter provided a different perspective, or another part to be studied in relation to the whole. The whole was viewed as the subjects of the question-consumerism and the individual.
The history of consumerism showed a relationship between changes in culture and changes in consumption patterns, and that these changes moved away from values of the communal toward those of the individual and material. Social theory saw that whether active or passive, consumers were affected by the symbolic aspects of their purchases. The effects related to desire, need, and meaning. Economics stressed the domination of money relations for people. Psychology described the manner in which a character structure can shape relatedness, or the lack thereof.
The finding was that increased levels of consumption have resulted in a new mode of relating. The resulting mode of relating was described as extropersonal, a term coined to describe an outwardly personal relationship. This outward focus denoted a relatedness with the surface or exterior, focused on things, or on people as things.
This extropersonal relationship was seen as the symptom of consumerism. It resulted from people looking in the wrong place and in the wrong way for relationships. They looked on the outside and at the surfaces. They looked with the marketplace in mind. Desiring relationships that "work" in terms that the marketplace reflects and respects.