This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Starr, M. A. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                   What's this?

Saving, Spending, and Self-Control: Cognition versus Consumer Culture

Department of Economics, American University, 4400 Massachusetts Ave., NW, Washington, D.C. 20016, mstarr{at}american.edu

Recent economic literature puts forth "behavioral" perspectives on self-control as a means of understanding oddities of consumer behavior: spending too much, saving too little, borrowing too much on costly credit cards. This article argues that the behavioral emphasis on cognition overlooks the extent to which issues of self-control are framed, elaborated, and sustained as problematics of contemporary consumer culture. As such, they are rooted as much in the social, cultural, and economic dynamics of capitalism as they are in the human mind.

Key Words: consumption • self-control • consumer culture • economic representations

Review of Radical Political Economics, Vol. 39, No. 2, 214-229 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/0486613407302484


CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?