17.A recurrent theme in broadcasting which enables the producer to lay claim to social responsibility by getting the public involved and engaged in social or physical activity.
18.But you might say it was a New Zealander and a Nepali who reached the top first? British folklore is like that—especially in 1953 just before the Queen’s coronation.
19.These are conceptually distinct and for example in developmental psychology Piaget’s analysis of number in children uses separate assessments for cardinal and ordinal relations. See Piaget (1942).
20.Kabat-Zinn introduced a programme of ‘Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction’ at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center in that year.
21.I am using the secular ‘common era’ symbol notation here.
22.Many of the writings in individualism and collectivism in societies across the world assume the reader is from a Western individualistic culture so (as a member of that culture) I tried to phrase the description as if collectivism was the norm.
23.Known as fMRI the technique is able to detect changes in blood flow in the brain and picture where in the brain they are happening. These changes often accompany nerve cell (neuronal) activity in the same place. And finally brain activity can be related to models of the mind so that we can say that narrative memory is localised in the brain.
24.For example the cerebellum was affected and this usually mediates relatively automatic behaviour to do with balance and motor control as opposed to the cerebrum which is the top and front, outer layer of the brain dealing with conscious, voluntary activity.
25.Yes and in dieting too where the more radical the prescribed regime, the more effective the solution is an implicit assumption.
26.And also in the parts of the world where the Chinese diaspora can be found which means most parts.
27.I have personal experience of both of these as I did my Ph.D. at the University of Hong Kong and spent seven years there. The late Erik Kvan at HKU researched the ‘hot-cold’ theme of Chinese food and I learnt to practice t’ai chi—the short form; badly—before it became fashionable in the West.
28.Anticipating howls (or maybe murmurings) of dissent then of course contemporary political forces and struggles for supremacy can override these ‘softer’ cultural drivers which might emerge in the day-to-day lives of people who are brought up in that culture.
29.Meaning changes made while the action is being performed.
30.With an assistant holding you I hasten to add. Local newspapers seem to be fascinated by very much older people doing youthful things like that. I wonder if they really do enjoy it?
31.A literary form best summed up in the phrase ‘from the sublime to the ridiculous’.
References
AdAge Encyclopedia. (2003). Testing methods. New York: Advertising Age. Retrieved July 2, 2017, from http://adage.com/article/adage-encyclopedia/testing-methods/98903/.
Bai, Y., Maruskin, L. A., Chen, S., Gordon, A. M., Stellar, J. E., McNeil, G. D., … Keltner, D. (2017). Awe, the diminished self, and collective engagement: Universals and cultural variations in the small self. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 113(2), 185–209.Crossref
Barry, T. E., & Howard, D. J. (1990). A review and critique of the hierarchy of effects in advertising. International Journal of Advertising, 9, 121–135.Crossref
Bellezza, S., Paharia, N., & Keinan, A. (2017). Conspicuous consumption of time: When busyness and lack of leisure time become a status symbol. Journal of Consumer Research, 44(1), 118–138.
Bjorklund, D. F. (2007). Why youth is not wasted on the young: Immaturity in human development. Oxford: Blackwell.
Bodhi, B. (2011). What does mindfulness really mean? A canonical perspective. Contemporary Buddhism, 12(1), 19–39.Crossref
Brewer, N. T., DeFrank, J. T., & Gilkey, M. B. (2016). Anticipated regret and health behavior: A meta-analysis. Health Psychology, 35(11), 1264–1275.Crossref
Buchsbaum, D., Bridgers, S., Weisberg, D. S., & Gopnik, A. (2012). The power of possibility: Causal learning, counterfactual reasoning, and pretend play. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 367, 2202–2212.Crossref
Cacioppo, J. T., & Petty, R. E. (1984). The elaboration likelihood model. Advances in Consumer Research, 11, 673–675.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1988). The flow experience and its significance for human psychology. In M. Csikszentmihalyi & I. S. Csikszentmihalyi (Eds.), Optimal experience: Psychological studies of flow in consciousness (pp. 15–35). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Crossref
Evans, J. St. B. T., & Stanovich, K. E. (2013). Dual process theories of higher cognition: Advancing the debate. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 8(3), 223–241.Crossref
Fox, K. C., Dixon, M. L., Nijeboer, S., Girn, M., Floman, J. L., Lifshitz, M., et al. (2016). Functional neuroanatomy of meditation: A review and meta-analysis of 78 functional neuroimaging investigations. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 65, 208–228.Crossref
Frey, A. W. (1947). Advertising. New York: The Ronald Press Company.
Frith, C. D. (2012). The role of metacognition in human social interactions. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 367, 2213–2223.Crossref
Heyes, C. (2012). New thinking: The evolution of human cognition. Philosophical Transaction of the Royal Society B, 367, 2091–2096.Crossref
Hofmann, S. G., Sawyer, A. T., Witt, A. A., & Oh, D. (2010). The effect of mindfulness-based therapy on anxiety and depression: A meta-analytic review. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 78(2), 169–183.Crossref
Huang, J. Y., & Bargh, J. A. (2014). The selfish goal: Autonomously operating motivational structures as the proximate cause of human judgment and behavior. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 37, 121–175.Crossref
James, W. (1918). The principles of psychology in two volumes. New York: Henry Holt and Company.
Jarret, C. (2017, September 26). Perhaps teens are too cynical to benefit from mindfulness, say authors of latest negative school trial. In BPS research digest. Leicester: British Psychological Society. Retrieved October 10, 2017, from https://digest.bps.org.uk/2017/09/26/perhaps-teens-are-too-cynical-to-benefit-from-mindfulness-say-authors-of-latest-negative-school-trial/.
Johnson, C., Burke, C., Brinkman, S., & Wade, T. (2017). A randomized controlled evaluation of a secondary school mindfulness program for early adolescents: Do we have the recipe right yet? Behaviour Research and Therapy, 99, 37–46.Crossref
Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Kitchen, P. J., Kerr, G., Schultz, D. E., McCall, R., & Pals, H. (2014). The elaboration likelihood model: Review, critique and research agenda. European Journal of Marketing, 48(11/12), 2033–2050.Crossref
Krishnan, H. S., & Chakravarti, D. (1999). Memory measures for pretesting advertisements: An integrative conceptual framework and a diagnostic template. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 8, 1–37.Crossref
Kunst-Wilson, W. R., & Zajonc, R. B. (1980). Affective discrimination of stimuli that cannot be recognized. Science, 207(4430), 557–558.Crossref
Kyung, E. J., Thomas, M., & Krishna, A. (2017). When bigger is better (and when it is not): Implicit bias in numeric judgments. Journal of Consumer Research, 44(1), 62–79.
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
Lavidge, R. J., & Steiner, G. A. (1961). A model for predictive measurements of advertising effectiveness. Journal of Marketing, 25(6), 59–62.Crossref
Loftus, E. F. (1993). The reality of repressed memories. American Psychologist, 48(5), 518–537.Crossref
Lu, H.-C. (1973). T’ai chi ch’uan: A manual of instruction. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Lucas, D. B., & Britt, S. H. B. (1950). Advertising psychology and research. New York: McGraw Hill.
McConnell, A. R., Niedermeier, K. E., Leibold, J. M., El-Alayli, A. G., Chin, P. P., & Kuiper, N. M. (2000). What
if I find it cheaper someplace else? Role of prefactual thinking and anticipated regret in consumer behavior. Psychology & Marketing, 17(4), 281–298.Crossref
Middleton, D., & Edwards, D. (Eds.). (1990). Collective remembering. London: Sage.
Nilsson, H., & Kazemi, A. (2016). Reconciling and thematizing definitions of mindfulness: The big five of mindfulness. Review of General Psychology, 20(2), 183–193.Crossref
Nisbett, R. E., & Wilson, T. D. (1977). Telling more than we can know: Verbal reports on mental processes. Psychological Review, 84, 231–259.Crossref
Piaget, J. (1942). The child’s conception of number. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Playgraph. (2004, May 10). How to pronounce Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Retrieved February 19, 2018, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0cMiX4sMvI.
Tomasino, B., Fregona, S., Skrap, M., & Fabbro, F. (2013). Meditation-related activations are modulated by the practices needed to obtain it and by the expertise: An ALE meta-analysis study. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 6, 1–14.Crossref
Verhaeghen, P. (2017). The self-effacing Buddhist: No(t)-self in early Buddhism and contemplative neuroscience. Contemporary Buddhism, 18(1), 21–36.Crossref
Weilbacher, W. M. (2001). Point of view: Does advertising cause a hierarchy of effects? Journal of Advertising Research, 41(6), 19–26.Crossref
Yaden, D. B., Haidt, J., Hood, R. W., Jr., Vago, D. R., & Newberg, A. B. (2017). The varieties of self-transcendent experience. Review of General Psychology, 21(2), 143–160.Crossref
Zajonc, R. B. (2001). Mere exposure: A gateway to the subliminal. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 10(6), 224–228.Crossref
© The Author(s) 2018
Brian M. YoungConsumer Psychologyhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90911-0_6
6. Development Through the Lifespan: Is It a Viable Approach?
Brian M. Young1
(1)The Business School, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK
Brian M. Young
Email: [email protected]
Development Through the Lifespan
Now we come to the main theme in this book which is that a lifespan approach to consumption is a valid enterprise and can produce insights in the nature of consumer psychology that are missing from accounts which ignore this stream of development and change, and only look at adults . In many cases we assume they are just adults, as often little or no information is provided on age unless they are children or very old. The middle can often be a strange limbo. But lifespan development also allows us to integrate children back into the mainstream and view them as a normal part of consumer research. And finally and most importantly I think, we don’t have to only think about children and consumption in terms of risk, danger and innocent victimhood. The issues surrounding children and adult consumption or risky behaviour are important of course but there are other issues to look at as well. However lifespan should cover both ends (and the middle) of life so we need to see, for example if and how the consumer psychology of older 1 people might be different from a more youthful cohort .
What’s the Lifespan Like?
We’ve already discussed the images that we hold about children and childhood by both raking over the cultural midden and looking at the academic literature; there’s a lot there and it’s well-researched. And we’ve also seen in Chapter 4 how words related to old age semantically prime stereotypic old age behaviour (Bargh , Chen, & Burrows, 1996) and how such behavior can conversely prime old age words (Mussweiler, 2006) . It works both ways. Walking slowly might be a rather obvious stereotyped behaviour as they are not getting any younger but at the time of writing baby boomers are older people and baby boomers are generally better off. They can afford to vacation in Antarctica, take luxury cruises round the Caribbean or the Med., visit the Great Wall of China and generally consume outdoor clothing, drink more than they should and put the fear up their children and grandchildren that there will nothing left over for them when the end comes. These are their golden years.
So we have men and women say from 65 2 and older keeping old age at bay, consuming holidays, clothes, with a bucket list 3 to stave off the inevitable? What precedes that? Middle age is associated with spread i.e. getting older, fatter and less healthy and starts in your mid-40s. I went online and checked what the ‘signs of middle age’ were (a favourite topic that must have a resonance with a particular readership) and did a quick content analysis. Several feature of the onset of this state emerged. Health was one. Needing an afternoon nap, feeling stiff, and forgetfulness were examples. There was also a general feeling that current trends, fashions and technology had moved on and left you a bit stranded so you complain about the rubbish on TV, you avoid noisy pubs and don’t get out much anymore. And there were the vital signs of the onset of the condition; hair on the face, nose and ears, losing things, and of course thinking that policemen, teachers, or doctors looked really young. Now I’ve just taken a fairly light-hearted skim off the top of the cultural jug of cream but these were some of the interesting themes emerging that herald the anxieties of growing old.
Although I left Hong Kong to return to the UK many years ago I have gone back on occasions and found (of course) the place has changed and experienced that strange feeling of being in a street with a view that is so familiar but you still feel lost and don’t know how to get out because it’s all changed from houses to high-rises. And the harbour is so small! No, that’s not an illusion of memory although it could be. It’s a fact because on both sides of the harbour there are new buildings on land reclaimed from the sea. That provides a suitable metaphor for looking at life changing from childhood to old age. If we can extend our theories of development to see a continuity extending forward from childhood and back from old age we can bridge that gap.
We are on pretty firm ground when we look at children and older people. The former are growing up and the latter are growing old. They look different and we assume they have different minds as they have different bodies (although older people will vehemently deny they think and feel differently than they did 40 or 50 years ago). The rest—well they are adults and that’s a fluid and changing notion locked into a much looser category without the images and stereotypes of childhood (see Chapter 2 and “Images of Childhood”) or the almost prescriptive way the rest of us talk about older people. What is it to be adult? Can we talk about adulthood as a stage of development? To be responsible and accept the fact you ‘have grown up’. To have a career and make your own way in the world. And in many cultures to advance as a person without the dependency both children and, to some extent older people have on services that society provides like education and health. To make life-changing decisions about your future role within a family, as part of a long-term relationship, or to find your own way as a semi-autonomous agent.
We can extend out from childhood which is already well-equipped with stages and names for both physical and psychological development at many levels to what are known as young adults, although we need some way of saying ‘when does this stop and the next begin’? Fortunately we have some hard science to tell us. Development of the prefrontal cortex of the brain that deals with executive control (i.e. the bit that is ‘in charge’ of the control of emotions) is still going on in early adulthood so in young adults under 25 years of age that part of the brain which is in charge when you are thrill seeking and risk-taking is not yet mature (Steinberg , 2007).
By the time we get to 25 years of age then surely we are an adult? An answer to that question will depends on how one defines childhood. This can be seen as a period of time when the junior homo sapiens had the opportunity of becoming a member of a human culture, emotionally, socially and cognitively and that was the job to be done and one of the reasons why we as a species have such a prolonged period of development like this. Now we are adding more and more to it, reclaiming land with landmarks on it, where once there was sea. For example look at education . If we look at the trend of the school leaving age f
or compulsory education in the UK in the twentieth century then the minimum school leaving age in years increased from 12 to 14 in 1918, to 15 in 1947 and 16 in 1972 (Bolton, 2012, p. 3). At the time of writing, you can leave school in the UK at 16 but you must stay in full-time education, for example at a college, or start an apprenticeship or traineeship or spend 20 hours or more a week working or volunteering, while in part-time education or training (Gov.UK, n.d.). Turning now to tertiary education, 4 UK universities in the twentieth century were classified into polytechnics and universities which is roughly the difference between ‘applied’ and ‘pure’ programmes of study until 1992 when they were all classified as universities. In 1960, about 5% of 17–30-year-olds went to university and this has increased inexorably until 2001 when (including of course the ‘conversion’ of polytechnics to universities) 35% of that age band went to university (Chowdry, Crawford, Dearden, Goodman, & Vignoles, 2010, Fig. 2). Since the late 1990s, the rate of participation in higher education among young people has increased from 30 to 38% (as of 2012) (HEFCE, 2013).
Consumer Psychology Page 18
