Material/

Economic Self
I shop therefore I am: I have therefore I am?
Shaping the way we see ourselves: The role of
consumer culture on our sense of self and identity
 OBJECTIVES

STATE AND LIST DOWN ONE’S BUYING PATTERN AND

PREFERENCES;

DISCOVER ONE’S AFFINITY TO SHOPPING IN CONNECTION

TO SELF; AND

REFLECT ON ONE’S VIEW OF CONSUMERISM

 Senior’s Socials!
You
are cordially invited

What will
I wear?
GO SHOPPING

You are cordially

invited
 Sample activity 1. Keywords and Phrases
Objective: KEYWORDS and PHRASES
To unlock concept thru their shopping
behavior.
Procedure: decide item/s
Report on the following: shop I am
What did you buy?
I have choices
Where did you buy?
How much did you spend? feeling/s satisfied
How long did it take you to finish your part of me spend
shopping?
see myself wear
Who did you go with?
Why did you do the things that you did?
- use many keywords as many as possible. money look empty
Note: can use the other forms of the word
challenge shopping bag
• Individual Presentation a lot red-handed
• 15 mins to prepare
• Paper and Pen expensive cheap
(Memory is your Image of Perfection)
Interpretation
the artist is trying to
communicate that in
today’s society that
beauty and perfection
has become more
than skin deep and it
consumes us and
becomes us.
I SHOP Initiated by Barbara Kruger
THEREFORE
I AM Descartes’ I think therefore I am

A person is defined not by what they think,

but what they own (through shopping)

Shopping is an expressive and constitutive existential act

(Kruger)

Understanding shopping is important in determining race, culture,

gender, class, family, and community (Belk, 2016)
 Sample activity 2. Define and Relate
Objectives:
• Explain how a desired standard of living relates to the
choices made.
• Examine personal needs and wants in relation to choices in
life.

Instructions: Watch and write the striking lines/quotes that

affect the self

Materials: Paper and Pen

Time: approximately 1.5 hours (with film viewing)
 Post Viewing Activity
Be in a group of 3. Then compare notes with one
another focusing on the gathered quotations. Use
those to make an assessment of the life of Barbara.
Choose one member to report before the class.
Let’s Relate

•Quotes from the movies

• Shopping
• As a child
• As a lover
• society
How did we get consumerism at
this point?
Edward Bernays 1950s Good Life
• Aspirational • Materialism
Marketing • Planned
• Purchase = status Obsolescence
• 1920 • Design: break
apart soon
• Perceived
Obsolescence
• Design : Cool
 Child and Parent
• Born to Buy, by Julie B. Schor. The High Price of
Materialism by Kasser
• Kids and teens are the target of consumerism

“When I was a little girl, there were real prices and Mom prices. Real
prices got you shiny, sparkly things that lasted three weeks, and Mom
prices got you brown things. But when I looked into shop windows, I
saw another world. A dreamy world full of perfect things. A world where
grown-up girls got what they wanted. They were beautiful. Like fairies or
princesses. They didn’t even need any money, they had magic cards. I
wanted one. Little did I know, I would end up with 12.”
As a Lover
“You know that thing when you see someone cute and
he smiles and your heart kind of goes like warm butter
sliding down hot toast? Well that's what it's like when
I see a store. Only it's better.”

“A man will never love you or treat you

as well as a store. If a man doesn't fit,
you can't exchange him seven days later
for a gorgeous cashmere sweater. And a
store always smells good. A store can
awaken a lust for things you never even
knew you needed.”
 Interpersonal Relationship and
Consumerism
• At the expense of relationship
• Busy feeding ourselves
• Evolutionary Psychology by Jeffrey Miller
• Narcissism plays
• Objectification of People
• I = IT / I - Thou
• Physiological
• Positive feelings
 The point about this scarf is
that it would become part of a
Structuralism definition of your psyche.
……………
• Green Scarf You would walk into that
• Signifiers interview with confident and
• Signified posed. The girl in the green
• Jeffrey Miller scarf.
• True motivation is
survival and attracting
a mate
• Social Status
• Sexual Status
 Religions of Consumerism
“Vast numbers of us have been seduced into believing that
having more wealth and material possessions is essential to
a good life. We have swallowed the idea that, to be well, one
first must be well off.” and many of us, consciously and
unconsciously, have learned to evaluate our own well-being
and accomplishment not by looking inward at our spirit or
integrity, but by looking outward at what we have and what
we can buy. Similarly, we have adopted a world view in
which the worth and success of others is judged not by their
apparent wisdom, kindness or community contributions, but
in terms of whether they possess the right clothes, the right
car and more generally, the right "stuff”.
 How to disconnect ?
• Wisdom from various people
• Stop shopping on some level
• Treat children as children, not
as consumers
• Love your family, friends and
yourself more than your stuff.
• Spend time in your core
humanity rather than in stuff to
place around your core
humanity
Sample in-class activity 3 – Lets
Spend
Objective:
To differentiate between A wants and A needs.

Instruction:
Tell participants they have $86,400.00 to spend anyway they wish. The only
restrictions are that they cannot bank any money and if they do not use any
of the money they lose it. We then discuss why and how they spent the
money the way they did.

Material: Paper and Pen

Time Limit: 30 minutes
• Who spent all of their money?
• How many item did you
purchase?
students the
• Why did you buy what you did?
importance of
• What do you plan to do with having a plan for
your left-over money? spending money
• Did you look to see what your and differentiating
friends were buying, or did you between A wants
and A needs.
make your own decisions?
• Do you think you did a good job
of spending your money?
 References
• The High Price of Materialism by Tim Kasser
• http://www.aber.ac.uk/en/media/training/2014/beforesept14/samwindows/pdf/belk-et-
al-(1988)-%27extended-self%27(1).pdf
• http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~jhm/Readings/612649.pdf
• journals.lub.lu.se/ojs/index.php/pjos/issue/view/1347/39
• http://www.simplebiblestudies.com/GAaffluenza.htm
• http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.2304/gsch.2013.3.3.328
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BuVopxGbJ0
• Dittmer, H. (1992). The Individual Centered Approach: Material Possessions as Parts of
the Extended Self. pp. 41 – 64 and Possessions as Symbolic Expressions of Identity. pp. 95
– 121 in The Social Psychology of Material Possessions: To Have is to Be? St. Martin’s
Press
• https://www.google.com.ph/search?client=firefox-
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