Consumer theory’s narcissism epidemic: Towards a theoretical framework that differentiates the self and other

Abstract

This article critically engages with Russell Belk’s ‘extended self’ theory and Susan Fournier’s ‘human relationship model’. When a human development model is applied to the ‘extended self’ theory, Belk appears to equate the psychology of infants with consumerism in general – an inability to differentiate between the self and other. Fournier concludes that when consumers think about brands as if they were human, endowing inanimate brand objects with personality qualities, the object becomes animated, facilitating a ‘relationship dyad’. However, she confuses ‘dyad’ with the projection of the self onto objects, what psychoanalytic theory suggests is a classic symptom of narcissism. Devoid of any (psychological) understanding of narcissism, these theorists do not make connections between narcissism and its behavioural patterns exhibited in contemporary consumer culture. While the culture of consumption facilitates associations and projections of the self onto objects through a steady flow of fantasy, encouraging consumers to blur self-other distinctions, it does not necessarily follow that all consumers are unable to differentiate between the self and other. Through examining the complex symbolism and powerful repositories of meaning that consumers project onto objects, our understanding of how consumers interact with products will be deepened; by (re-)inserting the unconscious into consumer theory, the self-other divide emerges.