Products as Affective Modifiers of Identities

Abstract

Are salesclerks seen as better, more powerful, or more active when they drive Mustangs? What about entrepreneurs? What about driving a mid-sized car? Intuitively, we have ideas about these, but much of the research on the affective nature of products is on purchasing, desires, and self-fulfillment. Drawing on symbolic interactionism, we argue that people’s association with products has some basis in the impression management of their identity. For this to occur, there must be some cultural consensus about the way that products modify identities. Drawing on affect control theory’s (ACT) methodology and equations, we measure the goodness, powerfulness, and activeness of several products, identities, and the associated product-modified identities to explore how products function as affective modifiers of identities. We find consistent effects across several types of technology products, whereby products pull the modified identity in the direction of the products’ affective qualities. Support is established for the ACT equations that predict how traits modify identities as also having utility for predicting how products modify identities. This suggests that the opening questions can be answered empirically by measuring cultural-specific sentiments of the identity and the product and by developing equations to predict the identity modification process.

Department(s)

Psychological Science

Keywords and Phrases

Affect Control Theory; Impression Management; Identities; Consumer Products; Objects

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

0731-1214

Document Type

Article - Journal

Document Version

Citation

File Type

text

Language(s)

English

Rights

© 2017 SAGE, All rights reserved.

Publication Date

01 Feb 2017

Link to Full Text

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