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Stitching time: Vintage consumption connects the past, present, and future
Author(s) -
SarialAbi Gülen,
Vohs Kathleen D.,
Hamilton Ryan,
Ulqinaku Aulona
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
journal of consumer psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 4.433
H-Index - 110
eISSN - 1532-7663
pISSN - 1057-7408
DOI - 10.1016/j.jcps.2016.06.004
Subject(s) - vintage , meaning (existential) , consumption (sociology) , aesthetics , sociology , social psychology , psychology , positive economics , advertising , economics , business , history , art , archaeology , psychotherapist
We investigated a novel avenue for buffering against threats to meaning frameworks: vintage consumption. Although the appeal of vintage goods, defined as previously owned items from an earlier era, is strong and growing, this paper is among the first to examine the possible psychological ramifications of vintage consumption. Six studies found that vintage items mitigated the typical reactions to meaning threats. Four of these studies also showed that vintage consumption facilitates mental connections among the past, present, and future. As a result, people whose meaning structures had been threatened, for example, by being reminded of their own eventual death, preferred vintage products more than others who had not experienced a meaning threat, and more than similar non‐vintage products. These findings suggest that meaning disruptions stimulate a desire for intertemporal connections, a desire that vintage products—as existing and continuing symbols of bygone eras—seem to satisfy.