소비욕망의 개념에 관한 연구

Abstract

The Producer-centered market economy is becoming consumer-centered one. This situation increases the interests in the causes or motivations of consumption. This study searches for the fundamental causes of consumption in order to conceptualize and analyze consumption desire both theoretically and substantially. This study conceptualized ‘Consumption Desire’ based on various theories and recent discussions about it. Consumption Desire is defined as “a state that a consumer longs for specific things to make up for a deficiency or to pursue his/her pleasure, which is a projection of human desire.”Based on this conceptualization of consumption desire, I conducted an actual research on 27consumers through in-depth interviews. I analyzed the interviews by means of projective techniques such as metaphor elicitation technique and psycho-drawing. The result shows that there are two causes that form consumption desire; ① the fulfillment of deficiency and ② the pursuit of pleasure. First, there are three types of a deficiency of consumption desire includes ①demanding deficiency, ② relative deficiency, and ③ compensational deficiency. Demanding deficiency is caused by an individual’s physical necessity or psychological repugnance. On the other hand,Relative deficiency is produced by ‘envy’ in social relationship such as comparison of oneself to others. And, Compensational deficiency results from internal and psychological causes such as mental depression or complex, rather than from the want to consume goods itself or relationship with others. Second, the pursuit of pleasure includes three factors: fantasy, experience, and circulation. Fantasy refers to a state that a consumer puts his/her emotions into consumption goods or imagines transformation or escape through daydreaming. On the other hand, experience refers to the formation of consumption desire through direct experience of consumption object. And,circulation reflects the characteristics of consumers that pursue addictive pleasure through cathexis and adherence. The analysis of deficiency fulfillment showed the reason why a human being, especially a consumer, comes to have deficiency and how this deficiency leads to consumption. In particular,the result of network analysis showed that compensational deficiency was the strongest factor in all the deficiencies. This result indicates that it is highly possible for consumption desire to be originated from psychological deficiency of an individual or a sense of emptiness rather than wanting to consume goods or the relationship with other consumers. Among the factors of pursuit of pleasure, experience was the strongest element that displayed the significance of embodiment of desire as a physical-mental monistic concept. In the following chapters of this paper, I examined the way in which a human desire is projected into the consumption desire by focusing on four major human desires. First, a consumer’s desire for existence contains two perspectives: one of the perspectives is to maintain the consumer’s own identity by means of consumption objects and to reconfirm his/her value through those objects the other is the consumer’s desire for the enhancement of existence that is to sublime into an ideal being beyond him/herself by means of consumption objects. Second, a consumer’s sexual desire has also two perspectives: one is fetishism , that is to say that a consumption object becomes an object of sexual desire. The other is sex, that is to say that a consumption goods act as a means of having sexual relationship with others. Third, the consumption desire for power is to control or govern others. This desire can be divided into two types: one is the authority ‘on’ the consumption object , i.e., the authority to directly control and govern the object the other is the authority ‘through’ the consumption object, i.e., the authority to have power over others through the consumption object. Finally, the consumption desire for recognitions, which is a desire to be recognized by others. It can be divided into two types: passive and active desires. Passive desire is a desire to avoid not being recognized in order not to be embarrassed or ignored. Active desire is a desire to show off one’s superiority. Although sexual desire and the desire for power have little direct relationship to consumption,the result of the network analysis in this research showed that those desires were significantly projected to men rather than women. The consumption desire for existence and recognition were more likely to be projected to women. This result shows that men and women basically have different structures of desire. The significance of this study is that it analyzed the essential causes that drive consumption,starting from fundamental and philosophical questions about consumer as a human being,by adopting the concept of consumption desire and applying it into consumer studies. This study explained the fundamental of desire toward consumption behavior based on in-depth investigation and research on human desire. This study also adopted various consumer research techniques that can investigate deep psychology, that could provide basis for future researches on the motivations of consumption. Finally, this study will contribute to researches on consumer studies to find out consumption motivations and to widen consumer study methodologies and subjects as it tried to objectively conceptualize and analyze the abstract concept of consumption desire.