Consumption Psychology and Practice Theories

<p>Practice theories of our equipped and situated tacit construction of participatory narrative meaning are evident in multiple disciplines from architectural to communication study consumer marketing and media research organisational psychological and social insight. Their hermeneutic focus is on customarily little reflected upon recurrent but required practices of embodied habituated knowing how—from choosing ‘flaw-free’ fruit in a market to celebrating Chinese New Year Reunion Dining caring for patients to social media ‘voice’. In ready-to-hand practices we attend to the purpose and not to the process to the goal rather than its generating. Yet familiar practices both presume and put in place fundamental understanding. Listening to Asian and Western consumers reflecting—not only subsequent to but also within practices—this book considers activity emplacing core perceptions from a liminal moment in a massive mall to health psychology research. Institutions configure practices-in-practices cohering or conflicting within their material horizons and space accessible to social analysis.</p><p>Practices theory construes routine as minimally self-monitored nonetheless considering it as being embodied narrative. In research output such generic ‘storied’ activity is seen as (in)formed shaped from a shifting hierarchy of ‘horizons’ or perspectives—from habituated to reflective—rather than a single seamless unfolding. Taking a communication practices route disentangles and avoids conflating tacit and transformative construction of identities in qualitative research. Practices research crosses discipline. Ubiquitous media use by managers and visitors throughout a shopping mall responds to investigating not only with digital tracking expertise but also from an interpretive marketing viewpoint. Visiting a practice perspective’s hermeneutic underwriting spatio-temporal metaphorical concepts become available and appropriate to the analysis of communication as a process across disciplines. In repeated practices ‘horizons of understanding’ are solidified. Emphasising our understanding of a material environment as ‘equipment’ practices theory enables correlation of use and demographic variable in quantitative study extending interpretive behavioural and haptic qualitative research.</p><p>Consumption Psychology and Practice Theories: A Hermeneutic Perspective addresses academics and researchers in communication studies marketing psychology and social theory as well as university methodology courses recognising philosophy guides a discipline’s investigative insight.</p>