Social power and status as reasons to own personal possessions

From:

Possessions and the Extended Self
Author(s): Russell W. Belk
Source: Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 15, No. 2 (Sep., 1988), pp. 139-168

During preretirement adulthood, Csikszentmihalyi and Rochberg-Halton (1981) found that emphasis shifts from defining oneself by what one does to de- fining self through what one has. Furby (1978) found that 40- to 50-year-olds are the most likely of all age groups to cite social power and status as reasons to own personal possessions. Csikszentmihalyi (1982, pp. 5-6) explains:

A person who owns a nice home, a new car, good furni- ture, the latest appliances, is recognized by others as having passed the test of personhood in our society . . . the objects we possess and consume are . . . wanted because . . . they tell us things about ourselves that we need to hear in order to keep our selves from falling apart. This information includes the social rec- ognition that follows upon the display of status sym- bols, but it includes also the much more private feed- back provided by special household objects that objec- tify a person's past, present, and future, as well as his or her close relationships.