This article advances the premise that other-centered love is a resource that may improve the lives of impoverished consumers. It opens with a brief description of compassionate love, agape, and altruism and their potential relationship to helping behaviors. Data description and analysis are next, followed by ethnographic evidence that support the love-as-resource perspective. This support is distilled into five interrelated themes: loss/lack of familial/friendship love, lack of other-centered love or disdain, reactions to the loss/lack of love, expressions of other-centered love, and consumption adequacy. The article closes with implications for other-centered love as a paradigm to further the consumption adequacy of the poor on a global basis.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Ackerman, Diane . 1995. A natural history of love. New York: Vintage.
2.
Agar, M.1995. Literary journalism as ethnography: Exploring the excluded middle. In Representation in ethnography, edited by J. Van Mannen, 112-129. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
3.
Ahuvia, Aaron C.1992. For the love of money: Materialism and product love. In Meaning, measure, and morality of materialism, edited by Floyd Rudmin and Marsha Richins, 188-198. Provo, UT: Association for Consumer Research.
4.
Ahuvia, Aaron C.1998. Consuming the romantic utopia: Abook review. Journal of Marriage & the Family60 (May): 542-543.
5.
Andreasen, Alan R.1975. The disadvantaged consumer. New York: Free Press.
6.
Arnould, Eric J. , and Melanie Wallendorf. 1994. Market-oriented ethnography: Interpretation building and marketing strategy formulation. Journal of Marketing Research31 (November): 484-504.
7.
Batson, C. Daniel . 1991. The altruism question: Toward a social-psychological answer. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
8.
Batson, C. Daniel , Judy G. Batson, R. Matthew Todd, Beverly H. Brummett, Laura L. Shaw, and Carlo M. R. Aldeguer. 1995. Empathy and the collective good: Caring for one of the others in a social situation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology68 (4): 619-631.
9.
Batson, C. Daniel , Michelle H. Bolen, Julie A. Cross, and Helen E. Neuringer-Benefiel. 1986. Where is the altruism in the altruistic personality?Journal of Personality and Social Psychology50 (1): 212-220.
10.
Batson, C. Daniel , Tricia R. Klein, Lori Highberger, and Laura L. Shaw. 1995. Immortality from empathy-induced altruism: When compassion and justice conflict. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology68 (6): 1042-1054.
11.
Belk, Russell W. , and Gregory S. Coon. 1993. Gift giving as agapic love: An alternative to the exchange paradigm based on dating experiences. Journal of Consumer Research20 (December): 393-417.
12.
Bierhoff, Hans Werner , Renate Klein, and Peter Kramp. 1991. Evidence for the altruistic personality from data on accident research. Journal of Personality59 (June): 263-280.
13.
Caplovitz, David . 1963. The poor pay more. New York: Free Press.
14.
Chau, Lai Ling , Ronald C. Johnson, John K. Bowers, Thomas J. Darvill, and George P. Danko. 1990. Intrinsic and extrinsic religiosity as related to conscience, adjustment, and altruism. Personality and Individual Differences11 (4): 397-400.
15.
Csikzentmihalyi, Mihaly . 2000. The costs and benefits of consuming. Journal of Consumer Research27 (September): 267-272.
16.
Farver, Jo Ann , and Wendy Husby Branstetter. 1994. Preschoolers’prosocial responses to their peers’ distress. Developmental Psychology30 (3): 334-341.
17.
Ger, Guliz . 1997. Human development and humane consumption: Well-being beyond the “good life.”Journal of Public Policy & Marketing16 (spring): 110-125.
18.
Hill, Ronald Paul . 1991. Homeless women, special possessions, and the meaning of “home”: An ethnographic case study. Journal of Consumer Research18 (December): 298-310.
19.
Hill, Ronald Paul . 1992. Homeless children: Coping with material losses. Journal of Consumer Affairs26 (winter): 274-287.
20.
Hill, Ronald Paul . 1995. Blackfellas and whitefellas: Aboriginal land rights, the Mabo decision, and the meaning of land. Human Rights Quarterly17 (May): 303-322.
21.
Hill, Ronald Paul . 2001a. Surviving in a material world: Evidence from ethnographic consumer research on people in poverty. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography30 (4): 364-391.
22.
Hill, Ronald Paul . 2001b. Surviving in a material world: The lived experience of people in poverty. South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.
23.
Hill, Ronald Paul , and Mark Stamey. 1990. The homeless in America: An examination of possessions and consumption behaviors. Journal of Consumer Research17 (December): 303-321.
24.
Hill, Ronald Paul , and Debra Lynn Stephens. 1997. Impoverished consumers and consumer behavior: The case of AFDC mothers. Journal of Macromarketing17 (fall): 32-48.
25.
Holloway, Robert J. , and Richard N. Cardozo. 1969. Consumer problems and marketing patterns in low-income neighborhoods: An exploratory study. Minneapolis: Graduate School of Business Administration, University of Minnesota.
26.
hooks, bell . 2001. All about love: New visions. New York: Perennial.
27.
Irelan, Lola M. , and Arthur Besner. 1966. Low income outlook on life. In Low income lifestyles, edited by Lola Irelan, 1-8. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.
28.
Kerber, Kenneth W.1984. The perception of nonemergency helping situations: Costs, rewards, and the altruistic personality. Journal of Personality52 (June): 177-187.
29.
Kierkegaard, Soren . 1998, Works on love. Translated by H. V. Hong and E. H. Hong. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
30.
Lee, Renee G. , Julie L. Ozanne, and Ronald Paul Hill. 1999. Improving service encounters through resource sensitivity: The case of health care delivery in Appalachia. Journal of Public Policy & Marketing18 (fall): 230-248.
31.
McNeely, Bonnie L. , and Bruce M. Meglino. 1994. The role of dispositional and situational antecedents in prosocial organizational behavior. Journal of Applied Psychology79 (6): 836-844.
32.
Outka, Gene . 1972. Agape: An ethical analysis. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
33.
Ozanne, Julie L. , Ronald Paul Hill, and Newell D. Wright. 1998. Juvenile delinquents’ use of consumption as cultural resistance: Implications for juvenile reform programs and public policy. Journal of Public Policy & Marketing17 (fall): 185-196.
34.
Peck, M. Scott . 1978. The road less traveled: A new psychology of love, traditional values, and spiritual growth. New York: Simon & Schuster.
35.
Penner, Louis A. , and Marcia A. Finkelstein. 1998. Dispositional and structural determinants of volunteerism. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology74 (2): 525-537.
36.
Rawls, John . 1971. A theory of justice. Cambridge, MA: Belknap.
37.
Richards, Louise . 1966. Consumer practices of the poor. In Low income lifestyles, edited by Lola Irelan, 69-83. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.
38.
Sturdivant, Frederick D.1969. The ghetto marketplace. New York: Free Press.
39.
Underwood, Lynn G. Forthcoming. The human experience of compassionate love: Conceptual mapping and data from selected studies. In Altruism and altruistic love: Science, philosophy, and religion in dialogue, edited by S. G. Post, L. G. Underwood, J. P. Schloss, and W. B. Hurlbut. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
40.
United Nations Development Programme. 1997. Human Development Report 1997: Poverty and human development. New York: Oxford University Press.
41.
Van Mannen, John . 1988. Tales of the field: On writing ethnography. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
42.
Van Mannen, John . 1995. An end to innocence: The ethnography of ethnography. In Representation in ethnography, edited by J. Van Mannen, 1-35. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
