Understand your social behavior with your consumption of needs…
We can be surprised how our consumption explains our behavior. Why do we consume? What is the relationship we have with material goods we are buying? Well, each person consumes upon their demands and needs, whether those needs are material or immaterial. According to Tim Jackson, in his edited version of The EarthScan Reader on Sustainable Consumption, we can consume for ‘the satisfaction of functional needs, the construction of identity, the pursuit of status and social distinction, the maintenance of social cohesion, social and/or sexual selection, negotiation of the boundary between the sacred and the profane, and the pursuit of personal and collective meaning.’ Our needs reflect on the role of goods and services in our lives. When our roles are identified, a picture of our behavior is drawn. Therefore, patterns of our consumption can give us an overview of the type of society we become, day by day (qtd. in Silke).
By Rana Gabr