Understanding the Socialized Body: A Poststructuralist Analysis of Consumers' Self-Conceptions, Body Images, and Self-Care Practices

1995/09/01 by Craig J. Thompson, Elizabeth C. Hirschman · 613 citations
Arts and Humanities · Business, Management and Accounting · Psychology · #Consumer Behavior in Brand Consumption and Identification #Consumption (sociology) #Discipline #Eating Disorders and Behaviors #Epistemology #Fashion and Cultural Textiles #Gaze #Normalization (sociology) #Perception #Problematization #Psychoanalysis #Psychology #Psychosocial #Psychotherapist #Self-image #Social psychology #Social science #Sociology

paper · doi:10.1086/209441

published in Journal of Consumer Research 22(2), 139 (Oxford University Press)

openalex publication_date 1995/09/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/14

Abstract

The present inquiry examines the psychosocial meanings and processes that shape consumers' sense of body image and the consumption behaviors motivated by those perceptions. Poststructuralist interpretive procedures were used to analyze interviews with 30 male and female consumers, aged 6-54. This discourse analysis led to the development of three process-oriented themes: (1) the ideology of self-control, (2) the social processes of normalization and problematization, and (3) the operation of the disciplinary gaze. The systematic manifestations of these themes are illustrated across a range of consumer experiences and body-focused perceptions, implications of these themes for the theoretical conceptualizations of body image and the nature of self-concept in contemporary consumer culture are discussed. Copyright 1995 by the University of Chicago.

Citations

• Putting Consumer Experience Back into Consumer Research: The Philosophy and Method of Existential-Phenomenology

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