I have expressed in my earlier research, how a comfort zone can be a place of our own creation that we fill and decorate with the people and possessions that we love and bring us such comfort. I wish to explore why, as humans, we make such significant connections to people as well as to objects, places and material possessions.

Book Analysis

I am reading a book, written by Professor Helga Dittmar, who is an applied social psychologist at the University of Sussex, and leads a research programme that examines the impact of consumer culture ideals on identity, well-being, and behaviour in adults, adolescents, and children.

The book is called The Social Psychology of Material Possessions. It explores the relationships between people and their things, and the symbolic nature of those relationships on the individuals social and personal identity.

Material objects serve as symbolic expressions of who we are. We all choose particular objects to buy and keep around to express something about ourselves, whether that is intentional or not. We choose what clothes to wear everyday, how we decorate our living spaces, the technology we use, the toys we play with and so on. Each of the possessions we take or use can be categorised into what information they tell others about ourselves, and that could be our wealth, our social standing, our interests etc.

I am = what I have and what I consume (Fromm, 1976, p.36, emphasis in original).

Material possessions influence the way we think about ourselves and about others.

Meanings of material possessions for identity (made with Miro). This flowchart separates the types of material possessions that we collect in our lives and explains their meanings and functions, as well as what they symbolise about us.

Possessions serve as symbols of identity and peoples perceptions of social reality are partly structured from knowledge of material and their relationships with certain characteristics of a person, their status and belonging to a particular group. Possessions that are symbolic communicate aspects of a the owners identity, whereas instrumental possessions are used just for function, for helping people exert direct control over their environment.

From the perspective of the owner, their possessions act as a symbol of their own personal qualities as well as for their image from a social standpoint. Both personal and social aspects of identity are expressed through material possessions but also, expression and maintenance of identity depends on the appraisal of others as well as a generalised perspective of one-self through societal meanings of possessions.