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Just for fun? The emotional regime of experiential consumption
Christian Jantzen, James Fitchett, Per Østergaard and Mikael Vetner
Marketing Theory published online 10 April 2012
DOI: 10.1177/1470593112441565
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Article
Just for fun? The emotional
regime of experiential
consumption
Marketing Theory
1–18
ª The Author(s) 2012
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DOI: 10.1177/1470593112441565
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Christian Jantzen
Aalborg University, Denmark
James Fitchett
University of Leicester, UK
Per Østergaard
University of Southern Denmark, Denmark
Mikael Vetner
Aalborg University, Denmark
Abstract
Experiential consumption emphasizes emotional and hedonic qualities in the marketplace stressing the
importance of experiences for ‘the good life’ and positioning consumption as a legitimate way to
generate interesting and relevant experiences. The concept of emotional regimes (Reddy, 2001) is
used to emphasize the dialectics between structural changes in the modern marketplace and the
modern way of perceiving and practising hedonic behaviour. The article considers the main ideas
that have furthered modern hedonism and the practices that have transformed the abstract longing
for sensitivity into concrete experiential appetites. The development of a regime of experiences is
outlined, consisting of a set of techniques to bring about sensual pleasure, a discourse to verbalize
the methods of pleasure seeking, and an ideology that turns pleasure into a legitimate existential goal
in life for the sake of self-actualization.
Keywords
emotional regimes, emotions, experiential consumption, hedonism, pleasure
Introduction
The market is an inherently emotional place. The subject of emotions and emotional behaviour remains
highly relevant to marketing theory and consumer research. It is generally accepted, almost as common
Corresponding author:
Christian Jantzen, Aalborg University, Department of Communication & Psychology, Nyhavnsgade 14, 9000 Aalborg, Denmark
Email: [email protected]
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sense that consumption is implicated in emotion one way or another and consumption can
be understood as generating emotional responses in consumers, for example by facilitating
feelings of happiness, joy, frustration or anger. Consumer research has tended to imply a moral
economy in analysing emotional experiences. Activities and strategies that produce, facilitate or
allow for the co-creation of positive, pleasurable and rewarding emotional consumer experiences
are generally regarded more positively than those that facilitate or produce negative ones. This
paper is concerned with examining some of the mechanisms and social processes that resulted
in consumers and consumption becoming defined in emotional terms and through emotional practices. The first section briefly considers the application of theories of emotions in consumer
research and the development of research into emotion in psychology and cultural theory. The next
section introduces Reddy’s (2001) writing on ‘emotional regimes’, defined as official rituals and
practices that express and inculcate normative emotional behaviour underpinning stable political
regimes (Reddy, 2001: 129). Emotional regimes offer a means to resolve problems in both psychological and cultural accounts of emotional experience and in the third section we outline structures
and features of the emotional regime of experiential consumption for which modern hedonism is a
central principle. The latter sections of the paper critically examine aspects of hedonism as features of the emotional regime of experiential consumption, in terms of ideology and the democratization of pleasure.
Emotional experience
Throughout the 1980s the study of emotions remained largely confined to a narrow set of theories,
understandings and ideas. Marketing and consumer behaviour theories of emotion were and are
heavily influenced by behavioural and cognitive psychology in which many of the core concepts
were derived as much from intuition and everyday observation as they were from experimentation
and theory. While it is possible to measure the physiological and psychological effects that
emotions such as fear or happiness have on heart rate, adrenalin levels, or performance in a
memory recall test for example, these analyses do not provide insight into what ‘fear’ or ‘happiness’ is (or is not), what function or purpose these emotions might serve, or the processes and
systems by which emotions are derived, maintained and experienced.
More recently psychologists have challenged and modified many of these previously
dominant assumptions, taking on board advances in neuroscience (Damasio, 1994; LeDoux,
1996; Pessoa, 2008) as well as responding to broader critiques concerning the social, cultural
and even political aspects of emotional behaviour. Psychologists have moved away from
models of cognition in which emotions are associated with certain types of non-linear free
association thinking that are linked or causally related to certain types of physiological arousal, to theories that involve greater complexity. Clear dividing lines between controlled and
involuntary behaviour, between cognition and emotion (Pessoa, 2008), or between ‘thinking’
and ‘feeling’ are no longer prevalent in psychological theories of emotion. Nonetheless, what
emotions are, how they function, whether they are universal or culturally constructed, and
even how many emotions can be discerned, remains just as much the topic of intense discussions in and outside psychology as it was two decades ago (cf. Ortony and Turner, 1990).
What is clear is that emotions play an important role in decision making, the automatic processing of information, and the formation of preferences. These insights reject the Cartesian
distinction between body and mind, feeling and thinking, suggesting that feeling is an intrinsic
aspect of thinking (Damasio, 1994).
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Consumer behaviour research into emotion retains many of the core expectations of the
traditional psychological approach and may benefit greatly from revision and re-evaluation
(see Elliott, 1998). Emotions are neither irrational remnants from earlier stages of
evolution nor irrelevant by-products of consumption. There is little evidence to support a clear
differentiation between ‘rational’ and emotional decision making, that certain types of consumers are more emotional than others, that some products are more rational than others, or that
consumer choices involving emotion are more or less credible or sensible than so called
rational choices. In some important respects the subject of emotions illustrates and indicates
more fundamental critiques in consumer behaviour research. The critique against cognitivism
launched by Holbrook and Hirschman some 30 years ago (Hirschman and Holbrook, 1982;
Holbrook and Hirschman, 1982) was predicated on an argument that existing psychological
paradigms were incapable of adequately accounting for the full range of consumer experiences and behaviours. In order to grasp consumption in its totality they proposed that fun,
feelings and fantasies, traditionally neglected by the cognitive approach, should be integral
parts of consumer research. By calling attention to the importance of hedonic aspects of consumption, Hirschman and Holbrook reinstated consumer experiences on the theoretical agenda
and this played a significant part in the advancement of new methods, philosophy and theory
in consumer research. In effect, the perceived inability of the cognitive approach to adequately account for emotion and emotional experience led to the introduction of phenomenology, interpretivism and cultural theories into consumer research.
There are, however, equally obvious problems with accounts and concepts of emotions that rely
solely on cultural theories. Anthropologists have taken a keen interest in emotion and culture,
and few marketers would dispute that there are significant cultural aspects to emotional
norms, behaviours and practices. There is little controversy in the idea that different cultures
have different ways of expressing emotions, that some cultures are more ‘emotional’ than
others, or that emotional codes vary. But if this line of argument is pursued it is likely that it
will lead to theoretical positions that are less widely accepted. A cultural account of emotions
opens up the prospect of considering the idea that emotions are not only culturally variable
but culturally constructed. Where, we might ask, is the evidence or rationale to assume that all
cultures have the same experience of emotions? There are clearly many different ways to
express an emotion such as grief for example, and in different cultures many different ways of
expressing grief would be expected to be observed. But is it conceivable to imagine a culture
in which individuals are unable to experience this emotion of grief, where the emotion of
grief is completely alien and unknown? In a slightly less emotive context we might question
whether consumer society ‘creates’ certain types of emotions, such as intense pleasure and
desire for goods, or apathy and misery for unsatisfied needs and wants (Shankar et al., 2006).
Of course we would have to appreciate that desire, hedonism and pleasure are all in evidence
in other periods of history and in other cultures, but this does not completely exclude the
prospect that the particular manifestations of these emotional responses in consumer culture
are product of that culture, creating both the objects and subjects of desire. In fact, it makes
good sense to see emotions as social, cultural and biological (Harré and Parrott, 1996).
Emotional regimes
Cognitive psychological and cultural accounts offer competing perspectives on emotions. Reddy
(2001) seeks to overcome this distinction through an analysis of the history of feeling. In this
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account emotions are systematic bodily responses to stimuli, which direct the organisms’
(re)actions. Emotions are universal because they have a biological foundation. This does not,
however, imply that all individuals respond in the same emotional way to sensations and
perception. Emotions are culturally flexible, which means that different groups favour emotions
differently and express clusters of emotions in various ways. Emotions can be understood as
‘overlearned habits’ (Isen and Diamond, 1989) and are as such malleable and adaptable. As
habits, emotions serve as a relatively stable foundation for preferences and the individual’s
strategic goal setting in the short term. Emotional expressions are automatic and therefore to a
large degree involuntary. By being over-learned they depend on social interaction, which
explains historical changes and cultural differences in the way emotions are individually
expressed or publicly valued.
Emotional expressions are moulded by social interaction, and not voluntarily (re-)fashioned by
the individual. The acceptability, desirability and ‘practicability’ of specific emotions are regulated
by ‘emotional regimes’ which serve to assess and instruct which emotions are socially valuable and
how such emotions could or should be properly practised. Reddy’s (2001) analysis focuses on the
changing values, status and purpose of emotions in French society since the 16th century. As
emotional regimes adapt and change, new ways of expressing, evaluating or accounting for
emotions are possible and desirable. Different forms of emotional management emerge, and open
up new forms and opportunities of emotional liberty as well as closing off others (Reddy, 2001:
129). These regimes provide a framework that delimits and sanctions deviance which in turn
structures emotional suffering as well as places of emotional refuge and escape (see Goulding et al.,
2002). Reddy (2001: 216) concludes his argument as follows:
In the late eighteenth century reason and emotion were not seen as opposed forces; in the early
nineteenth they were. In the late eighteenth century natural sentiment was viewed as the ground out of
which virtue grew. In the early nineteenth, virtue was regarded as the outgrowth of the exercise of the
will, guided by reason, aimed at disciplining passions – much as it has been from ancient times up to the
seventeenth century. In the late eighteenth century, political reform was deemed best guided by natural
feelings of benevolence and generosity. In the early nineteenth century while some would have continued to grant benevolence and generosity a role in politics, much more importance was attached to
personal qualities such as commitment to principle, soldiery courage, a willingness, if necessary, to
resort to violence and, above all, a proper understanding of justice and right.
Reddy’s concept of ‘emotional regimes’ is not totally at odds with Foucault’s (1980) ‘power/
knowledge regimes’ in that both emphasize the formative role played by structures of social
interaction in shaping individuals’ feelings, thoughts and desires. Unlike Foucault however,
Reddy stresses two universal features grounding any emotional regime. In the first place all
‘communities construe emotions as an important domain of effort’ (Reddy, 2001: 55,
emphasis in original).
And secondly, all communities ‘provide individuals with prescriptions and counsel concerning
both the best strategies for pursuing emotional learning and the proper end point or ideal of
emotional equilibrium’ (Reddy, 2001: 55, emphasis in original). An emotional regime (Reddy,
2001: 61) thus consists of:
a coherent set of collectively shared emotional goals to strive for (prescriptions of preferable
emotions and preferable objects)
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a set of instructions on how to obtain mental and bodily control (tactics leading to a code of
conduct)
a set of ideals concerning the individual and collective meaning of specific goals and of emotional control (strategies outlining the purport of emotionality).
The variations between emotional regimes may be considerable but they all contribute to stabilizing the relationship between individuals and their community. On an ideational level an emotional regime grounds common causes and goals for acting in the world. By enhancing selfcoherence and by establishing a common code of conduct, an emotional regime secondly strengthens social identity and an individual becomes recognizable as a member of a certain group.
Third, the regime guides the individual towards private gratifications thereby strengthening
personal identity. It teaches how and where to find interesting and relevant (i.e. meaningful)
pleasure and satisfaction. A major advantage of Reddy’s conception of regimes compared to
Foucault’s is that it explains gradual historical changes. An emotional regime should not be
conceived as a determining factor for individuals’ feelings and thoughts, but as guidelines for
actions that individuals may or may not follow. These guidelines are open for new or alternative
prescriptions, instructions and ideals, which match the malleable quality of emotions and account
for many and mutually conflicting regimes. Each emotional regime is hence characterized by a
dynamic stability.
The emotional regime of experiential consumption
Reddy’s account offers a method for analysing the emotional regime of experiential consumption.
For this analysis it is necessary to understand aspects of modern emotional and experiential life as
culturally contingent while not overlooking the universal, biological aspects of all emotions.
Consumer cultures generate and moderate certain types of domains of effort as well as providing a
means through which emotions can be exhibited and demonstrated. To illustrate, consumer culture
theorists have often discussed the importance of excitement, gratification and wonder in structuring aspects of consumption experience. Excitement and wonder are relevant to a wide range of
consumption situations, with obvious examples including extreme tourism and spectacular events,
recreational drug consumption, clubbing, and gaming. From an emotional regime’s perspective is
it necessary to ask at what point did these emotional forms or domains of effort begin to take on
their contemporary character? In an historical analysis of boredom, Spacks (1995: 10) argues:
If life was never boring in pre modern times, neither was it interesting, thrilling or exciting, in the
modern sense of these words. And one has to assume that people without such terminology didn’t need
it – not necessarily because they weren’t by our standards bored or interested or whatever, but because
other categories of interpretation satisfied their understanding of their own situations.
This comment implicitly acknowledges the dualism at play here, between the ‘universal’ aspect of
emotional behaviour and experience, and its cultural construction and representation. Interpreted
through Reddy (2001), we can say that the contemporary significance of boredom is closely linked
to a particular emotional regime in which its dichotomies between boredom/excitement, and
apathy/engagement, for instance are salient structuring devices. Current emotional regimes derive
meaning from earlier regimes, which by being intertwined with economic interests, political
thought, therapeutic practices and moral philosophy have made new appetites possible and
desirable.
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The emotional regime for experiential consumption is aligned to hedonism, a moral
philosophy which asserts the pursuit of pleasure as an ethical principle. Hedonist philosophies
can be traced back to ancient Greece and are formalized as a modern philosophical orientation
in the utilitarianism of Jeremy Bentham (2007 [1789]). From a utilitarian perspective a
hedonist is a person who calculates how and where the largest sum of pleasure is to be found
with as minimal an effort as possible. By defining pleasure in purely quantitative terms,
Bentham formulated a felicific or hedonic calculus, which, simply put, equates the amount of
happiness with the intensity of pleasure multiplied by its duration. This has lead to a denigrating view of hedonists as people who are primarily directed by a need for satisfying
sensual lust and are therefore typically superficial, egoistic and unconcerned with social and
political issues. Only recently has this somewhat skewed picture of hedonism been reconsidered. In psychology there has been a redirection towards issues concerning happiness and
subjective well-being as a supplement to the overwhelming interest in the negative aspects of
life (e.g. Argyle, 2001; Huppert et al., 2005; Kahneman et al., 1999).
In sociology the work of Schulze (1992) announced the coming of the ‘experiential society’ as
successor to the ‘abundance society’, which characterized the first post-war decades. Schulze
argued convincingly that this new form of society gives rise to a range of hedonic strategies, each
formative for different group-based styles of pleasure seeking. Hedonism is thus a complex matter
involving various types of goals (objects) and various ways of defining pleasure and finding happiness. In consumer research an increasing number of contributions have focused on both the subjective qualities and social implications of experiential consumption (e.g. Arnould and Price, 1993;
Goulding et al., 2002, 2009; Joy and Sherry, Jr, 2003; Thompson et al., 1989). Consumption of
goods (external objects) serves to produce inner emotional effects due to changes in the level of
arousal. By increasing tension above the everyday level, life may be experienced in a more intense
way. On the other hand, the reduction of tension may lead to equally pleasant states of tranquillity,
contemplation or meditation. By causing such effects experiences become memorable and meaningful breaks from daily life. Experiences can in other words enhance self-conception, further a
sense of belonging, feeling accepted or partaking in a collective fate or contribute to the construction of identity (Jantzen and Vetner, 2010; Jantzen et al., 2006).
One problem with this kind of emotional calculation is that the distinctions explain quite different emotional states. Some positive emotions (e.g. relief) are related to the absence or termination of pain and discomfort. Other positive emotions are related to an increase in the level of
arousal (elation, ecstasy) or a decrease in this level (well-being), whereas ‘pleasure’ is a general
term for both physiological and emotional responses to changes in arousal. This also explains why
physical or mental pain may be pleasurable (e.g. masochism): the suffering is more than counterbalanced by the joy that increasing tension produces.
Consumption can produce extraordinary effects for consumers even though this may not have
been the intention of the consumer or producer (Goulding et al., 2009). Crucially, Scitovsky (1976)
argues that such unintended consequences have become increasingly rare. Modern welfare
economy has predominantly been oriented towards comfort, reducing distress and suffering. But as
a side-effect modern life has become remarkably ‘joyless’. Experiential consumption might be
understood as a way of restoring joy and pleasure as legitimate concerns even though the fulfilment
of these concerns is now mediated via marketplace transactions. For Scitovsky, what used to be an
automatic by-product of consumption – pleasure, joy – now needs to be an independent goal in
order to be generated and experienced. But this goal-setting presupposes an emotional regime that
favours experiences and joyful emotions as a meaningful access to ‘the good life’.
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The marketization of experiences presupposes the interplay between objective and subjective
conditions. To achieve this emotional regime the market must actually offer goods and events with
experiential qualities or potential, and consumers must be both willing to derive, and capable of
deriving, experiences from buying and using goods (see Fitchett, 2002, 2004). Both criteria are
necessary if consumption of marketed commodities is to be perceived as pleasurable. The emotional regime of experiential consumption is based on a dialectics between the emergence of a
world of objects mainly consisting of consumer commodities and a modern way of perceiving
hedonism. This dialectics is summarized as follows: Structural conditions of modernity have
brought about a modern form of hedonism, which in turn promotes these structural conditions.
Changes in market supply and the practices of market communication have increased the range of
experiential opportunities, but this presupposes individuals wanting consumer experiences.
Increasing numbers of individuals give priority to experiential appetites which is thus dependent
on the emerging existence of a world of experiential objects.
The importance of subjective conditions in the generation of pleasure is important here.
Pleasure is an inner effect, only measurable by the experiencing individual; and the mere desire for
pleasure is not in itself a sufficient prerequisite for actually experiencing joy. A range of mental
activities from consumers themselves, such as planning for experiences, manipulating the senses
and counting the means are implied in this hedonic operation. These can be broken down into
aspects including imagination to spot and assess experiential opportunities; knowledge of the
experiential market; understanding how the experiential qualities of products can be actualized
most efficiently; and a willingness to be surprised by the unexpected. It also requires an ability to
bring about the right mood for experiences and possessing the means to pursue experiential goals
successfully.
These subjective qualities rely to a large degree on instructions on ‘how to do’ (imagination,
ability) and ‘what to buy’ (knowledge) provided by media, peer group or marketers. This
learning is affected by the supply side of the social, political and economic structure of corporate capitalism. As far as ‘means’ concerns consumers’ spending power, they are related to
the demand side of this structure. Consumer demands are crucial to the development of an
experiential market. A dramatic growth in the wealth of many ordinary citizens of the western
world during the last century has promoted the appetite for hedonic consumption by enhancing
the opportunities for acquiring experiential products. In this respect wealth should be understood as the liberty to set goals for consumption other than those determined by the needs for
survival (Schulze, 1997). Rising levels of income, available for goals other than the satisfaction
of basic needs, combined with increases in age, spare time and level of education, has affected
life expectancies quantitatively as well as qualitatively (Lebergott, 1993). The wealth of nations
has been transformed into personal affluence and mass consumption, which has in turn highlighted the ‘hedonic treadmill’ (Brickman and Campbell, 1971; Kahneman, 1999). Over time,
pleasure derived from new products diminishes as the individual adapts to novelty, which leads
to an insatiable urge for ever more novel products. The absence of famine and starvation in
affluent society has made the pursuit of happiness a more critical endeavour. Acquisition of and
desire for more and more goods produce less and less in terms of hedonic pleasure (Easterbrook, 2004; Schwartz, 2004). Material progress does not automatically lead to greater joy in
life but it sharpens the awareness of how consumption might contribute to or impede the pursuit
of happiness in both the short and long term.
Consumer demand for novelty products is amply met by the supply side of the market. According
to Schudson (1986: 63) the average American general store or supermarket increased its range of
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products from 900 in 1928 to 3000 in 1950 and 8000 in 1970. The coming of hypermarkets
in the last decades has no doubt multiplied these figures considerably. It is thus neither the
lack of means nor that of goods that poses the biggest problem for modern consumers. Most
often consumers do not have direct physical or sensual contact with the product they are
about to buy. This, and the fact that many products seem more or less similar in price,
quality and utility would make deliberate decisions virtually impossible without marketing
communication and branding technology. Branding is just one of the tools by which market
communication has been able to aestheticize goods. The first successful attempts at aesthetization are nearly as old as industrial mass production (Ritzer, 1999). At department
stores, which in the 19th century became the pleasure domes of metropolitan life, new forms
of display were developed which placed quite ordinary products within an exotic and exuberant realm (Miller, 1981; Sennett, 1978; Williams, 1982). Modern malls with their blends
of hyper real settings from different epochs and cultures, popular culture, high fashion and
consumer goods have intensified the suggestion that consumption represents a dream world
of sensual pleasure (Crawford, 1992). Window-shopping has thus become an obvious way for
consumers to train their imagination, to elaborate on their longings and even to elicit imaginative gratifications for ‘free’ (Friedberg, 1993).
Advertising also functions as a primary mode of aesthetization. In text and image ads disseminate knowledge of what and how to consume. Over the last century the content of advertising
has changed from information on the product’s origin and its utility towards emphasizing the social
and personal gratifications that buying and using the good might bring about (Falk, 1994; Leiss et
al., 1986). The message conveyed is that consumption should be a matter of fun and joy, that
emotions and meaningful experiences are seminal to ‘the good life’, and that the advertised product
gives access to these qualities. The rhetorical style has become elliptic and elaborate, relying ever
more on the reader’s own ability and willingness to interpret the message.
The emergence of modern hedonism
According to Schulze (1992) the experience society emerged as a result of the youth rebellion
of the 1960s. This revolt was directed against the way in which the parent generation had
administered the economic boom in the years after WW2. Not only the distribution of wealth
was protested but the whole way in which life had been moulded came under scrutiny. A
popular slogan of those years was ‘everything is political’. This implied that issues and realms
that had been thought of as belonging to the private sphere and hence not really suitable for
public discussions – gender roles, sex, education, intergenerational relationships, manners and
conventions, etc. – were turned into political topics.
The key point of critique was mass consumption as championed by the political and economic elite
and practised by the vast majority of new consumers who in the post-war era experienced an unprecedented increase in spending power. An early concise analysis of the dominant personality type in those
first decades after 1945 was by Riesman (1950) who pointed out how individuals had turned from pursuing inner goals to other-directed behaviour. ‘The group’, and what others liked and bought, became
the agenda setting for ambition and preferences. Consumption was primarily motivated by status and by
the wish to maintain or improve one’s position in society by choosing the right commodities. The
broader implications of this mentality were sketched out by Marcuse (1964) in what was to become
a canonical text for the protesting youth. Mass consumption functioned as a new form of social repression by integrating classes with revolutionary potentials into the capitalist system. Mass consumption
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was thus a form of ideology based on false needs and leading to ‘one dimensionality’ by erasing any
opposition.
For institutions and individuals in the new affluent society mass consumption was a tool for
diminishing the experienced shortage in goods as well as in opportunities. Western welfare states
were established with the ambition to create a better life for all, but this meant a standardization of
tastes and styles which consequently erased pluralism and made domestic life even more uniform
and therefore controllable. Consumers chose more and more of the same, which was more or less
similar to what ‘others’ chose.
The primary political goal for youth culture rebellion became liberation. Private as well as
public life had to be liberated from the constraints of consumption, the control by authorities,
the false and subduing distinctions between high and low culture, private and public. The
uniformity and false needs served by mass consumption were to be replaced by a good life for
each based on the respect for heterogeneity and differences and on the meticulous search by
each individual for his or her inner longings. This places emotions, sensuality and private
sentiments on the public agenda, most notably in the ‘sexual revolution’. Surveys made by
Inglehart since the 1980s document a trend in western societies towards ‘post-materialism’,
which seems to increase for each new generation (Inglehart, 1990, 1997; Inglehart and
Welzel, 2005).
This process of self-actualization is in stark contrast to the form of self-control earlier generations had tried to develop (Elias, 1969 [1939]; Simmel, 1957 [1903]). According to Simmel
modernity favoured a personality that utilized a reserved and blasé attitude to protect the integrity of the self in an ever more impersonal and atomized metropolis. For Elias, self-control was
the result of an on-going civilizing process originating in the 16th century by internalizing
external compulsion (Fremdzwänge) as sophisticated manners, a pleasant social appearance and
other forms of bodily restraint. Throughout modernity individuals had gradually learned to control the body physically in order to give an emotionally correct presentation of the self to the
outer world (Selbstzwänge). These formal constraints should ease social interaction in a world
inhabited by strangers.
Youth culture in the 1960s made researchers in the Elias tradition reconsider whether
emotional expressions could be regulated in ways other than restricted self-control. They
coined phrases like ‘informalization’ (Wouters, 1986), or ‘controlled decontrol of emotions’
(Elias, 1989) to grasp the more outgoing, spontaneous and extrovert qualities of the younger
generation. As a result, not only had it become legitimate to express emotions, but also valid
and often irrefutable to evaluate objects, other persons and situations by invoking emotions
and own experiences. This is evidenced by examples such as ‘That is not the way I experience
it’ or ‘It didn’t feel right to me’. Consumers may justify their buying decisions by saying: ‘I
like it’, ‘It is cool’, ‘This brand is just me’, ‘I think it looks exciting’. Such arguments are
purely subjective, based on the inner evidence that feelings have generated in the consumption process.
The economic system has been able to adapt to the new currents of emotionality and to
integrate aspirations from the 1960s in its marketing practices. The market increasingly offers
commodities aimed not only at satisfying social ambitions and generating outer recognition,
but also at increasing inner pleasure. Such experiences are not caused by getting more of the
same or by acquiring something similar to what others buy. Experiential products are
expected to reveal a novel aspect of the ‘true me’ behind the social mask. Consumption has
thus reaffirmed its role in bringing about self-identity (Shankar et al., 2009) at the same time
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at least potentially replacing the treadmill of social respectability with the hedonic treadmill
of perpetual novelty seeking.
Hedonism and asceticism. From a history of mentality point of view there are at least two
plausible explanations for this new emotional regime of experiential consumption. The first
stresses the importance of Protestant ideas and practices in founding Romanticism, which makes
up the ideational core of modern hedonism. The second emphasizes how the consequences of
industrialism around 1900 created an understanding of experiences as beneficiary for the mental
well-being of strained individuals. These two perspectives can easily be combined because they
both elaborate on Weber’s (1976 [1904]) analysis of the Protestant Ethic.
In his influential study on Protestantism Weber (1976 [1904]) challenges Marx’s (1976
[1867]) materialistic explanation of the rise of capitalism. According to Weber capitalism was
not the inevitable outcome of objective laws of history but an unintended consequence of a set
of ideas and values taught by Calvinism. Here the concept of predestination was seminal in
that it prescribed individuals to work for his or her own salvation. By exercising self-control
and asceticism the individual was able both to handle lust and desire correctly and to avert
energy and means towards more prospective outcomes. The idea that the individual’s wealth
was a sign of divine grace in that way led to behaviour directed towards investments instead
of spending, thus creating the financial basis for capitalism.
Following Weber’s thesis, Campbell (1987) studied the other side of asceticism, namely
how the restraints implied in self-control increase awareness of the sensual and emotional
sides of the body. Renunciation arouses the senses and draws attention to the body as a locus
of pleasure and fantasies. As an unintended consequence individuals began to perceive
themselves as sensitive beings thereby emphasizing the importance of subjective experiences,
imaginations and feelings. This sensitivity reached a climax in Romanticism around 1800
where experiences, spontaneity and sensuality were defined as positive values against
Rationalism, which in turn was criticized for being barren and hostile towards human nature.
Campbell’s argumentation is important for two reasons. First, it shows that the ethics of
Protestantism is not just an ethics of production. By its preoccupation with the right use of the
body it is, from the start, also an ethics of consumption. It does not exterminate lusts or
extinguish drives, but actually diverts these towards sensitivity. Pleasure is not caused by the
satisfaction of needs, but by the fulfilment of a desire that stems from the individual’s imagination. This desire and these imaginations were advanced because the Puritans tried to conceal
sensuality from public life. Attempts at controlling emotions refined sensitivity. There is no
absolute distinction between self-actualization and self-control; and contrary to suggestions by
the disciples of Elias the process of civilization and ‘formalization’ has not been reversed into
‘informalization’. The origins of the contemporary emphasis on experiences are instead located
in Puritanism and its renunciation of all worldly exuberance.
Second, Campbell introduces an important distinction between traditional and modern
hedonism. In its traditional form the hedonist tried to obtain pleasure by choosing objects,
which would arouse the senses. Pleasure was a simple sensory response to a pleasing stimulus.
In contrast, the modern form of hedonism relies much more on imagination. Pleasure is not so
much based on actual experiences with the object, but to a larger degree on the meanings
individuals can produce about the object. Moreover, individuals can long for absent and
unattainable objects, they can envision the object completely differently from how it really is,
and they can even abstain from using the object of desire. Most crucially, they can do all this,
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Jantzen et al.
11
without diminishing the experience. The modern hedonist, who is a skilled manipulator of own
impressions and sensations, can play on a much wider and more sophisticated scale of possible
experiences than even the mightiest despot in the era of traditional hedonism. This modern
hedonist is a ‘dream-artist’ who has learned to control the world of objects and to modulate his
or her own feelings and senses in order to optimize pleasure (Friedberg, 1993).
Hedonism as therapy and ideology. By focusing on the consequences and not the origins of
capitalism, Lears (1981, 1983, 1984) highlights another aspect of Weber’s analysis: how technology, scientific knowledge and bureaucratic control lead to the rationalization of life. The world,
according to Weber’s analysis, had been differentiated into separate compartments no longer
united by shared values. Rationality progressively pervaded all spheres of life, thereby threatening
to erase humanity as the core of human existence. By the end of the 19th century these frustrations
had given rise to a new therapeutic ethos that presented an alternative to the doctrine of reticence
and abstention that had dominated in the Victorian era. The spiritual and psychological wounds of
rationalization could be healed by abundance. Modern mental diseases like neurasthenia or melancholy could be cured by intensive sensual experiences. Shock therapies utilizing strong sensations were seen as the means by which the self could be reintegrated.
For Lears (1981) this type of ‘abundance therapy’ was diametrically opposed to the established
‘scarcity therapy’, which had prescribed a cure of rest, moderation and reticence as the core
elements in restoring balance in life. Whereas the older therapies had emphasized restraint, this
new therapy made personal growth and spontaneity seminal to regaining happiness. Individuals
had to let go, embrace the world and express their feelings if they wanted a fuller and richer life.
The growth metaphor meant that the process of experiencing became more important than its
result: growing in itself became a goal in life. Personality was conceived as constantly emerging as
flexible and mutable, without an inner core, and thereby open to new impressions and sensations
(James, 1950 [1890]; Mead, 1934). This concept bears remarkable resemblance to the way in
which postmodern psychologists conceive of the self: personality can be moulded to fit a vast
range of situations, and identity is an instantaneous effect of the individual’s ongoing interactions
with the world (e.g. Gergen, 1991; Zurcher, 1977).
The emergence of humanistic psychology around 1950 marked a turning point in this new role
for psychology. The existential approach developed by Maslow (1943) and Rogers (1961, 1970)
stressed in theory and practice the importance of individual autonomy and sketched a route map
towards a free and better life. Because freedom was characterized by spontaneity and authenticity,
it became the aim of therapy to guide the individual towards as high a degree of self-actualization
as possible. Therapy should restore the individual’s contact with his or her own nature, thought of
as an unconditionally ‘good’ quality that had been corrupted by culture. Therefore therapy focused
on restoring the individual’s natural authenticity. In Maslow’s hierarchy of needs self-actualization
is realized on the highest and most desirable level, where the individual has grown out of his or her
cultural constraints and thereby regained freedom.
Self-actualization is seminal to the emotional regime of experiential consumption by being presented as the ideal end point of balanced emotionality. Contemporary consumer culture presents
this goal as a primary right and possibly a primary obligation. Self-actualization is the method
to adapt, mend or profit from the consequences of modernity. It has become an integrative part
of market economy, sold by certified psychologists but also by a vast cottage industry of selfmade therapists, healers, and other groups of ‘emotional engineers’ (Kvale, 2003). It is impossible
to measure the precise effects of this whole gamut of commercial advice on emotions and
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experiences. But it seems reasonable to assume that these talks and instructions have conveyed
the impression that it is good to be sensitive and spontaneous, and not least that it might even
be morally right to strive for pleasure. The emotional regime of experiential consumption may thus
redeem the long nourished wish of social reformers from around 1900 as well as marketers in the
20th century for a new morality based not on scarcity and thrift but on abundance and extended
consumption (Patten, 2004 [1907]).
Patten’s prophecy of a transition from an ‘age of deficit’ to an ‘age of surplus’ and the passage
from a ‘pain economy’ to a ‘pleasure economy’ was influential in the discussions on the economic
revolution of that time. Both James (1911) and Lippmann (1986 [1914]) drew upon Patten’s
observations in their attempt to understand the cultural revolution, which was implied in the
transformation of capitalism from property ownership to corporate business. Consumption was
emerging as the driving force of economy, destabilizing traditional gender distinctions, questioning the existing ethos of work, and making the inner-directed personality type obsolete. One of
the main consequences of this revolution was that it gave women a totally new role and selfconfidence in social life. As Lippmann aptly remarked: ‘We hear a great deal about the classconsciousness of labour. My own observation is that in America to-day consumers’ consciousness
is growing very much faster’ (Lippmann cited in Livingstone, 1998: 424). As consumption was
very much conceived as an activity belonging to the female sphere this meant a ‘feminization’
of society and a higher emphasis on subjectivity, on feelings and sensitivity, in the public sphere.
Another of the consequences of this revolution was that social integration and the conditions of
labour had to be reconsidered. Patten pointed at the necessity of civilizing the working class by
incorporating them in the ‘pleasure economy’. Work should cease to be painful, and workers
should be enabled to use the profits of their labour for enjoyable consumption. Amusement was
hence seen as an emancipating and integrating tool:
Vice must be fought by welfare, not by restraint; and society is not safe until today’s pleasures are
stronger than its temptations. Men must enjoy, and emphasis should be laid upon amusement so
extended and thorough that primitive people may be incorporated by its manifold activities into the
industrial world. (Patten, 2004 [1907]: 142 f.)
It was not until the post-war era that this programme could begin to be achieved and required more
than simply giving workers access to mass consumption. As foreseen by Patten and regretted by
Marcuse (1964), access to pleasure, that is to specific ideals of why, how, what, and where to consume in an experientially gratifying way, was also necessary.
A fully developed democracy of pleasures would, if imaginable, imply that all social groups or
lifestyles have equal rights to define and to find their own specific form of pleasure. But as shown
in Bourdieu’s (1984) extensive analysis of styles and tastes in France of the 1960s there remained
significant differences between the working class and the middle classes in ways of relating to the
world of goods. The working class preferred to satisfy needs immediately in order to generate
actual sensual pleasures. Because ‘luxury’ and ‘affluence’ were perceived as ‘more of the same’
this set of preferences was still embedded in the paradigm of traditional hedonism. The uppermiddle classes on the other hand rejected immediate sensations in favour of more contemplative
attitudes where pleasure is derived in a more refined and controlled process of imagination.
Schulze (1992) identifies the emergence of new distinctions in 1980s Germany. According to
Schulze, the experience society is characterized by a third set of preferences that value excitement
as an alternative to preferences for high culture (contemplation) as well as those for comfort
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(affluence) as outlined by Bourdieu (1984). Preferences for excitement emphasize bodily
sensations and appreciate action as a way of producing experiences. They aim at inner rewards
either by sensual stimulation or by actualization of the authentic self. Schulze states that such
preferences are typical for the generations following the youth rebellion of the 1960s. Modern
hedonism thus implies such complex and contradictory operations as reacting spontaneously to
unexpected events, manipulating moods and sensations, and choosing self-confidently from the
world of objects. The ideal experiential consumer must be able to plan and organize his or her
experiences, and at the same time be capable of being surprised. He or she acts deliberately, reacts
emotionally uninhibited, and moreover has the capacity of verbalizing how mass-produced goods
contain authentic messages about the self.
Conclusion
We began by outlining how both cognitive and cultural accounts of emotion are overly limiting in
being able to understand the role and priority of emotion and experience in modern consumer
cultures. The concept of emotional regimes is useful in providing a way to develop a more
hybridized account, in which the universal character of emotion and the historical and political
development of emotionality in culture can be brought together in a common explanation. One of
the most salient characteristics of the emotional regime of consumer culture is a derived form of
hedonism and the emphasis that this places on pleasure, and sensory and ‘inner’ experiences. Our
analysis of hedonism, in which we described some of its historical conditions and antecedents, can
be read as an attempt to describe in some detail the specific character of this emotional regime.
In some respects the modern marketplace can appear to be a realization of the pleasure economy
prophesized by Patten a century ago. Corporate capitalism and welfare economics have shaped the
structural conditions for abundance, giving citizens in the western world access to pleasurable
products, goods, services and experiences, as well as creating the possibilities for subjectivities in
which pleasure seeking is understood as a justifiable and even admirable life-goal (Firat and Venkatesh, 1995). But it has not created a new social and economic reality where joy reigns eternal.
Wealth has been invested in order to optimize comfort: i.e. the absence of pain; and this may have
produced joylessness (Scitovsky, 1976) and disenchantment (Ritzer, 1999).
The emergence of this emotional regime of experiential consumption is the unintended outcome
of the interactions between structural conditions of modern corporate capitalism, advancing both
the supply and the demand side of consumer commodities aimed at experiences, and subjective
conditions of modernity, favouring modern hedonism as a both sensual and active way of relating
to the external world. The emotional regime of experiential consumption is a technique for
intensifying sensibility, developed and taught by the ethics of Protestantism in which the individual
has learned to calculate pleasure. It is a discourse through which to verbalize the methods of
pleasure seeking, the quality of experiential products and the value of emotions, generated by
‘therapies of abundance’ in which individuals learn to express and assess experiences. And it is an
ideology turning pleasure into a legitimate existential goal in life for the sake of self-actualization,
derived from Romanticism and explicated by humanistic psychology. The individual has learned
to measure his or her success in life in terms of experiences. Together, these aspects have contributed to the modern urge and ability to relate in an experiential way to the market, what we might
term ‘overlearned habits’ (Isen and Diamond, 1989). The core premise of this regime is that fun
and pleasure are important to life, because they are essential for personal development as well
as for social dynamics.
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Pleasurable experiences are certainly no less important or significant than other types of
experience or consumption goals. But at the root of this emotional regime is a contradiction
between authenticity as a goal and inauthentic commodities as the means to reach this goal.
Furthermore the regime establishes new fields of social comparison and therefore competition and
when we fail to achieve pleasurable ambitions, anxieties, or kinds of emotional deficit, result.
This apparent contradiction might originate in a misconception about satisfaction. Pain and
pleasure are not opposite poles on a scale of more or less discomfort but, and as implied by
Bentham (2007 [1789]), two separate forces of motivation. Pain motivates a pattern of consumption directed at satisfying needs, which is emotionally experienced as relief. The fulfilment of
this motivation on a social level fosters stability and harmony. Pleasure on the other hand motivates
a pattern of consumption driven by the urge to experience the extraordinary, which produces
bodily excitation or relaxation leading to either ecstatic or meditative emotions. On the social level
this urge for pleasure may have a destabilizing effect by favouring transgressions of and excess
from ordinary life (Bataille, 1985 [1932]; Jantzen and Østergaard, 1998). The youth rebellion of
the 1960s aimed precisely at destabilizing such social harmony, criticized for being a new form of
social repression. Transgression and excess were perceived as the means for overthrowing the
capitalist system, but certainly also as tools in the private politics of identity construction.
This foregrounding of bodily excitement and/or mental absorption as methods for selfdevelopment gave fun, feelings and fantasies political significance. In time, however, cultural
industrial and commercial interests began to cater for the tastes of this new generation of young
consumers by offering product and services that were capable of delivering pleasurable experiences. Herbie the anthropomorphic Volkswagen Beetle was an early remarkable example. It featured in the Disney movie The Love Bug (1968) and in a number of sequels. These films
successfully depicted the car as a fun and ‘young’ personality able to laugh or ‘wink’ its headlights.
As ordinary products were redesigned as pleasurable, for example by being marketed as new,
extraordinary and inherently emotional, the reintegration of pleasure into social stability began.
This has led to the hedonic treadmill where short moments of happiness soon become succeeded
by longer stretches of indifference.
Elated experiences are thus not just for fun. They are serious business too, also from the perspective of the consumer. He or she is faced with the challenge of finding authentic happiness in a
world of mass produced and hence inauthentic commodities. The crux of the matter is of course
why pleasure and not comfort has become the token of ‘the good life’. The simple answer to this
question is that pleasure is derived from transgression and hence points towards a universe of
eternal meaningfulness, intimacy and joy beyond the routines of quotidian life. A more complex
answer is that pleasure as a transgressing force contributes to perpetual change. It is an effect of the
dynamics of novelty and surprise and as such implies aesthetics as well as ethics. The aesthetics of
pleasure is novelty for the sake of pleasure, which is found in new styles, new relations or new
goods. The ethics of pleasure is novelty for the sake of self-actualization, which is found in the
questioning of existing projects, relations or preoccupations by new ‘horizons’ of opportunities.
Such ethics are at the heart of the emotional regime of experiential consumption based on the
ideology of self-actualization. Self-actualization is the perpetual development of identity by
ongoing elaborations of taste, feelings and life projects, with the purpose of becoming the person
‘that you really are’. This regime is a modern version of Romanticism’s sensibility, which defined
feelings as the locus of authenticity. Its roots are also to be found in the ethics of Protestantism, an
ethics of asceticism. First, that regime developed a set of techniques for manipulating bodily sensations and controlling emotions that are highly efficient for developing appetites, increasing
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pleasure or arousing the senses, even though these goals may be quite the opposite of what 17th
century Protestants were aiming at. Second, by stressing self-actualization as the legitimate end
point of emotionality the modern ethics of pleasure makes redemption a matter of individual
responsibility or obligation, just like Protestantism. Ultimately it is the hedonist’s own effort that
determines whether the experience will be emotionally pleasing or not, and disappointment can be
interpreted as a sign of failing personal competences. This kind of guilt is not unlike that of predestination in that the wrongful administration of material surplus may indicate some kind of
deficit.
Modern hedonism is anything but (just) fun. It may have severe consequences on personal
identity by confronting the individual with their own deficiencies and inabilities. Most western
citizens can make pleasure an independent goal in their life, but this does not imply that all kinds of
pleasure are valued equally. This is precisely the meaning of an emotional regime: certain ways of
‘doing emotions’ are preferable to others. ‘Doing pleasure’ by defying immediate satisfaction and
by headstrong choosing of uncommon objects clearly distinguishes the ‘elite hedonist’ from more
‘coarse’ or traditional hedonists. Hedonism thus becomes a field of social comparison with trendsetters and early adapters as well as people who lag behind (Peterson and Kern, 1996). The
importance of both what to choose and how to do pleasure presupposes a system of discourse
directing and instructing individuals on preferable objects of pleasure as well as enabling them to
express their experiences with such objects in clear and distinctive terms. Therapeutic discourses
established more than 100 years ago and since then disseminated by mass media have served this
function.
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Christian Jantzen is Head of Department, Dept. of Communication & Psychology, Aalborg University. His
fields of research are consumer studies, the aesthetics of market communication, and experience design. He
has published articles on consumer studies and market communication, and edited a book on Music in Advertising (with Nicolai Graakjaer, Aalborg University Press, 2009). He has written several Danish books on experience economy and experience design. The latest title is Oplevelsesdesign. Tilrettlaeggelse af unikke
oplevelseskoncepter, Copenhagen: Samfundslitteratur, 2011 (Experience Design. Designing Unique Experiential Concepts). This book is co-authored by Mikael Vetner and Julie Bouchet. Address: Aalborg University, Department of Communication & Psychology, Nyhavnsgade 14, 9000 Aalborg, Denmark. [email: [email protected]]
James Fitchett is Professor of Marketing and Consumption in the School of Management at the University of
Leicester. His research areas include consumer research, critical marketing studies and marketing theory. He
is co-author of Marketing: A Critical Text (Sage, 2010). Address: University of Leicester, School of Management, University Road, Leicester LE1 7RH, UK. [email: [email protected]]
Per Østergaard is Associate Professor at Department of Marketing & Management, University of Southern
Denmark. His research interests include interpretive consumer research, consumer culture, branding, fashion
and philosophy of science. He has published articles on women’s lingerie consumption and identity construction, and books on social science research methods. He is currently research director for an innovation network on market, communication and consumption. Address: University of Southern Denmark, Department of
Marketing & Management, Campusvej 55, DK-5230 Odense M, Denmark. [email: [email protected]]
Mikael Vetner is Head of School, School of Communication, Art & Technology at Aalborg University. His
fields of research are primarily technology studies, discourse analysis and experience design. Mikael Vetner has
published articles on the concept of technology, experience design, the experience of urbanity and has written
books on the internet, experience design and the experience economy. The most recent Danish title
(Oplevelsesdesign: Tilrettelæggelsen af unikke oplevelseskoncepter) is co-authored with Christian Jantzen and
Julie Bouchet and covers the design of a range of consumer experiences. Address: Aalborg University, Department of Communication & Psychology, Nyhavnsgade 14, 9000 Aalborg, Denmark [email: [email protected]]
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