Luxury in Times of Anxiety: Compensatory Consumption under Economic Uncertainty
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.54097/7gar5n35Keywords:
Consumer anxiety, Luxury consumption, Compensatory consumption, Economic uncertainty, Self-evaluation, Perceived control, Social-symbolic consumptionAbstract
Despite the continuous state of economic instability and increased consumer anxiety in the post-pandemic period, the global luxury consumption trend has actually remained strong. This paper attributes this paradoxical phenomenon to compensatory consumption and proposes that luxury consumption could actually be an important psychological resource for those confronting threatened self-evaluation, control, and social comparisons. Based on previous studies illuminating consumer anxieties, emotion regulation, and symbolic consumption, our paper provides a threefold conceptual framework to isolate psychological compensation to regain self-esteem and control, emotional compensation to reduce distress, and social-symbolic compensation to communicate symbolic markers. We further outline boundary conditions under which compensatory luxury consumption is more likely to emerge and discuss when such consumption may become maladaptive. By reframing luxury demand as partly motivated by self-regulatory goals under uncertainty, this article extends compensatory consumption theory to the luxury context and offers directions for future research on mechanism-specific outcomes and ethical implications.
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