Text Version For Printing

The Semiotics of Home Decor

{semiotics-general theories of signs and symbolism}

an excerpt of Home Psych: The Social Psychology of Consumption
written in 1983 by Joan Kron, an editor for Allure magazine.
Joan Kron has a personal interest in the social psychology of consumption.

I. Martin J. Davidson (Dawn Bennet)

a. Age 34
b. New York
c. Graphic Designer
d. Embodiment of Social Ills
¤Objection To Lifestyle
¤Admitted Overt Consumer
e. Guy Just Spending Hard Earned Cash
II. Mary Douglas
a. Wrote The World of Goods
¤"It is extraordinary to discover that no one knows why people want goods."
·20-21 Year Old Idea
·Published in 1979.
¤There is no proven or agreed upon theory of possessiveness.
¤There are many types of significant things.
·Security and stability can be derived from possessions.
·Our connection to the object correlates to our control over it.
III. Claude Lévi-Strauss
a. Wrote Edmund Leach
¤Published in 1980
¤Things are a symbol of status.
·What you have delineates where you may fit in society and what you may do with whom.
IV. Micheal J. Weiss
a. Interviewed Johnathan Robbin
¤He claimed that he could analyze a person's life by the zip code in which they lived, based on his thought that people of similar status often live in close proximity to one another.
V. Factors that make something desirable
a. Price
b. Rarity
c. Popularity With Celebrities
d. Icon Of Status
e. Sentimental Value
¤ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Eugene Rochburg-Halton
·"Meaning of Things"
-Published 1981
f. Represents Identity
¤ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Eugene Rochburg-Halton
·"Meaning of Things"
-Published 1981
¤ Eugene Rochburg-Halton
·"Where Is the Self: A Semiotic and Pragmatic Theory of Self and Environment"
-Presented 1981
g. Communicative Properties
VI. Things Noticed
a. Dates of Reference Materials
b. What Would the Lack of Certain Possesions Mean?