Social identity as a useful perspective for self-concept-based consumer research

Psychology's study of the self-concept has generated numerous paradigms with different underlying assumptions. In this article it is argued that these assumptions must be considered before a self-concept paradigm can be meaningfully applied to consumer research. The major premise in this article is that the recent work on social identity is a particularly meaningful paradigm to adopt for consumer research that implicates the self. This argument is developed with a conceptual discussion of major self-concept issues, an overview of basic self-concept paradigms in psychology, and a synthesis of possible factors that may be considered in future theories of social-identity-based consumption decision making. (C) 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.