John Desmond Workshop

Masterclass with John Desmond

Thursday 23, April at 3:00 in Room ABS008​ (in the School of Management)​

We are fortunate to have John Desmond from St. Andrews University in Scotland come join us on Thursday. John is the author of the excellent Consumer Behaviour textbook and also the recent book on Hearts of Darkness which explores psychoanalysis in consumer research. John is also an outstanding teacher of marketing and this is a wonderful opportunity for us all. 

John has kindly agreed to present a short workshop on the topic of...

'Are Generation Y consumers narcissistic, altruistic, or both?​' 

There appears to be a major difference between those who argue that Millennial consumers are narcissistic (Twenge et al., 2008) and those who argue that they are largely altruistic (Welzel, 2009). The argument for narcissism gains support from Bauman’s (2000) concept of liquid modernity, which describes current consumer culture as liquid, where all notions of durability are abolished, so that Millenial consumers are constantly engaged in a series of shifting, discontinuous and shallow relations to people and objects. One interesting question is whether relationships with objects have become more liquid or are they simply different in form to those that preceded them? Do we treat people as objects. Also, in what situations do people seek liquid relationships, versus seeking stability and eschewing liquidity? An important part of any answer to this question is to evaluate the relevance of this metaphor to explain consumer culture today.