Sentimental Social Roles and the Objects that Elicit Them

The history of objects as carriers of culture has been noted by anthropologists since the early 20th century (De Saussure 1915) and that objects have a social meaning for their possessors and users has continued on to become one of the central tenets of consumer research (Belk 1988). Objects themselves are known to reflect, elicit and signal identities (Levy 1959; LaBoeuf et al. 2010), prime specific motor movements in muscle (Larson et al. 2012) and elicit social roles by their mere presence (Kay et al. 2004). Further, many objects produced in—or in fashion during—particular eras become associated with the time periods they represent (the “Flapper” dresses of the 1920s, bell-bottomed jeans from the 1970s) and one repeating trend in design is calling back to those eras with vintage design elements. Interesting work (though surprisingly little) has been done by researchers to understand what creates interest in these vintage items (Loveland et al. 2010), but the current work seeks to examine the impact the vintage items themselves have on their beholders. While re search on implicit racism (Greenwald et al. 1998) and sexism (Rudman et al. 2001) has implied historical, quasi-anthropological origins for unsavory attitudes, recent research into less politically-charged subjects like North-South distinctions in American behavior (Nisbett and Cohen 1996) and implicit Puritanism in Americans (Uhlmann et al. 2011) has attempted to link current attitudes and behavior with specific historical periods. This work attempts to extend similar insights into the realm of consumer behavior and vintage products (there is no precise definition of terms like vintage, but consensus has formed that vintage design refers to designs under 80 years but over 30 years old).