Social Psychology and Theories of Consumer Culture: A Political Economy Perspective

During the past several decades, particularly since the emergence of the theory of social cognition during the 1970s, there have been numerous critiques of mainstream psychological social psychology as irrelevent to the understanding of societal problems. McDonald (Assumption Univ., Bangkok, Thailand) and Wearing (Univ. of Technology, Sydney, Australia) contribute to the field of critical social psychology, arguing that to make meaningful change in social behavior, psychological social psychology must acknowledge and integrate diverse theories of and research on consumer culture and aspects of political ecomony that maintain it. Summing Up: Recommended - A.I. Piper, New College of Florida, in CHOICE, January 2014

This book should be essential reading for social psychologists interested in addressing `real-world' issues. The authors argue persuasively that social psychologists need to move beyond the comfort and limits of micro-theorising and experimental research in order to engage with concepts developed outside psychology but which matter greatly to individual identity and social relations: consumer culture and political economy. Perspectives from critical psychology, feminism, post-structuralism and social theory are deployed to critique problematic social psychological work and to enrich our understanding of key contemporary issues. - Prof. Brendan Gough, School of Social, Psychological & Communication Sciences, Leeds Metropolitan University, UK

The book is accessible and well organized, with the central thesis carried through and developed clearly. The authors argue strongly for a sustained and critical engagement with the contemporary political economy of the early twenty-first century if social psychology is to live up to its potential to engage with and develop effective solutions to the problems of selfhood, alienation and social exclusion that characterize contemporary society. - Werner Boehmke, MA, Department of Psychology, Rhodes University