Credit Cards as Lifestyle Facilitators

Matthew J. Bernthal, David Crockett and Randall L. Rose

Journal of Consumer Research, 2005, vol. 32, issue 1, 130-145

Abstract: Credit cards are an increasingly essential technology, but they carry with them the paradoxical capacity to propel consumers along lifestyle trajectories of marketplace freedom or constraint. We analyze accounts provided by consumers, credit counselors, and participants in a credit counseling seminar in order to develop a differentiated theory of lifestyle facilitation through credit card practice. The skills and tastes expressed by credit card practice help distinguish between the lifestyles of those with higher cultural capital relative to those with lower cultural capital. Differences in lifestyle regulation practice are posited to originate in cultural discourses related to entitlement and frugality. (c) 2005 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc..

Date: 2005
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:jconrs:v:32:y:2005:i:1:p:130-145

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Journal of Consumer Research is currently edited by Bernd Schmitt, June Cotte, Markus Giesler, Andrew Stephen and Stacy Wood

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