Compulsão por compras: uma análise psicossocial crítica acerca das subjetividades contemporâneas

Abstract

The contemporary subjective construction seems to be permeated by the market logic that is responsible for fabricate - through cultural industry - the most different lifestyles to be consumed by man. From this context, we reflect about the new disorders that emerge in the hypermodernity, using as example the behavior of the compulsive shoppers, analyzed from the Frankfurt School´s theoretical framework. Our goal is to understand the meanings of impulse buying, considering the social-cultural aspects and new forms of psychological suffering that the consumer society may be supplying for the men. Methodologically, we´ve made an empirical research at the digital and printed media, at the group Debtors Anonymous and at advertising campaigns that were, posteriorly, analyzed by the theoretical-critical approach. The first data collected at papers, magazines and Internet supported our initial hypothesis about the mostly intrapsychic explanations attributed to the impulse buying. However, in the end, our research showed that the compulsive buyers are not addicted to the objects themselves, but to the very act of consumption which acts as an escape valve for the contemporary malaise - this reveals the psychosocial aspect linked to that phenomenon. So, we detach that the consumer culture, mainly by the fetishism of the objects and seductive strategies of the financial system, acts as a potentiator for this behavior because it proclains, but never obeys, that the signic objects will be able to remedy the uncertainties and anxieties of hypermodern life. This way, we believe that the impulse buying is a rich reflection font about the subjective suffering entailed by the contemporary capitalism that utilizes the logic of desire in favor of the market logic.