Series:

Routledge Interpretive Marketing Research

2 total works

Cover of The Undermining of Beliefs in the Autonomy and Rationality of Consumers

This book examines modern consumption, focusing on concepts of autonomy and rationality. In recent years, conventional ideas of 'free will' have come under attack in the context of consumer choice and similarly, postmodernists have sabotaged the very notion of consumer rationality. O’Shaughnessy and O'Shaughnessy adopt a moderating perspective, reviewing and critiquing these attacks in order to work towards a more nuanced view of the consumer: neither entirely autonomous nor perfectly rational.

While the first part of this book concentrates on assailing critiques of 'free-will', the second part takes issue with the postmodernist emphasis on the non-rational. The authors situate these critiques in the context of key academic debate, examining the logic and empirical bases for their claims thus leading to a deeper understanding of 'bounded' rationality and the potential of the adaptive unconscious to affect consumer choice.

Cover of Interpretation in Social Life, Social Science, and Marketing
'Interpretation' is used as an umbrella for bringing together a wide range of concepts and developments in the philosophy of social science that provide the foundation for clear thinking about social phenomena. In his new book, John O'Shaughnessy familiarises the reader with the nature of interpretation and its importance in social life, decision making in social science enquiries and consumer marketing, thus offering a multidisciplinary approach to problems of bias and uncertainty. Thus, this book is novel in its outlook and comprehensive in its approach. Whereas past studies in interpretation have focused on hermeneutical methods, O'Shaughnessy goes further considering the role of interpretation in social interactions, in undertaking scientific work, in the use of statistics, in causal analysis, in consumer evaluations of products and artifacts and in interpreting problematic situations together with the corresponding biases arising from emotional happiness and the concepts employed.