On The Concept Of Face Consumption

Consumption is a process that people choose, purchase and use goods to meet their certain requirements. As the subject of the consumption, consumers exist in certain social groups and cultural environment. The social and cultural existence of the consumers means that the researches on consumption not only have great significance on economics and psychology, but also have important social and cultural significance. What a person consumes, how he consumes, why he consumes and other related issues are not entirely decided by the consumer himself, but influenced by society, culture and other factors."Face consumption", the term this paper intends to discuss, is a specific type of consumption that is deeply influenced by Chinese society and culture and widely exists in different social groups. The author reviews the past researches on the term face, tells the difference between individual face and social face and then defines the term "face consumption " as the consumption a person takes to meet others’ relatively stable and mutual expectation due to his position in a particular social encounter. Based on this definition, the two characteristics of "face consumption" are described, which are displaying and passive. After that, the author analyses the major areas of "face consumption" and its impact on people. In the last part, the author interprets the reason why "face consumption" arises in the perspective of traditional culture, social identification and social norms.