Revisiting Emulation: an Empirical Illustration of Status Aspirational Approaches

We illustrate that the theory of emulation is neither outdated, nor exploited—yet misunderstood, and identify nuances of emulative approaches on the level of social relations and show how they are structured according to dimensions of orientation and imitated authorities. By distinguishing between material style diffusion and emulative motives we show that material objects may move any direction whilst emulative motives always are directed upwards. Hence, consumers’ different emulative approaches may move material style from one unexpected group to another, but the meta motive is bound to the quest for a comfortable position in the universe of over-lapping status games.

Citation:

Sofia Ulver Sneistrup and Jacob Ostberg (2007) ,"Revisiting Emulation: an Empirical Illustration of Status Aspirational Approaches", in E - European Advances in Consumer Research Volume 8, eds. Stefania Borghini, Mary Ann McGrath, and Cele Otnes, Duluth, MN : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 451-458.