Once Upon a Time: Childhood Relationships and Their Role in the Self-Memory System

Depth interviews are combined with netnographic inquiry in order to explore consumers’ relationships with consumption artifacts from childhood. Fournier (1998) referred to these relationships as Childhood Friendships, and defined them as infrequently engaged, affectively laden relationships reminiscent of earlier times that yield comfort and security of the past self. Emergent themes indicate that that Childhood Friendships also play an important role in building and sustaining the current self. Animated spokescharacters provide a useful meaning repository for public presentation of the self in cyberspace since they are pervasive and have become part of the consumer culture.

Citation:

Paul Connell and Hope Schau (2007) ,"Once Upon a Time: Childhood Relationships and Their Role in the Self-Memory System", 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: 434-437.