Financial insecurity and deprivation / created by Eileen Fischer

Consumers worldwide are struggling with serious economic challenges. In virtually every nation, the disparity is growing between the wealthy and the poor. Consumer researchers are responding by trying to understand how consumers experience and cope with financial insecurity and deprivation. They are using an array of psychological, economic, and sociological theories coupled with methodological approaches ranging from experiments to econometrics to ethnographies. At one extreme is research that examines the “bottom of the pyramid” and attempts to understand factors that may mitigate the consequences of dire poverty. At the other extreme is research that considers how consumers who are not themselves currently facing diminished resources may modify their consumption behaviors when they perceive that others are spending less due to recessions or economic hardships.