Beyond the extended self: Loved objects and consumers' identity narratives

This article investigates the possessions and activities that consumers love and their role in the construction of a coherent identity narrative. In the face of social forces pushing toward identity fragmentation, interviews reveal three different strategies, labeled demarcating, compromising, and synthesizing solutions, for creating a coherent self-narrative. Findings are compared to Belk's Possessions and the Extended Self. Most claims from Belk are supported, but the notion of a core versus extended self is critiqued as a potentially confusing metaphor. The roles of loved objects and activities in structuring social relationships and in consumer well-being are also explored.