Social values are central to people’s lives, guiding behaviors, and judgments, and defining who we are. This book advances understanding of consumer social values and their roles in the global marketplace by refining and directing existing knowledge of consumer behaviors.

With a diverse set of contributors from different parts of the world, this engaging collection provides a unique examination of social values through cross-cultural research. It incorporates input from researchers with varying academic backgrounds from marketing to psychology and philosophy, and also focuses on a range of methodological approaches including surveys, ethnography, interviews, semantic analysis, and neuroscience. The book introduces innovative concepts and provides comprehensive coverage of several specialized areas, to offer an important contribution to values research and discussion. Key topics include values and choice; means-end chains; relations among goals; motives; religion and personality; value measurement and values related to specific services and industries.

Consumer Social Values is an essential resource for scholars, students, and practitioners of consumer psychology and marketing communications.