Behavioral Explanations of Luxury Consumption

Hasso Spode takes the reader on a journey through time to define luxury. He describes how this term has changed over the centuries and how, especially in the period after the world wars, the understanding of luxury has become more democratic, but even today luxury is still understood as a scarce good, although the definition of what is scarce has fundamentally changed. He says that people often do things simply because they are fun, and that there is a special quality of being in the game. In their contributions, Hannes Gurzki and David Woisetschlager talk about luxury as the extraordinary—as a contrast to the ordinary—and explore the question of human motifs and behavior, from aesthetics to self-realization. In another article, they explain the motivations and factors that trigger a consumer decision for luxury goods. It is about creating a need for the unattainable, the path to its fulfillment, and the further development of the need for the ever new. Marc Aeberhard describes to what extent fear is an important driving force for human creations. It is about overcoming existential fears such as the feeling of social isolation or failing in the economic process. Pastor Stephan Hagenow describes luxury as a foretaste of paradise and critically warns us to understand luxury as a journey to ourselves. He formulates the ten commandments of luxury tourism.