ABSTRACT
This chapter overviews the desired and the undesired self in consumer research, illustrating how individuals use their (anti-)consumption choices to approach their desired selves and avoid their undesired selves. It discusses the roles of possible, situational and relational selves in regulating the (anti-)consumption activities and that enable the selves to be approached or avoided. The chapter illuminates how individuals' need to belong influences their decisions in terms of which selves to approach or avoid in specific social contexts. The relational self thesis focuses on how an individual's sense of self, including thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and self-regulatory strategies, is influenced by their relations with relevant significant others. Consumer researchers often examine the link between the self and the need to belong via the context of reference groups. There are three typical types of reference groups: the membership reference groups, the aspirational reference groups, and the dissociative/negative reference groups.
