Within the conceptual framework of the Tightness-Looseness paradigm, we study the dynamics of the social salience of self-control (tight) vs-self-indulgence (loose) orientations across the 20th century on the basis of the English Google Books corpus, by means of the construction of specific lexica of which we track their relative frequencies. We find that whereas the trend of self-control displays a steady increase throughout, that of self-indulgence is U-shaped, so that following a decline along the most part of the century, starting from the late 70s-early 80s we observe a reversal of the trend that signals an increasing salience of self-indulgence. Such result seems to reflect the consumerist turn that has characterized the post-industrial cycle from the 80s onwards. The coexistence of growing trends for mutually antagonizing orientations calls for further analysis of their social interplay. We also perform a parallel analysis on semantically related lexica that confirms the robustness of our findings.

The self-control vs. self-indulgence dilemma: A culturomic analysis of 20th century trends / Acerbi, Alberto; Sacco, Pier Luigi. - In: JOURNAL OF BEHAVIORAL AND EXPERIMENTAL ECONOMICS. - ISSN 2214-8043. - 101:(2022), pp. 101946.1-101946.9. [10.1016/j.socec.2022.101946]

The self-control vs. self-indulgence dilemma: A culturomic analysis of 20th century trends

Acerbi, Alberto
Co-primo
;
2022-01-01

Abstract

Within the conceptual framework of the Tightness-Looseness paradigm, we study the dynamics of the social salience of self-control (tight) vs-self-indulgence (loose) orientations across the 20th century on the basis of the English Google Books corpus, by means of the construction of specific lexica of which we track their relative frequencies. We find that whereas the trend of self-control displays a steady increase throughout, that of self-indulgence is U-shaped, so that following a decline along the most part of the century, starting from the late 70s-early 80s we observe a reversal of the trend that signals an increasing salience of self-indulgence. Such result seems to reflect the consumerist turn that has characterized the post-industrial cycle from the 80s onwards. The coexistence of growing trends for mutually antagonizing orientations calls for further analysis of their social interplay. We also perform a parallel analysis on semantically related lexica that confirms the robustness of our findings.
2022
Acerbi, Alberto; Sacco, Pier Luigi
The self-control vs. self-indulgence dilemma: A culturomic analysis of 20th century trends / Acerbi, Alberto; Sacco, Pier Luigi. - In: JOURNAL OF BEHAVIORAL AND EXPERIMENTAL ECONOMICS. - ISSN 2214-8043. - 101:(2022), pp. 101946.1-101946.9. [10.1016/j.socec.2022.101946]
File in questo prodotto:
File Dimensione Formato  
JBEErevall.pdf

embargo fino al 31/12/2024

Tipologia: Post-print referato (Refereed author’s manuscript)
Licenza: Creative commons
Dimensione 534.08 kB
Formato Adobe PDF
534.08 kB Adobe PDF   Visualizza/Apri
1-s2.0-S2214804322001173-main.pdf

Solo gestori archivio

Tipologia: Versione editoriale (Publisher’s layout)
Licenza: Tutti i diritti riservati (All rights reserved)
Dimensione 2.08 MB
Formato Adobe PDF
2.08 MB Adobe PDF   Visualizza/Apri

I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione

Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11572/357822
Citazioni
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.pmc??? ND
  • Scopus 3
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.isi??? 2
  • OpenAlex ND
social impact