The buying of social symbols front object’s consumption

Abstract

This article analyzes the consumer’s behavior playing special attention to the buying of “social symbols” and to the meaning of the concept necessity in the current society, considering that –from a sociological point of view—this concept must be defined taking into account that “the volume of the natural necessities and the way of satisfying them is a product which depends on the cultural level of the country”. Once the elements involved in the act of buying have been analyzed (possession of the product, it’s utility, the buying ritual), we will analyze how the buying habits influence on the structure of everyday’s life, using for this purpose the answers given to a survey carried out to a representative sample of the navarran society.