The article considers a range of issues in the analysis of the consumer society in order to develop an index that characterizes states in terms of the degree of their consumerization. The authors suggest the staging of social changes in the development of the consumer society, the possibility of comparing societies on a scale that reflects this staging, and the presence of distinctive features determined by the mechanism of transition to this type of society. The article explains the role of individual demand, the quantitative increase in the possibilities of which is reflected in its qualitative structure, which determines the growth of the non-material demand, the potential of which far exceeds any possible demand for material goods. Based on the review of studies and statistical data, the authors confirm the central role of branding in the consumer society and develop the consumerization index (IC) as a natural logarithm of the product of the average per capita number of registered trademarks (T) and average per capita consumer spending (S) of households (IC=ln(ST)). The index reflects the space of consumption opportunities for the average individual in a particular society. According to the authors calculations, the lowest values of the index are observed in the poor countries of Asia and Africa, where the consumer society is obviously undeveloped, while the maximum values of the index - in the regions that can be considered a reference in terms of consumption. The authors assessed the convergent and discriminant validity of the index on the indicators of the information society development, economic, political and cultural globalization, and the connections it generates correspond to theoretical expectations. Thus, the constructed index can be considered a valid indicator and can be used in empirical cross-country comparisons based on the concept of the consumer society.

Problem and purpose. The theoretical problem considered in the article is the effect of the phenomenon of “self-fulfilling prophecies” in the context of students’ and their parents’ choice of educational institutions. To illustrate, the emergence of a situation is investigated in which the choice of future strong students is determined by the level of the school, which depends on the choice of previous strong students. Research methods. A simulation experiment was conducted using MS Excel. A small community of “students” was modeled who get into “schools” during several cycles. Each “student” was assigned a randomly generated score, which is an integer number in the range from 2 to 5. For each student, the probability of going to one of the schools was calculated. Based on this distribution, a “rating” was calculated for each school – the average score of the “students” who have “chosen” this school. Starting from the second cycle, the distribution of “students” to “schools” was based on the average score received by schools in the previous cycle. Based on the results of all admission cycles, the indicator of leadership reproduction was calculated – the number of repeats of leading position that belongs to each school. Results. The main result of the experiment is the possibility to analyze the constant reproduction of leadership (fixing the random advantage of a school occurred in the first cycle in subsequent cycles of choice) in connection with selectivity. The relationship between these two indicators is non-linear, and as the level of selectivity grows, the probability of “good schools” appearing as perception artifacts increases rapidly, quickly reaching 100%. Interpretation of the results allows to conclude that individual orientations on the choice of educational institutions, being aggregated, contribute to the effect of “self-fulfilling prophecy” in relation to the appearance in the public consciousness of the perception of a particular educational institution as “good”, “prestigious”, etc. Conclusion. This pattern of behavior allows to predict the stratification of educational institutions by prestige under the influence of selective preferences, which must be taken into account in decision-making when forming educational policy.

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