Tension between Values of Traditional and Consumerist Cultures in a Sri Lankan Context: A Self-Discrepancy Perspective

Abstract

Consumers in societies that are still strongly influenced by traditional cultural values experience tension when traditional cultural values conflict with consumerist values. This paper aims at providing a theoretical explanation for these tensions using the theory of Self-discrepancy. The study, conducted in Sri Lanka, used an interpretive qualitative approach, where data were collected through interviews with a middle-class consumer segment from a relatively strong traditional cultural background, but who are also significantly exposed to the consumer culture. The findings demonstrate that cultural tension can be explained as resulting from different forms of Selfdiscrepancy and that there are differences between the nature and intensity of tension experienced by consumers with different sociodemographic characteristics. In particular, the tension appears to be greater among consumers who had moved to urban areas from rural Sri Lanka, whose affiliation with cultural values is strong, and among parents with dependent children because the children are very strongly influenced by the consumer culture. The theory of Self-expansion in conjunction with the theory of Self-discrepancy is used in the attempt to explain the dynamics between parent and child.

Conscious shopping of middle-class consumers during the pandemic: Exploratory study in Mexico, Nigeria, Poland, and Sri Lanka

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Understanding sustainable consumption experiences among the new middle class in an emerging market: A social cognitive approach

“…In 2010, the Asian Development Bank used consumption as an indicator (from USD $2 to $20) to assess the size of "developing Asia's middle class" and estimated that approximately 40 percent of Sri Lanka's population (20,668,557 at the time, according to the World Bank (2024)) had consumption between $2 to $4 per day, around 20 percent had consumption between $4 and $10, and about 5 percent at $10 to $20 per day (Chun, 2010) Existing literature on the new middle class (NMC) in Sri Lanka considers this in-country group distinct from the pre-liberalisation traditional middle class because of the group's greater discretionary incomes, consumerist lifestyles, and orientation toward the modern, rather than the traditional (Chandrasekara et al, 2023;Liyanage, 2009Liyanage, /2010. These modern values and consumerist desires contrast sharply with the firmly established religious and cultural traditions in the country, creating a complex social context in which to study consumption (Chandrasekara & Wijetunga, 2016;Liyanage, 2009Liyanage, /2010.…”

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