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his new garment. Compared to his elegant new dressing gown, the rest of his possessions began to seem tawdry and he became dissatisfied that they did not live up to the elegance and style of his new possession. He replaced his old straw chair, for example, with an armchair covered in
Moroccan leather; his old desk was replaced with an expensive new writing table; his formerly beloved prints were replaced with more costly prints, and so on. "I was absolute master of my old dressing gown", Diderot writes, "but I have become a slave to my new one ... Beware of the contamination of sudden wealth. The poor man may take his ease without thinking of appearances, but the rich man is always under a strain".
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likely to veer from a preferred
Diderot unity to strive towards unity in appearance and representation of one's social role. However, it can also mean that if an object that is somehow deviant from the preferred Diderot unity is acquired, it may have the effect of causing the consumer to start subscribing to a completely different Diderot unity.
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The effect was first described in
Diderot's essay of 1769 "Regrets on Parting with My Old Dressing Gown". In this essay Diderot tells how the gift of a beautiful scarlet dressing gown leads to unexpected results, eventually plunging him into debt. Initially pleased with the gift, Diderot came to rue
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usage in 1986, the
Diderot effect is the result of the interaction between objects within "product complements", or "Diderot unities", and consumers. A Diderot unity is a group of objects that are considered to be culturally complementary, to one another. McCracken suggests that a consumer is less
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is a phenomenon that occurs when acquiring a new possession leads to a spiral of consumption that results in the acquisition of even more possessions. In other words, buying something new can cause a chain reaction leading to one buying more and more things. Each new item makes one feel like one
114:-conscious consumption driven by dissatisfaction. Schor's 2005 essay "Learning Diderot's Lesson: Stopping the Upward Creep of Desire" describes the effect in contemporary consumer culture in the context of its negative environmental consequences.
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with existing possessions and environment, provoking a potentially spiraling pattern of consumption with negative environmental, psychological, and social impacts.
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50:(1713–1784), who first described the effect in an essay titled "Regrets for my Old Dressing Gown, or, A warning to those who have more taste than fortune".
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needs other things to go with it or to keep up with it. This can lead to overspending and accumulating more possessions than one needs or uses.
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Grant McCracken, Culture and
Consumption: A Theoretical Account of the Structure and Movement of the Cultural Meaning of Consumer Goods,
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Schor, Juliet B. ‘Learning
Diderot's Lesson: Stopping the Upward Creep of Desire,’ in Tim Jackson (ed), Sustainable Consumption (2005)
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Schor, Juliet B. "The
Overspent American: Why We Want What We Don't Need" Harper Perennial; 1st HarperPerennial Ed Pub. 1999 edition.
452:'Diderot Effect’Evans, D, in: P. Robbins, J. Mansvelt and G.Golson, editor(s). "Encyclopaedia of Green Consumerism". Sage; 2010.
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and describes
Diderot's behavior as 'a chain reaction of purchases' and links the Diderot effect to describe habit stacking.
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Atomic habits: an easy & proven way to build good habits & break bad ones: tiny changes, remarkable results
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Pantzar, Mika "Domestication of
Everyday Life Technology: Dynamic Views on the Social Histories of Artifacts" in
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Culture and
Consumption: New Approaches to the Symbolic Character of Consumer Goods and Activities
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Journal of Mehmet Akif Ersoy University Economics and Administrative Sciences Faculty
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Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones
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described this effect in his 1769 essay "Regrets for my Old Dressing Gown".
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https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/diderot/1769/regrets.htm
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334:"Learning Diderot's Lesson: Stopping the Upward Creep of Desire"
382:. Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1988
222:Çakaröz, Kübra Müge; Kılıç, Sabiha; Civek, Funda (2022-07-29).
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205:"Understanding The Diderot Effect To Overcome Overspending"
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English translation of Regrets on My Old Dressing Gown
295:"Creating Diderot unities – quest for possible selves?"
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The Overspent American: Why We Want What We Don't Need
46:in 1986, and is named after the French philosopher
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437:] (in French). Paris: Garnier – via
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293:Davis, Teresa; Gregory, Gary (2003-01-01).
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42:and scholar of consumption patterns
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203:Becker, Joshua (27 October 2021).
168:Ritzer, George, ed. (2007-02-15).
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472:Grant McCracken's blog
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355:Clear, James (2018).
174:(1 ed.). Wiley.
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476:Juliet Schor's Blog
496:Consumer behaviour
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378:McCracken, Grant
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