The Meaning of Things: Domestic Symbols and the Self

by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, Eugene Halton

The meaning of things is a study of the significance of material possessions in contemporary urban life, and of the ways people carve meaning out of their domestic environment. Drawing on a survey of eighty families in Chicago who were interviewed on the subject of their feelings about common household objects, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Eugene Rochberg-Halton provide a unique perspective on materialism, American culture, and the self. They begin by reviewing what social scientists and philosophers have said about the transactions between people and things. In the model of 'personhood' that the authors develop, goal-directed action and the cultivation of meaning through signs assume central importance. They then relate theoretical issues to the results of their survey. An important finding is the distinction between objects valued for action and those valued for contemplation. The authors compare families who have warm emotional attachments to their homes with those in which a common set of positive meanings is lacking, and interpret the different patterns of involvement. They then trace the cultivation of meaning in case studies of four families. Finally, the authors address what they describe as the current crisis of environmental and material exploitation, and suggest that human capacities for the creation and redirection of meaning offer the only hope for survival. A wide range of scholars - urban and family sociologists, clinical, developmental and environmental psychologists, cultural anthropologists and philosophers, and many general readers - will find this book stimulating and compelling.

Genres: Psychology, Design, Nonfiction, Material Culture, Sociology, Philosophy, Art Design

304 pages, Paperback

First published October 30, 1981

About the author

A Hungarian psychology professor, who emigrated to the United States at the age of 22. Now at Claremont Graduate University, he is the former head of the department of psychology at the University of Chicago and of the department of sociology and anthropology at Lake Forest College.

He is noted for both his work in the study of happiness and creativity and also for his notoriously difficult name, in terms of pronunciation for non-native speakers of the Hungarian language, but is best known as the architect of the notion of flow and for his years of research and writing on the topic. He is the author of many books and over 120 articles or book chapters. Martin Seligman, former president of the American Psychological Association, described Csikszentmihalyi as the world's leading researcher on positive psychology.

Csikszentmihalyi once said "Repression is not the way to virtue. When people restrain themselves out of fear, their lives are by necessity diminished. Only through freely chosen discipline can life be enjoyed and still kept within the bounds of reason." His works are influential and are widely cited.

Reviews

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was remarkable for a few reasons. First, I admire the political conviction of its authors. It's so rare to see academic books espouse a clear point of view (in this case: materialism is bad). I guess academics were able to do as much in the 1970s. Maybe someday we'll be back there. Second, the book does a remarkable job looking at an understudied subject and treating it fully (312 in-depth interviews!) and with the care and concern it deserves. It doesn't strive toward broad generalizations, but attempts to draw conclusions based on a huge amount of data in a way that both seems fair to the research subjects and not overambitious in terms of its actual results. And it does this while also clearly showing how the data is distributed, coded, and aggregated. I joked with Jason a bit that perhaps the reason this book isn't cited more often is due to the craziness of the first author's last name, but then I looked him up and found out he's remained famous and well-regarded (he's the "flow" guy). So, perhaps the real reason this book is so little cited is because people recognize the need to update the scholarship (to contemporary times) and can't bear the thought of embarking on such a study. It wouldn't be easy, but I imagine the results could be incredibly fruitful. In the meantime, I'll probably be able to use some of the actual data they cite regarding the importance of books as well as some of their more theoretical offerings regarding the motivations for assigning meaning to objects, particularly those in the home (the latter includes discussions of cultivation and symbolic worth).

[Jesus · Rating 3 out of 5]

Within a sample size of three hundred individuals from the Chicago area a couple decades ago, furniture is said to be the most meaningful part of domestic environments.

[Elia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful exposition of how people use, learn from, attach to, and create relationships with the objects in their homes. Eminently readable, even when they get into the nitty gritty of ethnographic data.

[Alya AlShaibani · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75

[Brad Needham · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a good example of ethnography in a broad sense: the authors begin with reviewing existing notions on the meaning of things, then dive into their own field study, comment/extrapolate on the results of the study, both qualitatively and quantitatively, then summarize with a sweeping chapter about the implications of the study.

It's clear at several points that the Chicago of 1977 is not the world of today, but that's ok: the study is in some ways an analysis of a distant, vanished tribe that can tell us some enduring things about various societies today.

Best of all, I found the book provocative in its analysis of what objects and transactions with objects mean, and how they gain those meanings. It also showed me a glimpse of the vast gulf between the world view of an engineer (a materialist in a formal sense) and that of an anthropologist.

[Catie Carlson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Read it for a book club. I felt like the conclusions that Csikszentmihalyi pulled from the study had a sexist nature to them, but that could have been the nature of the study being located in an upper class Chicago neighborhood.

[Rita Halfscatch]

fdafdsafs

[Christiane Alsop · Rating 4 out of 5]

Social research at its best.

[Barbara Mader · Rating 2 out of 5]

--some interesting stuff; just not what I expected, and somewhat dated by now.

[Caroll Chidori]

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