Exploring consumer needs with lewin's life space perspective

Consumer needs are assumed to be originated from tensions between perceptions of the self and the environment by which the whole psychological field, life space, is developed. Dual research problems are developed from this proposition; one is to approach a basic framework of consumer life space and the other is to explore consumer needs from different life spaces for comparing distinctive characteristics within and across different life spaces. The structure of a consumer life is developed with three nations' time use studies from which all possible human activities are listed, clustered, and re-clustered to obtain a basic framework for consumer life spaces. Three GT studies collect consumer needs on learning, a kitchen, and an imaging device for representing those needs from a self, a family, and a leisure/cultural life space, respectively. Consumer needs are repeatedly clustered and underlying three dimensions in consumer needs are deduced: self-oriented vs. others-oriented, functional vs. emotional, and autotelic vs. instrumental. The three dimensions produce eight types of consumer needs, with which distinctive characteristics of consumer needs from different life spaces become manifested. The concept of consumer life space could enhance designer's capacity to envision and interpret underlying forces of consumer needs in a more humane way.