TY - JOUR

T1 - Self-gifting and Temporal Selves

T2 - Insights from First-time Older Motherhood

AU - Liu, Chih-Ling

AU - Karanika, Katerina

AU - Hogg, Margaret

PY - 2024/9/1

Y1 - 2024/9/1

N2 - Prior literature has long established self-gifts as a form of symbolic self-communication that can be particularly meaningful and impactful for individuals to enhance self-concept clarity and self-definition during life transitions. However, little is known about how life transitions may bring about changes in the practices and meanings of self-gifting. Drawing on individual interviews with twenty-two first-time older mothers, this research uses temporal self-appraisal theory as the theoretical lens and temporal landmarks as a sensitizing framework to explore how people’s past, present and future selves may unfold and interact in influencing their self-gifting practices and meanings. Our findings contribute to a fuller understanding of the temporal nature of self-gifting by highlighting the varying self-gifting orientations that emerge from the interaction, reflecting changes in temporal self-appraisals and how they enable a sense of self-(dis)continuity for psychological wellbeing. The temporal perspective of self-gifts offers a theoretical framework for understanding how self-gifts, a form of symbolic self-communication, express, manage or facilitate perceived self-changes and the need for self-continuity. The marketing implications and applications of the theoretical framework are also discussed.

AB - Prior literature has long established self-gifts as a form of symbolic self-communication that can be particularly meaningful and impactful for individuals to enhance self-concept clarity and self-definition during life transitions. However, little is known about how life transitions may bring about changes in the practices and meanings of self-gifting. Drawing on individual interviews with twenty-two first-time older mothers, this research uses temporal self-appraisal theory as the theoretical lens and temporal landmarks as a sensitizing framework to explore how people’s past, present and future selves may unfold and interact in influencing their self-gifting practices and meanings. Our findings contribute to a fuller understanding of the temporal nature of self-gifting by highlighting the varying self-gifting orientations that emerge from the interaction, reflecting changes in temporal self-appraisals and how they enable a sense of self-(dis)continuity for psychological wellbeing. The temporal perspective of self-gifts offers a theoretical framework for understanding how self-gifts, a form of symbolic self-communication, express, manage or facilitate perceived self-changes and the need for self-continuity. The marketing implications and applications of the theoretical framework are also discussed.

KW - older motherhood

KW - self-change

KW - self-continuity

KW - self-gifts

KW - symbolic self-communication

KW - temporal landmarks

KW - temporal self-appraisal theory

KW - temporal selves

U2 - 10.1002/mar.22020

DO - 10.1002/mar.22020

M3 - Journal article

VL - 41

SP - 1934

EP - 1943

JO - Psychology and Marketing

JF - Psychology and Marketing

SN - 0742-6046

IS - 9

ER -