Ensayos celulares funcionales y de señalización

The majority of reuse in consumer electronics categories investigated in this study is unlikely to be for the self. Townsend, Vann, Mutha, Pearson, Jang, Musson and Jordon (2004) state that Africa is the world’s latest destination for obsolete electronic equipment as the majority of this material is more or less functional and provided in good faith by well-meaning donors. For electronic products (unlike clothing), the average consumer is not capable of

repurposing an electronic device via the physical alteration of components so that it can be reused for another purpose. It is possible that reuse could be achieved without any physical alteration – for example, a laptop computer could be retained and reused solely as a storage device – but, as Townsend et al. (2004) highlight, most reuse in electronics is carried out by third parties who disassemble and recycle parts, and thus requires a sale or donation from the original owner/consumer.

2.7.4.4 Storage

If a consumer wishes to retain a product but not use it then some form of storage is required. Here Jacoby et al.’s (1977) product size factor and

situational available storage space factor are both likely to have an influence.

Smaller electronic products such as mobile phones and cameras can easily

94 be stored in a drawer or cabinet at little negative impact to the daily

functioning of the household. However, without suitable additional storage space, the larger electronic products such as PCs, TVs and white goods would be more visible and have negative space impacts in the home.

Psychological characteristics associated with storage choice

Smested (2006) concluded there are two reasons behind a decision to store a product. The first involves the factors that led to the decision to store instead of still use or display the possession; while the second is based on the fact that such consumers have a preference for storage over any other disposal route when it comes to their possessions. These factors in the first reason include the following: a psychological notion that the owner has outgrown the product, that the item has become outdated and/or been replaced by an upgraded version, and that continued use or display is perceived by the individual as inappropriate. In this final case, the sense of what is appropriate comes from changes in the owner’s self-concept and/or their projected self to others. In all cases, the choice of storage is regarded as a good solution as it removes the possession from show but still allows for retrieval and

reminiscence if required. The second group of factors involve consumers who prefer storage over any other means of disposition, in most cases because they are driven by an emotional attachment to the possession. Such emotion drivers to store can manifest in a number of ways. It may be in the form of a wish to keep the possession in the family, for such items as heirlooms and toys, and thus keeping any ‘strangers’ away (that is, outsiders possessing no relationship to the item and thus no right to own it). Alternatively, if the

possession had originally been a gift, a permanent disposal choice could be regarded as inappropriate towards the giver. In this regard, empirical evidence obtained from a qualitative study by Smestad (2006) revealed no association with Jacoby’s (1997) situational factors of space, as ‘available space was found not to have any impact on the decision to store meaningful

possessions’ (p84).

95 The psychological factors in the literature directly related to retention

disposition routes include: product retention tendency (PRT), hoarding, saving, and item acquisition tendencies.

Consumer hoarding tendencies dating back over a century have been investigated by Frost and Gross (1993). They concluded that hoarding

appears to be correlated with several of the obsessive-compulsive personality traits (such as indecisiveness and perfectionism) and with a wide range of obsessive-compulsive symptoms such as depression and anxiety. Hoarding is also especially closely related to indecisiveness and saving. Saving things avoids the possibility of mistakenly throwing away something that will be needed later and postpones having to make the decision to discard a

possession (Frost and Gross, 1993). Frost and Hartl (1996) defined hoarding as consisting of a number of significant elements: the acquisition of a large number of possessions, subsequent failure to discard such possessions, and finally the resulting clutter that builds up in home areas such as living spaces, preventing the use of these spaces for the manner in which they were

originally designed. Frost, Tolin, Steketee, Fitch and Selbo-Bruns (2009) also found significant associations between excessive acquisition, and the

acquiring of free items such as brochures, giveaways or discarded items. In these authors’ online study of 878 self-identified hoarders, 85% met the criteria for excessive acquisition. Only a small group (5–20%) identified with hoarding but not acquisition, which could be explained by either the gradually passive acquisition of items over a longer period of time, or an inability to recognise their own behaviour as excessive acquisition.

Chandler and Schwarz (2010) investigated the replacement decision for cars, to conclude that their participants demonstrated less willingness to replace their car when they had thought about it in an anthropomorphic manner (that is, perceived the car as a living entity). In addition, as a result of such

anthropomorphic thoughts, the replacement intention was now ‘decoupled’

from their perception of the car's overall quality (Chandler and Schwarz, 2010). Haws et al. (2012) developed a scale to measure an individual's

96 general tendency to retain consumption-related possessions. Their findings suggest that PRT is positively associated with both waste avoidance and product attachment tendencies. Consumers with stronger PRT are more frugal; likely to reuse, repair and store; environmentally conscious; and attached to their possessions (Haws et al., 2012). This study clarifies that PRTs differ from hoarding in that ‘hoarding has a negative association with frugality and concern for the environment, a weaker positive association with creative reuse, and a stronger positive association with possession

attachment and materialism’ (p230). Haws et al.’s (2012) work holds across a variety of types of possessions, including durable and perishable goods.