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Boycotts And Buycotts: How We Use Money To Express Ourselves

Ivanka Trump's brand has been the target of boycotts and "buycotts" in recent months, as Americans have been expressing their values with their wallets.
Mark Lennihan
/
AP
Ivanka Trump's brand has been the target of boycotts and "buycotts" in recent months, as Americans have been expressing their values with their wallets.

Americans have long expressed their political views with their wallets, but in recent months, this phenomenon has made national news. A campaign called #grabyourwallet has targeted brands affiliated with Donald Trump. And the Trump camp has responded in kind, with one of his closest aides encouraging people to support his daughter Ivanka's brand.

Neeru Paharia is a researcher at Georgetown University, and she says this kind of economic activity can make us feel powerful.

"It seems like people are a little fed up and disillusioned with conventional political channels," Paharia says. "In the absence of that legitimacy there has been sort of a rise in political consumerism."

We might think that we use money mostly to satisfy economic needs, but Paharia has found in her research that we often aim to satisfy psychological ones — whether that means driving a fancy car to show off our social status, or buying coffee at the local shop instead of a chain to express our moral values.

But while we do use money to support causes we believe in, we are often selective about when we express those beliefs — and when we ignore them.

Hidden Brain is hosted by Shankar Vedantam and produced by Maggie Penman, Jennifer Schmidt, Rhaina Cohen, and Renee Klahr. Our supervising producer is Tara Boyle. You can follow us on Twitter @hiddenbrain, and listen for Hidden Brain stories each week on your local public radio station.

Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

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Shankar Vedantam is the host and creator of Hidden Brain. The Hidden Brain podcast receives more than three million downloads per week. The Hidden Brain radio show is distributed by NPR and featured on nearly 400 public radio stations around the United States.
Jennifer Schmidt is a senior producer for Hidden Brain. She is responsible for crafting the complex stories that are told on the show. She researches, writes, gathers field tape, and develops story structures. Some highlights of her work on Hidden Brain include episodes about the causes of the #MeToo movement, how diversity drives creativity, and the complex psychology of addiction.
Rhaina Cohen is an associate producer for the social science show Hidden Brain. She's especially proud of episodes she produced on why sexual assault allegations are now being taken seriously, on obstacles to friendship that men face and why we rehash difficult memories.
Tara Boyle is the supervising producer of NPR's Hidden Brain. In this role, Boyle oversees the production of both the Hidden Brain radio show and podcast, providing editorial guidance and support to host Shankar Vedantam and the shows' producers. Boyle also coordinates Shankar's Hidden Brain segments on Morning Edition and other NPR shows, and oversees collaborations with partners both internal and external to NPR. Previously, Boyle spent a decade at WAMU, the NPR station in Washington, D.C. She has reported for The Boston Globe, and began her career in public radio at WBUR in Boston.