The History of Research on Consumer Well-Being and a Brief Reflection on the Concept

This chapter examines the historical development of research on consumer well-being, tracing its roots from early consumer movements in the early 1900s to the rise of the Transformative Consumer Research Movement in the 2000s. Moreover, based on the evidence presented in this book and guided by insights from positive psychological theory, this chapter proposes a succinct yet comprehensive definition of consumer well-being in order to establish a basis for the systematic advancement of consumer well-being research. Accordingly, consumer well-being is defined as the subjective well-being that derives from consumers' orientations, resources, behaviors, and experiences. The chapter concludes that consumer researchers should focus on identifying specific consumer orientations and behaviors that lead to experiences that contribute to consumers' subjective well-being, as well as the antecedents of these orientations and the resources of any kind that facilitate the conversion of these orientations into behaviors.