Skip to main content

Lifestyle

  • Reference work entry

Introduction

Lifestyle as a term did not exist before the 1950s and was originally linked to modern art and appearance (e.g., fashion). It has since come to incorporate a broad range of practices and attitudes, for example, in the domains of sport and leisure, health and fitness, culture, religion, politics, and so on. It is now widely associated with consumption in late capitalist society, driven by mass market media publications (e.g., lifestyle magazines) and television programs. Initially women were the targets of lifestyle advice offered within popular magazines, but since the 1990s men have also become subjected to lifestyle discourse via male-only magazines and lifestyle television.

Lifestyle is also bound up with personal identity and status – we are what we consume, prefer, and practice. We may be seduced by glittering array of products and services and prone to invest time, money, and self in procuring and enjoying our favorite brands. The body has recently become a key...

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

References

  • Bauman, Z. (2000). Liquid modernity. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction: A social critique of the judgment of taste (R. Nice, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foucault, M. (1991). Governmentality. In C. Gordon & P. Miller (Eds.), The Foucault effect: Studies in governmentality (pp. 87–104). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Giddens, A. (1991). Modernity and self-identity: Self and society in the late modern age. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lasch, C. (1978). The culture of narcissism: American life in an age of diminishing expectations. New York, NY: Norton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Parker, I. (1989). The crisis in modern social psychology, and how to end it. London, England/New York, NY: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rose, N. (1998). Inventing ourselves: Psychology, power and personhood. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Brendan Gough .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2014 Springer Science+Business Media New York

About this entry

Cite this entry

Gough, B. (2014). Lifestyle. In: Teo, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Critical Psychology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5583-7_175

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5583-7_175

  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-5582-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-5583-7

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Behavioral Sciences

Publish with us

Policies and ethics