Research On The Contemporary College Students’ Consumption Behavior

Symbol consumption, is a concept firstly put forward by a French philosopher named Jean Baudrillard,who believes that only when the commodity becomes a symbol, it can be consumed by the public. Theword“symbolize”meansA=B, including the signifier and the signified.A is the signifier represents soundand image, B is the signified represents the implication and content. Therefore, if it comes to a certaincommodity, the concept means that the commodity not only has the function of itself, but also has afunction of reference as a commodity symbol, for example, a clothes with brand name Armani is theClothes of Power in Wall Street. Symbol consumption is a consumption of the referential meaning reflectedby the commodity.The university students of modern times live in a social environment with fast economic developmentand affluent commodities. With the needs of the university students for daily life and school suppliesbeing met basically, the consumption behavior of them is showing a tendency of variety andindividualization. At the same time, symbol consumption behavior is more and more common amonguniversity students. After a review and investigation of the research papers concerning this issue, it is foundthat most of the scholars are critical to the symbol consumption behavior of university students. This papertries to analyze the issue of symbol consumption through the following perspectives by adopting anobjective attitude. Firstly, through a review and research of the historical background of the development ofsymbol consumption, it is found that symbol consumption is a product of social and economic developmentas well as all-round development of human beings. Therefore, the existence of the phenomenon isreasonable, but it may induct the students to compare unrealistically and have conspicuous consumptionbehavior. Secondly, the paper analyzes the rationality and irrationality of the behavior of symbolconsumption among university students. Through an understanding and awareness of the connotation andlimitation of symbol consumption theory, the paper tires to appraise the symbol consumption behavior froman objective and neutral perspective. Thirdly, the paper tires to find out how can the teachers in charge ofideological and political education in colleges and universities give proper guidance to students of theirconsumption behavior. It is realized that the symbol consumption is a double-edged sword, the educatorsshould take an objective attitude towards the symbol consumption behavior based on an understanding andacceptance of phenomenon appeared among university students. At the same time, the educators shall guidethe students to pay attention to issues like environment protection and energy conservation which related tothe human fate and world development, while they try to pursue quality in their consumption.