Symbolic self-completion

Symbolic self-completion is what happens when you want to be a certain kind of person and do not feel you have earned it yet. You reach for the symbols of that identity instead. For a new runner, a new cook or a new photographer, the easiest symbols to get are things you can buy.

That matters for your spending because the gap between who you are and who you want to be is widest at the start. The beginner who buys all the gear before the first real session is not being silly. The effect works on everyone, and each purchase can make the next one feel overdue.

The interrupted self-description

In 1981 the social psychologists Robert Wicklund and Peter Gollwitzer published a paper in Basic and Applied Social Psychology that laid out the idea. Their starting point was simple. People define themselves as musicians, athletes or anything else they care about by pointing to markers of progress: a respected job, a long education, or whatever others recognize as a sign you are on your way. When important markers are missing, the theory says, people do not drop the identity. They reach for other symbols of it.

The pair looked at two ways people show they belong. One is trying to influence others in the field, telling them how it should be done. The other is describing your own performance in glowing terms where other people will see it.

Two of their studies were correlational. The less education people had (in the first study) or the less on-the-job experience (in the second), the more they wanted to influence others in their field. Those with the thinnest credentials were the keenest to tell everyone else how to do the job.

The third study changed one thing. People began writing a positive description of themselves in their field. Some were allowed to finish, and others were interrupted partway through. Afterward, the interrupted group tried harder to influence other people, as if the unfinished description left a gap they had to fill. A fourth study ran the other way. When people were pressed to describe themselves negatively, those who had first been reminded of a good teacher from their past were the most willing to admit weakness. Feeling secure, they had less to prove.

Wicklund and Gollwitzer concluded that influencing others and praising your own work both add to the sense of a complete self-definition. One finding stands out for shoppers: a person who feels short of an identity grabs whatever symbol will fill the gap, and stores are full of them.

Possessions, the extended self and the shaken self

The pair expanded the idea in a book, Symbolic Self Completion, first published in 1982. Its examples of self-definitions run from violinist and mother to equestrian and French-speaker, and one chapter is titled “The display of enduring symbols.” In 1988 the consumer researcher Russell Belk argued that our possessions are a major part and reflection of who we are.

In 2009 the marketing researchers Leilei Gao, S. Christian Wheeler and Baba Shiv reported related work. Across three studies, when people’s confidence in a view of themselves, such as being an exciting person, was briefly shaken, they became more likely to choose products that shored that view up. The pull was weaker when people got a chance to restore their confidence before choosing.

Why gear feels like progress

An identity you care about but have not yet earned feels unfinished, and unfinished things nag. Real markers, like years of practice or a good race time, take a long while to collect. Symbols are fast. A jacket, a tool or a title can be had today, and for a moment it says the thing you want said.

Belk’s point explains why this lands on spending in particular. If possessions are part of how we see ourselves, then buying the right ones feels like becoming the right person, at least until the feeling fades and the gap shows again.

From one camera to a full kit

Say you take up photography and buy a $700 camera. Within a week, a $400 lens seems necessary, because real photographers have one. Then comes a $150 bag to carry it all and $90 of filters, and you have spent $1,340 before taking a hundred pictures. Each piece makes the kit, and you, feel closer to finished, and each makes the remaining gaps easier to see. This is the inner side of the Diderot effect: Diderot’s new scarlet dressing gown made his old study look wrong (the story of the robe is worth a read), and a new camera makes a beginner feel like a photographer missing the rest. Sellers help by bundling items that complete the look. The effect turned a hobby into a shopping list.

Where the starter kit is waiting

Selling an identity is common practice wherever beginners shop:

• Starter kits. Bundles billed as everything you need to get started sell the whole identity at once, including pieces a beginner will not use for months.
• Pro-grade gear. Products marketed as what professionals use invite you to borrow their standing before you have their skill.
• Clothing that signals a role. Running jackets, chef’s whites and work bags tell you, and anyone watching, who you are trying to be.
• “Become a” messaging. Ads and product pages that promise you will become a runner, a baker or a creator sell the person more than the product.
• Gear rankings. Hobby shops and online communities that rate equipment can make a modest first kit feel like proof you are not serious yet.

How to earn the identity before you buy it

1. Let practice mark progress. Make the next item wait for a set number of sessions or hours, such as ten runs or twenty hours behind the camera.
2. Borrow or rent first. Use a friend’s gear or a rental for the first month, so you learn what you actually miss.
3. Do the activity before you shop. If you feel unsure of yourself, go run or cook first. In the shaken-self research, restoring confidence weakened the pull toward products that propped up a self-view.
4. Ask who the item is for. Is it for the activity or for the image? If it mostly helps you look the part, put it back.
5. Total the kit, then wait. Add up the whole starter list in the Chain Cost Calculator, and give any upgrade the 30-day rule. For more ways to break a chain, see our seven rules.

When the gear is the right call

Some gear is simply needed to do the thing at all. You cannot climb safely without shoes that grip, and a cook with one dull knife will struggle. Buying what the activity requires is not a symbol. It is equipment. A well-chosen tool can also last for years, which is the idea behind our buy-it-for-life playbook.

The trouble starts when a purchase stands in for progress you have not made. Before you pay, try one test: would you still buy this if nobody, you included, would read it as a sign of who you are? If yes, it is a tool. If no, it is a symbol, and practice is the cheaper way to get there.