Identity, entropy and culture

Drawing from humanistic psychology, this paper presents an identity-based model of consumer behavior, and uses it to examine various aspects of culture and cultural policy. Specifically, the consumer’s problem is modelled as a process of self-actualization over multiple ideal and actual identities (personal constructs), each of which depreciates as a result of information entropy. To restore identities, consumers invest in identity-based information in the form of cultural goods/services/activities. The resulting theory of consumer behavior is used to examine the optimality of various policy measures such as the cultural exception clauses in international trade agreements, UNESCO’s Convention on Cultural Diversity, and subsidies and grants in the cultural sector.