Perception of the cultural and monetary value of items in their own home

Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi described an experiment in a 1991 article, in which he tried to understand how ordinary people appreciate objects of art and design that they see every day at home.

A representative sample of households around Chicago was surveyed. Researchers were interested in what subjects in their homes are special for each person and why. A total of 315 people in 82 families participated in the survey.

As a result, it was found out that value, both monetary and cultural, does not have a decisive role in the value of this subject specifically for humans. For example, one woman called a cheap plastic statue of Venus de Milo special, explaining that this was a prize for the quality of work from her company. There were many other similar answers.
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Thus, the associations and memories of their experiences, placed on the subject, turned the subject into a symbol.

Categories of selected items were distributed like this (one respondent could name several items):

1. Furniture - 36%
2. Paintings - 26%
3. Photos - 23%
4. Books - 22%
5. Audio - 22%
6. Musical instruments - 22%
7. Television and video equipment - 21%
8. Sculptures - 19%
9. Plants - 15%
10. Plates - 15%

Moreover, men and children more often called subjects implying interaction: video equipment, audio equipment, musical instruments, sports equipment. Women and older generations more often mentioned photographs, paintings, sculptures, books and plants.

Among other things, from this study you can take a hint for yourself how to choose gifts for relatives and friends. The high price of a gift or a prize may indicate, for example, a desire to please, but the donor’s inability to choose something related to the feelings of the person being presented or the recollection of them.

If you are interested in descriptions of other ideas of Cicikntmihai, I have them on the site.