IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jscscx/v8y2019i1p26-d198541.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

In Search of the “Good Life”: The Appeal of the Tiny House Lifestyle in the USA

Author

Listed:
  • Severin Mangold

    (Department of Sociology and Human Services, University of North Georgia, Dahlonega, GA 30597, USA)

  • Toralf Zschau

    (Department of Sociology and Human Services, University of North Georgia, Dahlonega, GA 30597, USA)

Abstract

Over the past decade, tiny houses and the lifestyle they promote have become a world-wide phenomenon, with the trend especially impactful in the United States. Given their broad appeal and increasing prominence within popular culture, it is surprising how little research exists on them. To help to better understand what motivates people to adopt this lifestyle, this paper presents insights from an exploratory study in the United States and offers the first contours of a new conceptual framework. Situating the lifestyle within the larger economic and cultural forces of our times, it argues that going “tiny” is seen by tiny house enthusiasts as a practical roadmap to the Good Life : A simpler life characterized by more security, autonomy, relationships, and meaningful experiences. The paper ends with a brief discussion of broader implications and directions for future research.

Suggested Citation

  • Severin Mangold & Toralf Zschau, 2019. "In Search of the “Good Life”: The Appeal of the Tiny House Lifestyle in the USA," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 8(1), pages 1-21, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:8:y:2019:i:1:p:26-:d:198541
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/8/1/26/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/8/1/26/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Leonard-Barton, Dorothy, 1981. "Voluntary Simplicity Lifestyles and Energy Conservation," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 8(3), pages 243-252, December.
    2. Leonardo Nicolao & Julie R. Irwin & Joseph K. Goodman, 2009. "Happiness for Sale: Do Experiential Purchases Make Consumers Happier than Material Purchases?," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 36(2), pages 188-198.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bajde, Domen & Chelekis, Jessica & van Dalen, Arjen, 2022. "The megamarketing of microfinance: Developing and maintaining an industry aura of virtue," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 134-155.
    2. Chelsey Willoughby & Severin Mangold & Toralf Zschau, 2020. "Small Houses, Big Community: Tiny Housers’ Desire for More Cohesive and Collaborative Communities," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 9(2), pages 1-33, February.
    3. Shafqat, Tehmeena & Ishaq, Muhammad Ishtiaq & Ahmed, Anzar, 2023. "Fashion consumption using minimalism: Exploring the relationship of consumer well-being and social connectedness," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    4. Derek Ezell & Victoria Bush & Matthew B. Shaner & Scott Vitell & Jiangang Huang, 2023. "Challenging the Good Life: An Institutional Theoretic Investigation of Consumers’ Transformational Process Toward Sustainable Living," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 183(3), pages 783-804, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Castro, Damaris & Bleys, Brent, 2023. "Do people think they have enough? A subjective income sufficiency assessment," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 205(C).
    2. Liselot Hudders & Mario Pandelaere, 2012. "The Silver Lining of Materialism: The Impact of Luxury Consumption on Subjective Well-Being," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 13(3), pages 411-437, June.
    3. Lenka Mynaříková & Vít Pošta, 2023. "The Effect of Consumer Confidence and Subjective Well-being on Consumers’ Spending Behavior," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 24(2), pages 429-453, February.
    4. Nieves García-de-Frutos & José Manuel Ortega-Egea & Javier Martínez-del-Río, 2018. "Anti-consumption for Environmental Sustainability: Conceptualization, Review, and Multilevel Research Directions," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 148(2), pages 411-435, March.
    5. Ma, Jianfeng & Tu, Hongwei & Zhang, Pan & Fan, Lele & Cheng, Bao & Ma, Jie, 2021. "Can work–family conflict influence purchase preference? Experiential vs. material consumption," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 620-632.
    6. Ruut Veenhoven & Felicia Chiperi & Xin Kang & Martijn Burger, 2021. "Happiness and Consumption: A Research Synthesis Using an Online Finding Archive* â€," SAGE Open, , vol. 11(1), pages 21582440209, March.
    7. Fabio Sabatini, 2011. "Can a click buy a little happiness? The impact of business-to-consumer e-commerce on subjective well-being," EERI Research Paper Series EERI_RP_2011_12, Economics and Econometrics Research Institute (EERI), Brussels.
    8. Sirgy, M. Joseph & Lee, Dong-Jin & Yu, Grace B. & Gurel-Atay, Eda & Tidwell, John & Ekici, Ahmet, 2016. "Self-expressiveness in shopping," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 292-299.
    9. Dias, José António & Dias, José G. & Lages, Carmen, 2017. "Can negative characters in soap operas be positive for product placement?," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 125-132.
    10. Jessica Osikominu & Nancy Bocken, 2020. "A Voluntary Simplicity Lifestyle: Values, Adoption, Practices and Effects," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(5), pages 1-30, March.
    11. Donald R. Lehmann & Jeffrey R. Parker, 2017. "Disadoption," AMS Review, Springer;Academy of Marketing Science, vol. 7(1), pages 36-51, June.
    12. Moldes, Olaya & Banerjee, Robin & Easterbrook, Matthew J. & Harris, Peter R. & Dittmar, Helga, 2019. "Identity changes and well-being gains of spending money on material and experiential consumer products," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 229-244.
    13. Kreuzer, Maria & Mühlbacher, Hans & von Wallpach, Sylvia, 2018. "Home in the re-making: Immigrants' transcultural experiencing of home," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 334-341.
    14. Jia Zhang & Ryan Howell & Peter Caprariello, 2013. "Buying Life Experiences for the “Right” Reasons: A Validation of the Motivations for Experiential Buying Scale," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 14(3), pages 817-842, June.
    15. Shahid, Shadma & Paul, Justin, 2021. "Intrinsic motivation of luxury consumers in an emerging market," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    16. Lembregts, Christophe & Cadario, Romain, 2024. "Consumer-Driven Climate Mitigation: Exploring Barriers and Solutions in Studying Higher Mitigation Potential Behaviors," OSF Preprints ywus6, Center for Open Science.
    17. Garner, Benjamin & Thornton, Corliss & Luo Pawluk, Anita & Mora Cortez, Roberto & Johnston, Wesley & Ayala, Cesar, 2022. "Utilizing text-mining to explore consumer happiness within tourism destinations," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 1366-1377.
    18. Ahmet Ekici & M. Joseph Sirgy & Dong-Jin Lee & Grace B. Yu & Michael Bosnjak, 2018. "The Effects of Shopping Well-Being and Shopping Ill-Being on Consumer Life Satisfaction," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 13(2), pages 333-353, June.
    19. Agarwal, Reeti & Mehrotra, Ankit & Misra, Dheeraj, 2022. "Customer happiness as a function of perceived loyalty program benefits - A quantile regression approach," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    20. Kumar, Ajay & Paul, Justin & StarÄ ević, SlaÄ‘ana, 2021. "Do brands make consumers happy?- A masstige theory perspective," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    tiny house; lifestyle; movement;
    All these keywords.

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:8:y:2019:i:1:p:26-:d:198541. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.