The Things We Love: How Our Passions Connect Us and Make Us Who We Are by Aaron Ahuvia
About the Book
A revealing investigation of the secret, tangled emotional relationships people have with things—drawing on cutting-edge findings from the fields of psychology, neuroscience, and marketing.
Books, baseball cards, ceramic figurines, art, iPhones, clothing, cars, music, dolls, furniture, and even nature itself. If you’re like most people, at some point in your life you’ve found yourself indulging in a love affair with something that brings you immense joy, comfort, or fulfillment.
Why is it that we so often feel an intense passion for objects? What does this tendency tell us about ourselves and our society?
In The Things We Love, Dr. Aaron Ahuvia presents astonishing discoveries that prove we are far less “rational” than we think when it comes to our possessions and hobbies.
In fact, we have passionate relationships with the things we love, and these relationships are driven by influences deep within our culture and our biology.
Some of our passions are sudden, obsessive, and fleeting; others are devoted and lifelong affairs. Some turn dark: we become hoarders or would prefer to destroy certain objects rather than let anyone else own them.
And as technology improves, becoming increasingly addictive, one wonders: might our lives become so dominated by our emotional ties to things that we lose interest in other people?
Packed with fascinating case studies, scientific analysis, and takeaways for living in a modern and ever-so-material world, The Things We Love offers a truly original and insightful look into our love for inanimate objects — and how better understanding these relationships can enrich and improve our lives.
About the Author
Dr. Aaron Ahuvia is a professor of marketing at the University of Michigan–Dearborn College of Business and the most widely published and cited academic expert on noninterpersonal love including brand love.
He is also a leading expert on how our happiness is influenced by money and materialism.
He has been ranked 22 in the world for research impact on consumer behavior and ranked in the top 2% of all scientists in the world across all disciplines by an independent study from Stanford University.
Professor Ahuvia studied philosophy at the University of Michigan before getting a Ph.D. in marketing from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.
From there he became a professor at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business and then a Full Professor at the College of Business on UM’s Dearborn Campus
Dr. Ahuvia also holds an appointment as a Professor at the University of Michigan Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design.
Dr. Ahuvia has over 100 publications and presentations. He does research, teaches, and consults for governments, nonprofits, and corporations around the world.
He has presented research or consulted for Google, L’Oréal S.A., Samsung, Maybelline New York, Procter & Gamble, Audi, General Motors, Microsoft, Ford, Chrysler, and Herman Miller, among others.
And, interesting fact – he was once a guest on the Oprah Winfrey TV Show!
Listen to the Interview…
Links…
- The Things We Love: How Our Passions Connect Us and Make Us Who We Are by Aaron Ahuvia (Amazon)
- Aaron Ahuvia (The Things We Love.com)
- Aaron Ahuvia (Brand Love Central.com)
- Aaron Ahuvia (Richard E. Czarnecki Endowed Collegiate Professor of Marketing, University of Michigan–Dearborn)
- Aaron Ahuvia (LinkedIn)
- Influence Is Your Superpower: The Science of Winning Hearts, Sparking Change, and Making Good Things Happen by Zoe Chance (Marketing Book Podcast interview)
- Mosaic® Customer Segmentation
- Take the quiz – IS IT REALLY LOVE?
- Bagozzi, R. P., Batra, R., & Ahuvia, A. C. (2016). Brand Love: development and validation of a practical scale. Marketing Letters, 28, 1–14.
- Ahuvia, A. C. (2013). Beyond ‘Beyond the Extended Self’: Russ Belk on Identity: Vol. Consumer S (J. Schouten (ed.)). SAGE.
- Aron, A., & Tomlinson, J. M. (2018). Love as Expansion of the Self. In R. J. Sternberg & K. Sternberg (Eds.), The New Psychology of Love (pp. 1–24). Yale University Press.
- Avery, J., Fournier, S., & Wittenbraker, J. (2014). Unlock the Mysteries of Your Customer Relationships. Harvard Business Review, July/August, 1–11.
- What Customers Hate: Drive Fast and Scalable Growth by Eliminating the Things that Drive Business Away by Nicholas Webb (Marketing Book Podcast interview)
- Building a StoryBrand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen by Donald Miller
- The Power of Us: Harnessing Our Shared Identities to Improve Performance, Increase Cooperation, and Promote Social Harmony by Jay J. Van Bavel Ph.D. and Dominic J. PackerPh.D.
- The Art of Insubordination: How to Dissent and Defy Effectively by Todd B. Kashdan
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