World-Forming: The Agentic Consumer

Abstract

The chapter begins with an explication of Antonio Damasio’s conception of the tripartite brain before moving to the System 1 and System 2 model of decision-making as theorised by Daniel Kahneman. This is followed by an explication of human beings as world-forming, and a discussion about how while certain elements of neuromarketing see the consumer as an agentic individual, the discourse nevertheless seems to return to some form of instrumentalism when practitioners begin to speak about how to ‘treat’ consumers. In other words, while neuromarketing practitioners might understand consumers as agentic, the discourse comprises representations that depict consumers as energy resources to be exploited for material gain.