Construct · 3 names · 5 citations
Different names. Different fields. One construct. One map.
● jangle · one name, three measures Nearest construct by meaningorientationcompare the meaningsEvery construct on the map is compared with every other by the meaning of its definitions, and the closest one is surfaced here. The nearest construct to voluntary simplicity is orientation.
Hold this as a prompt, not a verdict. Two constructs sitting close in meaning is a reason to read them side by side and decide for yourself whether they are one idea under two names. It is not proof that they are. Compare the meanings in the Collider.
Spokes are the names and the models that coined them; dashed arcs are borrowings. Tap a field for its definition, unit, and measures.
Drag to watch the word get claimed. Each name appears at the publication date of the earliest source cited for it. Tap a year to see which.
The degree to which an individual chooses a low-consumption, ecologically conscious way of life, measured by what that person actually does. Leonard-Barton introduced this reading in 1981 in a study of energy conservation, building a behavioural index of acts such as making things rather than buying them, using a bicycle for transport, recycling, and growing food, and treating voluntary simplicity as a lifestyle to be observed rather than a belief to be asked about. The term was not hers: Gregg named voluntary simplicity in 1936, and Elgin and Mitchell described it as an emerging way of life in 1977. What Leonard-Barton added was measurement, and the measurement was behavioural, which fixed the construct at the level of the individual and the observable act.[1][4][5]
A self-imposed, values-driven limitation of consumption, defined by why a person restrains spending rather than by any single act. Etzioni characterized voluntary simplicity in 1998 as a matter of degree, and sorted its practitioners into downshifters who trim a few luxuries, strong simplifiers who give up high-paying positions to live on less, and holistic simplifiers who reorganize their whole lives around the principle. The referent here is an orientation, a chosen relation to consumption held with more or less commitment, so two people who buy the same amount can sit at different points, and both a person and a movement can be described in the same terms. Etzioni's construct is about the reason for the restraint and the depth of the choice, not the count of behaviours that Leonard-Barton recorded.[2]
A pattern of reduced consumption treated as an outcome that policy and marketing can promote, rather than a lifestyle a person happens to hold. Balderjahn and Appenfeller studied voluntary simplicity in 2023 through social marketing, testing consume-less appeals in an online experiment and asking which framings lower spending intentions. In this literature voluntary simplicity is the dependent variable, a behaviour to be induced for sustainability ends, and the same study found rebound and moral-licensing effects, in which an intention to consume less lowered a person's willingness to donate. The construct keeps the name Leonard-Barton and Etzioni used, but its unit is a consumption pattern to be shifted by intervention, not an individual's freely chosen way of life or set of values.[3]
Next
Combine items across the voluntary simplicity scales to see whether the meanings separate empirically, or export every reference on this page in one click.
Open in ColliderExport BibTeXReport this collisionCited on this page?
If your work is cited behind one of these entries, you know better than we do whether we captured the meaning right. Confirm it, suggest an edit, or dispute it, and your name goes on the entry as an author who has checked it, linked to your ORCID.
Claim your construct