Materialism

Materialism is defined as the importance a consumer attaches to worldly possessions. At the highest levels of materialism, possessions assume a central place in a person's life and are believed to provide the greatest sources of satisfaction and dissatisfaction. Russell Belk has framed materialism as a higher-order construct with three second-order dimensions; that is, possessiveness, nongenerosity, and envy. Marsha Richins approaches materialism as the belief in the desirability of acquiring and possessing things, “a value that guides people's choices and conduct in a variety of situations, including, but not limited to, consumption arenas.” Her measure of material value has three subscales, measuring possession-defined success, acquisition centrality, and acquisition serving as the pursuit of happiness. In her study, respondents are asked whether they admired people who ...