Living in a Material World: The Role of Materialism in Consumer Confidence & Well-Being

In 2008, America entered its worst recession since the Great Depression. Two perspectives were offered as the proper response to lead the country out of that state: the recovery perspective and the reset perspective. The recovery perspective suggests that we awaken the materialism of Americans and get consumers spending again (Posner 2009). In contrast, the reset perspective suggests that materialism is what got us into this mess and that the current circumstances offer a perfect opportunity to seek alternative belief and value systems that promote greater health and well-being (Arndt et al. 2004). These perspectives fundamentally differ in their views on the impact of materialism on well-being, recovery assuming a positive impact and reset assuming a negative one. Despite our cultural inclination toward materialism, there is meaningful variation in the levels of materialism from one individual to another, due to biological, personal and social circumstances (Giddens, Schermer and Vernon 2009). Numerous studies have examined the relationship between materialism and such consequences as quality of life (Roberts and Clement 2006), life satisfaction (Burroughs and Rindfleisch 2002), pro-social behavior (Briggs et al. 2007), and racism (Roets et al. 2006) and generally find that negative effects of materialism outweigh the positive ones; thus suggesting that we should find ways to reduce our materialistic tendencies.