Investing in material possessions is connected to diminished well-being, including self-determination and meaning in life. Research demonstrates these costs may be due to how the individual’s approach to material things and are therefore mediated by trait motivations to avoid negative experiences. A capacity to accept and improve aspects of the self is an integral part of maintaining well-being, but material objects merely provide an external distraction and immediate gratification. 



Materialism and well-being

Individuals who endorse materialistic values and who invest more heavily into consumer culture have been shown to experience more negative self-appraisals, higher rates of depression and anxiety, compulsive buying behavior and poorer physical health overall. The perceived belief of these individuals that happiness is something to achieve is associated with enhanced negative affect. 

Syracuse University

A materialistic driven orientation not only diminishes the role of others into instruments of self-gratification, but also poses great costs to the individual self. Deriving self-worth from the material items one owns is inevitably an external source of worth, one that seeks to impress others, stems from other people’s values rather than one’s own and is insecure, as these objects can be stolen, lost, or break, thusly leading to an inadequate, shallow, easily wavered sense of worth. 

Materialism and self-worth

Keefer, L. A., & Rothschild, Z. K. (2021). Attachment anxiety mitigates the well-being costs of object attachment. Journal of Individual Differences, 42(1), 41–56. https://doi-org.libezproxy2.syr.edu/10.1027/1614-0001/a000328

Attachment anxiety mitigates the well-being costs of object attachment

Negative impact of consumer culture on well-being

Adolescents may develop the belief that acquiring specific consumer goods, like brand-name apparel, is a direct path to achieving happiness. This psychological connection highlights how material possessions can become intertwined with emotional well-being, particularly when those items are linked to social acceptance.

Consumer Goods as a Source of Perceived Happiness

Read the following scenario and analyze the primary psychological reason for the individual's intense emotional shift. Explain why their initial feeling of high self-esteem was so fragile.

Learn Before

Related

Learn After