<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>Materialism is defined as the importance an individual attaches to worldly possessions, which has been considered as an important construct in consumer behavior and marketing literature. There are two dominant perspectives on individual materialism in the marketing literature that focus on (1) personality traits or (2) individual personal values. However, several scholars have questioned the aforementioned materialism conceptualizations. Therefore, the present study directly compares the constructs of personality materialism and value materialism. Structural equation modeling was employed to address the following issues: (1) what are the key conceptual dimensions of materialism, (2) how much do they overlap, and (3) what is their discriminant validity in predicting outcomes linked to materialism. We suggest these two dominant perspectives on individual materialism are two distinct constructs, as they shared only 21 percent of common variance. Furthermore, we stress the multi-faceted nature of materialism, with an emphasis on future research directions related to materialism in marketing.</p></abstract>

Materialism is defined as the importance an individual attaches to worldly possessions, which has been considered as an important construct in consumer behavior and marketing literature. There are two dominant perspectives on individual materialism in the marketing literature that focus on (1) personality traits or (2) individual personal values. However, several scholars have questioned the aforementioned materialism conceptualizations. Therefore, the present study directly compares the constructs of personality materialism and value materialism. Structural equation modeling was employed to address the following issues: (1) what are the key conceptual dimensions of materialism, (2) how much do they overlap, and (3) what is their discriminant validity in predicting outcomes linked to materialism. We suggest these two dominant perspectives on individual materialism are two distinct constructs, as they shared only 21 percent of common variance. Furthermore, we stress the multi-faceted nature of materialism, with an emphasis on future research directions related to materialism in marketing.

What is materialism? Testing two dominant perspectives on materialism in the marketing literature

Florida State University, Florida, United States of America

Iowa State University, Iowa, United States of America

Management & Marketing

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Materialism is defined as the importance an individual attaches to worldly possessions, which has been considered as an important construct in consumer...

What is materialism? Testing two dominant perspectives on materialism in the marketing literature

Published Online: Sep 01, 2015

Page range: 89 - 102

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/mmcks-2015-0008

Keywords
materialism, individual perspective, personality trait, personal value, marketing, conceptualizations

© 2015

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

What is materialism? Testing two dominant perspectives on materialism in the marketing literature

Published Online: Sep 01, 2015

Page range: 89 - 102

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/mmcks-2015-0008

Keywordsmaterialism, individual perspective, personality trait, personal value, marketing, conceptualizations

© 2015

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
materialism, individual perspective, personality trait, personal value, marketing, conceptualizations