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On average, those who had initially expressed stronger financial aspirations reported lower life satisfaction two decades later than those expressing lower monetary desires. But as the income of the higher-aspiration participants rose, so did their reported life satisfaction, the team found.
James E. Burroughs, PhD, assistant professor of commerce at the University of Virginia's McIntire School of Commerce, and the University of Wisconsin's Rindfleisch conclude that the unhappiest materialists are those whose materialistic and higher-order values are most conflicted. In a 2002 paper in the Journal of Consumer Research (Vol. 29, No. 3), the team first gauged people's levels of stress, materialistic values and prosocial values in the domains of family, religion and community--in keeping with the theory of psychologist Shalom Schwartz, PhD, that some values unavoidably conflict with one another. Then in an experimental study, they ascertained the degree of conflict people felt when making a decision between the two value domains.
The unhappiest people were those with the most conflict--those who reported high prosocial and high materialistic values, says Burroughs. The other three groups--those low in materialism and high in prosocial values, those low in prosocial values and high in materialism, and those lukewarm in both arenas--reported similar, but lower levels of life stress.
His findings square with those of others: that the differences in life satisfaction between more and less materialistic people are relatively small, says Burroughs. And most researchers in the area agree that these values lie along a continuum, he adds.
"Material things are neither bad nor good," Burroughs comments. "It is the role and status they are accorded in one's life that
On average, those who had initially expressed stronger financial aspirations reported lower life satisfaction two decades later than those expressing lower monetary desires. But as the income of the higher-aspiration participants rose, so did their reported life satisfaction, the team found.
James E. Burroughs, PhD, assistant professor of commerce at the University of Virginia's McIntire School of Commerce, and the University of Wisconsin's Rindfleisch conclude that the unhappiest materialists are those whose materialistic and higher-order values are most conflicted. In a 2002 paper in the Journal of Consumer Research (Vol. 29, No. 3), the team first gauged people's levels of stress, materialistic values and prosocial values in the domains of family, religion and community--in keeping with the theory of psychologist Shalom Schwartz, PhD, that some values unavoidably conflict with one another. Then in an experimental study, they ascertained the degree of conflict people felt when making a decision between the two value domains.
The unhappiest people were those with the most conflict--those who reported high prosocial and high materialistic values, says Burroughs. The other three groups--those low in materialism and high in prosocial values, those low in prosocial values and high in materialism, and those lukewarm in both arenas--reported similar, but lower levels of life stress.
His findings square with those of others: that the differences in life satisfaction between more and less materialistic people are relatively small, says Burroughs. And most researchers in the area agree that these values lie along a continuum, he adds.
"Material things are neither bad nor good," Burroughs comments. "It is the role and status they are accorded in one's life that