A Consumer Values Orientation for Materialism and Its Measurement

A Consumer Values Orientation for Materialism and Its Measurement: Scale Development andValidationAuthor(s): Marsha L. Richins and Scott DawsonSource: The Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 19, No. 3 (Dec., 1992), pp. 303-316Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2489391Accessed: 03/01/2009 04:56

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A Consumer Values Orientation for

Materialism and Its Measurement: Scale

Development and Validation

MARSHA L. RICHINS SCOTT DAWSON*

This article reviews the construct and measurement of materialism and concludes that materialism is appropriately conceptualized as a consumer value. The development of a values-oriented materialism scale with three components-acquisition centrality, acquisition as the pursuit of happiness, and possession-defined success- is described. In validation tests high scorers (compared with low scorers) desired a higher level of income, placed greater emphasis on financial security and less on interpersonal relationships, preferred to spend more on themselves and less on others, engaged in fewer voluntary simplicity behaviors, and were less satisfied with their lives.

A merica is a consumer society, and many treatises .have described the dominance of consumption

motives among Americans (see, e.g., Bredemeier and Toby 1960; de Tocqueville [1835] 1954; Wachtel 1983). In such discussions of consumption and materialism, authors tend to speak of consumers as an undifferen- tiated group, acting individually, perhaps, but guided equally by the same consuming desire for goods. Hence, Cushman (1990, p. 600) describes the post-World War II consumer as "yearn[ing] to acquire and consume," Fox and Lears (1983, p. xii) see Americans as engaged in "a ceaseless pursuit of the 'good life' " through consumption, and Fromm (1967, p. 179) notes that "contemporary man has an unlimited hunger for more and more goods."

While consumer goods do play an important role in American culture, these analyses obscure differences among individuals. For some, possessions are essential to their lives and identities. For example, Lisa Labnon, a 30-year-old New Hampshire woman, became homeless when she lost her job and her condominium was repossessed. She refused to sell her Mercedes and mink coat, however, because the loss in image and self-esteem

would be too great (Gaines 1990). Malcolm Forbes was well known for his commitment to a lavish material life-style (Hirschman 1990), and Leona Helmsley com- mitted crimes to increase her wealth. Others, however, are content with far less in life, choosing low-paying charitable or social service work instead of higher-paying professions (Henkoff 1989). Some relinquish all personal possessions to enter religious life or join a commune.

Although it is often useful to treat materialism as a cultural or structural variable for purposes of comparing cultures or examining institutions within a culture of consumption (e.g., Inglehart 1981), much is to be gained by examining individual differences in materialism as well. For instance, research that seeks to identify factors that contribute to individual materialism may provide insight into the roots of materialism at a cultural level. Examining materialism at the individual level also per- mits the study of interactions between materialism and various marketing activities such as advertising. Finally, many of the hypotheses about materialism advanced in the literature are more easily tested at an individual than a cultural level.

This article describes a scale to measure materialism among individuals. Prior to reporting scale development, the notion of materialism is elaborated and prior attempts to measure this construct are reviewed.

The Notion of Materialism

The terms "materialism" and "materialistic" are used freely in ordinary conversation and by writers, frequently without definition. Materialism originally re-

*Marsha L. Richins is associate professor of marketing, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 6521 1. Scott Dawson is associate professor of marketing at Portland State University, Portland, OR 97207. The authors thank Russell Belk for his helpful comments at various stages of the research and on a previous draft of this article, Terri Root-Shaffer for her contributions in early stages of the project, and Todd Mooradian for his assistance in data collection. This research was completed while the first author was at the University of Mas- sachusetts.

303 ? 1992 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc. * Vol. 19 * December 1992

All rights reserved. 0093-5301/93/1903-0001$2.00

304 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

ferred to the philosophical notion that nothing exists except matter and its movements (see, e.g., Lange [1865] 1925). In popular usage materialism more often refers to a "devotion to material needs and desires, to the neglect of spiritual matters; a way of life, opinion, or tendency based entirely upon material interests," as defined in the Oxford English Dictionary. Rassuli and Hollander (1986-, p. 10) describe materialism as "a mind-set . . . an interest in getting and spending," and Belk (1984, p. 291) defines it as "the importance a consumer attaches to worldly possessions." Mukerji (1983, p. 8), relying on Polanyi (1944) and Sahlins (1976), refers to materialism as "a cultural system in which material interests are not made subservient to other social goals" and material self-interest is preeminent. When a large portion of a society avidly desires to consume goods for reasons that economists have traditionally defined as nonutilitarian (e.g., status seeking, novelty), a "consumer culture" is said to exist (e.g., Belk 1988; Rassuli and Hollander 1986).

Many issues concerning materialism have been considered in the literature, including causes and consequences of materialism, the behaviors and personality characteristics of materialists, and moral considerations (see Belk 1983 and Fournier and Richins 1991 for descriptions of some of these themes). The following discussion describes only those themes that have consistently appeared when theorists have defined materialism itself (as opposed to describing related issues such as the personal or moral consequences of materialism).'

Acquisition Centrality. Materialists place possessions and their acquisition at the center of their lives. Daun (1983) describes materialism as a life-style in which a high level of material consumption functions as a goal and serves as a set of plans. Materialism thus lends meaning to life and provides an aim for daily endeavors. According to Bredemeier and Toby (1960), materialists worship things, and the pursuit of possessions takes the place of religion in structuring their lives and orienting their behaviors. Csikszentmihalyi and Rochberg-Halton (1981, p. 231) note the dominance materialism can achieve in one's life when they say of some materialists that "consumption for the sake of consumption be-

comes a fever that consumes all the potential energy it can get access to."

Acquisition as the Pursuit of Happiness. One of the reasons that possessions and their acquisition are so central to materialists is that they view these as essential to their satisfaction and well-being in life. Belk (1984, p. 291) notes that "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." In a like manner, Ward and Wackman (1971, p. 426) describe materialism as ''an orientation emphasizing possessions and money for personal happiness and social progress." The view- point that pleasure or self-satisfaction is the goal of high consumption levels is frequently presented in the literature (e.g., Campbell 1987; Heilbroner 1956; Wachtel 1983). While most individuals are probably involved to some extent in the pursuit of happiness, it is the pursuit of happiness through acquisition rather than through other means (such as personal relationships, experiences, or achievements) that distinguishes materialism.

Possession-defined Success. Materialists tend to judge their own and others' success by the number and quality of possessions accumulated. Rassuli and Hollander (1986, p. 5) describe members of a consumer society as evaluating others and themselves in terms of their consuming life-styles, and in Heilbroner's (1956, p. 23) analysis, acquisitive, materialistic people value possessions "for the money they cost rather than by the sat- isfactions they yield." Du Bois (1955) and others have noted that materialists consider material well-being as evidence of success and proof of right-mindedness, an attitude consistent with religious teachings at the time of the Industrial Revolution (Weber [1930] 1958). The value of possessions stems not only from their ability to confer status (Veblen [1899] 1953) but from their ability to project a desired self-image and identify one as a participant in an imagined perfect life (Campbell 1987). Materialists view themselves as successful to the extent they can possess products that project these desired images.

The notions concerning materialism expressed in theoretical writings are also held by lay persons. Four- nier and Richins (1991) compared popular and theoretical notions of materialism and found that the three themes described above were strongly represented in ordinary consumers' conceptions of materialism.

Instrumental and Terminal Materialism Many religious and social critics have condemned

materialism as inherently bad. Rochberg-Halton (1986; Csikszentmihalyi and Rochberg-Halton 1978, 1981), however, pointed out that possessions can be a positive influence in one's life and proposed two forms of materialism based on the purposes of consumption.

'The following discussion relies on the materialism literature in a variety of disciplines. Because the characterizations of materialism in the literature are predominantly unfavorable, this discussion is necessarily weighted toward the negative. However, it is not the authors' view that all aspects of materialism are inevitably bad. For instance, the desire for goods on the part of employees may cause them to work harder or longer, enhancing their incomes and standard of living. High levels of consumption by consumers can increase the wealth of business institutions, increasing these firms' ability to make capital improvements and invest in research and development, which in turn leads to greater productivity, technological breakthroughs, and again, higher living standards. In addition, while the literature assigns to materialists a number of characteristics that are viewed negatively in contemporary Western society, its bias leads it to be silent on the potential positive characteristics of materialists such as a strong motivation to succeed and self-sufficiency.

MATERIALISM AND ITS MEASUREMENT 305

When objects act "as essential means for discovering and furthering personal values and goals of life," the materialism is a potentially harmless form labeled "instrumental materialism" (Csikszentmihalyi and Rochberg-Halton 1978, p. 8). When consumption fur- thers no goal beyond possession itself, the materialism is regarded as a more dangerous form labeled "terminal."

Unfortunately, Rochberg-Halton's dichotomy is difficult to use, and his analysis contains contradictions. For instance, Csikszentmihalyi and Rochberg-Halton (1978, p. 8) note that, in terminal materialism, "we reduce our ultimate goals to the possession of things," yet the authors often mention goals of terminal materialism beyond possession. They note that, in terminal materialism, people use possessions to generate the envy and admiration of others or to achieve status. This suggests that these states (being envied, having status) rather than the acquisition of possessions constitute the ultimate goals of terminal materialism.

In addition, the analysis of instrumental and terminal materialism is incomplete and the constructs difficult to operationalize. For example, it is unclear whether the terms instrumental and terminal materialism refer to an individual difference variable (in which case individuals might be classified as primarily terminal or instrumental in orientation) or serve simply as descriptions of specific behaviors or motives. Furthermore, there is little guidance in making determinations of instrumental versus terminal materialism. Instrumental materialism is described as possessing "a sense of di- rectionality, in which a person's goals themselves may be cultivated through transactions with the object," its purpose is "the fuller unfolding of human life," and it is "context-related." In terminal materialism, "there is *no sense of reciprocal interaction in the relation between the object and the goal" (Csikszentmihalyi and Roch- berg-Halton 1981, p. 231). Except in extreme cases, it may be difficult to determine whether the conditions for instrumental materialism are being met.

Essentially, the classification as instrumental or terminal appears to rest on a value judgment. Instrumental materialism "involves the cultivation of objects as essential means for discovering and furthering goals" (Csikszentmihalyi and Rochberg-Halton 1981, p. 231), but only certain kinds of "acceptable" goals are deemed instrumental. Through his use of examples, it appears that Rochberg-Halton considers a relationship with an object to be instrumental if it involves self-actualization, the development of stronger family or friendship ties, or the development and expression of aspects of the self that he approves of. In his analysis, valuing a tool that allows one to build model planes and fly them in com- petitions involves instrumental materialism. Owning an expensive car to impress others and feel better about one's self or buying a second home to spend more time with one's mistress and her child represent ter-

minal materialism (Rochberg-Halton 1986, pp. 181, 183-184).

Given the difficulties of operationalizing the instrumental/terminal forms and the value judgments inherent in Rochberg-Halton's conception of "good" and "bad" materialism, the distinction between instrumental and terminal materialism will not be maintained for our purposes.

MEASURES OF MATERIALISM AND RELATED CONSTRUCTS

Empirical research on materialism has been, scant until very recently; however, a variety of materialism measures have occasionally been mentioned in the literature. With the exception of Belk's (1984) work, none of the measures appear to have involved application of commonly accepted standards for scale development (Churchill 1979; Nunnally 1978). As practiced in prior research, approaches to measuring materialism can be divided into two types: those that infer materialism from measures of related constructs and those that purport to measure materialism more directly through the use of attitude scales. Table 1 describes the measures in each category.

Materialism has often been assessed by measuring related constructs and using this to infer the level of materialism. Dickins and Ferguson (1957), for instance, assessed materialism by the kinds of wishes expressed by children and the kinds of jobs they desire when they grow up.

A few authors have inferred the presence of materialism from scores on early personality-test batteries (e.g., Burdsal 1975; Justice and Birkman 1972). More recently Belk (1984, 1985) has developed personality- trait measures specifically designed to infer the presence of materialism. His work has been more fruitful than earlier approaches because he examined the theoretical linkages between specific personality traits (envy, possessiveness, and nongenerosity) and materialism and used psychometric principles to develop his measures. A limitation of the Belk scales has been inconsistent and often low reports of scale reliability. In 12 separate data collections in which reliability was reported in the literature, coefficient alpha for the individual personality scales ranged from .09 to .81 with a median reliability of .54; a measure summed across the three scales, frequently used as an indicator of materialism, had a median reliability of .62.

The most sustained effort to measure materialism has been carried out by Inglehart (e.g., 1981), who has attempted to identify postmaterialistic societies in which individuals emphasize such values as belonging and self-expression instead of material possessions. In his surveys, administered primarily in Europe, he lists 12 goals and classifies respondents as possessing materialist or postmaterialist values by the social goals they choose as most important. A problem with this


TABLE 1

MEASURES OF MATERIALISM REPORTED IN EARLIER STUDIES

Studya Subjects How measuredb Reliability

I. Measures that infer materialism from related constructs:

Dickins and Ferguson (1957) Children aged 7-8 and Content analysis of responses to five open-ended ... 11-12 questions: "If you could make three wishes and

they would all come true, what would you wish for?"

Justice and Birkman (1972) Employed adults, prison Subscale of the Birkman vocational interest and ... inmates attitude survey; materialism inferred from true-

false questions concerning social perceptions and self-image

Bengston and Lovejoy (1973) Three-generation families Materialism/humanism factor scores based on .78c rankings of 16 values: "finances," " possessions," "service"

Burdsal (1975) College students, military Materialistic motivations inferred from factor scores ... personnel on Cattell's motivational analysis test

Jackson, Ahmed, and Heapy (1976) Adults and college Acquisitiveness subscale of the six-dimensional Approximately .80

students in several achievement scale; includes Likert scale, cultures semantic differential, and adjective checklist

items Inglehart (1981) Adults in Europe and the Materialist and postmaterialist goals; 12 goals

United States ranked by importance: "maintain a stable economy," "try to make our cities and countryside more beautiful"

Belk (1984) College students, adults Personality traits of envy, nongenerosity, and Subscales .09-.81; possessiveness; 24 Likert scale items: "I am entire .48-73 bothered when I see people who buy anything they want," "I don't like to lend things, even to good friends," "I tend to hang on to things I should probably throw out"

II. Attitude measures of materialism:

Campbell (1969) College students, adults Materialism; eight items, forced-choice format: "If ... things were such that everybody in the world had stereophonic record players and champagne, wars would probably be obsolete"

Wackman, Reale, and Ward (1972) Adolescents Materialism; 5 items, Likert scale format: "It's really ...

true that money can buy happiness" Moschis and Churchill (1978) Adolescents Materialism; 6 items, adaptation of Wackman et al. .53-.71

(1972) De Young (1985-1986) Adults Nonmaterialism; four items with five-point scales: .78

"do not evaluate everything in dollars," "get more pleasure from the non-material"

Richins (1987) Adults Materialism; six items, two subscales, Likert scale .73, .61 format: "It is important to me to have really nice things"

Heslin, Johnson, and Blake (1 989)c Students Materialism subscale of the spender scales; six .76d

items, Likert scale format

NOTE.-Ellipses indicate that data are unavailable. aWhere a scale has been used in more than one study, the source with the greatest amount of scale information is reported. bEntry includes a description of the scale followed by sample items. cScale development is in progress. dMeasure is a test-retest correlation; all other reliabilities are Cronbach's alpha.

materialism measure for consumer-behavior research is that the goals Inglehart lists are distant from most consumers' daily concerns, cannot be easily affected by individual action, and are not likely to have large

influences on day-to-day consumption choices. In addition, this approach does not directly measure the complex, multidimensional nature of materialism and, because of its ordinal level of measurement, does not


assess individual differences in the strength of material values.

Finally, some authors have used attitude measures that assume a more direct assessment of materialism. These measures usually involve Likert scale response formats and are described in Table 1. With the exception of the materialism component of the spender scales (Heslin, Johnson, and Blake 1989), still in the process of development, none of these measures has been rig- orously tested.

MATERIALISM AS A CONSUMER VALUE

The preceding review shows that materialism has been measured in a variety of ways-by measuring personality traits, by examining the importance of various social goals, and by assessing attitudes. All the existing measures seem to suffer from at least one of two important limitations. First, many of the measures do not possess adequate levels of reliability for use in anything except exploratory research. This is not surprising, perhaps, given the difficulty of measuring a complex construct like materialism.

Second, the construct validity of many of the measures has not been established. Because none of the measures except Belk's have involved the psychometric procedures of construct definition, scale refinement, and validity assessment, they are of limited usefulness.

Measures that infer materialism from scores on other variables such as personality traits or social goals require further scrutiny. Peter (1981, p. 134) notes that a valid construct measure should assess "only the characteristics of the construct it is purported to assess" and should not be "contaminated with elements from the domain of other constructs" (see also Nunnally 1978). Thus, using measures of personality traits to infer materialism may be inappropriate unless materialism is itself viewed as a personality trait.

To determine the appropriate measurement approach for materialism, it is necessary to examine the nature of the construct itself. As suggested in the literature review, theoretical and popular notions indicate that materialism represents a mind-set or constellation of attitudes regarding the relative importance of acquisition and possession of objects in one's life. For materialists, possessions and their acquisition are at the forefront of personal goals that dictate "ways of life." They value possessions and their acquisition more highly than most other matters and activities in life. The organizing function of acquisition goals among materialists, the centrality of acquisition-related activities to their lives, and the prioritizing of possessions vis-a-vis other things in life suggests that materialism is a value.

Rokeach (1973, p. 5) defined a value as "an enduring belief that a specific mode of conduct or end-state of existence is personally or socially preferable to an opposite or converse mode of conduct or end-state of ex-

istence" and, further, that a value "has a transcendental quality to it, guiding actions, attitudes, judgments, and comparisons across specific objects and situations and beyond immediate goals to more ultimate goals" (p. 18). Recall that materialistic consumers are said to make a religion out of things (Bredemeier and Toby 1960), they believe that possession of things is the ultimate source of happiness (Belk 1984), and materialism or- ganizes their lives to such an extent that it creates a life- style (Daun 1983). These descriptions fit Rokeach's and others' characterizations of values. Defining materialism as a value is consistent with the notion that materialism reflects the importance a person places on, possessions and their acquisition as a necessary or desirable form of conduct to reach desired end states, including happiness. (For more discussion of the value conception of materialism, see Fournier and Richins 1991; Richins and Dawson 1990.) Our conception of materialism, then, is that it is a value that guides people's choices and conduct in a variety of situations, including, but not limited to, consumption arenas. With respect to consumption, materialism will influence the type and quantity of goods purchased. Beyond consumption, materialism will influence the allocation of a variety of resources, including time. A materialist, for instance, might choose to work longer hours and earn more money instead of using that time for leisure activities.

All this suggests that those who place a high value on material possessions and their acquisition will behave differently from those who place a lower value on things. To the extent behavior patterns associated with materialism are fixed and pervasive, there may be personality traits associated with materialism (see, e.g., Fromm 1976). Belk's (1984) measures reflect some of the traits most commonly said to be associated with materialism.

A number of writers have adopted a value conception of materialism. This is clearest among those who have dealt with materialism at a cultural level. Mukerji (1983), Fox and Lears (1983), and others describe materialism and the culture of consumption as a value system. Content-analytic studies designed to identify trends in materialism as reflected in advertising and popular literature (e.g., Belk 1987; Spiggle 1986) have spoken of "material values," and consumer behavior texts frequently describe materialism as a dominant American value (e.g., Engel, Blackwell, and Miniard 1990; Hawkins, Best, and Coney 1989; Mowen 1990).

In consumer behavior, values most frequently have been measured with ranking scales such as those developed by Rokeach (1973) and Kahle (see Kahle, Beatty, and Homer 1986) in which respondents are presented with a (sometimes large) set of end states or behaviors and asked to rank them according to their importance. Although this approach is useful in identifying value configurations by revealing the relative importance an individual or a cultural group places on various behaviors or end states, ranking methods are limited in several ways. First, the information gained about any


one particular value is very superficial. To know that an individual ranks "warm relationships with others" fourth in a given set does not reveal very much about the role these warm relationships play in the person's life. We do not know why relationships are valued or the benefits that are expected to accrue from these relationships. Ranking methods also make comparison across individuals impossible. Of two individuals who have ranked "warm relationships" fourth, we cannot tell which one considers warm relationships more important, nor can we tell whether someone ranking warm relationships second actually considers them more important in an absolute sense than someone ranking them third or fourth.

There are practical problems with ranking methods as well. Ranked data are ipsative, and the analysis of ipsative data is fraught with problems (Hicks 1970). In addition, respondents find it difficult to rank large numbers of items such as those found on the Rokeach value batteries. Decreasing the number of items, as with Kahle et al.'s (1986) approach, can result in the over- simplification of complex psychological phenomena. Rating methods are sometimes used to avoid the problems of ranked-values data (Alwin and Krosnick 1985), but rating has its own problems, including a large number of ties among valued end states and behaviors. Rat- ing data suffers equally with ranking in terms of super- ficiality of measurement.

To avoid the problems inherent in ranking and rating procedures, we took a different approach to measuring materialism. We maintained the conceptualization of materialism as a value but attempted to obtain greater depth by measuring beliefs relevant to the value. Thus, we considered materialism to be a set of centrally held beliefs about the importance of possessions in one's life (cf. Rokeach's definition of value) and measured the three belief domains described above: acquisition centrality, the role of acquisition in happiness, and the role of possessions in defining success. Our final measure is not intended to assess all beliefs relevant to material values but rather those that emerged consistently from analysis of lay and theoretical notions as described above.

Propositions Concerning Materialism The remainder of this article describes development

of a materialism measure that meets the goals described above. To partially assess the validity of the resulting scale, it was used to test several propositions concerning materialism that have been discussed widely in the literature.

Proposition 1. Materialistic people value acquisition and the means to acquire possessions more highly than those low in materialism. They also value possessions and their acquisition more than other life goals and more than their relationships with other people (Fromm 1976; Schudson 1984). For most writers, this

emphasis on possessions is the essence of materialism (e.g., Belk 1984; Bredemeier and Toby 1960; Mukerji 1983).

Proposition 2. Materialistic people are self-centered. Many have noted that an overemphasis on material possessions results in selfishness, and Belk (1983) has reviewed religious and other writings that espouse this view. An overriding concern with possessions and acquisition for oneself is inherently incompatible with sharing and giving to others. Wachtel (1983) has observed that self-interest and the pursuit of individual rather than community goals predominate where affluence and acquisition are emphasized.

Proposition 3. Materialists will pursue a life of material complexity rather than material simplicity. An emphasis on material possessions is often linked with positive attitudes toward growth (e.g., Heilbroner 1956; Inglehart 1981; Looft 1971), a reliance on technology to solve problems (e.g., Mukerji 1983), and an uncon- cern for the things of nature or the environment (e.g., Lasch 1978; Linden 1979). Voluntary simplicity is the opposite perspective. It is a life-style of moral responsibility, spiritual growth, and self-actualization that is manifested in the economic behaviors of low consumption, ecological responsibility, and self-sufficiency (Elgin 1981; Shama and Wisenblit 1984). These characteristics are so contrary to the spirit of materialism that Rudmin and Kilbourne (1992) have described voluntary simplicity as "deliberately denied materialism." Thus, there should be a negative relationship between materialism and voluntary-simplicity behaviors.

Proposition 4. Materialists tend to be less satisfied than others with their lot in life. Although materialists expect acquisition to make them happy, many writers have observed that the lust for goods can be insatiable; the pleasures of a new acquisition are quickly forgotten and replaced with a desire for more. This cycle leads inevitably to dissatisfaction and discontent (Brickman and Campbell 1971; Scitovszky 1976). Empirical tests using earlier measures of materialism support this hypothesis (Belk 1984; Dawson 1988; Richins 1987).

SCALE DEVELOPMENT

Item Generation Item generation for the materialism scale relied on

both popular and theoretical notions of materialism. In exploratory research, a convenience sample of 11 adult consumers was asked to describe in an open-ended format the attitudes and values of materialistic people they knew and of materialistic people in general. The sample included nearly equal numbers of males and females and was spread across age and income categories. Frequently mentioned attitude descriptions were converted into items. In addition, the researchers con- structed items to represent the three domains of ma-


TABLE 2

DESCRIPTION OF CONSUMER DATA COLLECTIONS AND ASSOCIATED MEASURES

Response rate Survey and location (%) Final n Measures

1. Medium-sized northeastern city 36.0 144 48 materialism items; 10 social desirability items (Crowne

and Marlowe 1960)

2. Large western city 33.3 250 30 materialism items; trait scales (Belk 1984); spending items (see text)

3. Large western city 31.3 235 30 materialism items; Rosenberg (1965) self-esteem scale; desired income

4. Northeastern college town and northeastern rural area 43.0 and 39.7 86 and 119 30 materialism items; 13 voluntary simplicity items (Leonard-

Barton 1981); list of values (Kahle et al. 1986); five life- satisfaction items (Andrews and Withey 1976)

terialism described above. Another source of items was characterizations of materialistic people in the literature and those mentioned by social critics. Finally, a few items were adapted from earlier studies in which materialism and related constructs were measured (Belk 1984; Heslin et al. 1989; Richins 1987; Wackman, Reale, and Ward 1972; Yamauchi and Templer 1982). Items were cast to reflect values and attitudes about possessions rather than specific behavior or personality traits. A Likert scale format was used for all items with response categories of strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree, and strongly disagree.

During initial data collection efforts, more than 120 items were generated. Redundant, ambiguous, leading, and other faulty items were eliminated in initial screening. Subsequent screening was based on empirical tests of reliability, validity, and social desirability bias.

Item Refinement-Student Samples Early data collections for item refinement were un-

dertaken at three major universities in different parts of the country (the South, the Northeast, and the West). Reliability, social desirability, and validity assessments based on student samples have been described elsewhere (Richins and Dawson 1990) and resulted in a pool of 48 items that were retained for further analysis.

Consumer Samples Additional item refinement and validation tests were

carried out with more heterogeneous samples obtained through four consumer mail surveys. All involved ran- domly chosen samples of households in which initial mailings were followed by a reminder letter and second copy of the questionnaire mailed two weeks later. Fur- ther details of the data collections and associated questionnaires are shown in Table 2.

Exploratory factor analysis, reliability assessment, and social desirability tests were performed on data from

the first survey (n = 144). Thirty materialism items were retained as a result of these analyses. Factor analysis and additional reliability assessments were performed for these 30 items using data from the later data collections (all with sample sizes greater than 200; see Table 2). These analyses resulted in a scale containing 18 items that behaved consistently across the samples and possess adequate reliability. The final set of items is shown in Table 3.

Structure of the Measure

Exploratory factor analysis from the first survey suggested a scale with three moderately correlated factors. To show the relationships among scale items, Table 3 provides the pattern matrix from the principal components analysis (with oblique rotation) with data from survey 2. The matrix is typical of those obtained from all data collections, and the three factors correspond to the elements of materialism noted in construct definition. The first factor (labeled "success") represents the use of possessions as an indicator of success in life, which corresponds to the third domain of materialism described in the literature review. The second factor ("centrality") concerns the importance of acquisition and possession generally, and the third ("happiness") concerns the perception that possessions are needed for happiness. Confirmatory factor analysis was performed with the data from surveys 2, 3, and 4. Although the chi-square statistics were significant in the three analyses, other indicators suggested an acceptable fit of the model. Adjusted goodness-of-fit indices ranged from .86 to .88, and in every analysis the t-values for maximum likelihood estimates all exceeded 5.0.

Because the latent constructs were moderately or highly correlated in all analyses (phi coefficients ranged from .39 to .79), the chi-square for a single factor model was compared with chi-square for the three factor model. The difference in chi-square test


TABLE 3

EXPLORATORY FACTOR ANAYLSIS OF MATERIALISM ITEMS

Factor

Item 1 2 3

Success: I admire people who own expensive homes,

cars, and clothes. .70 Some of the most important achievements

in life include acquiring material possessions. .69

I don't place much emphasis on the amount of material objects people own as a sign of success.* -.68

The things I own say a lot about how well I'm doing in life. .58

I like to own things that impress people. .56 I don't pay much attention to the material

objects other people own* -.43 Centrality:

I usually buy only the things I need.* -.78 I try to keep my life simple, as far as

possessions are concerned.* -.62 The things I own aren't all that important to

me.* -.60 I enjoy spending money on things that

aren't practical. .60 Buying things gives me a lot of pleasure. .54 I like a lot of luxury in my life. .52 I put less emphasis on material things than

most people I know.* -.49 Happiness:

I have all the things I really need to enjoy life.* -.80

My life would be better if I owned certain things I don't have. .65

I wouldn't be any happier if I owned nicer things.* -.58

I'd be happier if I could afford to buy more things. .58

It sometimes bothers me quite a bit that I can't afford to buy all the things I'd like. .37 .55

NOTE.-Only loadings greater than .35 are shown. An asterisk indicates reverse scored items. A five-point Likert scale response format was used.

was significant in tests of all three data sets, indicating that the three-factor model is superior in fitting the data.

While confirmatory factor analysis served to explicate the three hypothesized manifestations of the underlying construct, the three factors were summed for purposes of validation. This approach was followed because analyses showed that the three factors normally act in concert with respect to external variables. Carver ( 1989) has noted that, in these situations, using the summed index instead of subscales is appropriate and advanta- geous in terms of parsimony and clarity of communi- cation.2

Reliability Coefficient alpha was calculated separately for the

items comprising the three factors and for the 18 items as a single scale. The seven centrality items produced alpha coefficients between .71 and .75 in the latter three surveys. For the six-item success subscale alpha ranged from .74 to .78, and for the five happiness items, alpha was between .73 and .83. When combined into a single scale, alpha for the 18 items varied between .80 to .88.

Test-retest reliability (three-week interval) was calculated on data from a sample of 58 students at an urban university. The reliability correlations were .82, .86, and .82 for the centrality, happiness, and success subscales, respectively, and .87 for the combined scale.

Social Desirability While materialism may be more socially acceptable

today than in some past eras, because of recent media attention to the negative aspects of materialism we considered it important to test the measure for susceptibility to social desirability bias. Social desirability was measured in the first consumer data collection with 10 items from the Marlowe-Crowne scale (Crowne and Marlowe 1960). These items were chosen from the larger scale because they have been shown to possess greater sen- sitivity than other items and are appropriately keyed for current standards of desirable behavior (Ballard, Crino, and Rubenfeld 1988). Correlations with the social desirability measure were -.12, -.03, and -.06 for the centrality, happiness, and success subscales, respectively, and -.09 for the combined scale. The low correlations suggest that social desirability bias was not a problem for these measures.

Descriptive Statistics The distributions for the overall materialism measure

and its three components were approximately normal

2Carver (1989) has discussed at length the appropriateness of com- bining component scores into a summed measure representing a latent

construct and notes that, in doing so, researchers have assumed either that the underlying construct is assessed indirectly by measures of its various manifestations (the latent variable approach) or that the construct is something more than the sum of its component parts (the synergistic approach). For purposes of the materialism measure, we make the former assumption-that the three subscales are manifestations of materialism and the latent variable approach is thus appropriate. Carver describes the advantages of summing the components in such a case and discusses the patterns of results that justify summed vs. separate component analysis. In the research reported here, all hypotheses were investigated using both the summed scale and the component scales. On average, the summed multidimensional index relates to the diverse constructs in the hypothesis tests better than does any one component dimension. In such cases, "the higher level information (i.e., the consistent relation of the multifaceted [summed] construct to many outcome variables) is more important than the lower level [individual subscale] information," and the use of the summed construct measure instead of individual subscales is preferred (Carver 1989, p. 580). For this reason, summed scale results are presented here. Results of hypothesis tests at the subscale level are available from the authors.


in all surveys (largest value for skew = .67; largest value for kurtosis = 1.01). Means, standard deviations, and ranges for surveys 2, 3, and 4 are presented in Table 4.

The relationships between demographics and the materialism measures were assessed. With the exception of age, all correlations were quite low and no consistent patterns emerged. For the four materialism measures (three components plus the overall scale) in the three later data collections, the median point biserial correlations with sex and with marital status were .05 and .01, respectively. Median correlations for household size, education, and income were .02, -.06, and .04. For age, however, all correlations except one were negative; the median correlation was -.19. This result is consistent with the notion that materialism declines af- ter middle age (see Belk 1985).

SCALE VALIDATION

Earlier in the article, four propositions concerning materialism were described. In validity assessment, multiple tests were performed for each proposition.

Materialists and the Value of Acquisition

According to theorists, materialistic people value acquisition and the means to acquire possessions more highly than those low in materialism. In addition, they value acquisition more than other life goals. Three analyses were carried out to examine these ideas.

Respondents in survey 3 were asked in an open-ended format to indicate the level of annual household income that "would satisfy your needs." People who desire a lot of possessions will need more money to acquire those possessions and thus are expected to report a higher desired level of income. For purposes of analysis, respondents were divided into terciles based on their materialism scores; the desired income level of respondents in the top (n = 76) and bottom (n = 71) terciles were compared. Respondents high in materialism felt they needed significantly more income (X = $65,974) than those low in materialism (X = $44,761; t = 3.65, df = 120.1,p<.001).3

A second test of the importance of the means to acquire was carried out using Kahle's List of Values (LOV) scale (Kahle et al. 1986). Respondents in survey 4 were asked to read the nine values in a revised version of the scale and then to rank the four values that were most important to them. Respondents were divided into terciles based on their materialism scores and the per- centage of respondents including each value in their top three choices was examined. Table 5 shows per-

TABLE 4

DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS FOR THE MATERIALISM SCALE AND ITS COMPONENTS

Scale Mean SD Range Skew Kurtosis

Centrality component: Survey 2 19.8 4.2 9-33 .20 .44 Survey 3 19.3 4.0 9-32 .12 -.13 Survey 4 19.3 4.0 9-31 -.07 .14

Happiness component: Survey 2 13.3 4.2 5-25 .14 -.60 Survey 3 13.1 3.5 5-22 .23 -.24 Survey 4 12.8 4.1 5-25 .37 -.26

Success component: Survey 2 14.7 3.9 6-24 .06 -.38 Survey 3 14.3 3.7 6-26 .52 .49 Survey 4 13.8 4.1 6-30 .67 1.01

Overall scale: Survey 2 47.9 10.2 23-80 .16 .00 Survey 3 46.7 8.3 20-71 .08 .39 Survey 4 45.9 9.8 23-84 .45 .83

centages for respondents in the top (n = 71) and bottom (n = 68) terciles.4

As expected, respondents higher in materialism were more likely to value "financial security" and less likely to value "warm relationships with others" than respondents low in materialism (p < .01). They were also less likely to choose "a sense of accomplishment" as an important goal (p < .01).

Finally, the importance materialists place on financial matters relative to other goals was examined. Table 5 shows the median ranking for values in the LOV scale. For respondents low in materialism, four values were rated as more important than "financial security": self- respect, warm relationships, family security, and a sense of accomplishment. For those high in materialism, only self-respect and family security were rated as more important; warm relationships were approximately tied in importance with financial security. This analysis sup- ports the belief that materialists tend to value the means to acquire (financial security) more highly than some of the life goals valued by those low in materialism. However, the contentions of Fromm (1976) and others that materialists sacrifice personal relationships in their pursuit of wealth and possessions were not supported. Respondents low in materialism do appear to place considerably more importance on interpersonal relationships than on financial security, but high-materialism respondents gave interpersonal relationships equal footing with financial concerns.

Two separate tests, one concerning values and the other concerning desired income, indicate that the materialism scale effectively identifies consumers who

3The homogeneity of variance assumption was not met for this test, necessitating the use of separate variance estimates and resulting in a noninteger value for degrees of freedom.

4Results are similar when comparing those who did and did not include a value in their top four choices except that the significance level declines to .05 for significant comparisons.


TABLE 5

PERCENT INCLUDING A VALUE IN THEIR TOP THREE CHOICES AND MEDIAN RANKING FOR RESPONDENTS HIGH AND LOW IN MATERIALISM

High materialism Low materialism

(n =71) (n =68)

Percent Percent Goal choosing Mediana choosing Mediana z-test

Financial security 46.5 4 22.1 5 3.02** Warm relationships with others 45.1 4 64.7 3 -2.32** Sense of accomplishment 22.5 5 45.6 4 -2.88** Self-respect 54.9 3 63.2 2 -.99 Family security 56.3 3 50.0 3 .74 Self-fulfillment 35.2 5 27.9 5 .93 Fun and enjoyment in life 16.9 ... 13.2 ... .61 Being well-respected 12.7 ... 7.4 ... 1.04 Sense of belonging 9.9 ... 5.9 ... .87

aRespondents ranked their four most important goals; unranked goals were assigned a rank of five; the median is not reported for goals chosen by less than 30 percent of respondents (indicated by ellipses).

**p < .01.

highly value the means to acquire. However, because the analysis of values with ranked data suffers from limitations mentioned earlier, future investigations into the links between materialism and values would benefit from the use of more sensitive values measures.

Materialism and Self-Centeredness

One of the common statements about materialists is that they are self-centered and unconcerned about others. Three tests of this proposition were carried out. In survey 2, respondents were asked to assume they had been unexpectedly given $20,000. They were then given a list of six ways in which the money could be spent, plus an "other" category. Three versions of the questionnaire were administered in a split-ballot procedure, the only difference among the questionnaires being the order of listing of the spending categories. Spending categories were developed from pretests in which adult respondents were asked in an open-ended format how they would spend an unexpected gift of $20,000.

For purposes of analyses, respondents were again divided into terciles based on their materialism scores; Table 6 shows spending intentions for respondents in the top and bottom terciles. On average, respondents high in materialism said they would spend three times as much on things for themselves as would low-materialism respondents (p < .001), would contribute less than half of what low materialists would to charitable or church organizations (p < .001), and would give less than half as much to friends and family (p < .0 1). They also would spend less on travel (p < .05).

A second test of the relationship between materialism and selfishness comes from an item in the voluntary simplicity life-style measure used in survey 4. (The relationship between materialism and voluntary simplic-

ity is more fully examined below.) The scale contains an item asking how often respondents contribute to ecological or conservation organizations. The correlation between this item and the materialism scale was -.21 (p < .01).

The third assessment of selfishness was the measure of nongenerosity developed by Belk ( 1984) administered in survey 2. This scale measures nongenerosity with possessions and other nonmonetary resources and contains items such as "I don't like to lend things, even to good friends" and "I enjoy having guests stay in my home" (reverse scored). The correlation between the materialism scale and the nongenerosity scale (alpha = .63) was .25 (p < .001).

These analyses support the hypothesis that materialists prefer to retain their resources for their own use and are less willing than others to share what they have, both in terms of their money (as measured by the spending 'analysis) and their possessions (as evidenced by the correlation with the nongenerosity scale). This reluctance to share extends to those with whom they have close social ties (friends and family) and more socially distant entities such as charitable and ecological organizations.

Materialism and Voluntary Simplicity

Although Rudmin and Kilbourne (1992) have noted that "the essential feature of voluntary simplicity is not the manifest behavior, but the underlying values and beliefs which . . . motivate that behavior," Leonard- Barton (1981) posits that the values of voluntary simplicity are likely to result in certain kinds of behaviors, which she includes in the voluntary-simplicity life-style scale. To assess the relationship between materialism and voluntary simplicity, a shorter (1 3-item) version of


TABLE 6

AMOUNT INTENDED TO BE SPENT IN DIFFERENT CATEGORIES BY RESPONDENTS HIGH AND LOW IN MATERIALISM

High Low materialism materialism

($) ($) Spending category (n = 91) (n = 85) t

Buy things I want or need 3,445 1,106 5.38*** Give to church organization

or charity 733 1,782 -3.79*** Give or lend to friends or

relatives 1,089 2,631 -3.08** Travel 2,090 3,015 -2.08* Pay off debts 4,281 3,271 1.41 Savings or investments 7,413 7,471 -.07 Other 948 724 .27

*p < .05. **p <.01. ***p <.001.

the scale described by Leonard-Barton, with some re- vision to item wording and response categories, was administered in survey 4. In analysis, the three-construct structure for the scale proposed by Cowles and Crosby ( 1986) was used because this structure resulted in better prediction than the six-factor structure proposed by Leonard-Barton. Cowles and Crosby labeled their constructs "material simplicity" (which involves buying used goods and relying on bicycles instead of automobiles for transportation), "self-determination" (making rather than buying items and attempting to do home repairs oneself), and "ecological awareness" (recycling and contributing to ecological organizations).

Rudmin and Kilbourne have distinguished between voluntary simplicity, reflecting underlying values, and involuntary simplicity that results from inadequate resources (income) to engage in a more complex life-style. To avoid confounding these two constructs, partial correlations controlling for income were used when assessing the relationship between materialism and the voluntary simplicity indices for material simplicity, self- determination, and ecological awareness; resulting partial correlations were -.18, -. 15, and -.24 for the three respective indices. The partial correlation when all 13 items are summed was -.28 (p < .01 for all partial correlations).

The relationship between materialism and the voluntary simplicity life-style scale, while significant, is not es- pecially strong. This may be due to weaknesses of the voluntary simplicity scale itself. Like many other behaviors, some of those included in the scale may be deter- mined as much by one's situation as by one's values or attitudes (e.g., bike to work; grow vegetables). A second limitation of the scale is its low reliability (Cronbach's alpha for the scale and subscales were between .48 and .62).5 Despite these limitations, a significant relationship

between voluntary-simplicity life-style and materialism did emerge, supporting the contentions of Rudmin and Kilbourne (1992) and others.

Materialism and Satisfaction Philosophers have frequently warned that the continual

pursuit of goods can lead only to dissatisfaction. The relationship between materialism and satisfaction was measured in different ways in the three validation surveys. In survey 4, respondents completed measures of satisfaction with life as a whole, amount of fun, family life, income or standard of living, and relationships with friends using the delighted-terrible response scale described by Andrews and Withey (1976). Materialism was negatively related to satisfaction in all the aspects of life measured. The relationship was strongest for satisfaction with income or standard of living (r = -.39) and weakest for satisfaction with family life (r = -.17). Correlations for satisfaction with life as a whole, fun, and friends were -.32, -.34, and -.31, respectively (all p < .01).

Envy involves a coveting of what another has and, frequently, a resentment of the person who possesses the desired objects (see Belk 1984). As such, it implies a dissatisfaction with one's own possessions and lot in life. Survey 2 contained a measure of envy (Belk 1984; alpha = .52); the correlation between materialism and envy was .47 (p < .00 1).

As a final measure of satisfaction, the Rosenberg (1965) self-esteem scale was included in survey 3 (alpha = .81). Self-esteem has often been described as an eval- uation of the self, an assessment of how good or bad one is (e.g., Epstein 1980). The correlation between materialism and self-esteem was -.12 (p < .05).

According to critics, the quest for happiness through possessions is destined to result in dissatisfaction (e.g., Leiss 1976). A number of authors have suggested that materialism and the pursuit of possessions is not the cause but the result of dissatisfaction, that the desire to possess and consume stems from insecurities or deeper dissatisfactions with one's self and one's life (e.g., Braun and Wicklund 1989; Cushman 1990; Fromm 1976; Wachtel 1983). While a thorough research program would be necessary to determine the validity of these propositions, the data here suggest that materialists are more likely to be dissatisfied with their circumstances than with themselves. However, more sensitive measures of self-concept are necessary to adequately assess the relationship between self variables and materialism.

DISCUSSION The research program described here was undertaken

to develop a measure of material values that represents

5Prior research has not reported coefficients alpha for the voluntary simplicity scale.


the construct of materialism as described in the social sciences literature and in common usage. The resulting scale measures three correlated aspects of materialism: acquisition centrality, the role of acquisition in the pursuit of happiness, and the role of possessions in defining success. The scale possesses acceptable reliability, and preliminary assessments of scale validity were successful.

The search for a measure of materialism led us to the study of values, and one contribution of this research is the recognition that values can and sometimes should be measured in ways other than with traditional ranking procedures. An examination of published consumer research suggests that the study of values has been some- what neglected. Helgeson et al. (1984) examined consumer-behavior studies from 1950 through 1981 and found that only 0.8 percent of the studies concerned values or beliefs. Our own informal review of the more recent literature (1984-1991) also revealed little research on values. Excluding studies of materialism, only seven articles in the Journal of Consumer Research and the Association for Consumer Research proceedings dealt with consumer values, and the main focus of four of these was to examine revised lists of values from the ranking procedures used by Rokeach (e.g., Kahle et al. 1986; Munson and McQuarrie 1988) rather than to ad- dress substantive issues concerning consumer values. Instead of revising the Rokeach scales, it might be appropriate at this time to develop entirely different value measures more suited to the usual application of individual difference variables in consumer behavior.

In consumer-behavior research, we usually wish to measure the intensity of a variable using a metric scale and multiple items so that we can establish reliability, compare individuals or groups, and assess associations with other variables. This is difficult to accomplish with rank data. Furthermore, values are complex phenomena, and the use of complex measures is required. It is no more reasonable to measure the value of "warm relationships with others" with a single item than it is to measure attitudes toward religion with a single question on a survey. Single-item measures are also unsatisfac- tory from a reliability perspective (Nunnally 1978). It is hoped that this research will encourage others to extend the multiple-item measurement philosophy to additional values important in the study of consumer behavior.

We also hope that our work will spawn more research on materialism, including investigations into its antecedents and consequences. Such research should investigate the potential positive effects of materialism (both personal and economic) as well as the negative ones more frequently mentioned in the literature. Other research can investigate the relationship between material values and marketing stimuli such as advertising (e.g., Pollay 1984), store displays, and product characteristics. Finally, additional research may seek to broaden the conceptualization of materialism beyond

that represented here. For instance, measures that assess the extent to which individuals use material possessions to assist in defining the self or as an expression of group membership and belonging will allow researchers to examine more broadly consumers' relationships with material objects.

[Received August 1991. Revised February 1992.]

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A Consumer Values Orientation for Materialism and Its Measurement

Documents

social desirability

likert scale

social desirability

consumer society

social critics

warm relationships

factor model

social goals